“To Sell is Human”– The Secret To Saving the World

As a long time strategy advisor to Fortune 25 orgs, military, governments and the like, I continue to have a growing concern that we are just not “getting it” when it comes to embracing and promoting messages that are necessary to create a better world for tomorrow.

As someone who is kept awake by the projects I have been exposed to and is bound by a bazillion covenants of secrecy, I look at a world that is nowhere near achieving its phenomenal potential. 

I worry because in Life, as in business, if we are not purposely moving towards success , then we are more than likely destined to create failure.

Unfortunately, looking through rose-colored glasses, expressing or choosing ignorance of what’s happening around us or focusing only on the good stuff in the world is not getting it done.  Historically, such approaches have never produced much of any value.

Even when people seem to understand what their message should be, it gets lost in poor strategic intention and clumsy tactical execution. They rely on experts who tell them that the message needs to be blindly blasted out in social media campaigns, shoved down our throats in aggressive in-your-face messages or gently, lovingly soft-pedaled to the masses.

Even now, in the wake of the Newtown, CT. tragedy, the pro and anti gun movements are so intent on yelling and screaming at each other that the solution to guns and violence in America seems to be only a vague possibility limited to dreamers.

Unfortunately, many of these people have missed a key component:

If we don’t know what inspires the recipient of our message to take action as a result of our message, it doesn’t matter how often we hit them with it.  In fact, the more times we hit them in ignorance of how to move their head and heart, the more likely we will turn them away.

I’ve studied many complex strategies and listened to many experts over the years.  Truthfully, I had gotten bored with what I was reading and hearing, with everyone regurgitating the same old stuff.  If their stuff was of any value at all, we’d be using it effectively and many of our issues would be solved already.

I thought I had seen it all.

And then a powerful book crossed my desk.

“To Sell is Human – The Surprising Truth About Moving Others” by Daniel Pink was a punch between the eyes. 

Mr. Pink’s assertion, as expressed in Chapter 1, “We’re All In Sales Now”, at first blush seems over-simplified.

After all, I’m not a salesman.  When I think about a salesman, I think about the stereotypical, in-your-face, slick, underhanded, Aqua Velva-bathed guy selling me a car that was only driven by grandma on Sundays.

My personal and professional Life is wired around directing influence, sharing knowledge and collaborating towards intentional outcomes.  In my industry, there is a common distaste for salesman and we can’t wait for them to shut up so that we can get on with the real stuff.

I am trying to move my clients in a specific direction that I believe is mutually beneficial.

I’m trying to sell them on the idea of …..

Ahhhhhhhh …. that was when I got hit between the eyes.

After I had gotten over my cranial defibrillator moment, Mr. Pink had me hooked.

To highlight the wisdom and insight that Mr. Pink harvested and shared in “To Sell is Human” would require me to cut and paste the entire book here.  I tweeted at one point that my greatest mistake in reading this book was that I didn’t have a spare highlighter in hand when my first one ran out.

This is not a feel-good book that says “Just believe in yourself and everything falls into place”.  People who follow my musings know that I believe that this advice in isolation of useful execution advice is one of the most worthless, disempowering things you can tell someone.

It is also not a highly technical book that causes you to fall asleep as you wonder if psychiatrists and other experts know any word shorter than 5 syllables.

It is not a Salesman 101 book either that encourages you to embrace a slick, inauthentic, opaque persona that so many people around us have embraced but which we tend to loathe when we are faced with it.

However, it is a book that grips your head and your heart with powerful insight and is backed by research that resonates with everyone regardless of where they are in Life.  It uses examples that are simple in structure but profound in impact and which can be applied immediately in every aspect of our Life.

For example, a friend of mine was struggling with the title for his new book and knew that the title would make or break the book’s success.  He reached out to me for advice and I passed on this nugget from Mr. Pink who described three questions that must be asked when defining a pitch:

1. What do you want them to know?

2. What do you want them to feel?

3. What do you want them to do?

My friend was blown away by the questions and in exploring them, unlocked the logjam in his head regarding the title.

Do you dare to be better?

Daniel Pink’s book dares us to explore the subtleties of how and what the other side “hears” (and needs to hear) instead of relying on our own ego that tells us “I already know what they need to hear”.

And perhaps if we dare to be open to learning new ways of moving others, maybe we can then dare to believe that we actually can manifest the world of unlimited potential that we like to dream and talk about.

Daniel Pink wrote a book that targets every person at the core of their personal and professional Life.  But on a larger scale, I think he has inadvertently (or perhaps purposely and covertly) written a book that has potential to transform our world.

If you believe that you are already a master of moving people and that there is zero room for improvement in your Life and in society, that all is perfect, then this book is not for you.  You are indeed a Master and should already be engaging the world at a higher level to help make it better.

For the rest of us, if you want to make your personal and professional Life stronger and you also feel that we can and must do better in our nation and around the world, then “To Sell Is Human” by Daniel Pink is a must-read.

I believe that the challenges of the world call us to do the best we can with our talents, knowledge, passion and purpose and that we must do it with a sense of urgency.  If you don’t believe me, go get an elevated security clearance and then I will show you.

I also believe that we have a shared responsibility to create a strong future for our children, enabling them to live a Life of stability, peace and promise.  We won’t get there alone – collaboration and knowing how to convince others how to help us get there is essential to success.

But that’s just what I believe.

What’s more important is ……

….. what do you believe …..

…. and what are you waiting for?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Overcoming Einstein’s Law of Insanity – A Review of “Drive” by Daniel Pink

We have all heard variations of Einstein’s Law of Insanity – to expect a different result from doing the same thing over and over.

Unfortunate confirmation of the pervasiveness of this law is all around us:

• The company who hires an expert to guide them, knowing the expert has guided all of their recent clients into oblivion.
• The company that follows the same means of execution, watching their profits ride up and down like a roller coaster.  Each dip gets a little lower, but they assure themselves that their strategy is sound and no changes are necessary.
• The organization that struggles with making a profit and because of their struggles with revenue, insist that the only help they will accept is that which is offered free-of-charge or at below market-value.  After the free resource has left, their profits dip even more, they find another free resource and the cycle continues until a catastrophic end is in sight.
• The leaders who have so much ego that they cannot accept guidance from anyone and insist to everyone that everything is under control right up until the end.
• The organizations that pleads “we are a not-for-profit of some type and can’t afford to pay for assistance”.  Some are successful anyway but many struggle from year to year accepting whatever they can get for free or at minimal expense, loudly espousing great things while hiding from others, the opportunities they missed or didn’t take advantage of.
• Organizations that have broken compensation models that don’t reward smart behavior and yet have leaders that complain when revenue is down.  I personally witnessed a sales team years ago that went after a $1 million project while intentionally bypassing a $300 million project.  Why? Because they had a commission model that knew how to reward one type of sale but not the other.  So individual got rewarded for the small deal while the organization missed its overall sales target.

Creatures of Habit – Breaking the Habit Before it Breaks Us

Being creatures of habit, we often will not follow a different path unless we are forced to or we are offered a significant motivation to change.  Surprisingly, fear of failure for many people is not sufficient motivation, since they believe that they will always save themselves right before things collapse completely.

How do we change our motivation model and therefore our results?

If you are a leader, owner or advisor to companies who suffer from the results of Einstein’s Law of Insanity, then you need to apply a cranial defibrillator to the head of the leadership team (or perhaps have someone apply it to you).

Daniel Pink’s latest book, “Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” is such a cranial defibrillator.

I found Mr. Pink’s book to be a blast (not just a breath) of fresh air.

Using a writing style that is engaging, informative and enjoyable, Mr. Pink takes the last 50 years of research in diagnosing and improving motivational behaviors and presents it to the reader in such a way that the reader says “Duh … of course”.

Now That We Know What Motivates and Demotivates

Having come to such obvious conclusions, then the reader is forced to ask themselves these questions.

Why am I not doing this? 

Why is my organization not doing this? 

How can we change how we motivate ourselves and others?

“Drive” explains what motivates and demotivates us personally and professionally.  Commonly used “carrot and stick” models, even ones that people don’t realize are carrot and stick models, are shown for what they are – models that for the most part motivate for the short term but are detrimental in the long run for most situations.

Mr. Pink then discusses intrinsic versus extrinsic motivators, intrinsic being the things that motivate us from within (based on our purpose, passion and sense of self-fulfillment) versus extrinsic sources – external factors that are offered in an attempt to motivate people or artificially guide results.

Intrinsic motivators, that which we do because it gives us a sense of purpose and fulfillment and which makes use of our gifts and talents are then analyzed along three primary elements:

Autonomy

How self directed are you and your team in terms of control over time, tasks, techniques and teams when called upon to produce a given result and what are the surprising truths and myths that exist around giving people more autonomy?

Mastery

What are the laws around accomplishing mastery of knowledge and technique in a given subject area?

Purpose

How does one define, ignite and sustain a sense of purpose?

Implementing New Models

Many books in this genre tend to end the discussion at this point, leaving the reader hanging; wondering “ok, you’ve got me all excited but how do I move towards a better model?”.

Mr. Pink doesn’t disappoint.  The last part of his book contains a toolkit with practical strategies and ideas to enhance motivational models for, but not limited to:

1. Individuals
2. Organizations
3. Parents and educators
4. Maintaining a fitness regimen
5. Compensation plans for employees

He closes his book with a wealth of guidance from experts who “get it”, the likes of Peter Drucker, Jim Collins, Gary Hamel and more.

Without a doubt, I rank this book as one of the top books in its space in terms of addressing how to motivate yourself and others.

It boils a LOT of research in motivational behavior down into practical, understandable, obvious diagnosis of modern day challenges.  It then provides powerful prescriptions to help heal the motivational woes of individuals and organizations.

The next time you or your organization needs a little ummph added to the team’s level of motivation, forget about people who sell you rah-rah corporate events or tell you that you just need to communicate more effectively. 

I blogged recently about how hundreds of us were once flown across the country so that we could literally play “pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey” at a corporate motivation-builder event.  I don’t know how you would react, but personally I was offended for my team and I to be treated like 5-years-olds at incredible expense and my client was incensed to hear that we were out of the office for a few days for a mandatory morale building exercise that turned out to be insulting (and thus demotivating) instead of boosting our motivation.

Many of us left in the months that followed that exercise, with the exercise having proven to many that the company really didn’t understand what motivates people.

Don’t fall into this trap and don’t allow your teams to be further demotivated.

Instead, pick up a copy of Daniel Pink’s book “Drive”, strap on your seatbelt and prepare to be whisked into a new paradigm – a paradigm where we finally embrace a true understanding of what motivates ourselves and others and shows how to use that information to create greater productivity and a sense of fulfillment – both personally and professionally.

It will one of the most refreshing and informative books you will have read for a while.

And it could change your life and the life of your company.

I choose transforming my knowledge, execution and sense of purpose over pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey any day of the week.

How about you?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my Musings-in-a-Minute version of “Overcoming Einstein’s Law of Insanity – A Review of “Drive” by Daniel Pink”, please click here.