The Focus of Attention in Coaching

The focus of attention is a key-aspect of performing. What any one of
us can attend too is what ever our conscious minds are drawn too.

Our consciousness gives us the ability to be aware of our surrounding
environment. We sense the world through it's sight, sounds, tastes,
touch and feel. As you know, these five senses, though limited, form
the basis of any of our experiences.

What our minds are able to focus on is very limited. With all the vast
amounts of information that bombard our senses our brains evovled a
system of filtration.

This filtration system blocks out much of the environmental stimuli,
while allowing information that is most relevant to our current and
ongoing situation. The question that naturally comes up is: how does
the brain know what to filter out and what to allow in?

The biological and neuroligical explanation for the brais filter is
beyond the scope of this blog. The simple version is that there is a
tiny part of the brain called the Reticular Activation System (RAS).,
which is the biological filter.

If there is some threat or risk to our person, our brains are wired to
focus our attention on it for reasons of survival. In our day-to-day
lives situations of survival don't constantly pop up as they use too
(at least not so often in developed nations). So often our attention
is drawn to things that are important and that interest us.

For example, you may have recently purchased a new hybrid car of a
certain make, style and colour. Before you bought the vehicle it may
only have been a very faint blip on your mental radar, but now that
you have one you begin to see the same car everywhere.

How does this apply to performance in either sports or business? The
ability to improve performance or build skill is wholely-dependent on
being able to focus attention. As a coach in business or sports this
is a key skill in helping your employees/athletes.

The primary method to focus is through the use of questions. That is,
well-designed questions that immerse the learner in the lesson.
Questions that encourage a person to answer what they would hear; what
they would do; what they would see; and what they would feel that
would demonstrate the right technique or the appropriate behavior.

Helping your employees/athletes to get into such detailed imagery of
all the involved senses, helps form a very vivid and vibrant picture
in the their minds's eye of how to perform. Remember: every action or
behavior always follows an image a person has of that action or
behavior. If your learner can imagine it, they can do it.

Being so specific and concrete allows for little if no-room for
misinterpretation of the correct and improved performance. Asking the
learner for their thought on the appropriate performance and then
following-up with feedback is a powerfully effective method I use to
focus attention and immerse them in the experience.

Cordially,

Jason W Liem
(+47) 957 66 460
MINDtalk@email.com
www.mindtalk.no
Blog: www.jasonliem.blogspot.com
Twitter: Twitter.com/MINDtalkCoach

Book Review - Think Better

I've recently read a brilliant book by a fellow Canadian, Tim Hurson. Below is a review from the blog Innovate on Purpose. Good reading!

I received a new book to review called Think Better. The subtitle is "An innovator's guide to productive thinking" and the book was written by Tim Hurson from Thinkx.

There are a LOT of new books on innovative thinking, or just innovation in general, so I was a little leery of another book, but I found this one to be very insightful and useful. There's a lot to like, and a lot to use, in this book, whether you happen to hail from the consulting and services oriented side of innovation, or are just starting out and want your internal corporate team to become more productive innovative thinkers.

I'll admit to being a bit jaded, and the first few sections of the book offer more of a history lesson about innovation and innovative thinking than I felt necessary, but for those approaching the topic for the first time, the concepts of the monkey mind and gator brain are compelling, since they demonstrate that our current methods of thinking avoid risk and most often simply react to threats or patterns. The book starts to get really interesting in the fourth chapter, which deals with resisting the urge to quickly arrive at an answer. Instead, the book encourages us to "Stay with the Question". In his approach, Hurson sucks us in, peeling the onion a little at a time and getting agreement, till we are in violent agreement that we must change drastically. Then he rolls out section three of his book, which outlines a process for creative and innovative thinking, supported by a number of simple but powerful tools.

The phases describe a method to generate better ideas, use some divergent then convergent thinking to stretch them, then move on to evaluate and determine which ideas should be considered for evaluation. What I also like is that he adds a step for deciding actions and assigning resources. Too often we get excited about selecting ideas for further investigation without determining and identifying the resources and plans necessary for the critical next steps. Along this process he introduces a number of tools: the I-cube or the C-5 or the DRIVE model, all of which are relatively easy to use and bring shape and focus around thinking and decision making that traditionally has been very subjective.

I like this book because it aligns to what seems right to me - a useful process that anyone can follow to obtain better thinking and better ideas. From our experience in larger organizations, a defined set of steps or phases is necessary to help people understand what has happened, what should happen now and what should happen next. I think the next thing Tim and his team will need to do is decide how to "scale" this capability so that the thinking permeates an organization and the approach becomes a common one across organizations rather than simply in enlightened pockets. Of course, that's something near and dear to my heart.

Creative productive thinking is a great first step. However, creativity without action is interesting but ultimately a sideshow. Tim defines a method to help people think more creatively, but also outlines a set of steps and tools to move an idea through a consistent process to an ultimate conclusion. That's moving from creativity to innovation, and eventually from ideas to new products, services or business models.

Cordially,

Jason W Liem

(+47) 957 66 460

MINDtalk@email.com

www.mindtalk.no

Blog: www.jasonliem.blogspot.com

Made to Stick

Hey folks! I've just recently finished a great book Made to Stick by Chip & Dan Heath. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to get their ideas to stick in people's heads. Definitely a brilliant resource for managers and entrepreneurs.

Below is a succinct review of the book from The Washington Post. Below you will find a link to the author's website. Good reading!

Here is the link... http://www.madetostick.com/

If you sign up for their newsletter you can also grab some very useful goodies.

In 'Sticky' Ideas, More Is Less

By Barry Schwartz,
a professor of psychology at Swarthmore College and author of "The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less"
Wednesday, January 17, 2007; C08

MADE TO STICK

Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

By Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Random House. 291 pp. $24.95

"If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will." So said Mother Teresa, and she was right. For a variety of reasons, some of them recently documented in laboratory studies by research psychologists, people who are either left cold or are overwhelmed when confronted with the suffering of thousands will rush into action when they are presented with a way to save one starving child.

"Made to Stick," by brothers Chip and Dan Heath, is an attempt to explain this peculiar fact and many others like it. Why is it that some ideas "stick," remaining vivid in memory and calling on people to act, whereas others just fade away? Is it in the nature of the ideas themselves, or does it have something to do with how they are "packaged"? And if the latter, are there lessons to be learned about packaging that will help people who are trying to influence public opinion and action?

The brothers Heath are in a good position to write such a book. Chip, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford, has actually done research on what makes ideas "sticky." Dan is co-founder of Thinkwell, a textbook company whose aim, of course, is to find a way to present information to students in a way that "sticks." And they have written a fine, "sticky" book -- one that lays out the determinants of stickiness; illustrates them with vivid examples from disparate settings (e.g., business, education and effective social movements); warns us of obstacles that must be negotiated if ideas are to be sticky; and provides a set of "idea clinics," examples of good ideas presented in not so good ways, along with steps to make them better.

The reader also learns some important principles of modern psychology: about how memory is organized, about how emotion affects action, about how knowing too much can get in the way of effective communication and about the power of stories. Anyone interested in influencing others -- to buy, to vote, to learn, to diet, to give to charity or to start a revolution -- can learn from this book.

The Heaths identify six core ingredients of stickiness, organized by the acronym "SUCCES." To stick, ideas should be Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotion-evoking and embedded in Stories. Each of these key features is illustrated with several examples. "It's the economy, stupid," James Carville's famous guide to Bill Clinton's campaign for president, embodies simplicity: "If you say three things, you say nothing" was Carville's point.

The willingness of Nordstrom employees to gift-wrap items purchased elsewhere is an example of the unexpected -- the extraordinary service Nordstrom offers its customers. So was JFK's promise, out of the blue, to get a man on the moon.

Teacher Jane Elliott of Riceville, Iowa, made racism concrete to her white, third-grade students on the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination by dividing up the class by eye color and making the division matter. Scientist Barry Marshall made credible to a disbelieving audience of his peers that ulcers are caused by bacteria by ingesting said bacteria and developing the symptoms of ulcers.

A charity called World Vision applied Mother Teresa's lesson by inviting First World people to "adopt" specific Third World children, each with a name, a face and a story. And TV producer Roone Arledge got people who didn't know the shape of a football to become sports fans by having his sportscasters tell one triumph-over-adversity story after another about the players, just as Subway, thanks to TV commercials dramatizing the weight loss of Jared Fogle, got Americans to think about fast food as diet food.

I find the Heaths' analysis convincing and their recommendations quite helpful. I think I will be a better teacher if I keep SUCCES in mind when preparing materials for my classes. But at the same time, the very power of their story is troubling. For there are three other features of ideas that, to my mind, ought to be affecting their stickiness: Ideas should be socially beneficial, or Worthwhile; they should be Important; and, above all, they should be True (which is not the same as credible). SUCCES needs to be modified by WIT. Most of the examples discussed in the book have WIT, but this, I think, is the product of well-chosen examples.

The tools of SUCCES in the hands of WITty people will serve us well, but these same tools, in the hands of mean-spirited people or charlatans, will do us in. We will be misled, misinformed and steered off course. In addition, as more people become SUCCESful, it will grow increasingly difficult for the WITty successful people to rise above water in a sea of bad, trivial, sticky ideas.

The Heaths are mindful of this problem, though they don't address it directly. First, one of the things that initially piqued their interest in sticky ideas was "urban legends," pretty much all of which are sticky but false. It isn't the stickiness of "ulcers are bacterial" that distinguishes it from urban legends; it's the truth value. Second, the Heaths acknowledge that their advice may cheapen the currency when they point out how it isn't enough to say that something is "unusual" anymore; it has to be "unique." To put it another way, "unusual" just isn't unusual enough to cut it anymore. And when everyone around you is applying SUCCES, you will have to exaggerate, distort or even lie to be noticed.

What can we do to make the idea of global warming stick? I thought that in "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore (unlike "Brownie") really did a heck of a job. Was it good enough? I have my doubts. And if not, is it because the thought of one-tenth of the world's people under water wasn't sticky enough or because we've already got too many ideas stuck to us already? Without some WIT to modulate SUCCES, I'm afraid we'll all end up drowning.

Coaching Tools of Imagery

In this entry, I would like to describe three of the seven tools of
imagery from he discipline of sports psycology I use when coaching
clients.

The first is the ability to paint a clear picture of what is wanted or
needed. A majority of people, when describing or telling about
something, tend to use language that is vague and general. This allows room for the possibility for misunderstanding or miscommunication to creep into the communication. The best remedy for this is to use language that is specific and concrete.

Remember- people are not able to do something if they can't picture it
in their minds. When we communicate in order to help someone improve
their performance, we need to remember that any performance consists
of an (or a series of) action/behaviors.

If we want our message to be clearly understood, we need to be
specific and concrete. To improve performance, the message should
communicate what he/she should see, hear, feel and do.

For example, if I'm taking golf lessons from a pro and he simply says,
'hit the ball straight' or 'stay on the fairway and out of the rough',
this is too vague and general. At the same time as my frustration is
increasing with his inadequate instruction, the 'how do I do that'
question grows in equal proportion.

If I am to improve my game, a good instructor is going to tell me how
I should see my stance, how I should hold amd feel the grip of the
club, what I should hear when I hit the ball squarely. He uses the
language of imagery to paint a clear picture by specifically telling
me what I should see, feel and hear when I'm swinging the club.

The second tool is the ability to link a current action or behavior to
an end goal. Leaders, teachers and coaches are consistently trying to
motivate their people to increase performance and build skill. One way
of doing this is by painting how a current behavior is linked to the
acheivment of an overall goal.

For example, a boxing coach will mention how training on the speed-bag
increases eye-hand coordination and reaction speed, which makes a
significant difference in the ring by delivering more punches with
speed and snap.

In a business scenario, getting a client to see that practicing
conflict resolution skills with current challenges will increase his
competence as an effective leader and communicator.

It is important to link the 'what' - the present action or behavior-
to the 'why' - the reasoning why what they are doing leads to a payoff
- to the 'where' what the payoff will be in the end.

Another reason to use the second tool is that it allows the employee/
athlete to understand the direction you want to take them. By
communicating the end-goal, it also allows them to be able to map out
the steps necessary to acheive the goal depending on it's complexity.

The third, and final, tool that I'll describe in this entry is getting
the employee/athlete to translate words into imagery. This is critical
when the person is internalizing instructions. To be able to
completely understand the instuction they need to be able to imagine
doing it.

A key part of learning anything is the ability to take new knowledge
and to intergrate it with exsisting knolwedge. To do this the learner
needs to be able to see himself/herself doing/feeling/hearing the
action. By getting the learner to describe in his/her own words what
he/she sees and hears it speeds the intergration of new knowledge.

For example, after teaching a client the appropriate way to give
corrective feedback, I would ask her what I would see and hear her
doing if she was giving appropriate feedback to a colleague. By her
explaining it to me she went through the mental exercise of
translating my instructions into imagery. Again, she is spoke the
language of performance, which her mind and body can very easily
understand and integrate.

The take-home message is this: insure the message you're communicating
is specific and concrete. The listener will precisely understand,
through the language of imagery, what he/she has to see, hear, feel
and do in order to perform at a higher level. If he/she can picture
the behavior/action in their mind, they will be able to perform the
behavior/action.

Cordially,

Jason W Liem
MINDtalk@email.com
www.mindtalk.no

Sports Psych and Giving Feedback

Communication is a skill that is often overlooked. Indeed, when we are in the presence of others we are constantly communicating, whether we like it or not. What we don’t say often says more than what we do say, and we sometimes say one thing and mean another
What is communication?

Is that a strange question to ask? Well, not really, because many of us will have experienced the manager at work that believes he is communicating through his barrage of memos, or the teacher that talks at the class but doesn’t listen. Both of these people communicate, to a degree, but are they effective?

Verbal communication occurs when we talk, listen, shout, sing, write or read. Non-verbal communication occurs through facial expression and body language, and can be very powerful. We’ve all noticed when someone says one thing and means another. That person has failed to realise that while they verbally communicating one thing, they are sending out a powerful and contradictory message when they quickly cough or shift their eyes from yours.
With whom do athletes communicate?

Athletes in different sports have to communicate with many different people in different ways. The elite athlete might communicate very openly and emotionally with a coach, say, that they have worked with for a long time – even more so than with their own parents. The same athlete may have to hold formal, contractual discussions or conduct press conferences. The variety of different people that an athletes may need to communicate with is great, and include coaching staff, the media, fans, team-mates, scientists, family, officials (umpire/referee) and competitors.
When do athletes communicate?

Apart from “all of the time”, of course! There are times at which effective communication are key. These include:

* In training – getting more out of your coaching sessions, letting your coach know when you are experiencing difficulty and helping team-mates out with their training;
* Before competition– making sure your coach knows whether preparation is going well; making sure your coach’s pep talk is helping you;
* In competition – using signals and code to communicate tactics, to help team-mates perform, to keep the team together, to request help; and
* After competition – feeding back on how you felt to your coach, asking for feedback from your coach, seeking emotional support; dealing with family & other important people.

Sports Psychology - Part 3

In my last entry I left you guys hanging on the following question -
how does our brains achieve this? 'This' being improving our accuracy,
our speed, our skills and our strengths by just sitting in a lounge
chair using imagery.

The answer is, which I've mentioned breifly earlier, is that our minds
can not distinguish the real-world from an imaginary world. So simply
by using imagery (visualization, feelings and mental movements) the
mind believes we are actually engaged in the action.

The mind simply employs the same mental machinery that would be active
if you were really seeing/feeling/hearing/doing the action. That
means, the mind is engaging the same neuromuscular pathways.

It is similar to when you lift weights, over time, your muscles become
stronger. The more the mind uses the neuromuscular pathways the
stronger those pathways become, which translates into improved
accuracy, greater speeds and bigger muscles.

This is why the world's top athletes use imagery as part of their
training. It allows them to tune their skills and increase their
strength. It is as central part of their workout as is the actual
physical training.

This might seem quite unbelievable. I can understand your skeptism.
The fact is that imagery increases perfomance at all levels. It is
cold, hard, sceintific fact.

Imagery has been used in athletics training for decades, and the
imagery techniques are getting better and more effective (I will
introduce some of these skills in my next entry). Ask Tiger Woods
about it the next time you run into him on the fairway.

The take-away message for this entry is this: physical strength is
increased in both body and brain. Physical skill, or more specifically
a behavior, is developed in the brain.

So find a lounge chair, kick back and imagine yourself seeing/feeling/
hearing/doing whatever it is that you want to improve.

Cordially,

Jason W Liem
MINDtalk@email.com
www.mindtalk.no

Sports Psychology - Part 2

I remember watching the CNN (www.cnn.com) coverage of the Atlanta
Summer Olympics. A reporter asked an athlete her opinion about the
skill levels of her competitors. I found her answer intriguing.

She believed that most world-class athletes are pretty much at the
same level phyically. She continued her statement by saying that the
difference in athletes lies with how they use their minds - their
skill at using imagery.

As I mentioned in my previous entry, if you want to improve
performance and build skill you need to speak the appropriate language
- the language of imagery. Again, this not only applies to the realm
of sport. It applies to business people, muscians, surgeons, pool
players and so on.

I was planning to delve into the specific skills of imagery, but I
will leave that for later on. The reason is that I think it is
important to elaborate further on imagery. To learn a certain skill-
set is good, but it's even better if you understand the theory that
lies behind it.

Imagery is often used as a synonym for visualization. Unfortunately,
this really limits the proper use and application of imagery to
enhance performance. Simply visualizing something is not nearly enough.

French researchers from the city of Lyon studied the relation between
imagery and performance in the sports of shooting and archery.

They studied three periods of the athlete's concentration: before they
took the shot, when they were taking the shot, and while imagining
taking the shot during training.

The researchers found that when athletes imagined the activity it
produced the same changes in the body (i.e. increased heart rate,
breathing etc.) as if they were actually in the situation.

They found the athletes were not just simply visualizing. They were
fully immersed with all the senses they actually use in thier specific
event. They heard the sounds associated with the shot and the feeling
in their body. As a result, when they were imaging their bodies were
reacting In the same way as if they were actually competing in the
event. The better they were at imagery, the better the shot.

Try this exercise. Imagine you are holding a bag of groceries. Now
using your imaginary arm, while keeping it straight, extend it out to
the side up to shoulder level. Hold it there for a count of ten, and
then slowly lower your arm. Repeat the mental exercise five or six
times. Remember, it's important to not only visualize, but to feel
the bag and the strain on your arm caused by the bag's weight. Did you
notice your mental arm getting tired? Any pain?

This is one of many image exercises that athletes use. If you are
using imaging correctly and with detail, you should feel the burn in
your shoulder from this mental exercise. How tired you feel will
depend on how vividly you imagined it.

Another study looked at the effects of mental versus real-practice in
tensing and relaxing a finger. The participants trained for 5 sessions
per week over 4 weeks. Half of the participants did the actual
physical training. The other half simply did the mental training.

At the end of the training period, both groups were compared to the
control group (no training of the finger either mentally or
physically). The physical group increased the physical strength of
their finger by 30%. The suprising result was with the group that only
imaged increased their finger strength by 22%.

This means that you don't have to physically train to increase
strength. In this study, strength increase was attributed to changes
in the brain. The brain changes were caused by the repetitive use of
the neurons used to control finger movements.

The question remains - how does your brain do this? I'll have to
answer that in my next posting.

Cordially,

Jason W Liem
MINDtalk@email.com
www.mindtalk.no

Sports Psychology - Part 1

I find that I'm constantly in search of new skills and knowledge to
enhance my coaching skills. One of the richest veins that has
contributed much to my knowledge-base is the field of sports psychology.

Today, I'm going to write a few words about how imagery is fundamental
to improving performance in sports. Performance is defined, in it's
most simple definition, as the improvement of one or a series of
behaviors or actions.

If we take a moment and think about the above definition, performance
is not exclusive to only sports. The term performance can be applied
to almost any human endevour where we are trying to enhance an action
or behavior. The world of business and entrepreneurship is no different.

The language of performance is not English, Spanish, Chinese or any
other spoken language. It is the language of imagery. Any action or
behavior is preceded by imagery. We are not always aware of these
images, most of it is happening unconsciously, but they are always
present before an action.

All skills can be learned at two levels. One is the theoretical where
we gain the knowledge. The second level is the practical where we
actually perform the skill. Imagery spans the divide of these two
levels. It allows us to move from theory into action.

I have a close friend who coaches pee-wee soccer. He always asks the
kids what they should 'see' when their dribbling the ball and what
they should be doing when passing the ball. He gets them to
communicate in imagery since it is the basis of every action and
behavior.

When I'm working with corporate clients, I'll ask them what I would I
be seeing them do or hearing them say when giving, for example,
feedback on performance. This is a key-point.

When I ask a person what I would see him doing or hear him saying when
he is performing some action, his responce is going to entail specific
actions. He will picture the sequence of actions in his head as he is
describing it to me. Since the unconscious mind can not distinguish
reality from imagination, the mind will actually believe the event is
happening in the here and now. This is another key-point to remember.

As many of you may know, presenting in front of a group can be one of
the most daunting things we do in life. For most people, just
imagining getting up to talk in front of a group of peers elevates
their heart rate, breathing and body temperature. This means, the
images we picture, whether positive or negative, will have a direct
impact on our bodies.

Coaches of Olympic athletes will include imagery as part of the
athletes training. It involves the athlete sitting in a quiet place
and picturing the series of sequence of moves they make when doing a
performance.

This imagery training is not only visualization. It includes most, if
not all, of the senses. By getting the athlete to immerse her mind in
the imagery of the event, she is also triggering the identical
neuromuscular pathways as if she was actually performing the movement.
Remember - the mind can not tell the difference between reality and
imagination.

Through the use of imagery, the coach can trigger positive pictures in
athlete's mind, which in turn has real effects on the athlete's
physiology.

The psychology of imagery is intricately linked with physiology of
performance. In my next entry, I will ellaborate on the specific steps
to coach people to improve their performance through imagery. .

Cordially,

Jason W Liem
MINDtalk@email.com
www.mindtalk.no

Resolution

Resolution is the fourth and final step in conducting and handling
difficult conversations.

By the time you've reached this step you have prepared and told your story about how you perceived events. You have also thoroughly explored the other person's story of events. Now it's time to describe the gap that lies between the difference in views.

It is prudent to articulate the gap in as neutral and diplomatic a
tone as possible. In addition to this, try to avoid using the word
'but'. Instead use the word 'and'. It is a much more inclusive word.
The use of 'but' communicates devisiveness. Below you'll find a
specific example of what I mean.

Once you have summarized the gap it is then necessary to get
confirmation from the other party that your descripition is accurate.
The following is an example of how to structure the gap and to ask for
confirmation.

"As I've explained, during the staff meeting I thought you responded
aggresively and you're comments were overly-critical of your
colleagues ideas. AND you explained that you were trying to keep the
team on target and focused. You said that you were being straight-
forward and practical, because you feel that some of your colleagues
tend to digress off topic. Especially now, with a looming deadline.
Is my summary accurate? Am I missing anything?"

Once you have a confirmation, the next step is to agree on an action
plan. This consists of exploring options. When an option has been
found it should be concrete and specific in defining the way forward.

A critical part of his step is to build in accountability. I use the
acronym WWWF (Who, What, When and Follow-up). It is quite straight-
forward. Myself and the other party agree to who does what and by
when. Then we schedule a follow-up meeting. This may only be a single
event or it may require a number of meetings.

That's it! This is the step-by-step method on conducting difficult
conversations that I coach clients on, teach in workshops, and
actively use.

1. The Prep Work
2. The Opening Statement
3. Gaining Perspective
4. Resolution

Having a difficult conversation is no less important than a crucial
negotiation. It requries the same dedication and planning. It is not
advisable to just to sit down and have the difficult conversation. You
need to do your homework. You need to be professional by employing the
self-management and communication skills I've written about in my last
seven blog entries.

I realize full-well that learning how to conduct a difficult
conversation from a blog is much like learning karate from a book.
It's not going to help you much if three goons jump you in a dark alley.

The idea is to help you become aware that there is a professional and
effective way to having a difficult talk with someone. The best way to
utilize these skills is to role-play with a trusted colleague or
coach. This is the best method to evolve book-knowledgee into
experienced-knowledge without making awful gaffs in the real-situation
that has real consequences.

I would highly-appreciate any feedback or topic-relevant comments.

Cordially

Jason W Liem
MINDtalk@email.com
www.mindtalk.no

Gaining Perspective - Part 2

Gaining Perspective is the most challenging of all the steps in
handling a difficult conversation. There are no specific steps to
follow as there are in preparing the Opening Statement. What is
important here is to be conscious of using self-management skills and this means managing resistance and emotional responses. This applies not only to the other party, but also to your own resistance and emotional responses.

From my experience, I've found it best to expect resistance from the
get go. As I've stated in an earlier entry, when a person is
confronted or expected to change there will be some form of
resistance. How you mange this resistance will determine the overall
success, or lack thereof, of the difficult conversation.

The main focus of Gaining Perspective is to understand the other
person's motivation and understanding of events. You want to get as
clear and concrete understanding of their view as possible.

As we have all experienced, people are usually very reluctant to share
their view in fear that we may use it against them and/or to
unneccesarily expose themselves to further attack or criticism.

How do we handle resistance and emotional responses? We do this
through using the communication skills of silence, paraphrasing and
reviewing perspectives.

Silence. Take a moment and reflect back to the last argument you had
with someone. If you are anything like me perhaps you could describe
it as a war of words.

What often happens is the conversation starts out as a dialogue with
the intent to be civil and find a way out of the conundrum. What
really happens is the so-called civilized dialogue does a 'Dr. Jeckyl
and Mr. Hyde' and turns into a debate.

Listening to each other becomes passé. Instead, the trend is to get
all your blows in before your opponent has time to defend and recover.
Of course, this is the exact same mind-frame that the other person is
in.

The following are some of tje indicators that you are in this mode of
thinking:

• thinking about your response while the other person is making their
point
• trying to out-talk the other person hoping that they'll fall silent
and drown in your stream of words
• searching for the smallest of holes in their logic in order to
eviscerate their argument
• feeling the strong desire to score points and 'win' the debate
• harping on the same point and going no where
• offering advice or suggestions without exploring and understanding
their perspective of events

It is the perfect storm for a no-holds-barred, give-no-quarter ask-no-
quarter quarrel that goes no where except backwards. If this is your
goal - read no further.

To avoid all this useless noise, I generally employ silence. It is a
simple and effective method to take a step back and refocus.
Especially, when the dialogue starts to become heated. It allows
reactivity and strong emotions to subside and for some semblence of
clear thinking to return.

Paraphrasing. This is the second communication skill, which is
important when trying to understand the other person's perspective and
motivation. In essence, you rephrase back to the other person what you
beleive they communicated to you. This indicates to him/her that you
are paying attention and that you understand his/her message.

For example, "So what you are saying is that I tend to ignore your
suggestions during key meetings."

He/she will generally respond in one of two ways. "Yes, that is
precisely what I'm saying" or "No, not exactly. What I said was..."
Regardless if you are right on target or off, paraphrasing is an
excellent way to ensure you are exploring their side of the story.

Reviewing Perspectives. This is the third communication technique that
I've found to be essential in the Gaining Perspectives stage. This
skill is ideal when you wish to get clarification on how they perceive
a particular situation.

We experience the world through the eyes of our own individual
experiences as does everyone else on this planet. This means, we have
our own unique set of filters. It let's some information into our
awareness while blocking other bits.

Imagine you were one of many witnesses to a car accident. When the
police ask you what you saw, it is inevitable that your view of events
is going to be different, if only very slightly, from another witness.
So even though you and every other witness saw the exact same car
accident, each viewpoint will be as distinct as the individuals giving
the statements.

This logic holds true when it comes to difficult conversations. You
want to discover how they interpreted the exact same event, but
through their own unique filters You want to be upfront and say that
you came to a different conclusion and want to understand how they
came to theirs.

For example, "I see what happened quite differently. I want to
understand how you came to this conclusion."

The main take-home message for this entry is to keep a level head and
to understand, as thouroufhly as possible, the other person's
interpretation of events. To do this you will want to employ the
communication skills of silence, paraphrasing and reviewing
perspectives.

In my next entry, I will wrap up this series on conducting difficult/
crucial conversations by writing about the resolution stage - the last
of the four-steps.

If you wish for a free white-paper on conducting difficult
conversations, please contact me.

For other excellent resources, please check out the following links.

http://www.fastcompany.com/
http://www.managementtools.com/
http://www.bnet.com/

Cordially,

Jason W Liem
MINDtalk@email.com
http://www.mindtalk.no/

Gaining Perspective - Part 1

Gaining Perspective is the third step in having a difficult
conversation. From my experience, it is the most challenging of the four steps, because this is where the bulk of the dialogue happens. I will write about this step over two entries.

Most difficult conversations are about some sort of change. When we confront someone with change there is going to be resistance.

The resistance could be rather mild in the form of excuses. On the
other end of the scale, the resistance could be extreme in the form of
anger and complete disagreement. Regardless of amount of resistance,
the number one skill needed in this step is the ability to manage
resistance and emotional reactions.

One need is to use these skills for the person you are dealing with,
but even more importantly is dealing with your own resistance and
reactions.

It is rather difficult for you or I to give up our well-thought-
through perception of what happened. We've invested much time and
effort that to even begin to question our perception of events is
unthinkable. This most likely means, that we are not going to be open
to hearing another version of events.

It is at this point, the idea of changing our ideas about something
that we are so damn sure of, where our resistance will creep in. This
can take the form of anger, defensiveness, impatience or any number of
other beahviors.

It is important to be able to take a mental step back and check
yourself. You need to tell youself to stay in dialogue and not move
into debate. This requires self-management skills in the here and now.
An intergral part of this is the ability to be aware of what feelings
are being triggered and controlling them.

An emotional explosion is simply unprofessional. It puts up obstacles
and mires the difficult conversation in thick molasses. It will make a
difficult conversation even more challenging.

A few years back I was a witness to a minor car collision. The owner
of one of the vehicles was super irate and spewed a steady stream of
colourful metaphors at the other driver. When a police officer arrived
on the scene he directed his hissy-fit on her.

The officer maintained her composure under the assault of raw emotions
and insults. Her on-the-site self-management skills kept her own
emotions in check and her professional demeanor intact.

Eventually, through her skill and tact with communication skills she
got the irate driver to calm down and tell his version of events. You
can probably imagine what would have transpired if she had fired off
her emotional volley in responce.

The officer understood clearly that if she was to move the
conversation forward, it was essential for her to be open to hearing
the other side's story.

The idea here is to get the other side to speak and keep them
speaking. The more detail you can get them to be the more you will
understand how he/she perceives the situation.

In my next entry, I'll get more specific about the communication
skills needed to manage resistance and emotional reponces to Gaining
Perspective.

A great source for more information can be found at http://www.bnet.com/.

Cordially

Jason W Liem
MINDtalk@email.com
http://www.mindtalk.no/