Decision Making, Visually!

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So, recently, LinkedIn, the professional networking platform, asked me why my activities on their networks standout? Why is it that I am so partial to visual presentations than textual ones? Here are my responses to their questions and I hope you can use them too.

  1. Compared to the rest of the parts of our neo-cortex, our visual cortex is larger, and it stores larger amount of data than all other parts of the neo-cortex. It is also more intimately connected to our deeper, limbic brain. Visuals/Images are attractive, easy to understand, harder to misinterpret and they help us discern and decide more rapidly compared to data from senses like taste, touch and smell. Text or scripts are really tiny images but scores of them have to put together, interpreted correctly before being understood and accepted.

When visuals are colorful they also stimulate and excite the creative, playful nodes in the whole brain. They bring up instantaneous smiles from the viewers while releasing increased happy chemicals inside the brain.

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Intentions of the Salesperson, Sales Coach and the Organization

Well, here’s the second question? In a sales coaching interaction whose intentions must take priority the salespersons, the sales manager’s or the goals of the whole organization? Do take note that I am, specifically, talking about sales coaching and not any other form of coaching.

This was one of the five questions raised during my last HeART2HeART Sales Coaching Seminar. I already answered the first question as to how long should a coaching intervention last through my article; Coaching, Seventy Times Seven.

Now, back to the question whose intentions must be considered most important?

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Appreciative Inquiry, Way of Life

Though this has impacted me several times and through multiple avenues, I can’t seem to be impressed any lesser every time it happens again…the fact that assessing any situation through a proactive stance and doing something concrete about challenges and hopes most often than not generates happy and constructive outcomes.

Recently, I spent three months working with a bunch of senior executives of a global corporation. In the last quarter of last year their sales were down, they were developing lesser new products and people in several of their departments were low on energy and low on engagement. Upon probing deeper and conversing with people at multiple levels we sensed a drop in trust levels among the senior management. Though this was barely visible in their behavior and internal communications, it seems that production, sales and even marketing had read between the lines and gotten a whiff of the underlying tremors. The infliction had spread and was slowing down progress and even routine work.

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Managing the Maps in our Minds

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The maps in our minds are our, very own, perceptions of realities. They are our points of view and since each one of us is totally unique then, obviously, every perspective we own is unique.

That is all fine and dandy but we get into murky waters when we begin to assess other people’s intentions and begin to believe that our assessments are true and that there is no space for doubt. Thus our perceptions become assumptions of truth and we get into murkier waters when we begin to react to these assumptions. These are maps yes, but many a times, negative ones.

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The Map & the Reality

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One of the principles I put across in most of my workshops is that it is fine to mindlessly mouth the adage that change is the only constant in the world. What we do not realize that change is not just a constant but that there are multiple realities and all that we perceive to be realities are also constantly changing. Thus, everything we perceive or “map” to be our reality is not what others perceive it to be. And, not only do these internal maps or perceptions differ but they are also, always, in a constant, frenzied flux. It’s as if all our individual minds are like frenzied snow-globes of different kinds and then we all live, work and progress inside a huge snow-globe called life.

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Intention and Action in Sales

I am a big believer in the power of intention. Of course, believing in the power of intention does not, for me, cross out my faith in the power of action and my trust in taking action. Intention is the non-tangible seed and action is that aspect of all successes that is visible and measurable. Thus, without the right intention, your actions can be insipid and your outcomes can amount to zilch. Nada. Nothing!

In sales and selling when approaching new clients, analyzing their needs and presenting them with options or, even, solutions your true and authentic intentions will have a direct correlation to all outcomes and to the closing of the sale.

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Unleashing Inherent Excellence!

Excellence is not a rigidly defined entity across space and time. It is not a measured standard or a set of capabilities in an individual or an organization. It is regarded as outstanding or very good. It is, in fact, a heady state of mind; an unyielding passion; an attitude; and a definitive choice people make to be as good as they can be, or even better. It is a stretch, a constant strive for perfection. Aristotle claimed it thus, “Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny.

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Coaching & Neuro-semantics

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Though the term neuro-semantics had been on my mental white-board for a while, it re-surfaced during a conversation with Professor Juno Parungao and Engineer Claude Sta Clara, of Mind Pool Inc, Philippines, and a few months ago. I have also, over the years, been professing the finer effects of language and words on human minds using Appreciative Inquiry‘s, “Our Words create our Worlds.”

The study of the words we choose, how we morph our sentences, what assumptions we  unconsciously embed in our questions, and what kind of impact will they have on the people across me has become a living passion for me.  It is powerful and meaningful because, yes, it does really create my world and re-design my future.

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Tango Together, Slowly.

Tango Together, Slowly.

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Twelve years ago, on the way back from Malaysia, after a pre-certification session for Celemi I picked up a book called, ‘The Power of Mindful Learning’ by Professor Ellen J. Langer of Harvard University. Though that was twelve years ago I must confess, in a way, I haven’t put the book down yet. I keep revisiting it to align my work to the subtle and sublime insights, from the book, to learn and how to help others learn better.

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Pause like Pacino

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A week ago, I posted a version of “When Cicero speaks, the world marvels. When Demosthenes speaks, the world marches!” and a lot of people liked it and shared it to their groups. The source and origins of this quote is unknown to me. It could be Plutarch or it could have been former Prime Minister Gordon Brown of United Kingdom. What I know is that I relate to it powerfully, and I like to make everything I put out into the world about communications, about leadership and about unleashing inherent excellence resonate with the essence and the power that lies hidden in this quote. For me, it contracts and consolidates what throbs inside my HeART when i speak. When I speak, thus, I endeavour to stir up thought and churn out massive, constructive and positive action.

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