Discover Best Stories

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUpGpPIROuo

Best Stories of Purpose-Driven Selling

We have all, at some time or another, been part of a successful, rewarding selling experience, whether it was selling a pretty pink lipstick, a million-dollar service contract, or tickets to your local arts fund-raising dinner. Reflect on a time when you felt at your best in a selling situation. Everything seemed perfectly aligned—timing, customers, your knowledge and message, the questions, and how you managed your responses, and so forth. Share your story.

• What was the situation?
• What was the purpose?
• Who was there?
• What was the outcome?
• How did you feel?

Without being modest, what do you value about yourself in your story?

What do you value about the work you were doing?

What did you value about the organizations—yours and your customer’s?

The participants paired off to interview each other. Very soon the room was alive with energy as the pairs exchanged stories of their best selling experiences.  After 25 minutes, single pairs linked up with another 2 pairs to form groups of six where interviewers introduced their interview partners and shared highlights of their partners’ stories of a high point purpose-driven sales experience.  They were invited to:

• Listen respectfully, focus on the common themes that came up across the stories;  listen for the collective strengths across all the stories:  key roots of success.   They selected a story that exemplified the strengths, best assets, and successes in a sales experience and shared with all other groups.

We then reconvened to listen to what came up for people during this discovery interview.

Collective findings of best selling experiences

We identified the most powerful and successful selling experiences happened when the following elements were present:

• we took time to notice and observe client behavior;
• we listened deeply;
• we engaged with full presence (not distracted by others, seeking information from them);
• we proposed a solution that represented the above two points and was fresh in its presentation;
• there was synchronicity and alignment of mutual respect and purpose;
• we knew we were helping;
• we felt confident and were very well-prepared; we were authentic and loved what we did; we trusted our intuition; we let go of assumptions;
• it felt easy and natural;
• we were acknowledged, complimented and  invited back;
• clients reported to feeling heard and understood and the solution offered was very good.

Participants agreed participating in the AI approach was an empowering experience, as most of them didn’t believe that selling was a strength, yet during their interviews they discovered strengths they were not yet aware of, or did not consider to be valuable.   Moreover, in hearing stories from other consultants in the room, they discovered skills and behaviors they too had, and made the connection that they could develop those same skills sets and behaviors that would help them shift to a new level of performance when it came to selling their services and products.

As a close, they each made a wish or two (in the form of a personal commitment) about what they would do to reconnect to their latent talents around selling-on-purpose and how to co-construct it with their clients.

Debriefing

As a debrief we contrasted this strength-based, generative approach to selling to the more traditional approach of telling people how to sell.  Moreover, there is a strong underlying assumption in sales-drive organizations, that sales people  are motivated by financial incentives, competition and fear of failure.  We recognized the negative consequences of contraction in such circumstances, when we feel fear and unconsciously we  jump to control mode and shut down.  On the other hand, when we come from a place of strength and feel positive about ourselves, we access our generative states, trusting ourselves and others.  We open ourselves up to possibilities, become more personally expansive and are more inclusive of others. We also spoke of the value being in positive resourceful states that the AI process facilitates, such as appreciating, imagining, collaborating and empowering.

I thank all who showed up to participate in the workshop to make it a fun and generative learning experience.  I would be most honored for those of you who were there, if you took a moment to add your own insights and experience to this blog post.

How so absolutely real is that!  Coming back from India and Nepal recently, and being immersed in the experience of other cultures brought “the experience of being alive” up front and personal. I saw and felt both the rawness of poverty co-exist alongside the comfort of wealth, and latest mobile technologies being used along side women filling vessels from community water pumps.   It’s those in-your-face contrasts that jolt us into the fullness of being alive.

If we don’t experience the fullness of life personally, we can vicariously.  We see more and more reality TV shows in the US which expose us to aspects of life that maybe outside our own experiences.  For example, where bosses are going undercover into the trenches to experience what it’s like to work in their own companies outside their board rooms; where couples race around the world and experience many difference cultures and environments;  where cooks initiative food revolutions to expose school kids to food that is different from their regular, routine food in the hope to introduce healthier diets that will create greater awareness of what it takes to live a healthier life style, free from fatal diseases associated with obesity.  And there are so many others that open us up to the fullness of being alive.

Awareness is the first step in any change.  If we can suspend judgment and see others as they are, it opens us up to seeing the wholeness of life with an appreciation of difference and what it could be like to be in someone else’s  shoes.  With such awareness, we begin to expand our own perspectives and the experience of being alive, and with that, comes the principle of Umbunto – I am because you are.

My dream for a more equitable, loving world, where communities can sustain themselves, women increasingly take public leadership roles, in the home, in business and governments, children are literate, and wealth is more evenly distributed is being realized bit-by-bit.  This bit-by-bit phenomenon is growing.  Social entrepreneurs, who believe in patient capital, participatory leadership and mindsets, and social media that instantly spread messages, are powerful facilitators of this positive, equitable trend.

If you too embrace the “fullness of being alive”, with optimism, hope and possibility, how is it showing up for you?

How important?

To be doing something you are good at and having fun and involving others in co-creating fun.  That’s participation, collaboration and engagement and playing to one’s strengths!   The New York Times is talking about Matt Harding who seems to have fun doing what he’s really good at.  The article brings attention to a number of the positive attributes that living in 2010 is all about: having the internet to share one’s own creativity; involving our global village life-centric ways that unite us through music, laughter, activity, play.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY

“However you interpret it, you can’t watch “Dancing” for very long without feeling a little happier. The music (by Gary Schyman, a friend of Mr. Harding’s, and set to a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, sung in Bengali by Palbasha Siddique, a 17-year-old native of Bangladesh now living in Minneapolis) is both catchy and haunting. The backgrounds are often quite beautiful. And there is something sweetly touching and uplifting about the spectacle of all these different nationalities, people of almost every age and color, dancing along with an uninhibited doofus.

Children, not surprisingly, turn out to be the best at picking up on Mr. Harding’s infectious vibe. There’s frequently a grown-up, on the other hand — especially one in the front row of a crowd — who tends to ham it up and make a fool of himself.

The other remarkable thing about the “Dancing” phenomenon is that it is, to a very considerable extent, a creation of the Internet. It doesn’t just live, so to speak, on the Web; it was the Web that, more or less accidentally, brought it into being.”

I am equally inspired by their responses, so I’ve created a comment area on my blog for us to continue sharing ideas, stories, experiences, insights and aspirations.

Below are some examples of their emails:

“I read the activity about Business as a change agent in the world … I love the legacy aspect. So this gave me an idea for my storytelling….You inspired me at lunch, and also in the subway! This book arrives at the perfect time for me it seems!”

“Now that I’ve had a little time to actually read the book (the first few sections), I love it more. It’s got clear insights and your tapestry of weaving together the several strands that influence your thinking/this book is one of golden and silver threads. Just stunning synthesis and vision. This book is simply wonderful.  Much success!”

“I’m back in Germany now after a very exciting two weeks in New York City. Your workshop at Marymount was one of the highlights of the workshop circuit. I am planning on using appreciative inquiry in BPW and present it, as you did, as a useful trainer tool and at the same time to find out what members and prospective members want and need from BPW.  Perhaps I can also use the method in a team building workshop.”

“I’ve had a quick browse – what a wonderful resource it will be for the AI community ”

“I love your book! It’s a perfect tool for incorporating Appreciative Inquiry in group coaching/training, so I can’t wait to put it into action. Thanks for this beautiful work, it’s really going to change things ”

“Looking forward to working with your book – maybe already next week in an interview with a friend to capture her Art of Hosting training experience in Sweden last month. Will let you know -   Here is my little report from Friday’s event on Pioneers of Change.”

“Robyn Stratton-Berkessel led us through an Appreciative Inquiry exercise that showed us the power of hearing other people telling our own leadership story.”

“Can your workplace benefit from better collaboration + appreciation of each others work? Try @robbiecat‘ s workbook.”

Please also read my interview on Axiom News,  whose mission is “To be the news agency of the world’s most socially generative organizations’.

I am very grateful to you all!

And let’s keep sharing and here’s the comment area to share ideas and practices.

All of the AI Principles are evident in her story.  She opens with examples of the Constructionist Principle: how words create worlds and the role we all play in co-creating our realities and defining each other.

She advocates the need to honor the wholeness, possibility and potency of ourselves and each other.  She asks us to open ourselves up to and embrace our adversities, rather than sweep them under the carpet.

She reminds us from her own story that we live up OR down to others’ image of us, and how positive imagery leads to positive outcomes.  She is such an example of nurturing the human spirit, keeping hope, seeing the beauty, valuing curiosity … and so much more.

I highly recommend this video.

Aimee Mullen’s TED Talk on “The Opportunity of Adversity“.

Peter Drucker wrote in his 1967 classic, The Effective Executive. “To make strength productive is the unique purpose of organization. It cannot, of course, overcome the weaknesses with which each of us is abundantly endowed. But it can make them irrelevant.”  So if, in fact, a key task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths, then imagine the possibilities of strengths connected to strengths?  What might that look like and why might that be worth striving for?

For leadership to create an alignment of strengths, it most likely means looking at organizations with new eyes.  What if we were to look at organization not as problems to be solved, but as miracles to be embraced?  What if we were consciously to look for the good and hold up the achievements and the successes; to invest generously and respectfully in inquiring into existing organizational strengths and assets?  What if we were to invite people to tell their stories of when they felt most energized, enlivened and valued at work.  And we listened.  Really listened.  What language would employees, customers, vendors, media be using?  Is it uplifting and positive?  What stories are they sharing about their experiences with the various products, services and people?  Are they focusing  on what works well, and what they want more of?  If yes, that’s great, as such language creates upward spirals, and there’s the broadening effect of noticing more acutely what works.  As a consequence, you are more likely to enact your capabilities and your potential. Performance improves, since it is more energizing and creative to have people talk about what they can do and what they aspire to than the reverse.  Two maxims come to mind:

What you focus on grows.

People support what they create.

To connect strengths to strengths and to see anew, with an appreciative eye,  and to facilitate the leadership capability so that it creates flourishing organizations is work that is meaningful, joyful, rewarding and essential.

The decade beginning 2000 was a good decade for me.  I married a wonderful human being in 2000; we have enjoyed great fun and a wide range of intensely pleasurable physical experiences; we have grown together and independently through many stimulating, engaging intellectual learnings;  and we have both experienced deeply meaningful emotional times.  We have traveled a lot and created a home we love. I am blessed in my relationship.

So, in this last decade, I have continued to change, as has the world around me.  A dominant and exciting force that is enabling this rapid growth rate of change is social media. We have new and additional ways in which we communicate and connect with people and we have many more topics and stories to share.  My sensitivity has been even more heightened as to how alike we really are across the globe.  How vulnerable we all are, and how much more we can become together.  I have been moved by so many stories shared in private and in public places – face-to-face, virtually, in books, on TV, in film.  All my senses have been sharpened.  For example, in Italy, I savored during and for months afterwards the landscape and the smells and sounds; the sensations and the tastes:  I admired the art work and architecture and imagined what it was like when armies of ancient Rome traversed the land battled against the Carthaginians and the Gauls;  I imagined the beauty of the Etruscans, even before the Romans, and then I imagined what life may have been like during the Renaissance when art and commerce flourished.  History and culture revealing how peoples continue to shape the future and leave their legacies.

I experienced similar emotions and wonderings while traveling in India and visiting Kathmandu Valley in Nepal.  My curiosity and interest is always aroused to learn how people get to where they are and what has shaped their current situation.   What are their stories?  My own birthplace, Australia, has untold stories that the land longs to share.  The more stories we can hear of all peoples on this planet, the richer we all will be.

I love to find the themes and connect dots.  What keeps coming up for me?  My filtering system is constructed to find the beauty, the goodness and what truths endure across time and space.  Horror and evil also endure across time and space. They co-exist.  History and the arts are full of co-existence. The victories of love overcoming fear, and good overcoming evil and beauty overcoming horror is the human story.

I learned at Christmas time, a dear colleague, whom I haven’t communicated with since 2002 has Stage 4 cancer in her brain and has very little time left in her present form.   Going about my business (busy-ness), I thought about her a lot, but didn’t call.   After Christmas, I learnt her condition had worsened.  I felt remorseful that I had not acted on my best intuition to call her when I wanted to.  I actually feared I had missed my opportunity to let her know I cared for her.  I had weak excuses, like a 14 hours time difference, Christmas was an awkward time, etc. etc.  Finally, I did call and our conversation was truly meaningful.  I also send the flowers I had been thinking about sending for four days.  I decided that moving beyond thought to action would be my commitment to myself in 2010.  To move beyond dreaming and thinking into action – action that serves others, and in doing so, serves me.

All plans can change.  So when the world changes around you, what constants provide you with a sense of safety or equanimity that enables you to go on?  The tiniest belief in oneself helps; some hope for a future; the support of others.  I have been in that state, when I had no self-confidence, despaired of any future and indifferent to the support and love of others.  How I’ve pulled myself out of such low points is my story and some parts of the dark story I am not proud of and some parts I am.  I realize the parts I am proud of are when I found the inner strength to shift my perspective enough to make a different choice.  Through the tears and the pain (both physical and emotional) I could sense a faint awareness that I wanted to feel/do something different.  In such times, I open up enough find an inner resource that offers a glimmer of hope and possibility that I am willing to admit there is a different way and I will do something about it.  I also believe that having experienced the intense discomfort of chemotherapy and radiation, that in the future, and if in a conscious state, when faced with death I can have the same experience.  I will find an inner resource that offers a glimmer of hope and possibility that I am willing to admit there is a different way and I can find it.  I know I will seek peace and love over fear.

What is your story?  What victories, celebrations and joys have you experienced in the past decade?  In telling your story, what have been highpoints of your first ten years in the 21^st century?  What will you remember with a smile on your face, a warmth in your gut, a tenderness in your heart?  What are you most grateful for or even a little bit grateful for – personally and professionally?  Who have you met in the past 10 years that has influenced your life in a good way?  What have you done for others that you know has been of service to them?  What thoughts may inspire you for action in 2010?

Doing the best you can with the resources you have is an invitation to connect with your reflective self.  It is an invitation to think about the quality and the content of your thinking.  Have you ever kicked yourself or felt anger or annoyance at yourself because of something you did or thought that you knew was not worthy of yourself.  After the event, you judged yourself very harshly and felt remorse.  That is usually an unpleasant experience.

You have the capacity to turn that unpleasant experience about your own thinking and behavior into a pleasing experience.  How?  Acknowledge that you exercised your reflective self to know the difference.   And make that your reflective best self.  Actions, conversations, thoughts that are judging, critical, non-valuing of self and others are not helpful.  If you see leaders in your organizations and your colleagues as doing the best they can with the resources they have, it’s a more helpful way seeing what’s going on through a valuing lens.  You tap into your own inner resources of love and peace and truth and power to see a situation for what it is, not what your inner judge expects it to be.   When we become more conscious and do the reflective work, we clean our lens and see more clearly that we are all in the same  boat, doing the best we can with the resources we have. These include the inner resources of compassion, forgiveness and respect.

We are offering some great presentations and workshops online using iCohere collaborative platform and we are seeking a number of volunteer online hosts who will be able to participate in the conference and perform some support activities.   This is a great opportunity for those who want to participate, but for a variety of reason can’t make it to Nepal in November.  Colleague, Sue James is co-ordinating the online hosting activities.

What are the benefits of volunteering?

• Receive support and training in the virtual conference environment, prior to the conference itself;
• Become part of a global network of volunteers, all of whom share your interest in Appreciative Inquiry;
• Gain personal and professional recognition across the AI community; and
• If you can act as an online host for six (6) hours or more over the four days of the conference, you will receive a 50% discount on virtual conference registration!
• (These hours will not have to be contributed in one block, but can be spread out in two-hour time slots over the four days)

For all the details and to register, please go to http://suejames.com/aihosts2009/

I am fortunate to be able to travel to Nepal for the Conference and will also co-facilitating an online workshop, “Flourishing Destinies: How to Sustain Positive Change.”  I will be happy to answer any questions and request that you use the contact form on this site to reach me.

The environment – nature in this case – provided feedback which supported my experience in the following ways: the embrace of the gentle sea breeze blowing my hair and cooling my skin; the sound of the waves roaring up onto the sand, and being sucked back again, and the noises and sights of the gulls squawking and swooping, and the tiny piping plovers scurrying a constant few feet ahead of me.  This tactile, auditory and visual feedback from nature contributed significantly to my feelings of well-being and my most satisfying performance. I felt supported by the environment.  Furthermore,  I overheard one woman say to another as I passed them, “this is so great.”  I smiled.  A couple of days later, when walking, a man wearing only bathing trunks walked toward me with arms outstretched with a huge grin on his face.  “This is beautiful.  This is the first time I have ever walked to the most north part of Sandy Hook.  It is just so beautiful.”  I congratulated him,  laughing with him as he exuberantly needed to share his feelings of elation and achievement.

Psychologically, I felt light and powerful, and in tune with nature all around.  I felt positive and supported by the environment.   I drew deep breaths to take it all in appreciatively.  I felt the blood pumping in my heart as my pulse intensified with my effort.  My breath quickened and the heat was rising in my body in proportion to the energy I was expending.   I felt fortunate to be in such a place at that moment with an increased sense of well-being just as the other people had expressed.

Then there were the electronic devices that provided me feedback.  I was wearing a heart rate monitor strap around my chest and a watch on my wrist.  I knew exactly my heart rate as I walked, my “lap” time, and the calories I was consuming.  The feedback from these tools helped me track my performance.  Not only was the HR monitor providing me valuable feedback,  I also had my iPhone with an app called MotionX-GPS, in my short’s pocket.   This app tracked my walk. I could see where I was going on the map, the GPS co-0rdinates, my pace, if I chose to look at it in the moment.  My pace was 3.9 miles per hour and if I wanted to get to 4.00 mph, I knew what I had to do!  At the same time, I was listening to music, that inspired me and helped me find a rhythm that worked with my pace.  I also took this photograph with my iPhone.

Would I have enjoyed my walk without my feedback tools – the environment, my psyche and electronic devices.  Yes, and I think the feedback these tools provided me in the moment enhanced my enjoyment and my performance.   Moreover, I can now make choices about my next walks – the conditions of the environment and how they impact my psyche, and the data that I later downloaded from my heart rate monitor and iPhone app, MotionX-GPS to my computer.

Being conscious of my performance helps because it’s in my nature to want feedback – to know how I am doing , how I am serving myself and others, how I am in nature, and in the world at large.   It helps my performance to know how I relate to the context itself and to others.  I learn more about what supports me;  what I value;  how I can evaluate and improve and take corrective action.   I can make choices about the feedback.  It is all information and I can chose to ignore it or use it as a benchmark for something different.

It seems to me that our participation in, and contribution to this world is hugely dependent on the quality of feedback we get from a variety of sources.  We don’t live in isolation; there are feedback loops that that continually inform us.  How much attention we pay to all the feedback that is available to us and what we do with it, is our choice.