Musing on Decision Architecture and Misalignment

One of the ripples which came out of the sales summit we attended last week was a distinct sense of being a bit ill-fitted for the occasion. Don’t get me wrong, there’s def some better sales activities which needs to happen - and this was a great venue to understand what types of things folks might be listening for. But, what I came away most with is a lack of a means of moving from “operator” aspects to “architectural” ones.

What I mean comes somewhat to what it is Avancee has been . This initiative has been something like a distinct service of “decision architecture” to the folks we’ve best engaged. We aren’t tech support, but are helping small/medium businesses figure out what it might mean to understand the entire graph of decisions relating to their operations or products/services. Whereas the usual sales activity is “get another conversation,” we have been doing more of “can we get you to a better decision (whether that is with us or not).”

That’s a bit of a mismatch for the current market. Such is better when there is less voltilaty in markets and regions. When folks are trying to stay the course, we are asking them “do you have the right course in mid” and that’s a bit off.. Going back to the piece on scope, strategy, and tactics, we were correct, but misaligned with where sufficient stakeholders wanted to be.

What’s most funny/insightful is that even the use of an open blogging platform and a contemplatve-focused whiteboard app points to the misalignment here. We’ve been likely speaking to the wrong audiences, even while gaining perspective to the needs to other layers. “All of this is great and you truly get it, but how does it make money for me,“comes out more often than we’d like to admit. And even with plugging away, being consistent with sharing the threads, themes, and memes… we aren’t exacly burning a hole in the markets. Misaligned…

…That’s the biggest of the takeaways from last week. The “solution” to a sales person being misaligned had been presented as “use AI” and “more conversations.” It didn’t tell anyone how to assess their scaffolding, nor why using AI might be helpful and perilous at the same time. There wasn’t an acknowledgment of risk in “sales going away,” because the summit was postured as the reason why human-driven sales strategies must persist.

I came away from this questioning alignment. It might speak a lot louder that the decision archetype for misalignment wasn’t something a summit could sell.