An excellent visual representation of a paradigm is a football field. It creates boundaries that limit the field of play, no matter the teams that play. The field of play is 300 feet x 160 feet. At each end of the field there is a goal line with 30 additional feet of end zone. The football paradigm spells out all game action and how it must take place within these boundaries.
Paradigms are the way we see life. They provide a comfort zone of beliefs, values, and routines and they describe how a person is to behave inside the boundaries in order to be successful.
When you hear—or speak—phrases like: “That’s the way we do things here.” “The company would never go for that “ or, “I can’t make more than 12 customer/prospect calls per day,” you are hearing or voicing the parameters of a paradigm. What’s being said is, “Our (My) rules, traditions, routines or values dictate that we (I) do or don’t do things in a certain way.”
Changing Paradigms
People in general—sale reps in particular— fear paradigm change. The new paradigm is unfamiliar, daunting and therefore potentially precarious. There is a certain amount of security in the familiar and a lot of dread in the unknown. The situation is reminiscent of long ago, when map makers sketched dragons on maps as signs to sailors that they would be entering unknown territory at their own risk. Some sailors took this sign literally and were afraid to venture on. Others saw the dragons as signs of opportunity.
Every sales rep has a mental map of his or her world complete with dragons. Some reps will avoid the dragons of change and others will seek to slay them. In order to change paradigms you must begin to “slay” your personal dragons and look beyond the obvious, confining parameters of your current selling paradigm to what possibilities lie just outside.
Moving from one paradigm to another paradigm can be as simple as committing to learning and using one new word each week or as difficult as learning a new language. Expanding your vocabulary will help you think and express yourself in new ways. Adding a new language may present the opportunity for a completely new career. In either case, paradigm change calls for the acquisition and interpretation of new information and corresponding behavioral change.
Today’s workplace requires sales reps to be flexible and continuously involved in self-improvement. Hard work alone is no longer enough to assure survival for either a company or an individual. The skills of your current professional paradigm will not be the skills you need in the next paradigm. Economic conditions and increased competition have molded a new success paradigm where professional reps must use creativity, problem solving, listening, teamwork, supply chain management mastery and other skills to survive.
By far the most effective way to turn fear of paradigm change into confidence to make the change is to visualize the next paradigm in such vivid terms that you can clearly see, taste or feel your goal—more money, prestige, responsibility, additional job security, job satisfaction, etc. Embracing the next paradigm is the antidote to paradigm paralysis. Visualizing residency in the next paradigm prompts you to take steps to achieve the paradigm change.
What steps must you take in order to make a successful professional paradigm change?
Hog Quote:
"Never ventrue, never win!
Unless you enter the tiger's liar,
you cannot get hold of the tiger's cubs." —Pan Ch'ao
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