SEEKING OR SELLING?

Change requires creativity and resourcefulness. It asks us to rethink familiar systems, challenge assumptions, and find different ways of doing things. We look at a problem and seek a solution. And while change itself is difficult, getting other people to embrace change is even harder. That is why leadership so often comes down to difficult conversations.

Most leaders already know the conversations they need to have. We know and understand the problem. Often, completely on our own, we devise a solution. Then we prepare our arguments and walk into the conversation ready to explain why change is necessary and the solution required.

And most of those conversations quickly become less about collaboration and more about persuasion.

most conversations become less about collaboration and more about persuasion.

Too often, we enter the room with the outcome already decided in our minds. We may ask for input, but internally we already committed to “our” solution. At that point, we are no longer seeking a solution. We are selling one.

Your team can tell the difference.

When others feel like they are being sold on an answer that has already been chosen, defensiveness naturally increases. Participation drops. Even good ideas encounter resistance when people feel they are being managed toward a conclusion instead of invited into a discussion. Leaders often interpret this as resistance to change, but in many cases, people are not resisting change itself as much as they are resisting the feeling that their voice does not matter.

When people sense they are being “sold,” they eventually stop contributing honestly because they no longer believe their perspective will influence the outcome. What remains looks like agreement on the surface, but underneath it is often just quiet compliance. Surrender.

WHAT looks like agreemenT is often just quiet compliance.

“Seeking” creates a different kind of conversation. It does not mean a leader lacks conviction or avoids difficult decisions. Strong leadership still requires direction, accountability, and clarity. But seeking means entering the conversation with enough humility to recognize that no single person sees everything perfectly.

All of us are smarter than one of us.

There is real value in soliciting the opinions and perspectives of others. Sometimes another person identifies a risk we missed, sometimes they improve the idea, sometimes they reveal that the actual problem is different than the one we thought we were solving. When people feel genuinely heard, they engage differently because they feel ownership in the outcome rather than pressure to accept it.

All of us are smarter than one of us.

That is one of the great challenges of leadership: buy-in cannot be forced. It is created through participation. “Without weigh-in, there is no buy-in,” my coach used to tell me. People commit more readily to solutions they helped shape.

Of course, seeking is harder than selling—and slower, too. Selling gives us control and certainty and speed. Seeking requires humility and patience. It means being willing to discover that our original answer may not be the best one. While selling may create short-term compliance, seeking creates long-term commitment.

Without weigh-in, there is no buy-in

Before your next difficult conversation, it is worth asking a simple question: Am I trying to sell my solution, or am I seeking the best one?