LENS and the Technology of Participation (ToP)

“THE REST OF THE STORY”

-- Lee Early

I am quite sure there are other perspectives on these events but, this is my story and I’m sticking to it. My audiences are other living archives – hey, it beats the alternative - and ToP trainers.

The Technology of Participation (ToP)

After working on the history of ToP at its recent annual meeting, Gordon Harper noticed that a small part was missing and enlisted my assistance.

The year was 1980. The Earlys were assigned to Detroit. In order to provide some additional economic stability for the House, I reluctantly went to Minneapolis for a LENS seminar. I was incensed that LENS was being used to increase the power of economic tyrants through our Guardian network. The training in Minneapolis opened my eyes to the possibility of a “wine press” for Detroit. If my failing memory serves, at the time we were trying to charge the outrageous sum of $1,200 for a LENS. I’m not sure anyone ever sold one for that.

I invited Rick Loudermilk, part of the creative team in Minneapolis, to go with me to Lansing to sell a LENS. After the appointment, it was clear that he and I knew nothing about marketing or selling this program. Still, I was convinced LENS could be our wine press. Two guardians and I incorporated LENS International, Inc. in 1982.

Back in Detroit, our team continued to struggle with how to sell this process. What was it? What were the unique qualities? How much should we charge? What was our target market? Three things came out of that brain drain. We had no name for what we were selling; we had no tools for selling it and we knew that General Motors would not pay $1,200 to a bunch of rummies like us to do their much needed strategic planning.

The first order of business was the name. LENS is not something anyone would pay to go see if it were a movie. LENS sounded like eyeglasses. Jack Gilles, being the rational engineering type that he is, began to play around with “technology”. Technology is a natural process to which method is applied, resulting in a particular technology. For example, childbirth is a natural process – for some of us. Apply medical technology to the process and the resulting technology is obstetrics. Water freezes at 32° except in Canada where it’s 0°. Apply engineering methods to that natural process and the resulting technology is refrigeration.

The Design Conference

LiDona Wagner and I were driving back to Chicago from some place – Omaha, I think. It was a long drive. We were talking about selling. I lamented the fact that no one in the OE/ICA that I knew of was interested in “selling” and would not know “marketing” if it bit them on the ankle, or somewhere just north of that. “Selling” was a word filled with bad connotations. However, everyone in the OE/ICA was hot when it came to “methods”. We were methods junkies. LiDona and I began to think of the methods of selling. I was a student of Doug Edwards and the “Thirteen Methods of Closing”, so she had my attention. How could we create a short session – a method – that would allow our folks to get up enough courage to confront a prospect to demonstrate a method? “Methods” and “demonstration” were two words our staff was familiar with and told themselves they knew how to do.

The Design Conference was created during the long ride to Chicago. The Design Conference is a four-hour session for $1,000 where we stand in front of a white board and demonstrated our Technology of Participation. We demonstrated to the executive team of the client corporation what was to come. Together, we plotted critical issues on the Corporate Triangle and we articulated the “Focus Question”. Once we knew what the Focus Question was, we could then ask who should attend the off site LENS, where it should be held, when, and how much it would cost. The Design Conference was created to do nothing more or less than to sell a LENS. It was used later as an analytical tool to do other things.

Building a track record

Kathrine Barton was an exceptional woman. She had the courage and strength to actually pick up a phone and make calls. She started with the Yellow Pages and called hospitals. Mount Carmel Mercy Hospital was the first LENS that netted us $5,000. A couple of contracts later it was Jasper Mills in Lumberton North Carolina for $7,500. It was John Epps, who also facilitated that event, later wrote up the “Uniqueness of LENS” and the “Profound Function of LENS". We incorporated those two papers in every Participant Manual since.

-- Main.GordonHarper - 15 Feb 2011