The company was in trouble. Wall Street was unhappy. The normally optimistic CEO was tense and tight-lipped during media interviews.
Daniel was watching his CEO on the news with a tight feeling in his stomach. Daniel’s been with the organization for almost 20 years and most of them had been energizing and fulfilling. However and unfortunately, the previous CEO had made significant errors in predicting the direction of technology, and they were paying for it now.
The organization wasn’t a ship you could turn around overnight.
Daniel could easily get a clear concept of the CEO’s vision. It was a good one, a strategy Daniel could believe in, get behind and, with the clever work of his team, help make happen faster and better.
It required radical change, but Daniel saw a clear path for making the CEO’s vision a reality.
The problem was, Daniel had no access to the CEO.
Between Daniel and the CEO are three levels of management. The level right above him had the strategy of a dinosaur, which was, “Don’t change anything”.
This brick wall of “We know best”, and stubborn resistance to new ideas, blocked Daniel from the man with the vision, a vision that was not penetrating down into the organization.
And the information the CEO desperately needed from Daniel’s level was not getting up to him. The CEO was getting a false picture from the “dinosaurs” about what was happening levels below him and what was possible. Needed change simply was not happening.
As a result, Daniel and others at his level had lost energy and were simply hoping the ship didn’t sink before they retired.
Are we looking at a failure of goals? Of strategy? Technology? Marketing? Sales? Leadership?
No. We’re looking at a failure of communication.
Daniel and the others had engaged in a months-long debate with the “dinosaurs.” Debates are not communication. The word debate comes from the French word de- “down, completely” + batre – “to beat, batter”. There’s no real attempt to understand, only to win.
People don’t respond well to this, they don’t like it when others try to beat and batter their ideas down. Debate is a poor tactic.
In any case, winning a large victory is not a matter of tactics. Big situations require effective communication strategy and your ability to think strategically.
You don’t get many chances and you can’t afford mistakes in strategy when you’re encountering “resistance” from higher up.
When you encounter resistance, the biggest mistake you can make is this: You think they’re arguing with you about what you said. Wrong. They didn’t even hear you.
Daniel and the others at his level were making this mistake in spades. They thought the “dinosaurs” were arguing about the data and proposals they put in front of them.
During their coaching, I showed Daniel that the people he was presenting to didn’t HEAR what he said.
There’s no point in arguing when the other person’s not hearing you. There’s no point in trying to get through to a person who is closed. They’re closed. If you don’t open them, you’ll lose.
This kind of situation is the very reason I developed Beyond Persuasion: The new route to creating extraordinary outcomes. It is a training in a communication strategy for achieving what everyone else thinks is “impossible.”
As one recent graduate said, “It’s for the hard problems.”
Perhaps you don’t have a situation similar to Daniel’s in your life. But if you have big goals, you do have your own “big situation”. Big goals always come with big barriers. And it’s your ability to strategically remove the barriers that allows you to arrive. When you’re able to do that, you can keep your focus on the goal, not get stuck in the barriers like most of the world does.
The measure of a good strategy is the speed with which barriers are removed and your vision materializes.
Debates never get you there. No one ever debated their way into their vision. Tactics won’t get you there either.
During the program, Daniel used the tools I gave him and developed a winning strategy that penetrated the “resistance” and moved the needle fast forward in just one meeting. They finally heard what Daniel was saying. They got it. They saw it. And once they saw it, they couldn’t unsee it.
They went through the stages all people go through in the process of change.
Daniel said it was like magic after that. The key was getting them to see it. Once they saw it, they realized what he wanted them to realize. Once they realized, they owned it.
Once they owned it, they changed. And that’s when they made change start to happen throughout the organization. The ripple effect was like a dam breaking.
Daniel’s ideas crossed “the dinosaur barrier” and the “dinosaurs” transformed into intelligent human beings who are listening, hearing and acting on the really good ideas Daniel is putting on the table. This kind of real dialogue is the foundation of true progress.
This is how you create happy endings so you can get on with the next adventure.
The CEO has now FINALLY been able to give Wall Street a really good story. This new plan has the loyalty of the people below him, it has substance. I just took a look online as I was writing this article and the stock price has gone up.
How many people do you want to influence? How fast would you like it to happen?
This is where your ability to create the right communication strategy and your ability to introduce new ideas, communicate across any divide, to communicate effectively to anyone and everyone, determines your destiny.
With the right strategy, you are in control.
Be the cause!