The Truth About Success: Beyond Best Practices
Garrison’s bottom line on key business issues

Communicating change management
Resistance to change is the issue. When things change, people are afraid they will no longer be experts. They will have to learn the new way, and no one wants to be a continuous senior beginner. Our studies show that to make change work, we have to prove to our key people that the change means getting better (or at least equal) results than the old way, assure them that their experience has value, and then get them to spread that message through the organization.

What the most EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATORS do CONSISTENTY
When you tell someone you know exactly how they feel, you rob them of their uniqueness. Our three-year study of top communicators showed that when someone tells you their core issues and you say, “we had a situation exactly like that last month, and as a matter fact the guy looked just like you, and this is what we did,” you create your own resistance. They will then try to show you how their problems are special and need more of your attention. However, if you acknowledge the difficulty of their problem and then share your experience in similar situations (the key word being similar), they are more likely to use your solutions.

Organizational change
The fewer moving parts something has, the less likely it is to break down. Before you decide that everyone has to become more organized, you might want to simplify the system as much as possible. (Be careful! Simplification can get complicated!) After you have done all you can, providing training that begins with clearly defined outcomes and includes hands-on experiential learning techniques can have maximum impact on your organization's belief systems.

Sales and service
If you make people feel important, you and what you have to offer will be important to them. Our studies of the most effective sales and service providers indicate that showing respect for someone’s opinion gives yours value. Being considerate of others' ideas gives your message clarity and increases your chances of gaining agreement.

Time control
You can’t manage time; you cannot manage anything on which you have no effect. Trying to live your life by the clock will make most of us nutty. The people who are the most productive figure out the most important activities every day and focus on results, not just scheduled activities. There is an old saying that goes “Take care of the small stuff, and the big stuff will take care of itself”. Our studies could find no evidence of this style among top producers. Their motto is, “Work on the big stuff, and if you are doing small tasks, they better be connected to the big stuff”.

Real motivation
We have all heard that if we just try hard enough, we can do anything. The problem is we don’t all have the willingness to put in the extra effort. Our research on what highly motivated people actually do proves that aligning your goals with your talents and doing more of what you do well is the key to success.

Visual design
Websites and brochures that have low-end graphics cannot compete. We live in a full-color, high-animation world, and everyone we surveyed (literally 100%) said that they question the competence and credibility of any organization or individual with questionable design work. Look at the competition in your market, get a second opinion, and see how you compare. You may be losing business because you don’t look like you can do the job.

Listening like an Industry Leader
The most consistent results of our research over the last five years connect success with listening. This article may change the way you think about building trust. Check out this article

A note from Garrison
Thanks, everybody, for making the first quarter of 2004 our best ever! We really appreciate your business and your help with our continuing research on the Truth about Success.