Here’s a video book review of The Trust Edge
I recommend you put this book on your Christmas
list for any marketing or sales people you know.
Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry With Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)
Many companies still rely on the “presentation” as a sales tool. But a couple recent studies may indicate a major problem with this approach. A University of Maryland study of undergraduates found that after a lecture by a well known professor, NONE of the students could answer the question, “What was the lecture you just heard about? In another study, Nobel Laureate, Carl Wieman quizzed his students about a key fact in his lecture presented just 15 minutes earlier. Only 10 percent remembered it.
So now you’re saying, but these are hung over, drugged-out students, and, of course, you’re not speaking from personal experience. It’s well known that college students have these characteristics.
However, in another experiment, at the University of British Columbia in a physics course on electromagnetic waves, one group of students was taught by standard lecture, while a second group was broken into smaller groups and asked to work on the problems in an interactive problem solving session. The first group scored 41% on the material, while the second group scored 74%.
College students are not business prospects. But the takeaway is that no one wants to listen, or will remember your 25 slide presentation. Occasionally we get roped into giving a presentation, and there are specific things you can do to give a great presentation. But instead, what if we worked with smaller groups and individuals on problem solving?
Sales, the next time you ask marketing for a presentation, ask why you need it. Marketing, the next time you provide a presentation, ask what other tool or skill set you should have provided to sales.
Do great things!
Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry With Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)
In the past two posts, I’ve tried to answer why we, as humans, are so ready to agree with others, even when we know it’s wrong, or not what we think? The real question should be what can we do about it?
People who know me might say I am a bit of an iconoclast, always questioning the prevailing norm (see “There Are Alligators in the Sewers of NY“). But I often have others say to me after a meeting, “I wished I’d asked that question.” It’s a kind of a pain in the ass trait, and not one that will endear you to some management or others.
I can’t say when I acquired the trait, but I am reminded of a short film I saw once a long time ago (before the “Internets”, video and Youtube) called “The Road to Abilene.” It was developed by management expert, Jerry B. Harvey, and it had a profound impact on me, to the extent that I can see the black and white film in my mind years later.
“The Abilene Paradox as it has become known, occurs when a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of any of the individuals in the group. It involves a common breakdown of group communication in which each member mistakenly believes that their own preferences are counter to the group’s and, therefore, does not raise objections.*”
The film is a story of a family of four, a mother and father, their daughter, and son-in-law sitting on a back Texas porch in 110 degree heat. The daughter says, “I could sure use some cold ice cream.” Then the son-in-law says, “I know a great place for ice cream. What do you think Mom?” Mom says, “Well if you kids want ice cream, I guess that’s OK. What do you think Dad?” Dad says, “Sounds fine to me Mom.” Three hours later, the film cuts to them in their non air-conditioned car, covered in sweat on the way back from Abilene. They’re each irritated with the others, claiming it wasn’t their idea to drive 110 miles to Abilene in 110 degree heat. Mom says something like, “That was a great idea.” The moral of the story is obvious.
Yet, it’s a common occurrence in business, and it is a huge suck on productivity and morale. So what are some things you can do to avoid taking the Road to Abilene?
Do Great Things!
Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry with Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)
*Wikipedia
Recent experiments and research at the Weizmann Institute by Prof. Yadin Dudai and his students may show why we are susceptible to group pressure.
Here’s a quick summary. They first showed a documentary film to a group, then asked them recall questions about the film three days later. They also asked them how confident they were in their answers.
Next, they asked them back to the lab to ostensibly undergo an MRI. While under the MRI, they again asked them recall questions, but gave them a “lifeline” of answers that the rest of the test group had supposedly given. Planted among these helpful answers were false answers to questions the subjects previously answered correctly. You can guess the result. The test subjects now changed their answers to these questions giving the wrong answer 70% of the time in order to conform to the group.
The question at the root of the experiment was to determine if the subjects had just given into peer pressure, or whether there was something actually happening in their brains. Repeating the test again, the subjects were told the lifeline answers they were given were not those of their fellows, but randomly generated answers. Yet over half of them stuck with their new (falsified memories) answers.
For the false memories, the results of the MRI showed a strong coactivation between two areas of the brain; the hippocampus (involved in long term memory formation) and the amygdala (influencing the emotions and social interaction). The amygdale is the lizard brain my daughter used to when thinking about her tattoo. It may also be required to approve certain types of memories and act as an approval stamp.
The tendency to give into group pressure may have had a survival component in evolution. When the leopard is approaching a group of baboons, you don’t have time to ask why your fellow baboon is jumping into the tree. We are no longer baboons (only literally speaking), but we still have the synapses between the lizard brain and the hippocampus and forebrain. So what do you do when everyone around the conference table nods in agreement to an idea that no one individually would agree to?
Do great things!
Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry with Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)
Once my teenage daughter said she wanted to get a tattoo while on a trip we took to Playa del Carmen, Mexico. All her friends were getting them. Our dialogue on subsequent days, as we negotiated, went something like this:
Day 1:
Me: If you get a tattoo, I’d like you to have a blood test about six to eight weeks after you get back.
Her: Why is that?
Me: Just to find out if you’ve picked up HIV or Hepatitis.
Day 2:
Her: Dad, I checked out the tattoo place and they’re Dutch.
Me: And they don’t have HIV or Hepatitis in the Netherlands?
Day 3:
Her: Dad, I checked again. They only use factory fresh needles, and they don’t recirculate their ink
Me: We’ll that’s good. But if you get a tattoo, get it someplace where the scar won’t show if you want to have it taken off someday.
Her: What do you mean scar?
Me: Remember Uncle Ray and that burn mark he has all over his arm. That used to be a tattoo. And you know the belt sander I have, well that’s what they use.
Day4: She gets her tattoo, a small butterfly on her ankle that now looks like a smudged birthmark.
This experience taught me that teenagers think with their lizard brains. They may seem intelligent, and seem to have rationale conversations, but their judgment is somehow flawed. This is substantiated by brain research, and tends not to diminish until the age of 20 or 21 in girls, and 21 to 22 years in boys. But it never goes away completely. (By the way, I believe the intelligence of boys tends to go down with the square of the number of boys in a group, while the intelligence of girls remains the same regardless of numbers.)
Peer pressure is an incredibly powerful force. As humans, why are we so ready to agree with others, even when we know it’s wrong, or not what we think? We follow dictators, or our eye witness testimony is tainted, or we succumb to the advertising that makes us want to buy ripped jeans. So maybe just maybe the enthusiasm your team has for getting the company logo tattoed on their necks is not what it seems to be. Peer pressure and group think is especially dangerous in business, and it’s something that marketing or sales managers, and CEOs have to guard against.
Do great things!
Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry with Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)