5 Stages of Emotion to Improve Corporate Sales Training
Most people who set out to achieve a goal fail. For that reason, failure is a real factor to discuss when we anticipate problems in order to overcome them.
In this post, we discuss the five stages of emotion in Don Kelley and Daryl Conner’s 1979 article The Emotional Cycle of Change. We do so in order to apply these stages to the execution, or goal setting, of our Corporate Sales Training.
Why We Fail
First, let’s talk about why failure happens. Most attempts to change fail not because you had a bad plan, or a bad strategy, or because you are a bad person. We fail because we did not execute.
Take this fact as a real-life example of execution failure: most Americans’ New Year’s Resolutions are to lose weight. Yet nearly everyone who has that goal fails. They fail not because diet and exercise don’t work, but they fail because they are not executing the diet and exercise.
In anticipating the five stages of emotion, we can improve the execution of corporate sales training and succeed in achieving our goals.
The Emotional Cycle of Change
In their widely cited 1979 article “The Emotional Cycle of Change,” Don Kelley and Daryl Conner present an insightful and cautionary model of voluntary change. We intend to apply these stages of emotion to our corporate sales training in particular.
On our graph, the vertical axis represents emotion. High emotion represents optimism, and low emotion represents pessimism. The horizontal axis represents the passage of time: the far left shows the beginning of our journey, and we move to the right with the passage of time.
When trying to change their behaviors, people move through these five stages of emotion:
- Uninformed Optimism
- Informed Pessimism
- . Valley of Despair
- Informed Optimism
- Success and Fulfillment
Uninformed Optimism
The first stage of emotional change is most often exciting, as we imagine all of the benefits and have not yet experienced and none of the costs. We see the desired results but we do not see the activities or commitments they require.
Informed Pessimism
As you learn more about the reality of what it takes to change, positive emotions can quickly sour. The second stage of emotion, informed pessimism, is characterized by a shift to a negative emotional state. At this point, the benefits don’t seem as real, important, or immediate, and the costs of the change have become apparent.
In the Informed Pessimism stage, you question if the change is really worth the effort and begin to look for reasons to abandon the goal. This can happen quickly if you are not informed of what measures the goal requires, or if you are not committed.
This transition can happen publicly or privately. Some people will openly complain, and some will just quit. When publicly pessimistic, the person is honest with their struggles and they can receive help. On the other hand, those checking out privately appear to remain on-board with the project. They conceal their loss of confidence and their plans to abandon ship, and they gesture at effort and commitment.
Valley of Despair
We will call this third stage of emotion, the Valley of Despair, the Point of No Return or Yes Return. Meaning this is the decision point. At this stage, we will either turn back to our comfort zone, or we will push past our circle of comfort.
We can, however, plan for moving through this Valley by providing a plan of execution up front. If we plan ahead for this discouraging valley, we are much more likely to pull through it.
Recognition of this stage of emotion, the Valley of Despair, as unavoidable, can help us to improve our execution of corporate sales training. That is, if we plan ahead.
Informed Optimism
At the stage of informed optimism, your likelihood of success is much higher. This is when your lead activities move toward your goal. According to the graph above, you are back in the positive emotional area of the cycle because the costs of change are lessened. Your new thoughts and actions are becoming more routine. The key at this stage of emotion is do not stop!
Once we have reached the Informed Optimism stage of emotion, our chances of improving the execution of sales training—or achieving any goal we’ve set for ourselves—is much improved.
Success and Fulfillment
At this final stage of change, the benefits of your new behaviors are fully experienced and the costs of change are virtually gone. The actions, which at the beginning were difficult and uncomfortable, have now become routine.
Things to Remember
- Optimism often directly relates to the expectations of what will be involved in the project, which is in this case to improve the execution of sales training.
- The further from your comfort zone you are pushed, the more pessimistic you become about your ability or willingness to complete the project.
- Attitude or stage of emotion—optimism or pessimism—is a function of the information available.
- If we anticipate the challenges, we can overcome and thrive. We need to develop our goal and our plan to get there nownow.
Achievable Goals
To get started on improving the execution of your sales training, you need to create a SMART goal. It should have enough stretch that its benefits excited you. Our goals need to be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.
From X to Y by When
Ideally, you will have only one goal, but you can have more. Keep in mind, though, that each additional goal dilutes your focus, and might impede the execution of your sales training.
Some examples of goals that you can use to improve the execution and retention of sales training can involve revenue, income, number of appointments with key targets, and share of wallet goals with existing accounts.
Don’t skip past the step of establishing the goal. If you do, when you get to the Valley of Despair in the Emotional Cycle of Change, you are very likely to return to your comfort zone.
Conclusion
Learning about the stages of emotion and the Emotional Cycle of Change informs the process that goes along with setting any goal. By understanding the process that the emotions undergo while trying to achieve the goal, we are able to improve the execution of our sales training.
Photo by Raymond Sam.