Defining one’s position is hard. It requires to know what we stand for and to be able to keep that stance.
The first one requires introspection and the ability to sense what is right for us. The second one requires to have a way to act upon the tension between our sense that something is right for us and the doubt that appears when others have a different position.
The challenge grows, when we can see that the others are right to believe what they believe.
Take for example theories in the realm of communication and self-development. There is a large community of people who claim that with Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) they can help people to achieve specific goals in life. At the same time, there is a large community that has set itself up to dispute the scientific foundations of the model. Once the model was transformed into a business tool used to shape communication, a different community started using the model to achieve their goals in seeking to influence others. This again created a community rejecting that approach.
What I learned from observing these groups during the last years, is how useless it is to seek to persuade everyone. Even more so when persuasion involves telling others how good an idea is. Once an idea is out in the world, people take it up, use it and so it transforms itself.
This learning helped me develop my relationship with the Process Communication Model I’ve been using for several years now. It’s a model which was also determined through research in the realm of psychotherapy to then evolve as a business tool.
Independently from the model itself, there is a question as to how those using a model position themselves.
Establishing the model in different worlds established different approaches to it. The economic desires linked to developing a business tool transformed the academic or intellectual discussion about the model to an economic one based on the economic models and worldviews of those involved.
The economic models of the past were to become the largest and win the market in that way. We’ve seen this in the past for example in the car industry where individual brands were fighting to be the biggest. It has led to all kinds of systems to protect one’s brand and invest in legal or domination fights with other brands. It’s the belief to be the one and only solution and leads to a righteous attitude.
Today’s economic models progress in a different direction. Globalization and the felt need to continue to grow and benefit from the effect of scale has changed this attitude somewhat as the car industry now finds itself developing common systems and platforms. None of the brands has enough leverage to create the solutions of the future on their own. The need to survive in their competitive market has led to a need to cooperate.
Both of these economic models are based on the idea that the market place in one to fight against one another, to seek domination.
None of them trust their customers enough to make a choice that is right for them.
It’s difficult for them to accept that their ideas might not be right for everyone or only serve a specific market. It’s still difficult to accept that diversity exists.
There is a clear gap to the connection economy and the effects of globalization establishing the need for cooperation.
The invitation here is to not only look at the position we take up but also how we establish this position.
Position doesn’t work without intention and the posture it implies, nor without the actions allowing others to build trust.
Trust is essential to establish a relationship with an audience and customers.
The trust needed lies in the posture and the reliability of the position. It fails to establish itself if position, posture, and actions don’t correspond with one another.
This doesn’t change the quality of the product or the model.
What position, posture and action impact are a products ability to be seen as trustworthy. They select the audience.