I am constantly reminded of a truism I heard many years ago - the problem someone brings into their first session with a therapist is never the real issue. Oh, they fully believe it is. They aren't lying. They came because they are in pain, but they just don't know the root cause of that pain yet. Good news is they decided to do something to relive the pain. Many people don't.

So what's that got to do with you and me? Why do we care? Because there's a great corollary on how we act to fix lots of things. We won't bother to work towards a "fix" until the pain is really strong and then it's unlikely that we will fully understand how to solve the "problem." Think about it. If we knew how to fix something and it was easy for us to do it, then we'd just do it. But the real issue is that we're generally incapable of really identifying the issue (pain) and of course it's impossible to fix something if we don't know what we're "fixing."

So here's what we know. Whether the problem is your own or something you are trying to help someone else with, like implementing a new process, software, a new opportunity or deal, you have to start with the classic 'find the pain' process. You need to uncover the "why in the world would you bother" reason that someone is going to do something. And to do that requires you to be really direct and clear about asking the right questions and listening, really listening for the answers. You're listening for the emotional reasons that someone is willing to put forth the effort to make a change. If you don't remember anything else about how to uncover the important pain, know this - there's a big difference in pain indicators and true pain. Hearing words or phrases that sound like "we'd like to be better" or "it'd be nice to" have nothing to do with the kind of "pain" that will result in action. And trust me; those very statements fool a lot of people. (A tip - just the word "we" rather than "I" is a big indicator that the person has very little interest in doing anything.) We say similar things to ourselves all the time and then promptly do nothing at all. Come on you know it's true. Change has to relieve a considerable amount of pain.

"Are there other problems that are a bigger priority than this one right now?"

"Can you or your company afford to sustain this kind of inefficiency?"

"What aspect of making this change are you most intimidated by right now?"

Yep. Tough questions, but "askable" when done in a nurturing and "truly wanting to know the answer" way. It gets to the core philosophy of how they make decisions and where their comfort level with risk is. In other words, to get a better understanding of how someone really thinks.

So remember, helping uncover true pain is about as far away from being manipulative that you can be. Without knowing the real pain, the problem doesn't have any hope of being solved. Uncovering true pain provides the spark and therefore the energy to light a fire. A fire that brings forth something good!