Time to PIVOT!
From our continued chats about UNDERSTANDING we left off with last week’s perspective of the challenge of helping others, our clients, our friends, and all those we serve, tackle the monumental perspective of CHANGE! Introducing that idea was the following…
…Simply, the harsh reality is that if we are going to gain market share, grow the number of clients we have, and grow within those clients we already serve at some level… we must help them to CHANGE their thinking about the work and the decisions that they reached in the past with respect to their choice of suppliers in a given solution set. We must help them CHANGE their thinking, to CHANGE their beliefs, to CHANGE their actions… and choose US. And that is the complex part…CHANGE!
However complex it might seem or be, we CAN achieve it. It is quite doable. We know how, and many of you are good at it already.
Next week we will look at the magic in the use of SMEs and the PIVOT, in helping guide our clients through the CHANGE process.
So let’s dig into the movement from UNDERSTANDING and how we use that perspective to enable the people we are working with to develop their own desire to change.
It must be understood and completely clear that YOU cannot get another person to change their mind. I cannot get another person to change their mind. NO one can get another person to change their mind. The brain does not work that way. No words you speak, no action you take can make that happen. Just the way it works. The reality is clear, only the person themselves can flip the internally operated switch that causes a shift in beliefs.
Now, the harsh reality many times we all spend so much time and effort in communicating to another that they may simply give up, get tired of hearing our babble, and play into your hand of believing they have changed. Submission does NOT equal acceptance! Many people will outwardly appear one way while still believing another way. Just the way it works.
SO…what do we do? Give up? Change our “pitch”? Find another target?
Really, no to all of the above. Our challenge is actually a response that is quite powerful as it is rooted in the desire to help make a difference with others.
It is called simply “The Pivot”. In it’s short form The Pivot requires an absolute acceptance of the other person’s perspective as true and viable, to them, and offering up an ADDITIONAL alternative idea that can ALSO be true.
Studying and executing this requires a bit more time and interaction than this email can accomplish. It can certainly be done virtually and some of its best outcomes have been developed with this in “face to face” video mode.
Properly created and executed, a one to one video call is even more personal and influential than the old sterile conference room hole in the wall conversation could ever be.
The magic in SME utilization comes in the form of the “alternative idea” that can ALSO be true for the person you are serving. A SME has a natural sense of neutrality if introduced into the program properly. A SME must have an open approach and a clear belief that their own way is NOT the only way to create great outcomes. And that neutrality is kept whole as you provide more and more SME’s with increment expertise and solution sets.
The client engagement manager is the project manager for ALL things that take place with a client. It is their challenge to bring as much expert help into the conversation with the client as they can possibly create.
With all of our experience with this metric and it’s known or unknown use over thousands of projects it has never been seen that it is possible to provide TOO MUCH help! Keep asking the client… what more can we look at?
OK, LET’S ROLL!
Time to SERVE, relentlessly!
Mitch
