Effecting Change

When you have sought to advance ideas that will make the world a better place, you may have discovered that it isn’t always easy to get traction with others or to see that change materialise. If it was easy the world would have changed a long time ago.

This can be especially true when seeking to influence those with the power and resources to create real change. I would like to discuss three formats, the conference, the public forum and the one-on-one sales pitch, highlight what I believe to be current deficiencies and suggest ways to enhance their effectiveness.

This will not be a popular view, however, I would like to challenge the productiveness, in its current form, of one very popular mechanism for gathering people together in order to create change; that is the conference.

Conferences are very popular within tall sectors including the academic sector with university staff presenting papers, corporate, civil society and often government departments. When any organisation decides to hold a conference, I believe there needs to be far greater clarity around its purpose and far higher levels of accountability concerning an assessment of the eventual outcome. 

As the former head of sales at Konica Minolta I would hold a national sales conference at the start of each Japanese financial year. It was very costly as we flew in every salesperson from around Australia and all our channel partners were invited also, and we generally stayed in a five-star hotel 

We would outsource the organisation of the conference to an events company, and one year one company pitching for our business asked me the most valuable question that I could have been confronted with. This was ‘At the end of the conference, when everyone has gone home, how will you know if it has been a success?’ In other words, what is your success criteria?

You would assume that before anyone would spend a large amount of money on a conference, not to mention take up what might potentially be thousands of hours of people’s time, that you would find that an easy question to answer.

I knew why we had a conference, but not how we would evaluate its success. There was value in bringing everyone together, it built motivation and camaraderie and often the informal interactions between sessions were of great value also. There was also the knowledge provided by presenters and new announcements for the coming year. None of these things answered the question on the criteria for measuring success.

Now when I am approached to be involved in these my first question is ‘at the end of the conference how will you know if it’s been a success of not?’ As was the case with me, there is often uncertainty. Sometimes the answer will be that a survey will be undertaken, and people will rate the conference against certain criteria. However, who doesn’t like a conference, especially if people self-select to be there and therefore have a high level of interest in the subject.

It is important to know why you are doing something and your criteria for evaluating success as it will shape the structure and content, the choice of speakers and indeed the audience you invite.

Too many conference organisers feel that bringing people together will ‘move the dial’ on an important social issue and yet they don’t structure the conference to do that. Many conferences ‘sing to the choir’ or ‘preach to the converted’ as the attendees are part of the broader ‘family’ that are already advocating for change on the issue. 

They will enjoy coming together, spending time with each other and will grow in knowledge to some degree from listening to the presentations. It builds knowledge, camaraderie, and motivation to continue the fight (on the social issue).

However, if the core purpose is to ‘move the dial’ then this is not the right audience, they are already converts. The audience need to be CEO’s, company directors, legislators, all people who wield real power to effect change yet aren’t there.

I am not suggesting we stop having conferences; however, I am suggesting that we stop ‘sleepwalking’ into them and structure them in a manner that is more productive. If it’s a conference for people who don’t need convincing, then perhaps the format and content could be to run sessions for this group on how to influence those decision makers who aren’t in the room, with the aim of getting those people to attend a future event.

For future conferences this would move away from assembling a room full of experts and those already in the field, both of whom may already have entrenched positions on the issue under discussion, and perhaps even biases and blind spots focus on the decision makers. This would surely make a greater contribution to moving the dial.

Turning to another format, often favoured by governments, that is forums, which may be open to the public in a town hall style forum or indeed be by invitation. These are somewhat akin to the Roman system of direct democracy involving citizen assemblies, which convened not just to input to social challenges but to make important decisions concerning the governing of the state.

Lyn Carson, Research director at The New Democracy Foundation brings a valuable perspective in her article entitled, ‘Group Diversity Trumps Individual Ability’ https://www.newdemocracy.com.au/2017/08/14/group-diversity-trumps-individual-ability/

Beyond being an academic theory, this concept of diverse groups coming together to tackle complex societal problems has been tested in the form of citizen juries. The core strength of this concept is in the random nature of the selection of the group. This concept may be challenging for many as it disputes the notion that if you select the smartest people you know, particularly subject matter experts on a particular topic, then you’ll get the best outcomes.

The problem with the common practice of gathering experts together is that these experts all come with a predetermined view. This is particularly stifling of new thinking, or the introduction of fresh innovative ideas, particularly when they form a part of a particular group’s position. Carson drives home this point when she states that ‘we are attracted to dwelling amongst ghettos of like mined people.’

We see this with governments today. You belong to a particular party, and you vote with that party along party lines. This is a formalised restrictiveness of thinking, however, occurs albeit at times sub consciously, with most experts with entrenched ideas.

Carson contrasts the experience of the Australia 2020 Summit of 2008 when the Prime Minister brought together 1,000 of the country’s ‘best and brightest’ and the randomly selected Australian citizen’s Parliament in 2009. There were significant advantages of lay people over experts. She says, ‘The experts tended to engage in bargaining, or caucusing, rather than a single-focussed pursuit of a shared solution to a problem, which is what the everyday citizens did.’

 It may not always be possible to draw randomly selected people together to make corporate decisions, although it would be fascinating to see competitors collaborating on industry sector challenges using the citizen jury approach. Perhaps a public forum on how to ensure technological developments benefit society, not harm it?

We need to move beyond the status quo and create real change especially on important issues such as ensuring we create workplace environments that nourish our people, ending forced labour in our supply chains and reducing our negative impacts that threaten the environment and increase the loss of biodiversity.

Beyond the various group formats for effecting change, to one-on-one interactions between an expert and a decision maker, there is an issue also. Ironically when someone has become a subject matter expert, they will often fall into the trap of feeling that all they need to do is share that knowledge and the listener will be inspired to action. I believe that knowledge helps to create interest but the key to unlocking action is far more complex.

The formula for ‘selling’ a vision (building great cultures or social or environmental change) is no different to the principles that govern commercial selling, when selling a product or service, which were developed by psychologists decades ago and operationalised through organisations such as Xerox Learning Systems and IBM’s internal sales training.

Most people who have not been trained in sales will tell you that to be a good salesperson you need to know your product and ‘have the gift of the gab’. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, you need to be an empathetic listener.

            ‘Selling is not telling’

Picture a time when you were the customer and walked onto the floor of an electrical goods store or furniture showroom or into a car yard and were approached by a salesperson.

If they have even so much as seen, you glance in the direction of a product on display the chances are they will start to ‘sell on features’. This means they will describe the product to you and tell you how great it is. The capacity of the refrigerator, some of its unique new features, its low running costs etc or the engine capacity of the car and its fuel efficiency. Yes, they know their product (and they can talk a lot) but they don’t know anything about you.

A truly professional salesperson will seek to understand what your needs are before ever contemplating trying to match their product to those needs. They will do this through relevant questions and deep listening, building a profile of what it really is that you need as they go.

In the case of a vehicle this may be questions around whether you have ever owned that brand before, what your experience was, how many people would be typically travelling in the car, whether you mostly do short trips or longer, ever tow a boat of caravan, have a preference for an electric vehicle or not etc. Only then would they consider asking you to spend time looking at a particular model.

Epictetus was born 2,000 years ago and was a Roman slave, who following the granting of his freedom, went on to become a teacher of philosophy in the stoic tradition. His famous words about how our bodies are constructed are still used in sales training today.

‘You have two ears and one mouth and it’s best to use them in that proportion’

Epictetus also offers this warning as regards entering a conversation focussed on talking rather than questioning and listening, and thinking you have nothing of value to learn.

            ‘It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.’

I appreciate that this may seem rather confusing, or even irrelevant to creating corporate or social change, and it is true that it is best taught in a workshop environment rather than via a few sentences in a blog.

However imagine you work in the sustainability area of your company (or working within a human rights organisation), and you have gained an appointment with the CEO (or senior decision maker) who you seek to influence. Your objective is to illicit greater action on their part to do more to eradicate modern slavery from the company’s supply chain. You are an expert, and you know the facts. It will be very difficult to hold off on telling them how much you know, but that is exactly what you should do.

The principles of professional selling dictate that before you can expect the other person to appreciate what is important to you, you need to understand what is important to them. You discover this through questions.

·      May I ask what is the big issue keeping you awake at night?

·      What are some of the key challenges you see on the horizon for the business over the next few years?

·      How you envisage the company can differentiate itself from its competitors?

·      What legacy would you like to leave when you eventually step down from this role?

·      Thank you for sharing these things with me, as you know I’m from our sustainability area, specifically working on eradicating modern slavery, may I talk a little about our work and how I believe it underpins much of what you are seeking to achieve?

You have now not only earnt the right to ask if you can share what’s important to you, but you now know what is important to them, and where your work may assist them in helping to fulfill their key objectives. You have listened respectfully and can now speak relevantly.

It is amazing how often civil society organisations have many of the solutions to corporate challenges, but they are not versed in the principle of seeking to understand the other person’s world first, and launch straight into ‘selling on features’, describing their organisation and its important work.

            ‘First seek to understand, then to be understood’@