The direction of decisions

Here is where deep listening comes in, where you begin to listen beyond the content to the process they are about to describe. All decisions have a directional component and there are only two possible directions: toward or away from, a kind of variation on the theme of “fight or flight.”

So let’s say that Jim in our example above says, “Well, my family was pretty poor and I had to work my way through school washing dishes, and I was determined to never have to do that kind of work again to make a living. So I went into medical devices sales for what I thought would be mostly a summer job.”

How is Jim motivated in this example? Is he motivated to move toward something or does his answer indicate that he is more prompted by moving away from something? The answer is that he went into medical device sales to move away from being poor and washing dishes. If Jim had said instead, “I saw medical devices as a way to make more money than I had while washing dishes and it seemed like exciting work,” then clearly the motivational direction would be toward.

Remember, this is all being ascertained during the small talk. Jim has no idea that by answering your question he is telling you not just what he did or even why he did it, but more importantly how. But it is not just “how he got into medical device sales,” it is how he chooses or decides anything. This is one of several critical patterns of decision-making I will share with you as we discover the secret of helping people to make powerful decisions.

The most obvious implication is that when you begin your sales process with Jim by talking about what you do and when you make your final recommendation, how will you frame it? Will you frame your solution as helping Jim to move away from or avoid a problem, or will you frame your solution as helping Jim to move towards what he wants in life?