FranklinCovey-The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Sales Leaders

HABIT 6: SYNERGIZE

Synergy is the co- creation of new possibilities, Dr.

it’s not de-scoping. Rather, it’s catalysing the interaction to empower both sides. This builds even stronger, more durable trust. Imagine if all your sellers could get synergy with each of their clients—experience shows that opportunities would increase, making revenue targets easier to hit. GIVE IT ANOTHER TRY Sometimes you lose hope for synergy because you went for synergy once, you almost got there, and then somehow trust short-circuited and it degenerated into a compromise, or worse, a lose/lose outcome. Even with only one failure, you might approach opportunities for synergy cautiously. And if the need for security is strong, it often smothers synergy before it even has a chance to start. What can you do to get back to synergy? The first step is to rebuild trust. Stephen M. R. Covey talks about smart trust— being willing to invest trust first, even when history would suggest otherwise—as being a socially intelligent thing to do. Extending smart trust means not more than you should, and not less than is necessary to invite the other party to a better place. Be proactive. Rebuild willingness to synergize by consistently making even small deposits in the emotional bank account with that person. The next time you have an opportunity for synergy, with a stronger emotional bank account balance both parties are more likely to extend trust again. Here’s an example of how you might do that.

your worth and your uniqueness. Difference doesn’t threaten me. If I hold you in high esteem, when you see differently I truly want to know what you see, how you feel, and why your experience is different from mine. Curious as to why you see things differently, I’m much more likely to listen empathically and to be influenced by you. Again, if you and I were talking, the action step I take is to listen to you first. That gives you psychological and emotional air, so to speak. This is a concept psychologists call reciprocity: if you feel you have been truly heard and understood, then and only then are you willing to listen as deeply to my views or concerns; you’re more open to be influenced by my views. An exchange like this sparks synergy. The world needs synergy! Imagine how far synergy would take us in our diversity and inclusion efforts if we truly valued difference instead of sameness; if our mindset is one of abundance and respect, not scarcity and threat. Imagine how we could solve the social problems we face if people on either side of an issue weren’t threatened by the differences of the other side. Understanding does not equal agreement. But lack of understanding stops us dead in our tracks and keeps us from synergy. I invite you to increase your awareness your own and humanity’s need for synergy as a means for solving the vexing problems we face. But more than just saying, “Here, here,” take action. Put synergy to work where you can. In my view, it’s the most effective path that leads to enduring success.

tell us how you’d approach this problem we’re facing?” They pump you for loads of information and tactical details, and you respond openly. Then, later, you find out the client executed the project on their own. As a result, you feel like they took advantage of you. In order to rebuild trust, and ensure the same thing doesn’t happen again, you can rebuild trust by applying the second half of Habit 5. “Seek to be Understood” and courageously put a yellow light on the table. Investing respect first, you would say, “Thank you for another chance to help you get your head around some problems you face. We appreciate the confidence you extend to us by inviting us in. (pause) Before we continue, I’d like to bring up a mild concern. The last time we met, you asked us a lot of questions and we shared quite a bit of information. In retrospect, I feel like we shared proprietary knowledge about how to solve the problem. That’s on us. So as we engage in our conversation today, if I feel our conversation is drifting from understanding the problem into how you could solve this problem, I’ll point it out so I don’t feel obligated to share proprietary information. Does that seem reasonable?” A violation of trust in a relationship almost always stems from missed expectations; expectations that weren’t clear or weren’t communicated at all. It’s unlikely you can get to synergy until that’s been repaired. When you share your motive and invite the other person to agree to a common intent, you strengthen the trust between you. And you strengthen the commitment to clarify and keep expectations. Approaching an interaction from a protective stance is not

synergistic and it’s not abundant. It’s a defensive and scarcity approach that says, “They took advantage of us once, I’m not going to let that happen again.” If that’s your mindset, you will watch the other party’s interactions for evidence that they plan to rip you off. And you can find it, just as you can find evidence that they have no intention of doing that. Maybe the other party genuinely didn’t think their actions were inappropriate. An underestimated and very real benefit of the security that comes from having a personal mission statement (Habit 2) and trust in yourself is you get good at investing trust first— not foolishly, but building trust carefully over time and not overextending it. You can use the other habits to build trust and demonstrate your openness, and then you can risk trying again because you trust the principle of synergy. VALUING- NOT SIMPLY ACKNOWLEDGING- DIFFERENCES If you and I approach an interaction from a scarcity mindset—if we are both reactive emotionally or intellectually, or if we feel threatened—it produces negative synergy. Because neither of us has a deep core of integrity and security to listen from, we think, “I’m not going to get what I want, so I’m going to get as much as I can.” That’s when one plus one equals less than two. Conversely, respecting and truly valuing differences rather than being threatened by them is a powerful strategy to get synergy. If even only one party is secure and abundant it changes the interaction in a big way. If I’m anchored to abundance, only then I can genuinely esteem

Covey explains that it, “unifies and unleashes the greatest powers within people.”

COURAGE AND CONSIDERATION

Let’s say you had a client with a history of asking, “Can you

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