I’ve always heard the definition of insanity is: Doing the same thing and expecting different results. But I happened on another definition the other day that I think it applies to the business world. That definition is: Trying to manage things we can’t control.

When you think about it there’s a whole lot more things we can’t control than can. Yet we make a valiant effort to create certain outcomes–when certain outcomes are going to happen no matter how bad we want them.

Take the average sales process.

We work, and we work, and we work trying to create an optimum process that ushers people from the suspect stage to the prospect stage to the client stage. Granted there is quite a bit of “influence” we can have on that process. But control it? No way.

So in my training I tell people that creating some influence and input into the process is quite sane. Trying to control it is total insanity.  By determining what is “in” and “out” of our control we can create a clearer pattern of thinking that allows us to do the next right thing in an attempt to influence the outcome of the sale–yet stop short of driving ourselves crazy when we are dealing with complex, irrational (and sometimes insane) buyers.