Integrate!

Have you ever had a day when what you wanted most was to laugh?  It sometimes happens that thinking through problems and solutions is overwhelming and grinding out work is exhausting and the only real solution is to laugh.  This is hard for introverts, since we laugh more easily in the company of others (we all know that laugh tracks work because the quickest way to get someone to laugh is to laugh yourself). Several times a week, I spend time with my laughter coach. She does not charge by the hour, but she does value obedience and full engagement.  My coach is my 18 month old niece. She is a giggle expert, but she has also mastered the grin and the chuckle and the bemused half smile that indicates she can sometimes suffer fools with good humour. Although spending time with C means lifting and moving and sitting on the floor, my back is strangely compliant while I am with her.  Some of this is the value of love and some comes from the therapeutic touch of small a...

" The ICF defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential." Coaches talk people into thinking and behaving in ways that they wouldn't think or behave on their own. Their process is always about communicating through language and relationship so that their clients make changes in what they think and accept the task of changing what they do. This doesn't mean that coaches tell people what to do. The "partnering" in the ICF definition is meant to walk the fine line between having no influence and having too much. How can you lead a conversation so that your clients discover their own best approach to their problems or goals?  The best way is to DARE: to use a simple four step process that maximizes the effectiveness of the coaching relationship while minimizing the danger of undue influence and the resistance which accompanies that danger. DARE...

There's a truism that says you are more likely to hit something if you are aiming at it. We say things like "keep your eyes on the prize" and mean that paying attention to your outcome is likely to give you both a strategic advantage and the willpower to persist until you achieve what you want. We say these things because they represent a hard lesson. Take, for instance, a desire to be better spoken, to be able to talk in a way that impresses people more favourably. Most people try out new words or model great speakers in a concentrated effort to improve their choice of words. Ironically, their very first steps take their eyes off the prize. The prize is the good impression you make on a specific person or in a particular situation. And the only way to know how to make that impression is to become curious about the people and situation you want to influence. You need to notice what actually captures positive attention, what needs to be true for people to pay attention...

It's crazy hard to know exactly what you want. That may be part of the reason that the people who take the time to figure it out have so much power.  In a room where most people are a little fuzzy about what they want, the person who really knows is much more likely to move effectively. Have you ever wished for more patience? The true answer is no. People don't want patience: they want results. Patience is a sort of consolation prize at best.  When someone says they want patience, what they really mean is they want something they can't see unless they open their eyes to a bigger picture. What they want is most likely a combination of certainty within themselves and a positive relationship with someone around them. Patience indicates that the frame is too tight for them to see a possibility of moving forward together. That tight frame makes patience much less likely. That tight frame makes it hard to see beyond a moment of irritability or conflict. That tight frame mea...

Of all the training available, there's a tremendous interest in buying training on influence and leadership.  This means two things. The first is that our conventional education system doesn't cover influence and leadership effectively.  The second is that both individuals and corporations recognize that the ability to influence effectively needs to be developed. It's not just an inborn talent available to a lucky few. It's a skillset that requires the same ongoing development as technical skills. The problem is finding a model that works.  Sales training is well-developed and widespread. It teaches people to have more predictable influence in predictable situations. It works well when people can know their products and their markets. It works less well when markets and products are in transition. Leadership training is supposed to train people to exert influence in situations where both outcomes and contexts are less predictable.  Our education system is designe...

It is the way our brains are made. We fixate on problems and danger and obstacles. Ask anyone about their pet peeves and you will unleash a flood of words. Ask someone what they want, and you are liable to hear about all the reasons that what they want doesn't matter. It is easy for a conversation to grind to a halt when it is carrying the weight of so much that is wrong. If you want to move forward, you need the word instead. Repeat some of the troubles you hear (to show that you are listening) and then ask: what would you like instead? Instead means in the place now occupied by the trouble. To answer the question, the speaker has to imagine a world where the trouble no longer exists. It has been replaced by something else. The something else may, of course, be accompanied by new troubles.  Once again, repeat what you are hearing and then ask: what would you like instead? After two or three repetitions, the speaker will pick up the pattern and begin to automatically replace ...

If you google "matching and mirroring" you will find page after page of articles and videos mostly explaining that the practice of matching and mirroring someone else's physiology or language will allow you to build rapport. I am no longer sure that's entirely accurate. Here's what I have come to believe after almost ten years of teaching NLP and observing rapport as it develops: mirroring and matching is a sign of rapport. Working at mirroring and matching (doing it deliberately) signals that you are interested in entering into rapport. Paying attention to someone else is always a good way to start a relationship. The most productive way to think about matching and mirroring is to notice that it gives you the ability to be much more perceptive about the person with whom you want to connect.  When you are matching them, you do not have to rely on external observation of their state. You can notice how you change as you move into their movements, mannerisms a...