[Strategy] Facilitating-as-a-Sales Process

The skills required to facilitate training for an audience with content that wasn’t developed by the facilitator, are the same skills sale people practice every day:

Persuasion: Since a facilitator doesn’t create the presentation content (or product) they are facilitating (just like the sales person doesn’t create the product they sell door-to-door), the skills of persuasion through using influence in the room, is critical for success. The facilitator must use all the skills of persuasion their fingertips to get the “customer” to buy the product. Yes, the audience already “bought” the product by being there physically. But just like children in school, you have to “re-earn” their attention caring and awareness, rather than taking it for granted.

Body language: Sales people know that confidence, body language, and silence combined with active listening (more on this one below), can help close the sale in a face-to-face encounter. Facilitators need to keep this in mind. Particularly, when facilitating content with which they are not familiar. A facilitator with none of those traits, just like a sale person with none of those traits, can stumble and fall in the room.

Active listening: Facilitators should listen more that they talk. This is easy when the facilitator has developed the product they are facilitating. It’s hard when facilitators haven’t developed the product they are facilitating. The problems compound when they don’t believe the content itself. The first person to listen and react to the content should be the facilitator. But not in the room. Not in front of the audience. And not when the audience pushes back and disagrees, asserts themselves, or engages in conflict with the content.

With all this being said, the facilitator should remember, above all else, that the work is on the line in the room, not the facilitator as a sales person.

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Four, Episode # 4 – Halelly Azulay

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Four, Episode # 4 – Halelly Azulay, Leadership Coach, Facilitator, Consultant, Speaker and Upgrader of Sustainable Leader Development

podcast-earbud_u-season-four-episode-4-halelly-azulay

[powerpress]

So, I talk and write about this stuff all the time.

Growing talent in the workplace cannot happen with considering work in a different way.

Talent is something that everyone believes that they have, but very few people can target and develop in a meaningful and demonstrative way.

Trust, follow-through, belief, and a standard of work and an understanding of labor, is changing in the world of work.

But this should be nothing new for you, because you’re listening to this podcast on your way home from work, on your way to work, or while you’re sitting in your cubicle, trying to avoid doing work.

Our guest today Hallely Azulay knows about all of this and is going beyond just exploring the changing world of work, she is actively trying to mold it into something better for everybody.

So what’s the solution?

Well, I argue for more training, as you would assume. I also argue for more transparency and authenticity around emotional labor. But I know that could be something that you may not be comfortable with.

But what about your manager?

The chasm between our comfort zones at work and the growth that we need to do at work to remain relevant is staggering. We need guidance, shepherding, diligence, and respect to cross that chasm successfully.

Without this, we won’t cross the chasm and truly develop our talents, skills and abilities in ways that allow us to become true stewards of the workplace.

Such guidance can come from the outside of your organization from folks like myself and Hallely. But more often than not, it’s going to have to come from the manager or supervisor who you actively do work to avoid during the day.

To paraphrase from Juvenal: Who trains the watchmen to watch in the first place?

Listen to Halelly and take the time to connect with her via the links below:

The Talent Grow Podcast: http://www.talentgrow.com/podcast

Talent Grow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TalentGrowLLC

Talent Grow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/talentgrow

Talent Grow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HalellyAzulay

The Talent Grow website: http://www.talentgrow.com/

[Opinion] On Crossing the Chasm

The biggest gap in organizational culture today is the chasm between the ideals and values on the wall and the actual lived reality of hourly work life.

This gap used to not matter at the height of the Industrial Revolution, but as the papering over of the gap has become less and less effective over time, the presence of the gap has become more and more evident.

Unfortunately, many organizational leaders are deciding to expand that gap through behaviors and conflict choices that reflect a nostalgia for a command and control past, rather than seeking to cross the chasm with a bridge to the future.

Either an employee is on one side of the chasm—or the gap—or they are on another.

Unfortunately, the inherent conflicts based in organizational identity fester and grow (they go fungal, rather than viral) in the darkness of that chasm.

Crossing the chasm of conflict between the ideals on the wall, and the daily workplace reality, is the hardest confrontation for leaders, founders, managers, and supervisors to engage in.

But the journey across that chasm is the only journey that matters.

[Strategy] Average in the Future

There have always been people in societies, cultures, and among populations all over the world and throughout history who have committed an average level of effort to the work of building their lives.

They lived. They died. And they didn’t make a ripple or a dent in the universe.

It’s only in the last 100 years or so that the protection for being average was codified at a mass level through the direct efforts of the Industrial Revolution and the aftereffects of that same revolution.

Another way of saying this is “C’s get degrees.”

Yes, they do.

But, over the next 100 years, they may have to get a different set of skills in order to maintain that “C” status, both in life, and in their careers.

It’s always been demanding to be average; to stay in your lane; to follow directions without critically thinking; to not be the nail that sticks up; to protect the status quo by not engaging in conflicts that matter.

And it’s just going to get even harder.

[Opinion] It’s Up to MBAs to Save the World

Business students—modern day, Internet savvy, native users of the information superhighway we’ve all built for the last twenty or so years—can save the corporate world.

The unfortunate thing is that somewhere along the way to cashing out in a cushy consulting position, or advancing in organizations by whose culture they are troubled, someone forgot to tell them.

This is not unusual. Partially it’s due to the echo chamber of higher education—the faculty who teach from a worldview and frame set on preserving the world they teach in—and partially it’s due to a corporate world still focused (in spite of all the evidence of disruption to the contrary) on achieving cookie-cutter, command-and-control outcomes on a quarterly basis.

There are, of course, a range of types and varieties of business students, from undergraduate business majors, dutifully studying their work at second, third, and fourth tier institutions, all the way to community and junior college students “older-than-average” who return to business programs to either run a small business better, or to provide for their families.

Finally, there are the top tier, classic business school students from elite institutions who are studying to become the next masters of the universe. These are the ones that we traditionally think of as dominating the salaries and cultures of corporations and organizations where MBAs are hired.

Except, at all levels, the work that matters is shifting away from what a human used to do well toward what a computer can do better. Accounting, spreadsheet analysis, financial reporting, supply chain management, and on and on, really matter less and less as topical areas of focus and interest in a world where information is changing hands faster than the left to right swiping motion on a smartphone screen.

The work that does matter, in organizations, to individuals, and the work that is going to reshape the global paradigm of the next fifty years, doesn’t show up on spreadsheet, and can’t be open to analysis. And it never did; but, industrialists of the past century who built the old paradigm want MBAs and anyone in a business program of any kind to continue to believe otherwise.

Philosophically, there must be a change in how we teach bright, young, ambitious, people at all levels (from community college programs to the Ivy League) in order to succeed with outcomes that will be measurable, not in terms of dollars and cents (though that will come) but in terms of people, connection, and the continuing malleability of human nature.

But what would a two-year immersive, MBA experience look like?

Here’s a rough idea of how practically, an MBA program would look, one focused on getting bright, ambitious, Internet native, students to develop and nurture the kind of work that will grow organizations in the 21^st century:

Year One:
- Semester One:
  - Ethics
  - Sustainability
  - Conflict/Dispute Resolution Skills
  - Failure, Success, and Resilience
- Semester Two:
  - People Management
  - Psychology of Supervision
  - Storytelling
  - Listening
Capstone Project: Peer Reviewed and Focused on Building a Functioning Business in the Real World
Year Two:
- Semester One:
  - Finance
  - Accounting
  - Supply Chain Management
  - Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis
- Semester Two:
  - Persuasive Writing
  - Digital/Virtual Leadership
  - Organizational Culture
  - Restorative Justice
Capstone Project: Go and Turn Your Peer-Reviewed Project from the 1^st Semester into a Business

And after all of this, there must be follow-up. But not in the traditional sense of “Did you get a job?” and “How much does it pay?” which are questions that really only interest the federal student loan originators. Instead, follow-up with these students would be focused on the only metrics that matter: failure, success, long-term growth, and connection:

Did you fail in 5 to 7 years after the program?
Did you succeed in 5 to 7 years after the program?
What “dent” if any, did you make in the universe?

And that’s it.

With such a program, the MBAs we are turning out from all institutions would be prepared to save the world from the current troubles and hypocrisies, that have caused many corporations to collapse under the inability to change for the future that is here.

Now.

[Advice] Evolving Cultural Sensibilities and ADR

As the economic, cultural, and spiritual forces that used to bind us together continue to refragment from overarching macro-cultures to indispensable micro-cultures, alternative dispute resolution practitioners must take notice.

Overarching macro-culture was driven by communal events, television, economic stability, and overarching cultural “norms” that allowed people to engage in conflicts and disputes with the same regularity they always have, but also allowed the impacts of those conflicts to be dampened.

Indispensable micro-culture is driven by technology, network connections that defy geography and notice, a dismissal of the status quo, and a strong identity component. People still have conflict in these micro-cultures (what used to be called “sub-cultures”). But the impacts of those conflicts are like wildfires that catch the masses attention for a moment, but without a “there” there, there is little sustained effort mounted to ameliorate the effects upon people in those micro-culture conflicts.

Conflict resolvers, conflict coaches, conflict engagers, mediators, arbitrators, and others have watched this evolution occur over the last fifty or so years, with greater acceleration, but the response to the evolution through providing access points to conflict resolution has not been as quick. This is mainly for three reasons:

Indispensable micro-culture is still seen as “niche” and not really enough to build a business model on by the entrepreneurial conflict resolver. This is a terrible fact, but except for some people doing some great work in resolving conflicts in specific areas with specific groups in conflicts (i.e. with parties in churches, with divorcing or separating pet owners, etc.) there is more focus by ADR professionals on how to gain credibility with the courts—still standing as the last guardians of a passing away overarching macro-culture.
There are still enough parties in conflict participating in the remaining civic life of a formerly overarching macro-culture. This is something that will pass away over time, but right now, there are enough of the “masses” left around that many professional conflict resolvers look at the problems and conflicts of that group and decide to address their issues first. Both as a way to make a “dent” in the universality of conflict, and to make money from a reliable income stream.
Refragmentation is still not understood—or accepted psychologically, emotionally, or spiritually—as an inevitable outcome of the erosion of the twin, post-World War 2 oligopolies of corporation and government. Now, this is not to say that government will disappear either now or later; but the fact is, that as conflicts and disputes between parties in indispensable micro-culture become harder and harder to understand, the overarching macro-culture responses from government entities (i.e. new laws, regulations, taxes, and fees) will be less and less effective. This is because indispensable micro-culture conflicts are driven by esoteric, identity based rules, that require conflict resolvers to engage in relationships with those cultures to resolve—and to go beyond the overarching macro-culture rubric of intercultural communication skill sets.

None of these three areas are that daunting to overcome. And once overcome, the business models to get ideas for resolution to people in conflict begin to overwhelm the entrepreneurial conflict resolver. All that is required to get there is the courage of conflict resolvers to act outside of the “box” they have been trained in.

[Opinion] How Do We Jiu-jitsu Our Own Clients

Mediators, negotiators, facilitators, lawyers, therapists, and analysts do it all the time.

When you understand the nature of the thing, it is almost impossible to avoid doing it.

When you do it, sometimes you feel as though you are manipulating somebody else into doing something that they wouldn’t normally do. But then you realize that kindness, patience, and humility begin to matter.

When it’s done, it’s done intentionally, not by accident, or even in a haphazard way, a reaction to something that another party said or did.

And yes, when you do it, you can still be taken by surprise. It just doesn’t happen as often.

In the past, people used to characterize it as “playing head games.” But really, once you understand that in many ways, individuals change, but the group doesn’t, then it’s less a “head game” and more a “gaming the system” game.

When you do it, you have to be careful to preserve the other party’s autonomy and rights to self-determination. Presenting all the options to get out of a conflict, without presenting the consequences as well (or even worse, allowing the other party’s imagination to ‘fill in the blanks’) lacks human empathy, and dares to challenge your own spiritual growth.

When it happens, it may seem like jiu-jitsu to someone watching from the outside (using the other party’s ‘throw weight’ of their language, rhetoric, ideas, or stories, against them), but the ability to

analyze,
listen actively and non-defensively,
hear a story succinctly,
and paraphrase that story back to the teller in the way the teller wants to hear it,

is not jiu-jitsu.

It’s just good form.

[Opinion] Realizing Your Potential is Not Even Half the Battle

Let’s talk about potential.

The idea that another person can do something that you can’t do, and do it better than you, typically engenders a couple of different responses in people:

The first reaction is one of coveting, not only the talent that the other person has, but also the ability that they have to leverage them. This reaction leads to jealousy, envy, and eventually taking actions that prevent the talented from fully realizing their potential.

The second reaction is one of surprise and joy, not only at realizing the talent that the other person has, but also engaging actively in helping that person find opportunities to connect with others who can help them fully realize their potential. These are actions that are designed to delight the person with potential and are done somewhat selfishly by the other party.

Then, there is a third response which doesn’t get a whole lot of attention, but that rears its head far more often than we might think: This is the reaction of the person with the potential.

This person may not see the potential in themselves.

They may not care about pursuing that potential in the way that another party would like (we see this with parents and children sometimes).

The person may have other things going on in their lives (i.e. they may not have an “empty lot” on which to build their potential).

Or, they may simply be someone who enjoys the stimulus that comes from being recognized as having potential, without having to actually take any action to grow that potential in the long-term.

Every person views potential in different ways, and through different frames and lenses, based on stories they tell themselves (and stories that they repeat over and over again from childhood), but the truth is, potential—which is a combination of innate talents, learned skills, and the accumulation of the impact of life choices—is still a personal thing for each individual.

And even as the Internet—and before the Internet, the computer—has disrupted all of the old, “tried and true” Industrial Revolution ways of realizing potential and turning that potential into viable products and services for other people, people have stayed the same in how they react and respond to the potential in themselves, and others.

Curious…

[Strategy] How to be the Nicky Barnes of Negotiation

The savvy entrepreneur in an ever changing business environment, should take a page from the book of entrepreneurs in other spaces. Particularly, that least savvy of all spaces, drug dealing.

Now, I am not advocating for drug-dealing, illicit drug use, or engaging in illegal activity.

Far from it.

What I am advocating for is looking at the techniques, practices, tips and trick that individuals who engage in the selling and distribution of illegal drugs use to negotiate in an ever changing, unpredictable market, filled with unpredictable, ever changing, personalities and people.

The business environment for illegal drugs is highly fluid, the market for drugs is inelastic, and the demand curve for illegal drugs is only trending upward (and has been for the last thirty or so years). From these three factors alone, we can also conclude that there is a lot of competition in the market for illicit drugs, thus there are competitors in the market that might be tempted to negotiate with each other with violence rather than with words.

Which is where the power of negotiation as a method of persuasion comes in.

In a situation where drugs are being dealt, contrary to popular opinion, the first move is not to get a weapon and being shooting—that’s actually the last move. The first move is to talk.

Particularly as a person moves up higher and higher in the ranks of the entrepreneurial, drug-dealing world, talk matters more than violence (of any kind), which is why “foot soldiers” in gangs engaged in drug dealing tend to have arrest records far longer and more extensive than the arrest records of the “big fish.”

Because, much like the CEO of a modern corporation (or a start-up founder) the higher you go in an organization, the less impetus there is for immediate resolution, and the more impetus there is for the tools and techniques of persuasion.

From Nicky Barnes to Frank Lucas and even to Pablo Escobar, negotiation was used first, and then when that didn’t work, methods of persuasion became more direct—and more violent.

But what does all of this have to do with the modern entrepreneur, trying to move units of their latest, greatest mobile phone app? There are a few tips to remember:

Entrepreneurs like a good argument: With the market, with their partners, with their competition, and even with their employees. However, remember that argumentation breaks down into three areas: arguments designed to persuade, arguments, design to advocate, and arguments designed to provide proof of a point. An argument will almost always lead to some issues that negotiation will have to work through.

Entrepreneurs need to remember that negotiation is about trust, reciprocation, commitment, and consistency. Even in the world of drug dealing, (remember, inelastic, highly competitive markets) there has to be a system of trust based in reciprocation (“I do for you, you do for me”) commitment, and consistency, or else every person will be for themselves. Coalitions, agreements, and mutual understandings come about through effective negotiation.

Entrepreneurs are sometimes less interested in persuasion than they are in being “right” or “winning” the argument or the negotiation. Persuasion is about watching language, active listening, rephrasing and paraphrasing, and having an active, engaged memory. In order to engage effectively and persuasively, remember that no negotiation scenario (whether around drugs or mobile phone apps or even a peace building process) is “pure.” There are always emotions, triggers, and other elements that each party brings to the negotiation table that have to be addressed at the negotiation table. When those issues and concerns are ignored, dismissed, or otherwise not acknowledged, resentment and bitterness begin to grow in the heart of the aggrieved party.

Negotiation is a method of persuasion that every entrepreneur should value, no matter what empire (or “dent” in the universe) they are seeking to make.

[Advice] The Impresario’s Dilemma

Quality and quantity.

These are two ideas that have long combated each other at scale in a variety of contexts and containers.

From mediation processes and practices to industrialized object making, quantity very often takes a back seat to quality in both the consideration of the creator and the consumer.

When there is so much ephemeral stuff (such as content, ideas, and art), considerations around quality become the watchword for monitoring and disengaging with ideas that we find to be reprehensible.

And, of course, quality is perceived as suffering by both the creator and the consumer, because the quantity of ephemeral stuff has increased; and, and because our brains can only absorb so many different ideas at once.

But keep in mind that, once you increase quantity, quality only suffers when caring about each outcome takes a second place to actually getting the outcome to happen.

Impresarios care about quality.

They also care about quantity, but realize that interactions around ephemeral content become a matter of time, rather than scale.