"It ain't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so"
At today’s pace of change, it’s obvious that the ability to learn is a critical life skill. What may not be so obvious is that the ability to unlearn is at least as important.
When things are stable, it is a virtue to learn something once and for all. A skill that becomes routine saves time and effort, freeing our mind for other things. Fundamental “truths” become a deeply ingrained part of who we are, providing a stable and dependable foundation for choices and decisions. And experts develop excellent intuition through the ability to unconsciously recognize patterns, which is why they can make swift, effective choices when needed.
But when that routine or that knowledge no longer fits the facts, predictions and choices can go awry. I saw a vivid and important demonstration of this in the late 80s, when I was studying for a graduate degree in Soviet Studies. When Mikhail Gorbachev came on the scene, with his ideas of glasnost and perestroika, the Soviet experts who were my professors were confused about how to interpret his words and actions. Drawing on their 40+ years of study, they interpreted Gorbachev through the lens of what they had seen before: it was another underhanded Soviet ploy to trick the West, or to make Reagan look bad. When the Soviets unilaterally declared that they would withdraw 500,000 troops from Eastern Europe, one of my professors declared that this would only make them more dangerous adversaries, because it would allow them to concentrate on quality.
In medicine, Australian doctor Barry Marshall, who won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2005, was literally laughed at and booed by audiences of doctors when he presented his theory that ulcers were caused by bacteria. He finally had to resort to causing his own ulcer by drinking a culture of the bacteria, and then curing himself.
I had to unlearn something myself in writing this post. I was going to cite the example of Ken Olsen, CEO of Digital Equipment Corporation, who famously said in 1977 that there was no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home. Fortunately, I checked the statement before publishing, and discovered that the quote, while accurate, was taken out of context. Olsen was actually referring to a central computer that would control everything from lights, to doors, to preparing meals.
Sometimes the vividness of a lesson causes you to overlearn it, making it nearly impossible to unlearn. Military planners are famous for preparing for the last war, and I suspect that the billions of dollars spent on airport security since 2001 are a symptom of this. (Which reminds me of Mark Twain’s observation that, “the cat, having sat upon a hot stove lid, will not sit upon a hot stove lid again. But he won’t sit upon a cold stove lid, either.”)
Been there, done that—maybe not!
Faced with a situation, we match it to a similar experience, and do what worked then. Learning from experience is a form of reasoning by analogy, but in important situations you should examine the analogy you’re using.
- Try to list the differences between this situation and the one in your mind.
- Get a devil’s advocate, or become your own.
- Look for disconfirming evidence. As uncomfortable as it may be, read something occasionally that you don’t agree with. When observed facts don’t match your assumptions, don’t automatically assume the facts are wrong.
Expertise is a wonderful asset, except when things are in flux. Then, knowledge and experience can be dangerous. When what you know blocks learning, you must unlearn it. What have you unlearned today?
You mean, we have a choice?
I’m getting ready to go to Japan and China to run some classes, and since I haven’t been there in a couple of years, I’ve gone back to some trusty resources to help me ensure that I can speak the language of my listeners. No, I’m not referring to actually learning Japanese and Chinese, but I do want to make sure that I am sensitive to the thinking and communication styles of my hosts and students.
As the world becomes increasingly global, it becomes more and more important for communicators to be aware that there is no one best way of thinking and communicating, and unless you get at least a passing familiarity with other cultures, you are at best leaving effectiveness on the table and at worst at risk of committing a serious faux pas.[1]
When I first went to China about fifteen years ago, I had the good fortune to read a book called Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands 
While that book is still an excellent resource for customs and behaviors, another resource I’ve found to be very useful is Professor Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimensions website. Based on research he did for IBM during the 1970s, Hofstede isolated five cultural characteristics and measured the degree to which they apply to various countries (the definitions are my own, and are vastly simplified).
- Power distance: the amount of respect and acceptance that lower ranking people give to those of higher rank.
- Individualism: the amount of emphasis on group harmony vs. individual needs.
- Masculinity: emphasis on competition and achievement, vs. the feminine values of modesty and caring.
- Uncertainty avoidance: the amount of tolerance for ambiguity and unstructured situations.
- Long-term orientation: this dimension was added later, and describes the extent to which the members are willing to defer rewards.
It’s tough to go into too much detail in a short article, but I have found it helpful to, first, check out the US measurement for each characteristic, and then compare it to that of the country to which I am traveling. From Hofstede’s web site, here are the measurements for the three:
| USA | JAPAN | CHINA | |
| PDI |
40 |
54 |
80 |
| IND |
91 |
46 |
20 |
| MAS |
62 |
95 |
66 |
| UAI |
46 |
92 |
30 |
| LTO |
29 |
80 |
118 |
The web site also has a written explanation for each country that you might find helpful.
Understanding others often begins with understanding yourself, so a third resource that I’ve used and liked is Americans at Work: A Cultural Guide to the Can-Do People
BILL: We need to schedule the next team meeting.
HIROKO: Good idea.
BILL: How about next Tuesday morning?
HIROKO: Tuesday?
BILL: Yes, would 10:30 be OK?
HIROKO: 10:30? Is it good for you?
BILL: Yes, it’s fine.
HIROKO: I see.
After this exchange, Bill confidently enters the meeting date into the calendar, but Hiroko thinks he has made it quite clear that the meeting time is not good for him. He never directly answered Bill’s question, and never said yes.
Although these resources make for fascinating and useful reading, it’s important to keep in mind that they all address averages, not individuals. You can always find impatient Chinese, subservient Americans, and spontaneous Japanese, so don’t try to force-fit everyone you meet into a number.
Secondly, I haven’t seen research along these lines, but in my own travels I’ve noticed that frequently corporate culture exercises greater influence on how people think and communicate than national culture. I saw a dramatic demonstration of this in Japan two years ago, when I worked with two different companies in the same week. In the first, my audience consisted of salespeople, and they fit the Japanese image very closely. Later that week, I trained some engineers who were as open and challenging in the classroom as any American group I’ve worked with, shattering two stereotypes in the process.
There’s a cure for this
The bad news for anyone delivering a presentation is that, despite all your hard work and careful choice of content to include in your presentation, most of it will go in one ear and out the other.
Researchers once ran a test to measure how much of a presenter’s message sticks in the minds of their audience. They found that immediately after a 10-minute presentation, listeners only remembered 50% of what was said. By the next day that had dropped to 25%, and a week later it was 10%.
Why is that important? In a typical strategic sales presentation, your audience members will not make a decision right after you’ve spoken. It might be a week or even longer after your presentation. By that time, they may no longer remember specific details but various audience members may each have their own “headline” in their mind that they retained from the presentation will retain an impression of your message. Or, they may have forgotten the impression but may retain an interesting story or intriguing statistic you gave them.
Since very little of your message will stick, you must be absolutely clear in your mind which 10% you want them to remember, and then design your presentation to make sure that happens. The first step is to choose a clear and compelling theme, as described in last week’s article. In effect, you first write the headline and then craft your content to reinforce, repeat and dramatize it.
If you want to be sure it’s saved in their memory, here are five tools under the acronym SAVER:[1]
STORIES: Stories stick. Humans have passed on learning for millennia, and our brains are exquisitely attuned to hearing them, getting drawn in to their reality, and remembering them. But make your stories have a purpose beyond mere entertainment: because they’re so memorable, it’s important that any story you tell supports your theme or one of your main points.
ANALOGIES: Familiar things are more easily remembered, and analogies make things familiar. If you’re presenting an idea that is a big change from the status quo, analogies can make it seem safer by its familiarity. If it’s a sales presentation, some of the best analogies are drawn from the way your customer does business. If you can show them how your solution fits with something they already do, you get the double benefit of familiarity and credibility.
VISUALS: Forget the myth about auditory, visual and kinesthetic. We’re all visual learners; pictures stay in our minds far more commonly than abstract concepts and words. John Medina tells us in his book Brain Rules
EXAMPLES: Examples make abstract things real. You see it every night on the evening news: if they run a story about the unemployment rate, they will profile a family struggling to make ends meet. Chip and Dan Heath call it the Mother Teresa effect, because she said, “If I see one, I will act.”
REPETITION: Churchill said, “If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time—a tremendous whack.” This is excellent advice, but pay attention to the subtlety: Churchill repeated it slightly differently each time, so that it doesn’t sound repetitious.
When you craft your presentation, first make sure you get your facts straight, but then go back and use SAVER as a checklist to make sure they pack maximum impact.
[1] Actually, acronyms also work well, but I didn’t include them because I couldn’t think of an acronym for the extra “A”.
So, you think your company is customer-focused? If you’re not involving the top executives of your top accounts in your planning, you’re not as customer-focused as you could be. While every B2B company pays lip service to customer focus, few go as far as the prescriptions in The B2B Executive Playbook: The Ultimate Weapon for Achieving Sustainable, Predictable and Profitable Growth
In B2B sales, there is a surprisingly small group of individuals who hold the most control over your fate—your revenue, profitability and market share. They are the executive decision makers of your best customers.
- How often do you talk to them?
- How well do you really know what they think about your company and your offerings?
- Do you know exactly why they buy from you?
- Does your perception of your strengths and weaknesses jibe with theirs?
- If you picked up the phone to call each one, what would happen?
This last question is taken from page 95, which in itself is worth the price of the book. Geehan provides a simple assessment you can use to figure out where you stand on the B2B relationship continuum, which has five descriptions ranging from Commodity Supplier to Business Partner. The phone call test for each one is simple and powerful—and if you answer it honestly, you probably will be disturbed by the result.
The theme of the book is about how to achieve sustainable, predictable and profitable growth (SPPG) through close and active engagement with your top executive customers. While this may not seem like a huge revelation, very few companies do it well, and the value in this book consists of its specific four-step plan for how to accomplish this.
Engage: “Engagement means executive customers are talking to your leadership team directly and without filters.” In this section, Geehan explains how to establish and use an Executive Customer Advisory Council (ECAC) to get your top customers engaged in the process, and whom to include. Because they are the ones who write the really big checks, you can’t leave it entirely in the hands of your account managers; your own executive leadership must be continuously and deeply engaged with them.
Plan: Every company has a strategic planning process, in which they make decisions about strategy, products, markets, resource allocation, etc., but very few involve the stakeholders who vote with their dollars to approve or disapprove of their plans. Geehan advocates Market-Aligned Planning, which uses customer input to help identify which strategies to eliminate, evolve, or acquire.
Collaborate: Most companies equate relationship-building with entertainment. Geehan recommends a much deeper process called Account-Based Innovation, which uses customer inputs to inform choices about R&D and make innovation relevant (and worthwhile). Companies have long learned to minimize internal silos that slow down innovation—this process eliminates the last remaining silo, that between companies and their customers. 60-70% of new products in the B2B space fail; why not give the customer a voice before the cost, trouble and time go into the launch?
Grow: When customers have an early and active role in your planning processes, they often become your best salespeople within their industries. The book cites the example of Henny Penny Corporation, which used the process to design a low oil volume fryer for McDonald’s. That breakthrough led to their being named Worldwide Equipment Partner[1] of the Year in 2010, and that kind of publicity was priceless for other customers.
This book is not for everyone: it’s clearly aimed at those within the company who have primary responsibility for revenue growth. It offers offers clear, direct prescriptions, backed by numerous examples that provide credibility and illumination to the author’s thesis. If you want to listen to the Voice of the Customers that really matter, this book will show you how.
