Decisions, Positions and Frames

 

Making decisions and getting consensus is the most common activity that every person goes through.

Whether in your personal or professional life, we are all selling, all the time.

Selling? I'm not selling anything! Actually, that's not really true. At the most fundamental level, selling is about the transfer of belief. You are trying to get a person or a group to see things the way you do. If they accept that, you make the "sale" (i.e. you have transferred your idea/belief) as another has chosen to accept it.

Where things get hard is when people hold onto certain ideas, frames or positions around a circumstance.

It's interesting how little people realize what they share related to their position without even knowing it. The information is there, as long as you are listening.

Always be listening. When someone repeats a variable or constraint that is a difference, that has major impact. They themselves they may not realize that they are essentially confirming what they are thinking and what holds value for them or what they want while also trying to "accept" your sale that differs on these points.

In the same way, the assumptions that someone makes are equally informative. If someone asks you to do something, to take an action and you don't understand how they could ask that if they had understood or considered your position or interests. 

Two things either happened. They either don't understand what you have shared related to your interests and needs. Or they have understood and they have rationalized it as not important, not an issue or of little consequence. This will cause a challenging situation as it makes the person being asked to explore a different path or solution feeling really unheard or not valued.

No one is a customer for everything. People will either "buy" or they won't. Take the information you have been given, that you have picked up on and decide if there seems like there will be a consensus or not.

In some situations we have to work to make concessions in order to make some progress forward (this is where the idea of splitting the different came from). In other situations however, that is not a viable option as the gap is simply too large or the issues/interests don't allow for decisions that land in the middle.