Hero's Code

Power and the Leader

In the popular media, the leader of an organisation is often pictured at the top of some pyramid-shaped organisational chart. Or maybe this leader is an entrepreneurial hero depicted as "way out front" of everyone else, including his or her own employees.

Perhaps it would make a lot more sense to imagine the organisational pyramid as inverted with ourselves - the leaders - at the bottom. 

With this position, the leaders influence and power flows upward by example and not downword by words alone. After all, we all know how the word can be contaminated as it filters through the hearts and minds of so many.  The greatest power lies at the top - at the point of contact between an organisation and its clients.

If we imagine this pyramid as a heavy weight, balanced on a point, the leader's role is to balance this weight .  The leader can help participants to enjoy more thoughtful, caring power.  Making sure that no one part of the whole thinks more of itself than any other.

Such a leader has to be "centred".  Because so much work is happening "above" the leader, he or she can be freer to pay attention to what is happening to the balance of the whole.  If the pyramid were actually a gyroscope, its active balance would be in tune with the earth's rotation through time.

When a leader is in this position at the base of the pyramid there is access to real power.

Think of it this way. The great oceans lie lower than all of the rivers and draws their power as water flows down to it.  Is this is the secret of a leaders power?  To place one's self below the people by caring less about pride or ego? Like the leaders power, water flows into the sea to return, endlessly, back to the rivers in rain.

Without the people's gifts, the leader has no power.

First - know nothing

It's amazing how dysfunctional organisations can be when it comes to person to person communications. Honest and open? Sadly, not often the case.

Is your company a real "learning organisation" or is it so locked into the lessons and behaviours of the past that it can't possibly operate effectively in the present?

In ancient times. leaders knew that the more knowledge and information people gathered, the less they tended to learn and therefore the less they really knew.  People who believe they know everything are very hard to guide - whilst people who understand they know nothing guide themselves wisely and learn as they go.

There is a famous story, retold in the Bruce Lee film "Enter the Dragon", of a professor of religion who went to interview a well-known monk. When they sat down to their meeting the monk began to pour  his visitor a cup of tea. However, he kept pouring until the teacup was overflowing and tea spilled all over the floor.

"What are you doing?" cried the surprised professor. "Pouring tea," relied the monk calmly. "You see - your mind is like this teacup.  It is so filled with your own ideas that nothing else can possibly go in. Empty your mind first, so that we can truly begin."

As a leader in your organisation ask yourself if you

• protect the right of people within the organisation to disagree fully and completely as well as respectfully
• protect people's right to say what they believe to be true without fear of punishment or retribution.
• encourage people to express their feelings and deep intuitions - even when these appear to go against the apparent "facts"
• welcome challenges to assumptions - especially yours!

Two types of compromise

One Zen master said "nothing goes the way we think it will."  This is an expression of a useful mindset rather than a statement of absolute fact.

We continually meet barriers which block us at every turn; at least it can seem so at times in our everyday lives.

When planning our business or personal lives we have to expect that our best efforts to predict an outcome can never bring certainty.  Sure - we need to recognise the errors, risks and pitfalls that would be fatal to a business or venture, but sometimes the only way we truly understand what is possible is to take serious action.  As Richard Bandler says - it is usually necessary to take serious action rather than act seriously.

To say that the world doesn't go the way we want is not an excuse to become passive about our goals or expectations for life.  It does mean that we need to become more sensitive, alert, aware, resourceful, caring and compassionate from one moment to the next.

Often it looks as though we have to always compromise because so many forces outside of ourselves will shape the outcomes of our actions.  If you and I play the game by just calculating possible gains and losses we are likely to be defeated from the very beginning because such calculations  can never be accurate and free from assumption.

In martial arts of old the essential mindset was to expect to lose everything and anticipate that all would go against you.  From that position, the game is one to overcome these problems by effort and devotion as they show up.  No compromise.

There are two kinds of compromise though.  Certainly, one type is that of moment-to-moment blending of our actions with our environment and the people around us. The second type of compromise is a form of escape or surrender, where we lack energy or will to achieve our expectations and goals.  Too many people make compromise out of personal convenience, greed or laziness and then wonder why they cannot achieve their goals.

In dealing with others, like it or not, we must always compromise. 
In dealing with ourselves, our standards and expectations, no compromise is necessary.

When considering the likely success or failure of a new project, when all the  calculations of risk and return have been made, individuals will tend to look at the "facts" and come up with different conclusions about what should be done. Some will always say, rather than risk failure we should give up now. This may say more about them than the truth of the situation.

Once upon a time a traveller wasn't sure of his way. As he walked along he saw an old man sitting by the side of the road.  The man was very dirty and wore rags for clothes but he did have the bearing of a priest or holy man. The traveller approached the old man respectfully and asked him how long it would take to reach the next city.  The old man looked up at him but said nothing.  Again, the traveller asked his question but the old man just stared blankly back at him.

Finally, the traveller just gave up, thinking that the old man was mad or stupid and just started to stride up the road again.  After a few steps the traveller heard the old man cry out, "Five hours!"
The traveller was surprised and a bit angry.  "Why did you just sit there saying and doing nothing when I asked you how long it would take?"

Replied the old man, "How could I tell until I saw how fast you could walk?"

Without us having the courage at some point to act without compromise and commit fully to our goals how can we truly understand or achieve anything?

He who hesitates..

I read this tip going through my pile of newsletters and notes. You know the one - the one with all of those papers that are not quite urgent enough to be dealt with instantly and yet intriguing enough to stay out of the waste basket.

Jamie Smart gets the credit for his interesting cure for hesitation. The Pizza Walk experience.

Have you noticed that situations do crop up in our lives when we tend to hesitate.  Did you find your particular situation yet? It's the type of situation that can be very frustrating and you probably recognised at the time that "we really do need to act" and yet something stopped you.

As a freshman University student (quite a while ago) I was interested in motorcycles and girls. But the motorcycles were easier to talk to and I could look them straight in the headlamps. A friend cured me of the GCH (girl communication hesitation) virus by embarrasing me so much that I just had to act.

And you know how it is, when you really get down to it, the real act is never as bad as you hallucinated it to be.  In fact looking back now it seems a shame that you and I allowed hesitation to spoil our fun for so long. Sound familiar?

I flirted with network marketing a number of years ago too.  This involved cold-calling individuals on the phone to sell them on the idea of a meeting.  I met lots of well meaning people just like me who just could not pick up the phone and make one call. Some who would have lost a limb rather than make a bunch of phone calls.

It is a fact that hesitation is a curse in some situations and a blessing in others.  Our physiology is, after all, equipped for an era rather different than the one we face in modern society.

The I Ching hints at the origins of our species:-

In the beginning there was no moral nor social order. Men knew their mothers only, not their fathers. When hungry they searched for food; when satisfied, they threw away the remnants. They devoured their food, hide and hair; drank the blood and clad themselves in skins and rushes.

Our physiology is designed to recognise and respond to threats- or more correctly, perceived threats.
In our path through life we "learn" to avoid making mistakes. After all you know making mistakes may be dangerous.  And yet making mistakes is essential for all of us who want to learn something new.

It could be that we have the potential to play in many activities of life that could bring us joy and personal growth and yet we have encoded them unconsciously as dangerous - places we should not explore.  At a deep level our unconscious knows we had better hesitate and so we wait and wait and wait.

So to Jamies tip.

One day in London, I was on the tube on the way to train some telesales people, helping them to overcome ‘sales call reluctance’ (ie. not wanting to pick up the telephone & dial.)  I was reading the book Change (by Watzlawick, Weakland & Fisch) & came across a story describing how Watzlawick helped a student who had been unable to complete his thesis due to anxiety.  He told the student “Go into three shops over the next week & make an absurd request.”  The student did so, reported a shift in attitude, & finished their thesis shortly thereafter.

I loved the idea, & thought it might be useful with the reluctant telesales team, but I knew that I couldn’t ask them to do something I wasn’t willing to do myself.  I said to myself “You have to do this”, & as soon as I got off the tube, I went into a well-known fast-food hamburger joint outside the station.  I joined the queue, looking around at the other customers.  My heart was pounding like a drum; even though I knew rationally that I was in no danger, my neurology was responding as though I were about to stick up a bank.

When I got to the counter, I looked at the person behind it &, with a straight face, asked for a ham & pineapple pizza.  She looked confused and said “What?”  I repeated my request.  She said “We don’t sell those.”  “This is a chinese restaurant isn’t it?” I replied.  She said no, I said thanks anyway and left.  I felt like I had just knocked out Mike Tyson – I felt invincible!

Please, before you send me loads of email saying how childish this is,  I know.  But the result was amazing.  In the days following, I did several similar acts.  Each time, my physical response was diminished, but in other areas of my life, the opposite happened.  I started to exhibit less hesitation and more wanton ‘go for it’ than ever before!

Thrilled with my success, I invited the telesales people to do similar absurd acts, and they reported similar liberating results.  I knew I was onto something.

The Pizza-walk Experience

A few years ago, I became interested in Tony Robbins & went to one of his weekends, eagerly anticipating the fire-walking, which I had heard so much about.  I was really looking forward to it, and Robbins did a great job of building up the anticipation, but when the time came, I found it impossible to actually believe that walking on the hot coals was in any way dangerous.  As a result, walking across them didn’t have much impact on me as a metaphor for overcoming fears in other areas of my life (though I know it really works for some people.)

By comparison, The Pizza-walk Experience costs nothing, can be done virtually anywhere, and is incredibly powerful.  So…

1)      Identify a few of the areas in your life where you hesitate and would like to just go for it.

2)      Choose a commercial premises (eg. shop, restaurant, petrol station) and make an absurd request (ie. ask for something they definitely don’t sell) while keeping a straight face.  Be polite, safe and non-threatening.

3)      Repeat twice more in the course of a week.

4)      Look forward to the situations where in the past you would have hesitated, and enjoy your new responses.

One of my clients used to have difficulties asking women out on dates.  I sent him out to a burger joint to get some Italian food.  Within the week he had a date and today has a full diary [2005 update – he’s moved to Australia & is engaged to be married!].  This stuff works!

For those of you who are worried about the person behind the counter, in all the times I’ve done this, their response has been anywhere from bemused to very amused, but not frightened.  The key is for you to be non-threatening and polite (ideally coming across as a bit confused.) For those of you who are thinking this is pointless, foolish or humiliating – you probably need this more than most

So there you have it.  The key is to do this as soon as possible. The results will amaze you and the sooner you start the sooner you benefit.

Imaginary mentors

I’ve been challenging you to recognise that you can literally choose to adopt some personal characteristics you previously believed you didn’t have. 

Maybe some of you are tempted to feel that this idea can’t work for you.  Just be aware that this is just your past conditioning talking.  If this is a challenge for you then you need to have a sense of play about this at first and don’t make it so serious a matter that your fears surface and block your progress.

All creativity requires a sense of play and even drama.  I want you to imagine that your life is a play and that you are a very worthy and leading actor.  By casting life in these terms we give ourselves permission to achieve attitudes and actions that can be far greater than our fears.  This is a very potent form of make-believe.

When involved in difficult business decisions I might wonder to myself, “How would Richard Branson behave in this situation?”  By invoking an image of Richard Branson, I can put myself in touch with the part of myself that has the same business qualities as Richard Branson. 

Holding that vision in mind allows me to tap resources that my conscious mind would not normally allow.  Now understand that I am not trying to become Richard Branson as a whole.  I’m just choosing a part of his persona that can serve me.

When my awareness tells me I’m being tempted to give up with a situation, I think of the persistence, the power and the humour of Sir Ranulph Fiennes.  The world’s greatest living explorer has qualities that I can usefully adopt in some of life’s hard moments. 

My mother and father, although dead, still live in my imagination and through unconditional love for me can still provide a source of strength and inspiration.  I can ask how they would advise me.  You’ve got the idea. Choose your imaginary mentors and choose wisely.

An acquaintance of mine is an investment banker and he invokes the qualities he imagines were possessed by a medieval samurai who was noted for his ruthless and unbeatable skills in the art of war.  An important point here is that whilst this approach may prove to be effective in the moment, there is a law in the universe that says that what you put out is what you tend to get back – only many times over.

Napolean Hill, in his famous book “Think and Grow Rich” referred to the actions of Andrew Carnegie and his group of imaginary advisors – a mastermind group with a breadth of skills that can be called on in the imagination to access a broader perspective on any problem.  Other authors refer to this technique as the adoption of a Spirit Mentor.  Here is a method to help you get started.

This is a very powerful tool and you have the whole world of personalities from the past and present to choose from – you don’t personally have to know them although there will obviously some aspects to their abilities that you value.  We can call on one or more of these imagined mentors to help us through tough times and fully realise our true selves.

1)    Make a list of those you respect or admire and write down why you admire them.  Who do you call upon now when you need help or even when you want to celebrate?  What qualities in these people could help you in your business, job or life?
2)    How do you imagine they lead their lives? Is there anything in your life that is similar to that description?
3)    What habits do you imagine they have that you could usefully choose to adopt?  In what ways would these benefits help you?
4)    What are they doing – what did they do – that you might like to do?
5)    Write three small steps you can take in that direction?  How would this feel?

I like to relax, close my eyes, and in my thoughts ask each of my imaginary mentors for a view of my choices and options for the challenges of life.  Try it.  It will activate your sense of wonder – the creative power that we all have in abundance.

If you find this a challenge, just ask yourself a question with a real sense of play.  Be childlike again and ask yourself

“I wonder what ---------- would do in this situation?” 

By treating this as if it were a game you stop your critical, logical conditioning from popping up and telling you this is a waste of time.  You give your creative self full permission to speak and believe me it will.

Practice can make perfect

If you play golf you have probably been to a driving range.  You get your fifty balls or more and you hammer them into the distance and kid yourself that you are practicing.  Well, I guess you are practicing, but for most of us we are simply reinforcing bad habits.  The real professional takes an afternoon to hit fifty golf balls because each one is an investment in perfecting technique.  There is a world of a difference.

Practicing everything is not about turning life into a series of routine drills, duties or drudgery. On the contrary, a reawakened interest in the quality and refinement or your actions or words will bring new levels of involvement and make an art out of living.

After all, remind yourself you are practicing things for a reason.  It’s so that you can really excel and achieve your goals.  Keep your goals in mind when you practice because it is that intention that will make your practice effective and reduce the behavioural inertia that is just waiting to embrace you and welcome you back into the masses.

Sports psychology shows that mental rehearsal combined with physical practice is much more powerful than physical practice alone.  When athletes fear failure, that emotion must manifest in the body and interfere with performance.  Fear produces tension in muscles that will slow an athlete down and rob them of power.  Physical practice helps but it cannot, by itself, simulate the competitive situation with its rich tapestry of sensory input.  The roar and feel of the crowd and the presence of the competition can erode the will of the greatest physical specimen if they are not mentally prepared. 

The subconscious mind does not know the difference between the physical world, perceived through our senses, and an imaginary world constructed through mental rehearsal.  The athlete, like Mohammed Ali can rehearse success over and over in mental pictures and this teaches the mind and body to be our true servant.

Understand that this is not just for athletes.  Sales people should mentally rehearse their sales calls.  Business leaders can mentally rehearse meetings and presentations.  Parents can mentally rehearse challenging dialogues with their children.  There is no limit to how this idea can be applied because we are just talking about the practice of life.

Practicing life

If there is a key to doing better in anything in life it starts with practicing.

Now practice, unlike the times (maybe most times) in life when we are on auto-pilot, involves attention to detail and conscious refinement.  When we practice anything, we are paying special attention with the real intention to refine a personal quality, skill or aptitude.  We know that humans are just fantastic at picking up habits but not all of them serve us.

Suppose you became a sales person.

A couple of difficult weeks out from basic training most of the initial enthusiasm is gone because you can’t seem to get appointments and the ones that you do make are a disaster.  That experience might just create a limiting belief such as “I can’t sell”. 

Our fundamental human need for comfort and certainty means that we will continue in the future to live as if that adopted belief were the absolute truth – when all along it is simply an imagined association of a cause and an effect. 

As we will find out when we look at the brain and how it deals with emotion, we are “wired” that way.  Our brain looks for such associations to make sense of a confusing world and keep us safe.  Once a pattern, a habit like that, becomes established it can be difficult to break.  If an experience is intense enough we don't even have to repeat it for it to become a habit.

One school of thought seems to be that if we grit our teeth and use our willpower we can break through this pattern.  Occasionally, sheer determination may be enough, but usually it’s not; unless we actually become aware of what is working and what isn’t working we will just tend to wear ourselves out.

Repeating over and over an ineffective pattern is not practicing.  We become like a fly trapped in a room.  Repeatedly the fly smacks against the window, drawn to the light but completely unaware that something unyielding is in the way.  Flies and people may exhibit lots of motivation and energy but doing again and again what cannot work will never take them toward a goal. 

For example, parents who constantly nag their children may find that the more energy they put into this nagging tactic the worse the actual result.

It’s all made up because of how we chose to practice and analyse our results.  We surely don’t really want to make the mistake of simply going through the motions and creating patterns of habit and behaviour which are actions - without conscious thought.

If you can learn to notice yourself trapped in a limiting pattern of behaviour you can and must somehow interrupt this before you can move on.  First of all, noticing what you are doing isn’t always easy. 

Maybe for the tenth time this week you are starting to nag your daughter about the state of her bedroom.  Anybody recognise this kind of pattern?  Ok so this time you notice what you are starting to do and realise that it didn’t work the previous nine times.  What chances do we have of success this time?  What you need to do is interrupt this pattern and I don’t just mean walk away seething and frustrated.  For example, you might instead drop to your knees and just laugh out loud.  Walk over, give her a big hug and tell her you love her.  Your chances of getting a result just increased many times as did the chance of keeping your connection with your daughter.

The secret to interrupting a damaging pattern is to do something unexpected that breaks it.  You were like a needle stuck in the groove of a damaged record.  Your pattern wasn’t getting you anywhere.  When you are practicing, make sure that you are aware of what you are doing and make sure it’s something you truly want to repeat.

Domesticated humans - behavioural inertia

There is a strange kind of behavioural inertia – a comfortable complacency that seems to keep most of us routed in particular patterns of behaviour. 

If you’re a fan of the Star Trek TV programme you will remember the species called the Borg.  These part flesh, part machine, entities have a completely shared consciousness they refer to as “the collective”.

The Borg like to spend all of their time roaming the Galaxies, overpowering any new species they find and “assimilating” them into the collective.  The humans in the series fear the Borg more than anything else because they are unstoppable; the loss of identity and freedom that comes with being part of the collective are seen as a fate worse than death.   

Of course the Borg can be clearly recognised as an enemy. They are an alien species, easily identified and impossible to ignore.

It strikes me that our behavioural inertia is an enemy too, but it is much more subtle than the Borg because it comes from within each of us.  It feels comfortable and part of who we are.  In fact people often wrongly associate their behaviour with who they really are and aren’t aware that this stops them and millions of other people from gaining greater enjoyment and success in life. 

Psychology recognises that this behaviour comes from one our deepest most fundamental needs as a human being.  It’s about survival and having the feeling of being safe requires us to satisfy this need. Anthony Robbins refers to this as the need for “certainty” and points out that although there are many ways of satisfying this need, not all ways are helpful. 

God definitely has a sense of humour though because, as well as this need for security, comfort and certainty he also gives us a need for surprise, excitement, personal growth, and discovery.  How we cope with this apparent paradox is vital to our success and our feeling of self-worth. 

We can learn to enjoy change and recognise the positive opportunities that this can bring.  We can learn to feel safe because of change – not just in spite of it.

Behavioural inertia affects more than our physical health.

In our modern economy we need lots more people who want to create value for themselves and others and contribute to the advancement of society in all possible ways.  I call these people entrepreneurs.  The usual definition of an entrepreneur is the creator of businesses. 

In this article we use a rather broader definition so whether you are an athlete or a social worker, a doctor or a teacher, a carpenter or an officer worker, a priest or a designer, an actor or an explorer, you too can be an entrepreneur.  In order to do well in any walk of life it’s about being a creator and taking action with purpose and persistence.

We need entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial organisations; both large and small.  Lots of studies suggest that we need this drive to create wealth for our societies.  But something seems to be missing. 

Budding entrepreneurs can find people willing to listen (if they are lucky) but in practical terms, support is often thin on the ground.  Entrepreneurs explore risk and the “territory of the unknown” so it may be that the vast majority of us treat this activity with some suspicion.  There are usually powerful forces at work that mean that change is often slower – much slower - than the mind of the typical entrepreneur can tolerate.

Large businesses like to encourage creativity and entrepreneurial behaviour because this is where new world beating products and services will come from.  Business leaders might know what they would like their organisation to achieve but the challenge of making it happen starts with the attitudes, beliefs and expectations of the individual.  That’s you and I folks. 

If we want success it starts with each of us.

We have to take responsibility for creating our own success and it starts by seeking inner mastery and by moving step by step out of the inertia that holds us back.  Empowered people want to work in organisations that lead, contribute value and inspire.

It is my belief that if we paid as much attention to the thoughts we allow in our minds as the food we place in our mouths we would be much more productive, healthier and an awful lot happier.  Our thoughts can help us on the path to self mastery and add so much to our lives.

Healthy attitudes?

I am a fan of Lance Armstrong.  Like many people I've been watching his exploits in the Tour de France. Whether he wins or not the guy is simply incredible. I met him a year and a half ago through a client and he's one exceptional human being.

Here is a Lance anecdote for you

"Cycling is so hard, the suffering is so intense, that it's absolutely cleansing," Lance Armstrong wrote in his autobiography (It's Not About the Bike).

"The pain is so deep and strong that a curtain descends over your brain... Once, someone asked me what pleasure I took in riding for so long. 'Pleasure?' I said. 'I don't understand the question.' I didn't do it for pleasure. I did it for pain."

Few of us see things through Lance's perspective but when I met him it made me embarassed to consider myself as physically fit. Oh well.

Let’s consider health for a minute. 

Many people I meet in Europe and North America are on a diet.  Perhaps they need to be.  As I write this I’m also preparing to give a presentation on the complications of diabetes and the statistics show 150 million people to be affected world-wide and the numbers are growing all the time. 

What concerns the medical profession is how the profile of people being affected is changing.  Obesity, lifestyle and lack of exercise are strongly implicated as part of the problem and if present trends continue we will have 300 million people with diabetes in the world by 2025.

It’s not immoral to be a couch potato but the bottom line is that if you have not had a lick of exercise since Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister you are, in fact, engaging in very-high risk behaviour. 

Usually when people mention high risk behaviour the talk is about bungee jumping, sharing needles, unprotected sex and so on.  However research clearly shows that cancers, heart attacks and strokes are directly related to your lifestyle, your response to change and your activity level. 

It’s literally a matter of life or death.  I just have to believe that the average person is at least aware of the value of regular exercise and nutritious foods, so why don’t we all choose to act on this knowledge?

In public health issues, simply providing information about health has never been enough to make people take action.  In the UK, the National Health Service is often reported to be failing not because of the organisation or the intentions of the people who work in it – but because not enough people in our population take some responsibility for their own health. 

I for one don’t want the State to take responsibility for me and anyway when the State has to act for us they have to go to pretty bizarre lengths to make any impact.  As I write this, the local news is once again reporting that brewers are being encouraged to add extra B vitamins into a pint of beer.  The concern is that people spending too much time consuming beer are not getting balanced meals or adequate nutrition.  Oops.

Somehow I’m not sure that even the extra B vitamins will ensure that the liver remains in good health.  Interestingly, the average UK expenditure per head on alcohol is £500 per year; I wonder if knowing this fact would make more people consider investing in nutritional supplements or a gym membership?

In sales - guilty until proven innocent

If we are in  sales we should seek to understand a client's needs before we seek to be understood.  For many of us this can be easier said than done.

Nothing happens until someone sells something. 

This is the slogan a friend of mine has had on his desk for the last 10 years.  A constant reminder that if you are not meeting the needs of clients in exchange for money you won't stay in business very long.   And of course we can't meet the needs of people if we can't communicate with them first of all.  This can be a challenge.

The trouble is that company buying practices tend to be dysfunctional.  And they are this way because of the perceived need to combat dysfunctional selling practices.  If you are in a sales role, the reality seems to be that you are guilty until proven innocent.  Try phoning any corporate contact of significance when they don't know you and you don't know them.

A sales manager friend expressed a view that "I often see buyers who would rather continue with  an inferior product backed by inferior service than risk trying a new vendor." 

The reason for this is that the  buyer's view of the world is that sales people  can be ignorant, arrogant and incompetent.  As a result barriers are erected.  They are saying in effect, "Don't let them near me, I can't afford to waste my time."

Maybe at some point in your life you have seen a doctor test someones' reflexes.  For example, a gentle tap to the  patellar tendon just below the knee will create a knee-jerk response if the limb is free to move. It's a cause and effect reflex.  Hit the point in a certain way and the response is inevitable and predictable.

In dysfunctional sales situations the behaviours can be just like this reflex behaviour. 

The trouble is, if we have a great product or service this is a waste of time - for both parties.

If you are a consultant or a coach, how you sell is a covert and free example of how you solve problems or bring clarity.  But if they never get to see you in action or how you can work with them in person, it's  understandable that they might never choose to buy from you.

In sales we do first need to understand and then be understood.  Trying to meet with the people who make a sales decision is a point at which we have potentially switched from inquiry to advocating a solution.  This then is not a time to be asking more questions - if you do you are likely to trigger some reflexes.

You say "Can I speak to the members of the selection committee?"
They say "No"
You say "Well, can I speak to the Managing Director then?"
They say "No"

The client might ask us to spend considerable amounts of time and money on developing and presenting a solution.  It's reasonable to assume that the effort we put in is valuable to them.  If not, why are we bothering?  All we really want then is a value exchange.

We will be happy to put in the time to develop a solution, without a guarantee of winning the business, as long as we have access to the information we need to make our suggestions relevant and meaningful. 

Why not say, "Ms Buyer, our goal is to get you a solution which is a perfect fit for your needs.  Before we can make an intelligent proposal I need to have information and perhaps access to people who are stakeholders  for these needs. Now you know the organisation better than I do.  How can I make this happen?"

In the complex world we live in, organisations face constant change and dysfunctional buying and selling seem to be barriers for both  parties.  An antidote more and more of us use is to develop our networks and personal profiles - by giving of ourselves  and being of service to develop relationships based on trust .  One of the things that we are learning is that networks and relationships penetrate any organisation.