Start With What’s Right: Making Change Through Appreciative Eyes
At a time when nothing seems to be heading in a positive direction (the economy and the political campaigns for two), interest in, and passion behind, making change has to start with some nugget of hope. In my latest Huffington Post piece, I consider a way to inspire new thinking that can be applied to marketing to women or any business/life challenge. Here’s a clip:
I recently met someone on a consulting project who got to know my inquiring mind well enough to suggest that I might “appreciate” something called Appreciative Inquiry. The (very) general idea is that groups of people often settle into assumptions as shorthand cues for working together and then forget why they have been thinking one way for so long. Group members will then have trouble digging out from under those assumptions, unless they re-frame the issue(s). The AI theory posits: “Watching a long-held assumption be questioned and replaced tends to inspire people to question other long-held assumptions.” And, a creative vein is opened.
In the marketing to women realm, where I focus much of my attention, a lot of re-framing is begging to be done. The difference in how men and women buy is not an extreme Mars/Venus question, in my mind, but it does involve a raising up and examining a few behavioral patterns — all within a positive frame. So, for example, the issue in training male minds on the topic is not to focus on the fact that “men are so dense that they could never understand a woman’s buying mind” - because that isn’t the case. Instead, try asking whether or not the men, themselves, have noticed that the women they know think and communicate differently. Yes- they probably have. There’s the opening to point out the nuances and make the exploration of this enormous market opportunity a more collaborative and productive pursuit.
If this resonates with you or you have a different perspective - please add a comment to the piece on HuffPo.
