The "Bigger Picture" Story

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
–Charles Darwin

We once thought selling to be a problem-solving process based on the paradigm that decision-making is logical and rational. Understanding how humans really decide to act is actually a story of technology. Technology changes paradigms.

People once believed Earth was the center of the universe and all other objects orbited around it. Aristotle’s geocentric model served as the predominant cosmological system and the accepted paradigm into the sixteenth century. There were many good reasons to believe all heavenly bodies circled our planet. Astrological observations suggested that the stars, our sun, and all known planets revolved around Earth each day, making Earth the center of that system. The second common notion supporting the geocentric model was that Earth does not seem to move. To an earthbound observer, our planet appears grounded, solid, and stable. What better hypothesis could anyone have come up with, other than Earth was the center of the universe? There was no other explanation.

With the advent of the telescope, Copernicus observed new phenomena, such as instances of moons orbiting other planets. To the majority of people at the time, however, the evidence was not strong enough to change their beliefs. In 1609, further advancements in technology enabled Galileo to seriously question the geocentric paradigm. He was able to see the moons of Jupiter orbiting the planet. However, the evidence was still not great enough to change most people’s minds. It took one more year of technological progress on the telescope before the tipping point arrived. In that one defining year, as the technology of the telescope advanced, Galileo was able to observe additional planets in orbit around a greater body, just as he had observed with the moons of Jupiter. This was enough evidence to finally dispel the prevailing state-of-the-art model. Through disruptive technology, the world’s leading cosmological paradigm was finally turned on its head: Earth was no longer the center of the universe. “All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered,” said Galileo. “The point is to discover them.”

Logic is No Longer the Center of the Sales Universe.

Since recorded time, people have also been attempting to understand how our brains work and how we decide to act. In addition to the geocentric model, Aristotle also declared that reason and logic are at the center of our decision-making processes. Aristotle thought that emotion wreaks havoc on the decision-making process and that decisions should be grounded primarily in logic, reason, and rational thought. The science of the time and his own theory of "have knowledge of a scientific fact when we can prove that it could not be otherwise" kept his own paradigms intact. The realm of emotion, intuition, and "gut feel" went unexplained for centuries. Meanwhile, the paradigm of logic and reason became the basis for the study of influence and persuasion and found its way into twentieth- and early twenty-first-century paradigms of selling.

Just as Aristotle lacked a telescope that could reveal the true nature of the universe, he lacked a telescope into the brain that could reveal the true nature of human behavior. Even during most of the twentieth century, the brain was largely a mystery.

Since the mid–1990s, however, advances in technology have given neuroscientists the capability to monitor brain processes in real time. With the advent of technologies such as the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), brain scanning, and other digital brain imaging technologies, a new era has emerged in the neurosciences. These technologies have given scientists a new telescope into the brain and have reshaped our understanding of human behaviors, such as what motivates us to act and how we make decisions (e.g., when and how to change and whom to trust).

It’s a classic case of disruptive new technologies changing a paradigm. We now have a new understanding of influence, persuasion, and selling. We are reminded that Earth is not the center of the universe; likewise, logic and reason, it turns out, are not at the center of our decision-making processes. Emotion is at the center of how humans decide to change - how we decide to buy – who we decide to buy from.