COMMUNI·TIPS!

 

TIPS ON SUCCESSFUL COMMUNICATION

Communication is our way of proving successful (or the other thing) in life!  As Paul Watzlawick (Interactional Communication Theory) said: ‘We cannot not-communicate’, then it’s always good to bring our interaction potential to the peak …SUCCESS IS WAITING FOR US!

 

BUY NOW & HERE!

 

 

 

‘WHITENING LANGUAGE’: ASSERTIVENESS AT ITS PEAK

HOW TO KEEP OUR EMITTED MESSAGES CLEAR …WITHOUT OFFENDING / PROVOKING OUR INTERLOCUTORS  🙂

‘- You did it badly again …you good-for-nothing!’

‘- You never take me into account, stupid selfish!’

‘- I hate you!’  …can these messages be verbalized in different way, still meaning what they mean?

Marshall McLuhan’s reflection about the ‘HOW’ being more important than the ‘WHAT’ in communication becomes here an evidence.  Pure certainty.

In terms of effectiveness (now more in Stephen Covey’s field) we’ll always get better what we want from others if ‘tuning’ our message in a way they’ll accept (instead of rejecting) our words.  So…

What about ‘whitening’ our emission whenever sending ‘hard’ messages to others?

It’s a matter of ASSERTIVENESS: to clearly say what we want in ‘diplomatic’ way for avoiding too negative impact in them, so (again) they’ll accept-more-than-reject our words.

Some science experiments have shown bad messages being better accepted by the receiver if said with a smile (e.g.) as well as the opposite case also happened: some praise spoken in a harsh tone will be taken as kind of an insult.

Here too, the ‘HOW’ (expression-emotional one in this case) seems to be what counts the most, then:

Rationally: to choose grammatically acceptable words/ Emotionally: to tell them in the warmest/most polite possible way.

WHITENING PRINCIPLES:

Neutrality instead of offensive intention.

Priority on the communication of Ideas instead of the management of Feelings (that can be hurted).

Clarity despite ‘diplomatic’ forms, to avoid that diplomacy hide the nuclear meaning of the emitted info.

And always keeping at the same time the general effectiveness advice about reducing the pitch as much as possible + adapting thestyle to the interlocutor’s preferences for them to understand easier what the main communicated ideas are.

WHITENING EXAMPLES:

‘- You did it badly again, you good-for-nothing!’

Avoidable: emphasis on the wrong (‘badly’) and the negative (‘nothing’) + blaming form (‘You’) and high volume (exclamation mark in written form) to channel aggressiveness.

Better:  ‘- Please do it this way (explanation) to succeed.’

Advantage: didactive-constructive emission (better to give a positive alternative instead of just mentioning what’s wrong) + persuasive role of the benefit as a result (‘to succeed’) + politeness (‘Please’) instead of aggressiveness, that fosters acceptance.

‘- You never take me into account, stupid selfish!’

Avoidable: same as previous statement in red + personal involvement from reproach.

Better:  ‘- I’d like you to consult me for the important things, please.’

Advantage: responsible involvement perspective (‘I’d like’) instead of blaming reproach (‘You never’) + same of previous advantages-text, except for the exposition of a benefit, that could eventually add strength to our suggestion:

‘- Please consult me for the important things so we’ll share responsibility.’

‘- I hate you!’

Avoidable: extremely aggressive from negative emotion (rage) management + hermetic from the apparent closing to possibilities of solution.

Better:  (a) ‘- I prefer other people, sorry.’  or (b) ‘- We’re so far from each other.’

Advantages: (a) polite (‘sorry’) + less direct by use of ellipsis (‘prefer other people’) / (b) softens friction by use of metaphore (‘far from each other’).

Of course the ideal ‘whitening’ works by keeping whole clarity from the original (usually negative or aggressive) idea in the processed (more polite and acceptable) version, even if the greater the aggressive harshness of the original, the more difficult it will be to keep the meaning of the message intact.

Anyway, we should try.  I still remember a Conflict-Solving session when two Supervisors working together had to ‘whiten’ the ‘- I wanted to punch him in the middle of his face’ quote, and suggested: ‘- I kindly wanted to modify the morphology of his face’ 😊

‘Til the next one!

B (Sr)

 

 

 

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

THE RICHNESS OF DIVERSITY FOR SUCCESS IN A ‘GLOBAL’ WORLD 🌍

Culture defines us in lot of aspects.  Our thoughts and beliefs, our usual way of perceiving, judging and reacting towards life facts are conditioned by it in many ways.

Diversity speaks about richness and freedom, about multiple angles from which to grow through learning approach.  Synergy, for instance, rellies on diversity for obvious reasons: what can we learn from each other if we are all ‘clones’?

A family, a team, a company, etc. …will evolve and grow much faster whenever capable of accepting + taking advantage of their members’ diversity, then yes: is possible to get reacher by learning from the best of others, and to teach them from the best of ourselves too, in compensation.  Continuous improvement until reaching highest success.

A STATE OF MIND … AN ATTITUDE

Openness, acceptance, learning-approach …and we’ll raise our potential for versatile, multiple-choice capacities to solve challenges and move forward.  Partnership instead of sterile competition, the things in common instead of the opposite visions, the will of CONNECTION as a source of enhancing mutual power together with the ones that are ‘different from us’.

‘Feeling’ the other one, the different one, as my sister/brother at every circumstance: in fact, all of us belong to the marvelous human family.

‘ENOUGH’ INTERCULTURAL KNOWLEDGE

Far from the temptation of simplifying through generalizations or (even worse) stereotypes, good to count on some essential knowledge about how diversity in this great planet works, and Richard Lewis’ contribution on this seems to me helpful.  According to his research we could consider 3 polar cultures: LINEAR one (England, Germany, Sweden, etc.), MULTI one (Italy, Brazil, Angola, etc.), REACTIVE one (China, Vietnam, Japan, etc.).

How do they communicate?  Good to know if we’ll interact with members of these poles!

Here, some clues about their way of interrelating, from different angles of approach:

RESPECT without egoistic judgement is necessary to manage properly the previous knowledge, in order to grow by combined partnership in common interpretation of reigning system of ideas + behavior at any place we visit.

And again, acceptance of the whole individual we interact with (beyond culture frame) will be a key side of the thing: let’s empathetically ‘scan’ them to detect who/how they are and communicate + what is important to them.  This way it’ll be much easier to connect.

Of course, popular knowledge can help too, so let’s remember the wise trick about ‘observing first, then acting’ whenever we visit new cultures.  A bit of ‘synchro-tune’ always bonds more than seeming a Martian to them 😊

‘Til the Next one!

B (Sr)

 

 

EFFECTIVE WRITING

‘DECONTAMINATING’ WRITTEN MESSAGES FROM ORAL VICES

The ‘rules’ are simple:

  1. MOST IMPORTANT FIRST.
  2. WHAT WE EXPECT FROM THEM.
  3. ‘LESS IS MORE’!
  4. CHECK WITH THEIR EYES
  5. THROWING ORAL TEMPTATIONS AWAY

After years of work with professionals in many fields, this is the highest mistake usually made when writing a message: it is ‘oralized’ or, in other words, expressed as if we were talking to the person face-to-face, what makes the thing much more longer than necessary and, over all, confusing.

Let’s take into account that in written way we ‘lose’ visual possibilities of confirmation about the way we say things (literally or, by the contrary, ironically, etc.) and also the so important role of the voice to ‘shape’ meanings in a more defined way.

MOST IMPORTANT FIRST, and eventual details or complementary info (only if needed) afterwards.

Oral Example/ face-to-face (a worker from the morning shift to their colleague in the afternoon shift):

‘Hey Tom, thank God I see you, ‘cause this morning I offered our new product to Mr. Smith, that had me half an hour on the phone to finish by promising a sure purchase in case of color + shape specific options matching his needs.  The problem is these details will only be published in our web this afternoon, during your shift, so: please keep an eye on them and then call him to comment the info.  In case of success, we share the bonus! (eye-blink)’

Written Example/ m@il or similar (same persons and situation):

‘Hi Tom, please open our web this afternoon and check the color + shape options on our new product, to give the info by phone to Mr Smith.  He promised to buy in case of the options matching his needs.  Of course we share the Bonus in positive case! 😊  Thanks, KR, (signature)’

The most important part of the message should start it to easy assimilation + enough retention until the task accomplished: the Client will receive the promised call (attention, consideration) and in fortunate case, the Salesmen will count on a new Bonus.  Everybody happy!

  1. AVOIDING BACK-AND-FORTH UNNECESSARY STUFF

To leave clearly stated what we need/want from the interlocutor in a written interchange will save lot of time and writing effort in unnecessary verbiage coming from uncertainties, need of higher definition or clarifying comments, etc.

We should easy as much as possible the receiver’s certainty about what exactly we’re expecting after our written message sent.

Example:

‘Waiting for your urgent approval, Sincerely, John (←signature)’

We ignore what they’ll do with our wish, even if they clearly know what we wish/expect from them.  This will make communication shorter for more direct.

  1. SAYING MORE WITH LESS WILL GRANT OUR MESSAGE BEING READ 😊

Is a proven fact: the longer the message, the less chance of being read, at least correctly.

Since the other person can be busy enough to receive +50 em@ils during the morning, easy to imagine how much they’ll hate a long, complicated ‘literary salad’ with profussion of verbiage/empty expressions.

In such cases, the reader usually reads beginning and end, ‘guessing’ the middle part, or goes in diagonal over the message, getting (what they think are) the key words to arm a mental pseudo-message, sometimes way different from the true one.

Useful criterion: leave there (in the message) only the words that add meaning …the rest must be eliminated because of obvious, redundant, confusing, unnecessary, artificial, etc.

Instead of:

‘I’m sending these lines to tell you that I need some added information in order to decide on the eventual purchase of your product’

Better:

‘Can you please give me this info to decide on your product offer, please?’

‘I’m sending these lines…’ is redundant, as the reader knows this for obvious.   ‘…to tell you…’ is another redundant no-brainer, as telling them something is the only possible reason to write to them.  Etc.

  1. ‘BEING THEM’ TO CHECK, IN ORDER TO GRANT HIGHEST ACCEPTANCE FROM THEIR PART

Before putting the finger on the ‘Send’ button, good to check the whole message as if we were them, receiving it from us.  This way we’ll be in position of advance some of their impressions and sensations and ways of interpretation, thus still able to modify what we find could be more adjusted to their usual preferences (e.g.).

‘Say what YOU want, the way THEY like’ is a saying I love in communication.

I corrected in time (before sending the message 😊) many times after doing this: the strategically empathetic effort of checking my message in advance as if I was them, of course only in case of knowing the interlocutor enough.

I cancelled local expressions when addressing the message to someone recently immigrated (thus still accomodating to new cultural patterns including ways of saying things), and added clarifying info + details to people being ‘newbies’ in the managed subjects, as well as modified the specific weight of some idea inside the overall message when remembering about my initerlocutor’s usual convictions and preferences on the matter, etc.

In other cases, mainly in business affairs, good to shape the message corporatively: in the style that better represents the essence of the brand or firm.  We should remember that for this prospect or client WE ARE the brand/firm, so good to communicate accordingly (in happy, optimistic, energetic way if we are ‘Disney’ and in a more serious, formal, respectful, delicate, empathetic one if we are a funerary parlor, just to go with a pair of possibilities).

OK, ‘That’s All Folks!’ as Bugs Bunny said more than once.

  1. THIS ARTICLE WANTS TO EASY THE TASK OF WRITING MORE EFFECTIVELY.
  2. HOPE YOU LIKE IT AND, OVERALL, FIND IT USEFUL TO IMPROVE YOUR WRITTEN SUCCESS.
  3. THOUGHT OF A BALANCE BETWEEN LENGTH & CLARITY OF CONCEPTS/IDEAS.
  4. READ IT THRICE BEFORE PUBLISHING IT (AS IF I WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PAGE 😊).

‘Til the Next one!

B (Sr)

 

 

EXTREMES’ MARKETABILITY IN SCIENCE + PROFESSIONAL WRITING

POSITIVE, NEGATIVE, NEUTRAL & RANDOM WORDS IN SCIENCE ARTICLES’ ABSTRACTS + BUSINESS/ RESEARCH LITERATURE 

It’s a proven fact: high-standard literature (science, academic and professional research, etc.) increases every time more the use of positive and negative words to the detriment of neutral or random ones.  Why?

At first sight it seems that the need of impact in publishers and reviewers’ perception could be the main reason, thus showing an evident preeminence of marketing over objectivity …and we’re speaking about some of the most supposed-to-be objective fields in human culture.

At the same time, language in general (the one used by society to communicate in a daily basis) remains more invariable throughout time, curiously I’d say, as we’re all leaving in times of self-selling needs almost for everything: ‘I’ll be hired more easily if impressing the interviewer with the energy of my positivistic speech and style’, etc.

Anyway, a sublimated need of accessing the paradise of prestige publishing is, apparently, pushing scientists, intellectuals and researchers to every-time-more extremist (positive-negative) literature in order to ‘wow’ the ones in charge of filtering and choosing.

POSITIVE LANGUAGE AND ITS EFFECTS

According to NLP and other sources, the link between our thinking processes (including how we manage information) and our language is intense and mutually relevant: positive-thinkers in general tend to speak more positively, as well as people making the effort of raising positivity in their daily language ends by processing info in more positive way.

From the emotional side, positivity in general is better accepted and valued, together with its usual halo of wellness, warmth, joy and some other similar consequences for the unconscious perception.

From the rationally practical side, positive language is easier to comprehend, simpler to follow, and more constructive, as it brings solutions (contribution) instead of just evidencing failures (alarm).

NEGATIVE LANGUAGE AND ITS CAUSES

Beyond cultural reasons (some languages contain more ‘negativity’ in their structure than others, e.g.), there are many more for generality of humans to explain some negative tendencies in our expressions:

Prehistoric ‘NOs’ are still bouncing in our reptilian system (the one linked to survival instincts and other basic areas) from times in which we saw other hominids dying around a lake, thus knew that ‘I’ll do NOT drink from this water’, of course without building the thought with words, still unexisting by that ancient time.

The ‘transactional’ psychology tells us that the lots of ‘NOs’ experienced during our childhood (‘do NOT play there’, ‘do NOT say this’, ‘do NOT touch that’, etc.) leave a mark that will impell our need of ‘giving them back’ to the environment whenever we grow up.  It seems that the smaller the child, the greater the impact of received ‘NOs’.

In the short term, kind of action-reaction effect happens when we enter a room where evident bad vibes are perceivable in the ambience, or we’re directly attacked through aggressive verbiage or so: we tend to automatically put the negative (deffensive) chip ‘On’, and reply in consequence.  And so on…

AMAZING, EXCELLENT, SPECTATULAR, UNPRECEDENTED…

…are some of the words that show an EXPONENTIALLY-growing frequency in scientific abstracts + professional essays/ relevant reports.

According to a study by Christiaan H. Vinkers and others, the use of positive words in high-standard (scientific & professional, mainly) literature had an average increase of 880% over four decades (1974 to 2014), and the negative terms were increased in 257% in the same period, without evident/relevant increase in neutral or random words.

Assuring, astonishing, bright, creative, encouraging, enormous, favourable, groundbreaking, hopeful, innovative, inspiring, inventive, novel, phenomenal, prominent, promising, reassuring, remarkable, robust, supportive, and unique, were the other words that integrated the respective research,

being the main sources PubMed search inqueries and Google Books search engine.

It has to be said also that the higher the level of publishers, the lower the quantity of exaggerated ‘expressionistic’ use of polar words in both senses (positive or negative), due to the evidence of higher exigence, more thorough and critical review process.

Speaking about language, it was also perceived a bit lower increase of both poles in authors from countries in which English is the official language (Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States).  Heritage of typical British phlegm? 😊

Humble personal opinion, good to think + speak POSITIVE in general for the previously exposed reasons: we’ll so probably get what we want in easier & quicker way.

In case of using NEGATIVE terms/expressions, better if voluntarily and in control (knowing Why we use them, or in other words: strategically justified).  The ‘bad NOs’ are almost always the spontaneous ones, where the NO controls→ defensive or emotional reaction, etc.

Hope you have an AMAZING, EXCELLENT, SPECTATULAR, UNPRECEDENTED day!

‘Til the Next one,

B (Sr)

 

 

HOW TO ASK

QUESTIONS ARE POWERFUL …ONLY IF WE KNOW HOW TO USE THEM  🙂 

Real-life story:

A young girl entered the tram car in a two-lines station.  Seeming bit doubtful, looked for info in the panels on general itineraries, located above the doors.

Then, still confused, preferred to ask an old lady already sitting while waiting for the tram departure:  ‘- Sorry, is this the line #4?’

The lady, also doubtful barely said:  ‘- Well, not sure…’ (evidently, she was used to jump on the car and do always the same way until her usual stop).

Showing some sign of embarrassement at these highs of the thing, the girl decided to get out of the car in order to avoid the possible risk of that being the wrong line (#6).  Barcelona TRAM service (this was the case) shares same external aspect for all the lines without exception, and without info on what line each train belongs to.

Once in the intermediate platform, and still evidencing certain confusion, a tram employee aproached her with a simple question: ‘- Sorry, WHERE ARE YOU GOING, young lady?’

‘- To Glòries stop’ she said.   ‘- Then is the same, as both lines arrive there, even if this one (the one she was leaving short before) delays some 5 min. less’

‘- Oh, THANK YOU Sir!’ …a big relief-smile accompanied the message, then she tried to return  to the previous car, that was precisely starting its itinerary (thus having shut, unfortunately for her, the doors).  11 minutes until the next tram.  16 min if choosing the alternative line.

Story Analysis:

Do we agree on ‘- Please Lady, does this train go to Glòries station?’ being a much better question to ask on the car if we were confused about this matter?

It would have saved the girl some nerves, confusion, insecurity and 11 minutes …nothing less!

Direct to the point is always the best way whenever we’re looking for clarity.

Why didn’t she ask the correct question?

Selfishness, first: instead of letting the interlocutor (old lady) know her true goal (to arrive to Glòries stop) she just asked for secondary info letting her own self decide what to do in consequence by arming the whole system (putting together the goal that only her knew + the subsidiary information required to the other lady).

Cure:  Strategic Empathy (previous ‘COMMUNI·TIPS’ article), that is to convey the message the clearest way …to the other one 😊  If the old-lady knew the girl’s true issue she could have helped better, we guess.

Circumstantial vagueness, or (in other words) lack of focus on our goal to move forward (in life and in the tram).  By being so ‘environmental’, humans tend to get more affected by circumstances than needed when it comes to get what we want.  Stephen Covey remembers us all to always have our goal in mind, defined enough to act as a guidance to our steps.

Cure:  to get used to always ask ourselves successive ‘why’s until the final reason for which we’re doing what we do.  At least every time we go for a turning point like getting a transport to arrive somewhere (metaphorical + realistic thought at once 😊).

Emotional disbalance: our inner beasts (survival instinct included in the end of the chain) find each setback as a threaten, thus impelling us to fall into the trap of sudden stress, worrying, even fear (of failing our mission).  This can produce unnecessary degree of confusion, that will bring us to wrong decisions, like posing wrong questions.

Cure: acknowledgement and consciousness about these usual aspects of our reality coming from deep inside us wanting to take control + getting used to breath and think instead of accepting their strong invitation to struggle.

Ignorance about the power of Questions, what could be perfectly considered as a meta-reason to fail: good to ask about what/how we ask.  Good to pose inner questions on the best question(s) to ask in order to get what we want.

It’s a communication ‘mantra’: for every goal there’s a question making it easier + quicker.  The point is: a) What Question?  …and b) How to Ask it?

Let’s say that the b) point is a key aspect of the whole thing.  The how always trumps the what in importance, and will be responsible for the best comprehension from our interlocutor + the consequent best reply (guiding us better towards what we want).

Cure: same as in the previous exercise, we should also ask ourselves the best ‘how’ (instead of the successive ‘why’s).  The most adapted to the other’s particularity (mood, style of communication, etc.).

So (recap), to better Ask = arrive easier + earlier to our goals through questions:

  1. Ask the clearest way to them (easy their understanding of your requirement).
  2. Aim to your final goal! (…and leave aside intermediate steps).
  3. Ask ‘their way’ (style, mood, rhythm, way of thinking, etc.) as much as you can.
  4. Take emotional control (keep calm) until receiving the best reply.

Hope you liked!  Or better if we ASK 😊  How will you take profit from this?

‘Til the Next one!

B (Sr)

 

 

STRATEGIC EMPATHY

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION AT ITS PEAK  🙂 

‘The more you know your enemy, the easier you beat them’ (Sun Zu)

Let’s begin by considering our usual peer as anything except of an ‘enemy’ 😊  …even though, we’d all like to be understood + to persuade them the easiest and fastest possible way.

Saving time + getting what we want is a nice reward to our communication effort, isn’t it?

LEVEL 1: ‘Less me & more You’ (Joan Garriga, on ‘personal growth’)

Always ‘be them’ as much as possible.  Double advangate: more accurate reception by raising the sensitive approach to them, and more effective emission by using their ‘wave-length’ (familiar to them) instead of our own vision (‘alien’ to them sometimes).

Secret: aim to their needs/wants to foster their easier approval/acceptance.

LEVEL 2: ‘Say More with Less’ + ‘Most Important first’

The clearer to them, the earlier they’ll understand/agree (perhaps 🙂)   Let’s reduce the ‘jelly’ (unuseful, unnecessary verbiage, according to Andy Bounds) by only leaving in our message the words that add meaning to it.

Also: begin by the most important part (key) of your message, and add eventual details (only if so necessary) after.  They’ll get the point easier/clearer.

Secret: think of your speech as a ‘paid telegram’ … each word costs money!

LEVEL 3: ‘The How is more persuasive than the What’  (based on Marshall McLuhan)

Combine your communication style with theirs, to raise connection so being perceived by them as ‘friendly’ (it’s never imitation! …better strategic synergy looking for a win-win mutual partnership).

Once detected their main patterns (gestures, entonation, rhythm, etc.), good to introduce some of these data into your behavior/emission, in a way they’ll identify as coming from a ‘similar’ (acceptable) one, someone with whom to share time + business 😊

Secret: first ‘approach’ their style, then slightly bring them towards the ‘place’ you want them to be (soft persuasion).

In summary:

Level 1: empathetic approach to learn from them (who/how they are).

Level 2: effective message construction for them to understand (what we want).

Level 3: strategic style-combination for highest connection until their ‘yes’ (partnered persuasion).

Hope you liked it.  Just try!

‘Til the Next one,

B (Sr)

 

 

HOW to PUBLISH a SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE

BECOMING A SCIENCE-WRITER & PERSUADING HIGH-IMPACT PUBLISHERS ABOUT THIS 🙂 

In science, your fantastic contribution/advancement will provide almost ‘0’ fuel to your career until it is published the right way + in the right place + open to the high criteria of each reviewer before (publishers’ selection) and after (the readers: usually your colleagues in science).  Well, how to achieve this outstanding success?

‘WHY’ BEFORE ‘HOW’

Beyond the evidence on a high dose of pride and self-achievement sensation usually coming together with a publication from yours in the scientific world, it is really crucial to ask yourself WHY you want this to happen.

Calling attention on a field (yours) that needs it could be a good reason, as well as sharing enough prestige with your research institution in order to get more/better support to achieve best results in the chosen challenge. Also good.

Being the first one pointing your finger towards ‘that’ embryonic side plenty of pregnant possibilities to improve mankind? Fantastic!  Like in Formula 1, almost always the arrival order counts (patents, economic support, structural facilities, etc.), even if Dr. Aijaz Shaikh (Jyväskylä University School of Business & Economics, Finland) also advices to take the necessary time before publication in order to polish every strategic point to avoid future inconveniences.

Usual 3 main reasons to want to go for publication are:

a) Presenting new, original results or methods.

b) Rationalizing or reinterpreting published results.

c) Reviewing or summarizing a particular subject or field.

WRITING A MANUSCRIPT THE EFFECTIVE/EFFICIENT WAY

Beyond simple, generic literary principles that will prove useful (greatest clarity + simplicity if possible, saying more with less -concision-, arming the whole product based on the readers’ comfortable understanding and benefit -instead of the own egoistic vision/perspective-, choosing always the most appropriate words in solidly sequenced statements as part of clearly interpretable paragraphs, etc.), some specifics also count a lot:

Title + Abstract can do marvels by causing the best FIRST IMPRESION, so:

TITLE: identifies theme and clearly tells about our contribution to the theory/field.

ABSTRACT: kind of previous ‘radiography’ advancing aim + scope of the study, key problem to be addressed (and theory), method used, data, key findings, ‘dark side’ (limitations), implications for theory and practice, etc. (Dr. Angel Borja, Azti-Tecnalia Research Center, Basque Country, Spain).  In summary, the Abstract is about what we did and what the findings of our work were.

Sharon Nancekivell adds couple of ABSTRACT-needs too: it should contain a clear statement of purpose and, if possible, express solidly the main conclusion(s).

INTRODUCTION: ‘opener’ where only-the-necessary amount of reviewed literature on the main subject should be exposed, and of course if being closely related to the main Discussion in our research/article.  It should show with clarity the significance of our work, in addition.

METHODS & MATERIALS: careful, complete description of all the Methods used and the previous selection criteria on the respective choice(s).

RESULTS: the answer to the main purpose of our work, better if well organized, containing the findings and avoiding (subjective) interpretations.

DISCUSSION: clear explanation of the true significance of our results/findings + eventual comparison to previous studies on the topic, to confirm, enrich or deny their proposals.

As Dr. Elliot Smith (Berkeley University) also points, great importance should be given in the correct expression of the following stuff to close our study:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: funding sources, thanks to contributors, eventual ethics statement if the research based on human or animal subjects.

REFERENCES: list of cited sources and citations.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: supporting technical information (figures, protocols, methods, tables, additional data) too long or detailed to fit into the body of the paper.

THE RIGHT PLACE (PUBLISHER)

Always advisable to look for/consult colleagues about the best publisher to our article, as this will prove pivotal to make our contribution arrive (if the article published) the farthest way, thus generating the necessary attention + eventual needed support to keep moving forward.

For ethical and practical reasons, always convenient to send our manuscript to only one journal at a time. Otherwise, some chaos can arise on delicate items like e.g. copyright and other normative or legal sides that will affect the author, the mother university, and the journal.

So important: every good journal or publisher works around a Guide for Authors that should be carefully read + followed by the sending candidate.  This IS so important.

Besides previous must-do point, a frequent reason for rejections is an inadequate standard of English in the paper, what should be solved in advance, through the means the sender considers most appropriate and reachable to them.

HANDLING (EVENTUAL) REJECTION…

High-impact journals accept less than 10% of the articles submitted to them.  Mathematics are clear, also on this point.  So: even if being a good article, ours can be part of the +90% without this meaning it’s horrible or us being bad scientists.

My recent book ‘COMUNICACIÓN QUE FUNCIONA’ (ESIC Editorial) had to pass through an extremely exigent selection process in a market where usually 1 every 700 submissions are published in book format.  This is harder than the ‘10%’ exposed before, and please believe I’m not ‘the light on earth’ regarding literature or anything at all.

I just worked hard (many months) in the conception and sequential development of the book chapters until building a manual that the Editorial reviewers considered potentially useful for varied types of public, so it worked.  Lot of organized sacrifice from my part, confidence from the publisher’s approval.  The interesting point is that the same manuscript was rejected by at least 10 other publishers!  Thank God ESIC was my favorite one, and that I kept fighting for my product despite the previous rejections.

Better than giving up is always to strategically adapt to improve and gain higher possibilities next time (that can be soon, of course).

HANDLING (EVENTUAL) SUCCESS

A Publisher needs to be sure that our study brings something new + useful + relevant to the science world in any form (discovery, serious improvement, diversification with new ways to follow, etc.), and will for sure perceive coherence in our way of telling about this alongside the whole work (Title to Discussion).

When enjoying the chance of discussing optimizing points with a publisher (my case before the publication of the above mentioned book), good to pay attention to their points and suggestions, and to take advancement actions either applying their suggestions or proposing a different thing (making sense for them, of course).

Finally, and among all of the little details sometimes getting a happy ‘Yes’ from an exigent publisher, Padma R Jirge (Berkeley too) states that it would be good to prepare the submission by grouping the following items in a folder from which to arm the final thing:

Title file or first page file, article file, image files, videos, charts, tables, figures, and copyright/consent forms.  Ooops, for a typical chaotic-one like me, this last advice can prove the difference between some little possibility and ‘0’ 😊

Hope you liked/found useful!

‘Til the Next one,

B (Sr)

 

 

COMMUNICATION: the 3 STATES

HOW OUR INTERACTION STYLE DEFINES SITUATIONS …AND LIFE  🙂 

We’re made of water, basically. It’s in our whole composition, what leads me to the following concept proposal around Communication styles able to get related to water different states, namely Solid, Liquid, and Gas.

In the following paragraphs we will break down the characteristics of these ‘states’ of communication, and perhaps we will know something more about ourselves!

SOLID COMMUNICATION 

Driven, secure, even blunt at times, you’re used to rapidly define + frame your social situations in order to respond the clearest way, always leaving your position solidly defined, and removing (if possible) any doubt on it.

You listen in analytical way, wanting to build the perfect reply in the meanwhile.  You emit in short rushes of certainty or longer paragraphs that look to clearly explain your viewpoint and the reason for it.

You negotiate in aggressive way, always wanting to win whatever the situation and the other party is.

In conflict, you rarely change position and are capable of going forward until the end no matter what consequences this brings.  You’re completely sure about your reason and right to impose it.

You are so protective as leader or in a parental relationship with your children, and so directive too (in both cases), liking to tell them the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ to get this what.

Rarely doubting or feeling caught in mistake, you are able to recognize one (if evident), making afterwards everything for it not to happen again.

Good for: complex situations needing clarity, re-addressing chaos or disorder, avoid confusion.

Needs to Improve: closed or biased approaches, scarce adaption potential, stubbornness.

LIQUID COMMUNICATION 

Flexible, quick, adaptable, strategically driven, you usually count on many alternatives to navigate situations until a reasonably good end, observing in real time the other’s reaction and actions inside the interchange of feedback in order to re-address (if possible) yours to make it more persuasive in order to achieve your goal.

You listen openly, still addressing each piece of information to the need of getting something positive from this interaction, and look for particular traits in the interlocutor emission in order to use part of this information afterwards to render your reply as familiar as possible for them, so they’ll be able to accept your vision/proposal easier and earlier.

Already said, your emission is the usual result of an accurate, ‘investigative’ perception, extremely versatile to adapt to as varied patterns as necessary in order to match the other’s style and apparent favorite way of reception.

You’re a successful negotiator for whom ‘everything is negotiable’, and after careful analysis of the own position and the limit of your eventual concessions to the other one, you can address the game to win what you want the most (previous prioritization is done, of course) and to give the other one both the part you’re less interested in, and the sensation that ‘they won, or did it so well’.

In conflict, you study how important subject is, and plan to waste the minimum possible energies in the competitive exercise, using them to persuade more than fight, to look for common areas instead of conflicting interests.

You’re mainly a participative leader, showing your talent at the same time you foster your people’s ones, and moving situations forward in intelligent (both emotional and rational sides) way until getting the common goal.

To your children, you look as a funny parent, even if they clearly know that you’ll have the control on the most important subjects.  They’ll get entertained and controlled at the same time.  Both as leader or parent, you’ll suggest the ‘what’ always letting them choose the ‘how’ and assessing then for celebrating their success or correcting their mistake (always in order to learn from it).

You too are tolerant with your own mistakes, as they’re possible in an open person and personality that sometimes goes forward ‘tasting the water’ to adapt to what is found.  Again, you’re always ready to learn from mistakes and calibrate more accurately the next time.

Good for: unblocking stranded situations, strategic management + advancement, agreements.

Needs to Improve: usual low resiliency, lack of stronger definition on self & style (predictability).

GAS COMMUNICATION 

Vast in knowledge, you generally live a bit in the clouds of it, able to riddle interlocutors with all of what you know without stopping or being interrupted.  At the same time, you’re sometimes unsecure enough to ‘talk to self-protect’, a usual behavior in many persons that feel the need of emitting in expansive way (like gas) fulfilling the whole situation in undefined, diffuse way, even if good part of your pitch is possibly brilliant.

You listen partly, as at the same time you perceive from many ‘channels’ many different wave-lengths from the other one’s emission: their logical information, their mood (that can affect yourselves more than other -average- listeners), etc.

Your emission, already advanced, is usually so profuse, and plain of elements that embellish (or complicate) it and are perfectly disposable or summarizable.

In a negotiation you can arrive to put too many elements and variables on the table, making the thing intricated, sometimes complex and almost always time-consuming as the others’ find hard to ‘take your point’ inside the big ‘ball’ of verbiage and attached concepts you throw.  Anyway, it can prove useful if they ‘give up’ and finally give you what they understood you wanted in order to ‘cut it’ a.s.a.p. if they get something more or less relevant too.

In conflict you tend to ‘disappear’, evanishing from the other’s eventual aggressiveness and avoiding this way the direct fight.

As a leader, you give the impression of ‘illumination’ and enormous preparation, even if proving sometimes overwhelming to your people from the huge cascade of concepts, directives, advice and suggestions you pose on them.

Exactly the same with your eventual children: they know you are ‘much thing’ even if sometimes they experience ‘too much’ from yours and remain a bit confused.

Seeming indecisive sometimes or flying into your ‘own planet’ of knowledge and etceteras, you are anyway a permanent source of information that will prove useful to whom perceives in concentrated way to separate the key, core parts from the (probably huge) filling.

Good for: managing abstraction, philosophical approaches, delicateness and tact, etc.

Needs to Improve: extreme complexity + eventual disorder in general, undefinition sometimes.

So …WHO ARE YOU?  

We humans are far from being easily ‘classifiable’ like the objects e.g. …even though, our personality tends to be unalterable over time and (like it) our communication style.

‘Til the Next one!

Bernardo Sr

 

 

The MEDIA and their DISSEMINATION capacity

SCIENCE, ART, TECHNOLOGY AND OTHER ENTERTAINING STORIES TO OFFER TO VIEWERS 

How do you get along with your love for art, science and the media? Well, by mixing them! 😊

For decades we have had the privilege of practicing art and science + being able to disseminate their most captivating aspects to the ‘general public’ from the mass media.

Press, television, cinema and many other channels have been our field of work and testing for each new innovative project.

In the visual example of this article, excerpts from the ancient weekly TV program ‘Techno-Vision’, dedicated to the dissemination of science and technology applicable to people’s daily lives, and to explain their contributions in an understandable + entertaining way (at least it was the intention).

SCRIPT: the intellectual genesis of the future product. In the case of this example program, the scriptwriting was always the work of science and technology professors with the desire to popularize its most relevant aspects. Each program revolved around a different topic (scientific or technological).

PREPARATION / STORY-BOARDING: outline with advances in structure and proposed organization in sequence (eg: oral presentation + professional or scientific report together with the practical application of the chosen topic). The director (Ricardo Reyna) was in charge of the respective preparation in fluid dialogue with the teachers who wrote the script.

RECORDING ‘IN SITU’ OF REPORTS: transfer of technical equipment to the chosen recording locations, usually places where applied science / technology can be found and explained technically to the general public. Alexandro Irusta on camera, following the director’s instructions, used to be the one in charge of the most relevant shots, and Marcelo Botta who managed the lighting in each chosen set.

RECORDING OF INTRODUCTIONS WITH A PRESENTER: comment prior to each report, by the presenter (Bernardo Facta) and with the intention of opening the topic from a general perspective, advancing the points of greatest interest that will follow later through the report itself.

The same presenter used to star in the various commercials during the week, announcing the next program and its main reports.

ENDING EFFECTS / EDITING + EDITING: Under the instructions of the director, the post-production team handles the final fine details for broadcast. In our case, NÉMESIS (a specialized company) gave the final shape to each program, following the indicated structure and incorporating the sound or visual effects that were needed for the final result.

PRODUCTION: the economic part of the project, which makes its existence and continuity viable, consisting of generating money for the construction of each program through advertising, of which Gabriel Sánchez was primarily responsible (in the case of ‘TechnoVision’), together with his sales team.

THE TRUE PLACE OF SCIENCE AND ART IN THE MEDIA

To be honest, we miss a greater presence and relevance on screen (and in the media in general) of proposals of a cultural level necessary to offer growth from entertainment.

In our opinion, the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) seems to be an impeccable example of respect for the public from the selection of quality programming that is always relevant and fortunately includes coverage of scientific aspects of reality (nature, science, technology, art, etc.) .

Creativity and talent come together in this chain in the service of offering dignity to its audience. Obviously, the offer of pure entertainment (realities included), soap operas, news, etc. will also have their place on the grill. All within a balance that has the viewer and their needs at the center.

Fortunately, in other countries’ channels there are also examples of a real effort to offer high quality programming alongside the usual formats already listed in the previous paragraph.

However, the evidence of a progressive impoverishment of this offer in the media is also difficult to deny or answer: we are witnessing the growing power of easy money and the mercantilist interests behind empty programming of non-relevant or even humiliating content that, curiously, tend to become ‘addictive’ for a large part of the public that is automated in the exercise of lying on the sofa and activating the remote control to turn off the mind, or leave it free to what comes out of the screen, without much selective or analytical power …

Decades after ‘TechnoVision’ (the TV program in the example) we continue to ponder the potential of the media, so studied and taught by personalities such as Marshall McLuhan (for example) and its level of concreteness in the reality of our days.

Today we work from bf© side by side with large European scientific research centers, in which the tools of communication and dissemination of our own advances are of enormous importance, both to obtain the necessary funds to enable their activity and to modernize our own (internal) didactic or interdisciplinary processes.

The ability to transmit in an enthusiastic and motivating way will always be a ‘plus’ for scientific and technological activity, and the challenge that the media represents (now enriched with the great power of the social networks) is a permanent opportunity to broaden borders, interest to more audiences and show them how much good they can get from the daily contributions of this relentless source of benefits to humanity.

Another issue is related to how such advances reach us and benefit us, and how much later key discoveries are usually applied for good, after they have been thoroughly tested to harm (think of nuclear technology for medicine, genealogical ‘granddaughter’ of its first notable uses in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, without going any further).

Optimism and faith! And the certainty that the ‘gene’ worthy and good continues in every human being, including our scientists and professionals focused on technological innovation. Disseminating their daily effort and the respective benefit for society has been the engine of our activity so long ago… and it will continue to be from the same conviction of its need and usefulness.

‘Til the Next one!

Bernardo Sr

 

 

CONFLICT: GOOD OR BAD?

DIGGING INTO A SO HUMAN ASPECT THAT USUALLY SCARES HUMANS

Can you please quickly answer the question?  Good or Bad?  Beneficial or harming?  Constructive or destructive?  Like with everything in humans’ life: it depends.

If Paul McLean is right with his tri-unic brain theory, then it’s feasable to understand how easy is for instincts (1st, reptilian brain) and emotions (2nd, mammalian brain) to literally ‘invade’ the 3rd, primate-human brain’s land in a sudden.  Without previous advice. BAM!

‘Why did I argued that violently with this person? …how could I say/do this to them?  That’s not me!’  Yes, of course it’s us.  The usually hidden part of us that, thanks to social conventions and education remains under certain control until braking the contention barrier …and we explode.

E.Q./ Emotional Intelligence (Dr. Daniel Goleman, 1999) comes to help us create some methodologic strategy always based on relative control of our wildest emotions from the rational side, in order to behave in a safe way by keeping our relationships safe too.

‘Safe’ intentionally used, as its clear that we usually pay a price for letting emotions run free.  Somatization is the medical term to define how we get hurted by our own selves, as it happens e.g. when we’re so stressed because of a coming exam or challenge, thus experiencing headaches or digestive problems immediately or very short term.  Dr. Dean Ornish (Massachussets University) has researched a lot on this, proving how dangerous we can arrive to be to our own selves by these types of disorders.

THE E.Q. FORMULA

  1. Let’s identify which emotions are frequently causing trouble in our relationship with ours.
  2. Let’s build a coping strategy to (progressively) reduce this scenario until getting better relationships by controlling prejuditial emotions.
  3. Let’s identify and reflect on which emotions usually act in our peers, mainly those with whom we have the most frequent conflicts or relationship difficulties. Let’s try to understand this way how these emotions can induce them to take negative part in such conflicts.
  4. Let’s get prepared to influence relationships (with certain control without arrive to manipulation, if possible) by taking advantage of having matured the 3 previous stages, in a way in which we’ll propose and get more frequent mutual understanding and ‘win-win’ results.

CONFLICT-PROOF PERSONALITY

Like a bullet-proof vest, we can go by life in safer way by a combination of factors inside us that can prove magic in order to prevent or successfully manage conflictive situations:

EMPATHY to understand the other one’s reasons, ASSERTIVENESS to address to them with warm clarity, POSITIVITY to put an optimistic lense to the thing, PROACTIVITY to quickly act towards the solution, and (mainly) capacity to keep always CALM in order to be able to look for the best path towards a ‘win-win’ will always help us live healthier and more pleasantly.

THE THIRD AGREEMENT…

…from so-wise Miguel Ruiz in his book ‘The 4 Agreements’, it advices to avoid taking it personally.  SAFE NEUTRALITY could be, then, a concept to add to the previous conflicto-proof vest 😊  And we’ll prevent this way also unhealthy somatization, thus paying due attention to Dr. Ornish eye-opening research.

Following this thread, we can easily discover how in the end is our EGO (Evil Governing Ourselves) the main cause of lot of suffering and trouble in our life.  For logical consequence, some healthy doses of HUMILITY will always help keep things quiet and happy.  Chinese wisdom.

NEGOTIATION TO PLAY, PERSUASION TO WIN

Flexibility is key factor on this.  Ability to dialog and negotiate until finding out a common way of solution that will always be better than being destroyed by the other or letting them go as ‘losers’ for holding probable grudges and bad feelings towards us afterwards.

Let’s look for what we have in common instead of what separates us.  Let’s propose partnership instead of enemistry.  Let’s ask ourselves what can be good with the arrival of that person instead of what can be bad, etc.

Good also to negotiate by adding elements to the table, in order to grant an easier ‘win-win’ that looks impossible if we just compete for one thing (win-lose or lose-win are the only probable results in this sad case).  Theory says that every ‘win-lose’ is a ‘lose-lose’ in the end, as nobody having lost to us is usually coming again to negotiate, so we lose future negotiation potential.

And how to PERSUADE the others to accept our brilliant solution-proposal?  Know them well!  Sun-Zu said ‘the more you know about your enemy, the easier you can beat them’ (and we can forget about the ‘enemy’ term to grant a more friendly partnership 😊).

Once knowing them, use their vision and approach to the thing!  Mighty Aristotle said ‘The stupid man tells me his reasons, the wise one convinces me with mine’.  WoW.

Use their words, approach, ideas, convictions, needs, all of what you know from them and can be part of your pitch in order for them to ‘feel’ it theirs (‘familiar’, then) instead of yours (perhaps ‘alien’ in that case).

Like the ‘pacing & leading’ NLP technique, it’s a matter of approaching them, ‘reading’ their style, ‘tuning in’ and softly, smoothly bringing them where you want them to be.

Then …Good or Bad?  It depends!  If things improve after, welcome the Conflict.  So: Full Success with your Conflict-solving abilities from now on!

‘Til the Next one,

B (Sr)

 

 

CLOSE VIRTUALITY, VIRTUAL CLOSENESS

HOW TO GET IMPACT + INTENSITY IN DISTANT, VIRTUAL COMMUNICATION

‘You have a fascinating + direct way of explaining things …and made us feel already part of a team …thanks for sharing that much’ (M.S.)

I enjoyed a lot today’s session …bring with me lot of advice and reflections to apply in both my personal + professional life …so thankful for all the wisdom and good vibes that this journey transmitted (A.L.)

‘Thanks for today’s training …made me become aware of many things …this will transform my way of listening and connecting to my Clients …the way you share your knowledge is so dynamic and joyful (D.B.)

I felt super-well in today’s training session and consider it so useful to our work …a warm atmosphere there was the key for me to feel comfortable in asking questions or sharing opinion…’ (E.F.)

I’m delighted by today’s training, because it’s been innovative and so interesting.  Thanks also for your warmth and way of addressing to us…’ (M.S.)

The previous stuff is a so recent set of written feedback post-session from attendees to a Corporative + Communication module …a VIRTUAL one.

I’m getting stunned by the apparent great success, as:

1. Virtual interactions seem to be in themselves ‘colder’, more neutral or ‘distant’ (metaphorically, besides literally) than physical ones.

2. I’ve always run away from them, precisely because of these exposed reasons, and confess that really prefer the ‘adrenaline’ of the direct, physical contact with people inside a vibrating room where to grow thanks to the intensity and impact of the moment.

Intentionally, I’ve highlighted from their comments the parts that seem to refer to this ‘intensity’ in kind of an emotional way.  Then, it is possible to get something warmer and more pleasant even in virtual way?  It seems, fortunately.

Short after the experience, I made a ‘home’ analysis by thinking of what could have worked in favor of the apparent warmth + consequent confidence to move forward and profit from the session despite its ‘virtuality’.   And came up with some things…

TRUE EMPATHY

Real, well-intentioned interest in the attendees, their situations and needs.  Being newcomers to a giant brand/project, they needed a warm reception into the new reality, together with a dose of ‘familiar’ space to say theirs while introducing themselves.  For this opening part, a little trick:

SOMETHING PERSONAL

I intentionally asked each one of them for their ‘passions’ in life.  What they really love usually, and it was a nice stimulus that invited them to feel well by evoking the happy side of their lives.  At the same time, it’s always good to ask people what they love instead of what they think, if we want to know them better 😊

HUMOR

Easy to me, fortunately, as it’s always huge part of my ‘style’ of communication, and also a permanent choice in life.  I noticed how the attendees enjoyed each joke, humorous comment or funny idiomatic twist, what was progressively ‘bonding’ by reducing the initial (normal) social distance.  Among other huge advantages, Humor makes the confident interaction faster almost always.  Only thing: good to ‘tune’ it well, to adapt it to circumstances.

FREQUENT PARAPHRASING

Good to go forward with the experience and, from time to time, say something like ‘…and as Johnny said some minutes ago…’.  Johnny will become aware of recognition from our part and the rest of fellows will feel represented by him too (perhaps becoming more enthusiastic to contribute from their opinion, higher participation, etc.).

‘DEEP’ QUESTIONS

Most powerful component of verbal communication, Questions are true ‘jokers’ to produce marvels in human interactions, including virtual ones.  A personal question (always inside the frame of confidence that is allowed) produces different consequences in terms of bonding and necessary group-confidence than neutral ones.  Of course, better if the question is strategically linked to something (concept, skill, element) being discussed for the audience’s growth.   Reflective questions make also people do an ‘inner trip’ that shakes them in certain way, convenient also to strengthen the relationship with the session, the trainer, and the fellows.

OUR PERSONAL IMPLICATION

To tell them personal stories related to what is being managed/discussed makes them feel us more proper.  This is a good way of raising the degree of confident relationship (‘rapport’), necessary to grant more open approach from the attendees too.  As Prof. Francesc Imbernon (UB, Universitat de Barcelona) always remembers, the relationship between students and professor (audience and trainer works too) conditions a lot the ‘content’ of the experience, all of what is part of the respective program.  I immediately think that, this way, the objectives are also affected.  We get them easier, in the end, if we could bond well with our people inside the room …or virtually 😊

EMOTION + EXPRESSION

Let’s feel free to let our emotions be shown ‘a bit more’ than in direct interaction, as this will surely ‘compensate’ the psychological distance that a screen imposes.  Our power of expression (a good, opportune laugh, some other vocal interjection or ‘echo’ to what they’re commenting, e.g.) always adds ‘pep’ to the virtual interaction formula.  Of course, inside the professional frame of acceptance.  Every exaggeration in this sense can be source of the opposite: them rejecting ‘this mad’ for too histrionic or so.

HUMILITY

A key element in almost every success strategy that involves others, every dose of humble approach will tell them that ‘we’re IN’ as one of them, in equal terms, forming the same situation, experience and moment.   Good to reduce even more the distances by showing ourselves ‘touchable’, reachable, as human as them.

FOSTERING THEIR ACTIVE IMPLICATION

Frequent personalized questions help a lot to know more about them: what’s their approach to this concept? …and their opinion respect to that quote? …their suggestion to improve this or that?  …etc.  Making them feel important is important 😊   In addition, it’s always good from the didactic viewpoint all of what every attendee shows from themselves.

APPEALLING ACTIVITIES

The practical side of the thing can prove fantastic for them to interact in search of solutions for a given challenge, at the same time engaging in the group thing from the social (and sometimes even affective) side, until getting ready for the activity best result, evaluated through feedback and (hopefully) leaving some useful profit to future application.

TO REMEMBER + ACCEPT THAT ‘MURPHY LOVES TECHNOLOGY’

In the end, what should come first!   Everybody will feel more ‘natural’ the physical interaction, for the fact that we are physical beings, since millions of years ago, in addition.  And precisely because of this, we should calm down before having to get involved in the varied types of virtuality that the current world (including the pandemic circumstance) is asking + needing in order to move forward.   At the same time, let’s accept and dissimulate as well as possible the other’s mistakes, technical issues, insecurities, etc., as they’re humans too, facing the same new challenges that reality imposes.

Some few months ago I was connected to a managerial event organized virtually by a so powerful organization for company Directors and managers.  The event was supposed to be run forward by three prestigious speakers, with the added stimulus of the ‘live’ interaction with them and possibility of asking them questions in real time.  Well, one from them couldn’t connect from home alongside the whole event length (about an hour and a half).  Then we had to go forward with only two speakers 😊   If powerful organizations are still adapting, can you imagine how logical it is to leave our peers room for the same: adaption.  Let’s then act naturally when such things happen, let’s take them the most natural way (a dog barking in somebody’s home while them speaking, a familiar moving behind them in pajama, a baby bringing some toy to Mum while she’s explaining an important business, etc.  Naturality!

ALWAYS THE ‘HOW’ BEFORE THE ‘WHAT’

A warm, funny, expressive exposition of something relevant will help people to better remember this.  The ‘what’ will remain intact while the ‘how’ will grant higher profit from it.  This principle works for everything in human communication, all types of it, of course, and good to remember that what gives true sense to it is, in the end, the ‘WHY’.

P.S. WITH PRACTICAL SIDE

To the previous, always convenient to add:

Good PREPARATION on both subject + involved technology, with eventual practice on the chosen platform (Zoom, WebEx, Teams, many etceteras) and their respective ways of function …how to eventually run forward an individual or group activity? (in training, workshop, etc.) …how to manage type and way of participation of each attendee? (sound allowance, image, etc.) …how to share with all (or part) of them any type of add? (*PowerPoint, Video, others).

The part of conceptual preparation is obvious, except if it’s a familiar meeting where to speak about sons, nephews and how grandma is going 😊 …and the technical one, even if (it’s true!) will be acceptable the possibility of a mistake because of logical reasons, it’s also a matter of professional responsibility to know as well/much as possible the characteristics of each platform and application, as they usually vary in terms of video management, types of group connection, etc.

Fine to practice in advance with the things that worry us more, in order to go on gaining confidence.  Let’s remember that whenever the interaction begins, we’re in charge of generating this confidence in others!

OK, Let’s hope this article proves useful for our beloved public to get in love with virtuality, losing (as it happens to me lastly) every time more all of our natural itching and rejections.

‘Til the Next one!  (physically or virtually 😊)

B (Sr)

 

 

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION IN CRISIS: IMAGE MANAGEMENT

HOW TO ADDRESS THE FALL IN PRESTIGE (PRODUCED BY A CRISIS) THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAY TO RECOVER AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE…

They say that the movement of a butterfly’s wing in one hemisphere can influence the weather in the other… imagine what a crisis can cause in a company! (or in any organized institution).

The IMAGE of any company can be considered its ‘X-ray’ in a commercial and business health analogy, and it goes far beyond the eventual logo, involving more and more subliminal messages that reach the public about its philosophy regarding ecological issues , moral ones and various other kinds. We are invariably talking about Prestige as a parallel index of this Image.

And a crisis can ruin much of what has been positively done to raise both Prestige and Image during a long previous time. As every strategist knows, it takes a lot to earn Trust in the business world, and much of it can be lost in the blink of an eye. If this is our case as entrepreneurs… WHAT DO WE DO?

Let’s focus on the case of an internal crisis caused by the company itself or part of it (or its functional connections projected abroad) and seriously affecting its image + prestige …

The unavoidable fact of ‘being perceived’ makes it necessary for organizations and companies to have mechanisms capable of resolving conflicts caused by internal or external factors or the sum of both, from mechanisms of detection, evaluation and resolution of conflicts, in order to restore the appreciation of such institutions through their public image.

THE IMAGE EQUATION

‘Institutional image’ is a concept nourished by the graphic-visual identity (logo, colors and usual fonts issued by the organization), the internal philosophy + culture (mission, vision, values ​​…) and the way in which the internal or external communication is managed (business communication).

Prof. Daniel Andrés Quintero (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia), from whom I learned a lot about the subject of this article and the mastermind of many of its master lines, proposes the following ‘formula’, taken in turn from Víctor Gordoa, a specialist in public image and one of his greatest references :

“Image is Perception that becomes Identity and, over time, Reputation” according to the aforementioned Gordoa.  Image = Reputation = Prestige … things get very interesting!

THE OMNIPRESENT ‘HEALING’ POWER OF COMMUNICATION

The usual ‘battlefield’ of institutional discredit is frequently fed by the power of the mass media, the networks, and any typical multiplication of the globalized era in which a simple ‘click’ creates echoes in the rest of the world almost instantly.

Thus, it is logical to think that perhaps the same key context (Communication) may be the carrier of the antidote, or at least the most appropriate curative therapy …

PREVENTION: it is always convenient for any company or institution that takes care of its image and reputation to know itself (internalization of fundamental values ​​and corporate essence by all its members), to have a clear line of internal and external communication (capable of synthesizing their key messages in a simple and timely manner) and to be prepared for the eventuality of a crisis (procedures and strategies codified in a ‘crisis manual’ or similar).

TYPES OF CRISIS: ranging from catastrophe (natural disasters caused by man or random) to internal crisis (circumstances that affect the human capital of the organization), going through massive failure of service (due to production or public management problems ), the crisis of good repute (facts that cast doubt on the good image of the institution upon reaching the ‘public domain’) or economic-financial threat (unfavorable changes in the value system, application of laws that adversely modify the financial market or economic changes of great proportions difficult to absorb).

Obviously, the type of crisis will determine the ‘curative’ plan in question.

DEVELOPMENT PHASES OF A CRISIS: chronologically there is usually a previous phase (facts whose reading can help prevent future damage), an initial phase (normally formed by two moments: that of the crisis itself and that of the visibility of its effects) , intermediate or resolution phase (application of the communication plan in crisis) and final or postcrisis phase (time it will take the company to return to its pre-crisis state). In all these cases, there will be a technical and a communicative response in the management of the solution.

The technical management will be the operative solution to the type of crisis itself, while the communicative management will aim to control the negative effects on the reputation of the organization, strategically sharing its resounding action directed towards the prompt solution.

CRISIS TEAM: in addition to experts specialized in the type of crisis to be faced, there will be a cabinet made up of the communication department and the human resources department, as well as the organization’s lawyers and, finally, the executives appointed to represent the institution or company until the crisis is over.

This team will work on the technical solution (compensation to possible victims, analysis and solution of the crisis itself, issuance of standards, specific operations necessary, etc.) as well as on communication management (how each of the the processes listed above is managed until the final solution).

THE STRATEGY: you can accept or reject / deny the eventual serious offense committed by the organization (which will define the subsequent path to follow), understanding the audience and responding to their expectations is always key, offering an apology to all those affected ( in case of acceptance) is where the worst failures of solution management tend to be committed, finding the most appropriate definitive solution will prevent the negative effects from reappearing ‘a posteriori’, and finally an act of good faith is needed, a guarantee of ‘no repetition‘ of what happened.

‘THERAPEUTIC ACTIONS’ FOR CRISIS MANAGEMENT:

VACCINES (PREPARATION): existence of a protocol with a crisis plan correctly designed to work at the first symptoms of possible damage to image / reputation. Example: separation (diversification) into various activities with different areas of expertise, which will prevent the eventual damage of one ‘contaminating’ the others.

JUSTIFICATIONS: explanations designed to minimize the severity of the image damage, aimed at defending innocence, demonstrating that there is no causation, or setting out a reason that justifies what happened.

EXCUSES: arguing obstacles or impediments to minimize the negative impact (unforeseen consequences, ‘scapegoats’, comparison with worse situations, unattainable objectives due to excessive, etc.).

DISMISSAL: between people (officials, shareholders, suppliers, etc.) who have made a serious public error and the institution or organization that may be affected by said error. In this case, ‘separate the waters’ minimizes the blame for ‘osmosis’ of the company, concentrating attention on the individual.

APOLOGY: ‘non-acceptanceof guilt linked to the intention to be forgiven from the partial discharge of responsibility, the rejection of inappropriate behaviors or the commitment to learning.

FORGIVENESS: ‘yes acceptanceof guilt together with the intention to be forgiven expressing guilt, repentance or shame, in addition to accepting the sanction (judicial or unfavorable public opinion) as long as those who have been harmed by the eventual improper action are compensated.

Thus, and as it is verified throughout the previous treatment (of crisis, in this case), Communication as the most important tool of social interaction will be the ideal channel to manage the counterproductive effects of a harmful drop in business or organizational reputation in the face of who must restore credibility and future new eventual support (the public).

If you want to deepen the topic or part of it, contact us! Always a pleasure…

‘Til the Next one,

(B Sr)

 

 

FOLLOW ME!

META-ARTICLE ON ARTICLE REDACTION (PRECISELY) + GRAPHICS

The subject is first: WHAT do I want/like to speak about?  And, mainly, WHY?

Let’s say in my case I was original enough to choose ‘coronavirus’.

What would your choice be, instead?

Now (second) the introductory text (Title + Sub-title -eventually) is a key side of the thing, always remembering McLuhan: ‘no second chance for a first impression’, and in an article the title plays this role.

We should create a simple, short, clear and appealing ‘first impression’ line (Title) to foster readers’ interest.

Let’s say that in my hypothetical article on the pandemics (as the real one is this one on ‘how to redact and illustrate an article’) I think of an impact first line (title) + a more informative second line (sub-title) ←guess this is a proper pattern to follow in general.

Let’s then go with:

CORONA-LESSONS

HOW TO FEEL UNDER THE MICROSCOPE, TOGETHER WITH A VIRUS

What would your title + (eventually) subtitle be like?

Third link in our evolving chain could be the essential, core idea and a defined will of exposing it in the shortest, clearest, most memorable way with the ultimate intention of providing something useful to the readers.  Added value, in other words.

I’d bet on a reflective exposition on how the arrival of the pandemics dramatically changed our usual life and, in most cases, our vision on it.  I’d like to highlight how much escrutinized many of us have felt, and how we discovered (by prohibitions) the lot of privileges we enjoyed …in completely unaware way.

And your idea + main conceptual lines?

Fourth step: a clear opening pitch either creating mystery on what comes later or, by the contrary, showing the master-lines to be furtherly developed alongside the following paragraphs.  It could work as a ‘3rd line’ in hyerarchy after the intro two ones.

I could begin my discurse by:

‘How many times in your previous life you had the opportunity to ask yourself about the sense of (your) life and priorities in it, as much and frequently as alongside this confinement experience?    A simple virus came to put ourselves in front of the mirror, and inside a protective bubble that in many senses allienated the usual social-direct connection to invite us to the enriching self-dialog of deep analysis: what is really important in life and I never valued sufficiently?  among other fantastic thoughts.’

Any clue on how you would open up your masterpiece?

Structure is there all alonside the process, even if for a matter of order we’ll assign ‘fifth’ to it, and in my case I’d like to work on three linked phases of development:

a) Conceptual proposal (‘us’ under analytical lenses because of the virus arrival);  b) Listed examples of life-aspects having dramatically changed in the sense suggested by the (previous) proposal; and  c) Conclusion with a summary of the consequences from what we’ve developed in both  a) + b) together with a projective vision on their prolongation in near (or mid, or long-term) future.

What about your article’s skeleton?

An always (or almost) necessary input into every effective piece of public text is the visual support (illustration, photo, graphic, design, etc.), that gets the ‘six’ in our metaphorical journey throughout an article’s production.

Being a designer myself, I thought of illustrating the thing in cartoon style, with both the planet Earth and a coronavirus character (same size) walking and laughing together in friendly way (to symbolize the ‘partnership’ where the pandemics stopped mankind rhythm of damaging the planet atmosphere and ecology in general (draft 01).

Then I preferred to condensate both characters in only one (draft 02), by drawing a planet earth rounded by the typical ‘corona (suction-cup) filaments, with either a relief facial expression or a triumphant one, just showing satisfaction for same reasons as in the previous case.

Finally, my choice’s been both Earth & ‘Corona toasting in happy mood with a human (symbol of whole mankind, of course) as submissive and fearful waiter serving both (draft 03/ definitive, and article’s visual opener).

What would your visual support be like?  In what format?  (photo, illustration, graphic, etc.)

Advisable: to provide ‘basement’ to our work, as i.e. referential mentions (Marchall McLuhan was an initial choice in my case);  to think of a good closer (shorter than the opener) with enough impact to impress well the reader and to leave them reflecting a bit, or at least remembering your work for a while;  …and finally, to ask somebody else to read the article and give immediate feedback on (i.e.) easyness to understand, progress, and profit the text + image supposed contribution, as well as homogeneity in the redaction style, etc.

Hope you found it easy to follow this path of 6 steps + advice, and that you’ll make fantastic articles on your favorite subjects …with plenty of readers enjoying them 😊

‘Til the Next one,

(B Sr)

 

 

EM🙂JI POWER

MIRROR BRAIN DETECTION OF FACIAL EXPRESSION, AND ETCETERA

According to science on communication, Written type is the worst one …at least in terms of certainty to transmit properly moods and intentions.

Dr. Albert Mehrabian’s famous circular graphics on ‘percentages of meaning management by our different communication channels’ left a so poor 7% of respective responsibility in the ‘hands’ of words, e.g., and let’s take into account that he referred to every kind of them, oral or written!

Summarizing: words seem to count only for 7% of meaning of what we’re interchanging through communication.

By the contrary, sound (voice-tone and modulation, speed, volume, pace, etc.) raise the thing up to 38%.

Finally, ‘…and the winner iiiiiis:’ yes, body-language, from which facial expression stands out as the most relevant side of the whole system.  55% for body-language, my dear friends.

Of course this diagram is quite generic and conditions may vary the final result, even if always (except for written communication) being the non-verbal channels (no-words ones) the most relevant ones in terms of responsibility in the transmission of messages’ meanings.

Happiness, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, Surprise or Fear are (according to Dr. Paul Ekman and his science fellows of research) the 6 universal emotions we can transmit throughout our face for them to be interpreted same way everywhere (because of this ‘universal’, precisely).

How can we communicate these (or other) emotions in written way, though?

Nice question, first reply being: ‘try with words’.  An insult will clearly tell them about your anger, melancholic expressions of pain usually transmit sadness, and so on.  The point is immediacy and intensity.  Our mirror neuronal system is built to help, precisely, with this (among other key functions linked to empathy, for instance), and it works much better with visual clues (an expressive face, i.e.) than with elliptical description of same thing by means of literary codes.

It was recently proven through laboratory experiences that this complex system’s main way of perception/assimilation relies on general patterns (like curve lines from eye-brows or smiling mouth) that are exactly same ones for both true faces and …emojis!

Dr. Owen Churches from Flinders University in Adelaida (Australia) is responsible for the first evidences on this surprising fact.

Furtherly, other scientists like Ralph Adolphs and Ueli Rutishauser from prestigious Caltech discovered the key role of cerebral amygdala in interpreting/judging this type of incoming info.

Back in time great Darwin spoke about ‘antithetical systems of facial expression’ linked to ‘antithetical’ emotions (mouth curve up to show happiness and down for sadness, as a simple example), anticipating research on curved linear patterns in the perception of the specular neuronal system (‘mirror-system’).

Finally, speaking about ‘grandpas’, Francis Likert (organizational psychologist) created the so simple + effective way of solving statistics results through a scale of (what is known today as) emojis, meaning the ‘happy’ one satisfaction, and the ‘angry/sad’ one dissatisfaction.

Similar visual power is today assigned to thumb up or down in the typical ‘Like/Don’t Like’ icons.

So, how can we overcome the dry neutrality from written way of communication?  Simple:

LET’S USE EM😊JIS!

…as I did with the intro-image one, based on my own face (of course Brad Pitt’s one would have worked better, even if less personal, that is the main point -usually- when we’re expressing Self through an em@il or similar ways of literary messages).

Of course some conditioning points arise here:

Degree of confidence with your interlocutor, and subject itself (your friend being more able to accept/enjoy an emoji than a judge receiving your written testimony about a murder).

General frame of interaction (again, being an informal friendly chat more able to ‘accept’ such type of elements than a so protocol-related interchange of information inside a traditional institution).  Etc.

Common sense will always be telling us when and how to raise usual written potential for expression through a nice, fantastic, shocking EM☹JI …er, I mean, better if EM😊JI.

‘Til the Next one!

😊 (B Sr)

 

 

THE MORE YOU GIVE, THE MORE YOU WIN

…ABOUT THE LOGICS OF ACCUMULATION VS THE LOGICS OF GENEROSITY

True: it seems that nowadays there’s a clear tendency to get full of things and money in order to feel happy.  True?

‘To Be’ better than ‘to Have’ was one of the first messages I received from my wife Xtina when we were (ages ago) young.

Needless to remember repeated ideas like: ‘how much from what you’ve accumulated can you bring to the other side whenever you pass away?’  Ancient pharaons seemed to think that they could enjoy ‘materially’ after death, filling their graves with gold objects and jewells, etc.  Well, who knows in reality?  I wasn’t ‘there’ yet 😊

What I can grant is: every time I gave something (material or non-material) to somebody that needed, I felt useful, fulfilled, happy to a point difficult to explain through words.

What we accumulate can be stolen. What we give has gone away making us better persons usually.  Happiness instead of fear.  Dignity instead of insecurity.  It’s about sharing.

Sharing provokes multiplication, makes expansive waves.  The accumulation is more like an implosion, instead.  The opposite direction:  Diminishing instead of growing.  Absorbing life light like a sad black hole instead of illuminating.

Better to be a strong link in the synergy chane instead of the broken one, that remains isolated after having left the whole system weaker.  It can be an impressive link, even if completely unuseful if separated and alone.

Synergy is about growing together (a family, a team, a company, etc.) by constantly learning and benefitting from the best of others’ while teaching and supporting them from the best of ourselves.  Like with yeast when we cook.

Trainer?  Give all of what you are and know to them!  A magic seed that will grow fantastic trees that will, at their turn, prove good to others from their fruits that feed and the shadow of their cups that protects.

Coach?  Give all of what you are and can to their growth and benefit!  It’s blessing to feel useful in somebody else’s path towards the achievement of ‘the best possible themselves’!

Leader?  Give all of what you are and are capable of to the ones that will feel your good energy and talent showing the way towards accomplishment of fantastic goals to everybody.

Human Being?  Give yourself without limit!  The more you give, the more you win.  In addition, you’ll sleep so quiet + happy at night, with the duty always done: who can ask you for more than giving yourself at all?

The logics of generosity is also the logics of freedom.  Free from stupid ‘over-materialism’ (the pathologic need/want of wanting more than what we need), from the attached worries that usually come with the need of living for our things (‘I have to care them, I have to keep them, I have to protect them, I have to raise them …oh, sh*t, I’m dying, now What?!’).

Happy full life.  Happy full generosity!

‘Til the next one.

B (Sr)

 

 

BREAK!

FROM ‘WORKAHOLISM’ TO HEALTHY DISPERSION

The activity of the organic paradygm of life (the heart) can perfectly be scanned through an electrocardiogram, which graphics will clearly paint us: ups’n downs.  Fluctuating entities.  We need both ‘states’ in every side of our reality, dictating how we function.  Spiritually, physically, psychologically, emotionally …humanly.

After a hard gym session our muscles need to rest.  After huge brain activity, exactly the same!

‘Breaks are the best part of my training sessions’ I usually tell students or attendees, and is true for many people there 🙂  Obviously, there’s always this part of the public that would love to remain in the class/session for ever, so enthusiastic around the managed topics, etc.  This little article is for them, precisely.  We NEED that Break, dear fellows.

Following the medical path, brain is (besides heart) another paradygm to pay attention to, and the huge variety of its functionning waves (Gamma, Beta, Alpha, Theta, Delta, Infra-L, etc.) also ‘paint’ our reality as needing changes, ups’n downs, etc., to happen in balanced way in the end.

Before next gym session, you’ll surely recover your energy by drinking isotonic drinks, protein + carbohydrates + glucosa + etc. …and before your next high intellectual activity, you’ll surely rest well, or take a fantastic break 😊

Cystole and diastole (heart), oxygen and carbonic anhydrade (lungs), understanding the relativity theory and enjoying some beers with the colleagues (hehe).  Break!

Let’s recycle self every time we need, as well as the batteries recharge after each use.  It’s healthy.  It’s necessary.

Nice Break & ‘til the Next one!

B (Sr)

 

THE ‘INNER NO

BLOCKING ATTITUDE IN USUAL COMMUNICATION

How many times you know before talking that ‘this one’ won’t let you whatever.  Get something, only ask for something, not even suggest something good for them!  Their face.  Their sight.  Their non-verbal signs are telling you in advance that your further attempt will be useless.

That person is obviously affected by ‘the inner NO’ 😊, or in other words: an inner closed, blocking attitude towards you, your stuff or the universe around.

Fractions of second, or few seconds in the worst of cases, are enough for you to know it’ll be difficult-to-impossible to count on them for achieving success.

Reasons?  Millions of potential ones, affecting all of their brain process dimensions (instinctive, emotional, rational, in this chronological order for evolution reasons).

The deeper the cause, the stronger the ‘NO’ in their eyes, face expression, attitude, later on surely confirmed by the verbal denyal while nodding head laterally in a clear confirming sign.

Instinctive source can be an inner survival shout telling them they’re in danger, what can happen by temperature conditions in the ambience you’re communicating (too hot, too cold, etc.), remembering them about physical fragility, for instance.  Or your face being similar to the one of a person that they always hated, even if they don’t notice this clearly (their subconscious self-defensive system will), what mixes survival to reactive emotion (or reptilian to mammalian, or unconscious to subconscious, etc.).

Emotional-reactive can also be their attitude being caused by a so negative situation affecting them in this moment (they come to crash their car in the first day out of insurance, somebody told them a bad, bad news, etc.).

In whatever case, only a strong dose of connective energy from you can (only perhaps) unlock the closed system they’re ‘wearing’ to protect themselves/reject yours.  An adapted warm smile, an empathetic gesture, even some subtle mimmics respect to their style, gestures, etc., could prove useful.  Whatever aiming to highlight the things ‘in common’ between the two interlocutors instead of the differences.  Only perhaps, as we can better control ourselves than others’ …supposed to, at least.

AND WHAT IF THE ‘NO’ IS OURS?

Ooops! Following the previous thread, we are gifted by a self-control possibility that works by scanning from awareness for deciding from strategic reasons.  In other words, EQ (emotional intelligence) primary basement tells us: THOUGHT should control EMOTION before taking ACTION.  And to show an angry-dog face IS an action.  Is it the most convenient to us?  Depends on circumstances.

NLP fights against huge inner ‘NOs’ too, like Limiting Beliefs, that are so deeply lodged convictions usually blocking our path towards positive development of Self and goal-achievement.  And we keep closed inside this evil ‘jail’.  Closed.  Like the ones bringing the ‘NO’ stamped in their forefront before us even greeting them.  Closeness…

Openness (instead) is evidently good to perceive more, instead of closing the perception zoom around a fix idea, what will make us lose good part of the reality film around. In these cases we only perceive what we want to perceive, what obviously diminishes a lot the percentage of properness in perception, prejudicing further decision-making.

Openness leads towards versatility of options from total freedom of choice, or a higher one respect to the ‘unique’ one coming from hard closeness.  Always better to observe-listen-perceive in an open angle, to evaluate and strategically process afterwards, to decide the most convenient way finally.  Of course a ‘NO’ can be then the result, even if a reasoned one instead of the instant, ‘automatic’ one eventually spoiling good opportunities to us.

Openness + Strategic Analysis + Confident Decision seem to be, then, a nice ‘formula’ to cope with our ‘inner NOs’ 😊

‘Til the next one!

B (Sr)

 

 

THE ‘CREATIVE DECALOG + 1’

HOW TO FINALLY ACTIVATE OUR CREATIVE POTENTIAL 🙂

Just to advance further emphasis on Creativity, and extracted (+ translated) from the book ‘COMUNICACIÓN QUE FUNCIONA’, we share some quick, short little pieces of advice in order to boost CREATIVITY in our daily COMMUNICATION.

Here we go:

I suggest taking into account the following sequence if we want to be more creative in communicating:

  1. To WANT to BE CREATIVE. 2. To BE CREATIVE. 😊

Hehe …! Maybe a more intelligible and progressive sequence better …

  1. BELIEVE we are CREATIVE (self-convince ourselves of our creative potential).
  2. KNOW we are CREATIVE (in effect, we all have such potential).
  3. WANT to BE CREATIVE (have the real intention of ‘communicating differently’).
  4. KNOW THE CONTEXT (interlocutor or audience, topic of interaction …).
  5. BREAK RULES (fight against the usual, predictable and expected).
  6. ENCOURAGE to VARY (from literal to ironic, from serious to funny, etc.).
  7. STAY CONFIDENT (avoid relying on the approval of the other).
  8. STAY CALM (nervousness reduces freedom of choice).
  9. BE ATTENTIVE (to take advantage of any element of the talk).
  10. GAME SPIRIT (take the interaction as a game, … enjoy it!).

All of which would come after rule number …

0. PREPARATION (imagine, try new possibilities, alternatives, etc.).

… and finally LAUNCH SELF towards success! Like everything in life, the more we practice something, the better 😊.

Driving us to be more creative and developing creative habits (even if it seems a brutal contradiction!) we’ll surely reach a communication standard in which we’ll frequently stand out for our original way of interacting, which always attracts more attention and generates more connection, and that can be considered ‘success from communication’, which is our main issue since the beginning of this book (‘COMUNICACIÓN QUE FUNCIONA’, Bernardo R. Facta, ESIC Editorial).

‘Til the Next one!

B (Sr)

 

 

NO

HOW TO SAY IT PROPERLY

How much TIME does effective people save respect to non-effective one?  Depends on their abilities to use this key commodity wisely.  To ‘invest’ it instead of ‘losing’ it matters a lot.

A communication secret to improve our time-management is ‘how to say NO’, as this will prevent us from multiply ourselves in as stupid things as permanent demmands from others seem to propose to us.

Let’s be clear: sometimes we have/need to pay attention to such type of interruptions, even if always they mean to lose time.  Like when we dive, needing time for compression and afterwards time for de-compression, exactly the same:

Rarely we can interrupt a high concentration task to attend others and then immediately be, again, in the same point we left.  Honestly, we lose lot of time to recover same focus in the same point we were.

3 simple things will help to say ‘NO’ in an acceptable way for them:

SAY ‘YES’!

Why to focus on what we can’t do for them?  Better to tell them what we CAN: positive language is always better acceptable by others, and makes us feel better too.

OFFER ALTERNATIVES

A dry ‘NO’ can sound rough.  Alternatives, instead, prove your flexibility, and if they have to deny the alternative, then the ‘NO’ is theirs, not ours!

GIVE INFO

To explain why we offer the reply we’re giving, in order for them to avoid thinking we don’t like them or stupid things alike.  It’s a proof of respect to them the communication of our reasons.

Simple!  I told you 😊

Application Example:

‘- Hey Beth, can you please help me accomodate the office folders today?  …the boss is really hurrying me up with this!’

‘- Tomorrow morning count on me, Johnny! …as he’s asking me today for the final  month accounts.’

SAYING ‘YES’: …count on me

ALTERNATIVE: Tomorrow morning…

INFO: …he’s asking me today for…

Our denyals will be perceived as Positive, Kind, and Justified instead of ‘rough’, and we’ll feel less embarrased, ready to go forward with our high-concentration key tasks.

‘Til the next one!

B (Sr)

 

PRESS HERE 🥕 FOR POWER·TIP ON PERSUASION (‘B’  QUICK TRICK) IN ‘SALES’ SECTION

 

 

SOFT PERSUASION (ADVANCED COMMUNICATION SKILLS)

Why to Persuade? ‘Cause is the only thing we came to do on Earth, Aristotle would say.  Or Kevin Hogan, current specialist in the most subtle aspects of communication nowadays.

In fact, it seems that from your first action when being born (to cry and shout), we are persuading (Mom to give us milk, ‘cause we want to survive).  And things keeps working this way ‘til the end.  Every thing we say or do will always aim to reach our goals through persuading others for making the process easier.

Our reptilian program of survival (like the one of any species) brings engraved the fundamental law: ‘only the strongest one survives’.

Some geological ages ago, perhaps it could be enough to be bigger than the other hominids, shout or snarl louder, or to simply carry the most threatening stick.  Living in the XXI century, some things have changed.

WHY ‘SOFT’, THOUGH?

‘Cause after the intenvion of internet and other linked facts, clients in general don’t want ‘to be sold’, they want ‘to buy’ …and people don’t want ‘to be forced to’, they want ‘to decide’, so, what to us persuaders do?

To change the game:  in the 50’s it was about approaching the victim, overwhelming their senses with energetic verbiage and gestures and leaving in their hands something they paid for without absolutely needing it.

In times of social media this could be terrible for the salesperson and for their brand at the precise moment when the other discovered the deception …their revenge would be a hole for the company from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, specific Web-sites or even the mass media.

The game today is about subtly penetrating their minds, and playing with them until leaving same stuff in their hands with them, in addition, thanking us a lot 😊

It’s about making them ‘believe’ they’d taken the decision that, in reality, we have been seeding drop after drop with our subtle suggestions and management of the interpersonal connection factors.  Soft-ly.

REPTILIAN SIDE: THE SMELL…

Only sense attached to this primitive side of our brain (when we repted, the smell was fundamental to detect prays and predators, much more important than sight) the smell can do marvels in our interlocutors’ will, as we can verify each time we enter a mall, by breathing this subtle perfume inviting us to feel happy and relaxed …to buy 😊

So, to apply on Self our favorite perfume can be an effective step when wanting to persuade interpersonally (physically near the person or persons to be persuaded).

‘PACING’ AT ITS PEAK…(1)

This first phase of NLP ‘Pacing and Leading’ connective technique advices to   a) Observe carefully the interlocutor, and   b) Behave and Communicate in a friendly way respect to theirs (to ‘emitt in a similar wave-length’, metaphorically said).

So: their mood, gestures, particularities, way of dressing, preferences, etc., should be under our ‘microscope’ in order to develop later on a combinable style for being easily accepted by them.  As we tell Salespeople in our courses: ‘the first thing they buy from you is You’.

…‘LEADING’ IN CONSEQUENCE(2)

Once having their ‘radiography of behavior and style’ we simply act and communicate in similar (never equal! as ‘mimmics’ can be refused by them) until perceiving their docile acceptance, moment in which our smiley, friendly subtle actions will bring them towards the place we want them to be in.

Recap: until now, good perfume, similar external aspect as theirs (clothes, general style), and combinable way of behavior + communication seem an impressive set.  There’s more…

HYPNOTIC TRICKS…

Once in connection to them, will be easier to aim our effort towards the key subconscious side of their perception and decision-making.

Roughly, when we emitt our pitch, it reaches more their conscious level when ending slightly up (higher voice-tone), as well as the lower voice-tone in the end enters their subconscious channel.

To slightly vary the emission of any key suggestion we want to insert in their subconscious mind will prove successful too.  How?  Minimum changes in the emission characteristics (speed, pace, volumen, etc.) will make the deal.   SLIGHT variations are needed, as their subconscious dimension is so clever and will be easily detecting this part of the message addressed to it, as well as it’s risky to exaggerate changes because of the possibility of being detected by their deffensive systems, that will reject from this moment on any other attempt.

And of course, only the piece of message that transmits our suggestion should vary, keeping all the rest in our normal standards of emission (again: speed, pace, volume, etc.).

THE MULTI-TECHNIQUE PSYCHOLOGICAL GAME…

Reverse’ psychology can prove useful whenever they are bit doubtful or skeptical and, at the same time, their ego seems quite big.

‘Well, I honestly think this is only for too expert ones, for highly skilled ones …perhaps should be better to let it go, or wait a bit?’

‘Hey, give me this, I’m more than sufficiently prepared for it!’

😊 (they do what we want them to do: feel ‘touched’ in their pride and getting, buying, etc. what we have for them).

Assumptive’ principle advances the closure of the action by acting at a certain point (sense of opportunity is needed here, my friend) as if they had already accepted (our suggestion, proposal, offer, etc.).  We ‘assume’ they said Yes and go forward with confirming steps like:

‘A fantastic product, indeed, you prefer it in blue or red?’

‘To get out together can be unforgettable!  At wat time do I ring your bell tonight?’

Etc. 😊

Referents’ are always powerful to push them towards the decision, or even to manage their probable objections:

‘The doctor in the corner and his brother, the engineer, always bring this brand’ (pushing)

In this case, in addition, the referents are apparently intelligent people, what justifies this technique being named also I.Q.

‘I understand your concerns on the price …I had the same ones until buying it and discovering it’s the best product of its kind, by far, what means the cheapest one too, in the end’ (objection handling)

In this case the referent is ‘myself’, what gives credibility to the thing, being then completed by the benefit of the obvious quality of the product, etc.

Because is good to know, or remember:  CREDIBILITY + BENEFIT = PERSUASION

OUR credibility, THEIR benefit(s), and things have to work 😊

Coming necessarily back to the beginning, the ‘animal connection’ as I call it (all of the NON·VERBAL channels that we have in common with our peers: breath rhythm, cadence of speech, emission pace, type of perfum and general smell, voice entonation, etc.) is by far the most important side of the thing.

CONNECTING STRONGLY FROM THE BEGINNING will grant easier, quicker PERSUASION then.

So let’s train our perception for the initial ‘big-bang’ of every meeting or casual encounter with any person: let’s SCAN them immediately, profoundly, in order to use this crucial info for:

  1. Decodifying their style and characteristics.
  2. Bonding with them throug combinable style from ourselves.

For best results on all previously said, always better to keep our SELF-CONFIDENCE HIGH, as high as possible, to impress them in genuine, believable way (credibility), in order to leave our POWERFUL PERCEPTION do the rest for detecting their needs and converting them into benefits 😊

Last-but-not-least:  PRACTICE!!!!!!!  …even if you’re the best footballer of the world, only way of coming well prepared to the match is lot of previous training, effort and practice.

Persuaded?  ‘Til the Next one!

B (Sr)

 

PUBLIC·SPEAKING: HOW TO PUT AUDIENCES IN YOUR POCKET 😊

‘Glossophobia’ (fear to speak in public) affects + 70% of human beings, and there’s a clear cause for this: again, EGO.

How many times it happened to you the nightmare of having to present anything (a class subject, a thesis, a conclusive report in business, yourself to a managing board, etc.) while prefering to disappear from the world instead?

Most probably, an inner voice was scaring us with ‘Will I be up to it?’ ‘What they’ll think of ME if I fail?’ ‘MY prestige is at stake!’ ‘I can’t stand everyone looking at ME’  ‘What if I tremble and MY voice fails?’

What if we stop thinking of US and begin thinking of THEM?

Like in many other scenarios, a public-speaker should remember the GOAL to achieve:

TEACH CLASS-MATES about our so interesting topic, if at school;  ADD KNOWLEDGE TO OUR PROFESSORS through the conceptual findings our thesis brings to the fore;  INFORMING CLIENTS about how we took care of their interests and benefited them;  PERSUADING MANAGERS to consider hiring us in order to improve their achievements…

It’s about THEM.

So: ‘What ADDED VALUE do I bring TO THEM with my pitch?’ could be a good question.  Once replied, we’ll have nice stuff around which to work our future experience with our public.

‘HOW TO TELL IT TO THEM?’ could be another good one.  Masters’ advice:

First, tell them what you will tell them,  then tell it to them,  then tell them what you’ve told them 😊

This way we grant big majority of attendees getting finally the point, and being aware of this in addition.

Dale Carnegie left lot of relevant stuff on several fields, including public-speaking, and valuable advice to succeed, with specific focus on:

SPEAKING WITH PROPERTY/ Always keep your goal in mind; Gather and order your key ideas in advance;  Practice your pitch with your friends;  Talk about something you dominate;  Act resolved (confidently)…

SPEECH, SPEAKER & AUDIENCE/ Humanize your speech;  Personalize your speech by using names;  Use concise terms that create images in their mind;  Use words adapted to the interests of your listeners;  Involve the audience in your speech…

Carolyne Goyder at her turn suggests to care and improve the use of own voice, and speaks about the secret of breathing correctly, projecting our voice (instead of ‘swallowing our own words’ 🙂 and, mainly, growing Self-confidence from within.

It’s true!  As I frequently tell my Students or attendees to PublicSpeaking sessions: only you can be the best possible yourself, so offer this to them.  Public will thank for receiving a nice dose of originality instead of vane attempts to imitate any other well known speaker.

PURE THEATER, or better said: the purity of theatrical angle of approach rellies on the immense power of Body Language and endless possibilities of expression (sights, gestures, postures …physical non·verbality).

An easy trick is to video-record ourselves practicing our pitch as if it was the real situation, then to learn from observing our performance.

We’ll surely detect how well it looks ‘this’ gesture or sounds ‘that’ voice-inflection, together with how unconvenient is to ‘leave hands this way’ or to ‘remain stall’ as if we were frozen, etc.

In fact, LEARNING FROM OURSELVES will also carry the advantage of the TAILORED thing.

Something else?  USE QUESTIONS!  Who cares if it’ll be impossible for all of them to reply?

The sole fact of being questionned by the speaker will make them feel involved, implicated, CLOSER to you.

And, so important, PLAY WITH SILENCE to raise general amount of impact by generating their curiosity during the silent instants.

QUESTIONS + STRATEGIC USE OF SILENCE can raise a lot their interest, up to make them WISH YOU GOING FORWARD WITH YOUR PITCH instead of wanting you to cut-off soon and go away.

Steve Ballmer, former highest authority in Microsoft only after Bill Gates, was a true crack in public-speaking, and ‘casually’ by means of mastering the art of Questions and use of Silence to generate interest in audiences.

Some other apparently silly things can make the difference, as i.e.: arrive early to get used to the place + atmosphere (and, if possible, to personally receive attendees by a short, warm introductory talk),  breath deeply for a while both using your lungs and your abdominal area,  visualize your greatests successes and happiest moments before facing your public and beginning the pitch, etc.

BEGIN WITH IMPACT, END SOLIDLY …and in the Middle?

Last advice 1: strategically prepare WHAT you’ll say in the key moment of the opener (‘no second chance for a first impression’ McLuhan said), as it will penetrate a lot in their minds and can also set mood for the rest of the experience.  This is to act by ‘relevance’: relevant because of being the first thing they receive from you.

Last advice 2: strategically prepare WHAT you’ll say in the key moment of the closure (‘they’ll bring your last words hanging in their memory’), as this will remain bouncing in the back of their heads whenever leaving the class, theatre, etc.  This is to act by ‘recency’: recent insertion of your words because of being the last ones.

Last advice 3: strategically prepare stuff to raise the usual fall in the attention curve towards the middle of the speech (jokes, use of audio-visual or objectal adds, an activity to be developed by the public, a break …etc.!).  Attached to this, prepare also yourself for the unexpected, in which case the higher your Self-confidence→ the easier to cope with anything through calm naturality and creative improvisation, if needed.

‘Til the Next one, dear Public!

B (Sr)

 

THE MEMORY TRICK (How to Grow our Memory Capacities)

Some people gets stunned when I’m capable of instantly remembering the names of 50 attendees to some of my courses.  Why?

I know people (few ones, it’s true) that can remember 100 or more (Jim Kwik e.g.)!  Any trick?  Well, many factors in coincidence, being the first one our true will of playing hard with our own memory in order to keep it fit and even to improve it.  Like we do with our muscles in the gym.

Mark Gungor (psychologist and priest) ensures that a key factor is Emotion.  In fact, according to him, if we link a fact to a deep emotion, the fact will be recorded in our memory for ever.

Jim Kwik himself is advicing a linked chain of steps that, in summary, go from saying loud a person’s name in the beginning (of a conference or training session, for instance) to repeating it at the time of farewell, running through intermediate actions like (e.g.) asking them about the reason for their names, etc.

My case has been always spontaneous, or natural, thus just using some mind processes like automatically linking the name I’m listening to any meaningful person, object, fact, etc. that I’ll permanently ‘visualize’ from this moment on, each time that I think of the name owner, or talk to them.

PRACTICAL EXAMPLE:

I’m training now in Advanced Coaching Strategies some 6 people whose names are Abbie, Clovis, Mouna, Kristoff, PierreYves, and Huw.  How have I kept their names in my memory?  Don’t remember! 😊  …well, I tied each name to referents that mean something to me:  for Abbie, ‘Abbey Road’ (my favorite vinil from the Beatles);  for Clovis, ’10 Cloverfield Street’ (a film with John Goodman which poster remains clear in my mind, mainly the street name, similar to my Student’s one);  for Mouna, the Moon (sounds so similar to her name);  for Kristoff, Jesus-Christ (powerful reminder where there are);  for Pierre-Yves (perhaps the most difficult to ‘process’), Yves Saint-Laurent (mainly from the visual influence of its logo); and finally for Huw, the letter ‘U’ (that I imagine pronounced as an exhalation by an exhausted person, me e.g.).

In every case the visual aspect of the mental link prevails: the álbum cover, the film poster, the full moon typical photo, the religious icon in statues and prints, the commercial famous logo, the facial expression (mainly the mouth one) of the guy that exhalates the ‘U’.

CHOOSING YOUR WAY…

As we can perceive from previous examples, my way of enhancing memory capacities is mainly VISUAL (linking names to covers, posters, visible expressions, etc.) as well as Kwik one is AUDITORY (saying loud the name, asking for a spoken story about it, verbalizing it again in the end), and Gungor’s mention highlights the KINÆSTHETIC channel (emotions, sensations, feelings), so… we have ‘recipes’ for everybody! 😊

The strategic thing should be here to find the proper one for each person wanting to memorize more, and better.  Always adapted to their own characteristics and preferences.

WHY TO IMPROVE MEMORY?

Even to laugh a joke we use it!  In fact, a key part of the complex process that ends with the mechanical movement of jaws favoring the chemical emission of hormones and neurotransmitters of pleasure, is the comparison between current stimulus (probably a joke) and similar files in our memory to which to compare (activation of the hippocampus to look for that previous information): the comparison itself will determine if ‘this is a serious thing’ or ‘this is a humorous version of a serious thing’.

According to Paul McLean’s theory about the Triune Brain, our mind functions mainly in 3 levels, all of them owing something to memory:

Conscious (logical-rational) mind frequently uses stored memories to develop and improve skills throughout time.

Subconscious (emotional-affective) mind has a strong link to memory, making us capable of remembering such abstract things like feelings, and to manage them in our interactions.

Finally, the Unconscious (instinctive) mind stores relevant experiences of our species from the past millions of years …can we find a higher example of ‘memory’?

The biological organism that we are, renews all of its cells in about 10 years.  Even though, If you burned your finger as a tiny, tender little child, and you approach same finger to fire in your adult age 50 years later, you’ll physically ‘remember’ that traumatic momento …even if your body completely changed at least 5 times!

The sub-conscious transmission of info from dying-cell to coming-cell will perpetuate this throughout our whole life, not to mention the cell memory that trascends lifes: DNA info from our parents has been stored and transmitted chromosome-to-chromosome, cell-to-cell in order to keep genetics working to keep going generation after generation.

So, if memory is that important for practically every side of us (and respective success) I guess it’s self-explanable the reason why we should care and improve it as much as possible.

And if you don’t pay much attention to your memory, just wait to forget your mobile or computer password 😊

‘Til the Next one!

B (Sr)

 

SILENCE …this Hidden Power in Communication

According to my Brazilian colleague Rodrigo Carvalho, the Meditation moment in which we achieve complete ‘emptiness’ in our minds is the one in which we get in true connection to the Universe.

Silence.  As a metaphor of plenitude, far from distracting effects that rumor always brings to keep us underperforming because of interferences in our way towards concretion of own potential.  Healthy silence, and also ‘strategic’ one:

Musicians know well how silences are, at least, as important as sounds in the overall reality about music.  If we pretend to reproduce a melody whithout respecting its sounds (that build rhythm, pace, speed, character, etc.), we’ll surely fail, and the poor melody will become irrecognizable.

So with human Communication: the better we deal with silences in our verbal interactions with similar, the sooner and easier we’ll succeed (= get their agreement in a ‘win-win’ mutual benefit through persuasion, i.e.).

SIZE MATTERS

Short silences (let’s say: the frequent ones in a Sales interaction) should be carefully managed in order to keep the interlocutor ‘in’ and feeling at the same time cared + respected, thus able to nod head positively while being invited to close agreement.

For this, the ‘count-to-two’ rule advices to always wait a little bit before replying to their statements (i.e. counting mentally until ‘2’) for them to feel that we are considering their pitch as ‘very important’, thus having the pleasant sensation of playing a meaningful role in the interaction (‘partnership’), what can be spoiled by our temptation to urgently say ours in order to correct, clarify or persuade (if we always have the ‘perfect+instant’ reply, they’ll feel we are talking only to our own selves, leaving them in a second place).

Long silences, at their turn, are another kind of strategic point to take into account: a too long lapse of silent time (let’s say: during a commercial phone call) can make us ‘lose’ them by mental ‘disconnection’, what should be avoided by our opportune comments to fulfill this ‘hole’, thus keeping them linked, interested, and going forward with the common action.

Following the previous musical analogy, a conversation is like a song played by different musicians, that share something anyway (melody, rhythm, pace, structure, flow…). Whenever this ‘rhythm’ is broken by an excessive intermediate silence (both in music and human oral communication) the ‘magic’ flow disappears, and they hang up or tell us ‘look, call me another day: I remember about an urgency now’ ☹

PERSUASIVE SILENCE

A powerful use of silence comes when we condition the interlocutor’s reception, i.e. by creating high interest on them through the opportune placement of a piece of silence before some information they begin to ‘need’:

Let’s ask them a question to anticipate the strategic info we want to pass to them …they’ll be surely ignoring the reply, thus feeling there kind of a ‘mystery’ on this, which revelation comes through our intentionally delayed reply: the longer our silence preceding the reply, the higher the mystery afterwards revealed, so: huger mark in their mind + memory!

SILENT POWER

What do we need to better concentrate in order to prove more effective (studying, creating, or just thinking)? Silence!

It’s true: some people like to have backgroung music to do so, even if perhaps is the perfect excuse not to listen to it (because of this ‘background’) and at the same time using it as a shield to protect our concentration from other (normally distracting) sounds coming from around in our so noisy society.

Silence to get quiet. To meditate. To reflect. To calmly breath while projecting our next steps in the future. To healthy be with ourselves for a while. To remember. To imagine. To ask inner questions which reply will give us more Self-control (environmental rumor is normally part of a systemic net of stimuli that keep us far away from our own center, thus making easier to ‘others’ the task of telling us what to do, and even how and when).

‘SOUND OF SILENCE’

Some recent laboratory research proved our impossibility to cope with complete silence (‘0’ level of noise), thanks to the use of acoustically insulated cameras where a minute of silence became unbearable for big majority of participating volunteers.

The healthy ‘silence’ we normally appreciate the most is in reality the absence of disturbing rumors and external stimuli normally produced in artificial way, as it happens in the modern agglomerations of hyperactivity that contemporary megalopolises have became.

In healthy contrast, coming back to pure nature normally restitues balance to our inner being. Closing our eyes in the forest while experiencing the wind caressing the treetops, and inhaling the aroma of the wet earth during the rain, or perceiving the trilling of birds (music from mother nature) will be much better accepted by our need of inner peace.

JAL (Japan Airlines) usually projects a video to people with fear of flying, in which only the rain over the forest is seen and heard, and whose de-stressing effects are simply shocking.

The above photo is about a natural ‘ikebana’ 😊 that I discovered in the seaside while having a walk recently. It seems a human arrangement because of its balanced beauty, and it was nice to stop in front of it to just admire the miracle of nature, while deeply breathing and listening the rumor of the Mediterranean waves so near.

This little moment ‘re-built’ myself, and helped me feel happy part of the Universe for a magic instant, like the meditation effects my Brazilian colleague spoke about.

Hope you find frequent opportunities to enjoy healthy silence in your life too!

‘Til the next one.

B (Sr)

 

LOVE ME?  TELL ME A J🙂KE!

(WHY ‘LOVE‘ AND ‘LAUGH‘ SOUND SO SIMILAR)

The other day, typing nonchalantly through cyberspace, I found out some tips to make a romantic relationship last longer, being the first one ‘to cultivate humor with your couple’.

I was already decided to touch the links between these elements (love and humor), even if from variety of more specific perspectives (regarding psycho-physiological aspects, mainly), and the sudden appearance of this article reminded me so, then …here it goes:

EMOTIONS are a strong side of humans, as everybody knows.  They allow us to cope with big majority of life circumstances, in order to help us deal better with the bad ones, and take joyful advantage from the good ones.  And from the whole of emotions, happiness is the most valued, even as main reason to live, according to the experts.

Well, one of our best ways of expressing what we feel (emotionally) is our face(1), where a smile or a marked laugh are so clear in their message: ‘- I feel good!’ or, in lot of occasions: ‘- I feel good with you!’, what makes this facial gesture a universal ‘social glue’ since early times of our evolution.  If we’re laughing, we attract more than if wearing a menacing expression.

LAUGHING is also an impressive ‘medicine’ against depression, for instance, and benefits both brain (modifying it in positive way) and body (strengthening and toning up lot of its parts).

As Dra. Natalia López comments, we permanently modify our neuronal tissue through what we experience (thinking, loving, feeling…) thus building a ‘biochemical memory’ that registers the respective experience, and if it’s frequently repeated, this memory gets stronger and the whole system tends in easier way to process reality this way: in other words, the more we tend to laugh and take things in positive way, the more we get used to this kind of ‘process of reality’.

The BRAIN processes humor from the parietal lobe, where a detection of ‘error’ respect to orthodox logic advances de possibility of a ‘joke’, and then the signal is passed to the temporal lobes, that at their turn inform the hippocampus for it to communicate to the basal ganglia and the cerebral amygdala.  The mechanical result of this process is a laugh, and in the chemical side, the release of dopamine: carrier of happy sensations as a ‘reward’ to the detection of the error that presaged joke (always depending, of course, on how good the joke is 🙂).

Then, according to the neuroscientist Eduardo Calixto, the hypothalamus manages the post-humor therapeutic effects: pleasant sensation (anti-stress), increase in the defenses and activation of the immune system, etc.

The same DOPAMINE released by humorous effect is considered (Loretta Breuning) responsible for feelings such as love or lust (‘love’ and ‘humor’, again linked) and is called, thus, as ‘mediator of pleasure’.

For his part, Prof. John Salamone (University of Connecticut) partly disagrees on the above, expressing that this neurotransmitter has more to do with motivation than with pleasure itself, and commenting that it’s usually released when making the first step towards an objective, and when that objective is met.

OXYTOCINE, on the other hand, is a hormone that the hypothalamus manages and releases when we connect: either sharing laugher (humor), or from caresses with someone to whom we feel romantically attracted (love), and we could continue with the neuro-bio-chemical list through SEROTONINE, ENDORPHINES and others, even if the original idea was to hammer on LAUGHER as a close relative to the KISS in order to make someone feel appreciated.

‘Glass half full’, then, always better than ‘glass half empty’, and so on.

There is lot of research and experiments on the transmission of bad news with a smile in face so that ‘they hurt less’ or, on the contrary, of excellent messages in a rude way with the consequent negative reaction from the part of the recipient.  Obviously, the information is processed first at the emotional-perceptual level, leaving the logical intellection of the message on a lesser level.  ‘Humor’ (smile) is taken here as ‘love’ (appreciation), even if the message says barbarities of the interlocutor, which obviously will also capture the literary content, even though their reaction will continue to be conditioned by the ‘how’ (smile or threatening gesture).

It is also evident that, already in the field of mass media, criticism of a government (let’s say) by an opposing newspaper, ‘hurts less’ if made from a comic strip than through the resounding words of a ‘serious’ columnist.

In short, if laughing benefits us socially, helps us to perceive ourselves in a better way, strengthens us and improves health, sweetens even the most uncomfortable message, and so many etceteras …what are we waiting to ‘burst out in laugher’ more frequently?

To remember: repeatedly activating the neurobiological processes involved in humor (to laugh a lot and as frequently as we can) greatly improves our day to day …and that of others.

Let’s love ourselves and our peers→  Let’s give free rein to laughter!

‘Til next time,

B (Sr)

          (1) Down in this same Page:  ‘THE PROBLEM OF WEARING A FACE’

 

CURIOSITY: THE FUEL FOR YOUR ENTERPRISE

As Zig Zigglar wisely said once, curiosity can be a nice replacement, if lack of true passion in what we do (for instance, at work).

Of course the ideal thing should be for everybody to find a fantastic job adapted to their wishes, talents, needs, possibilities, etc.   Confucius expressed this in impeccable way by saying ‘Find a job that you love, and you’ll never have to work’.  And it’s true!  It becomes more an entertainment than a job if this is the fortunate case.

In fact, I honestly doubt about ‘the system’ capacity to do things well.  Otherwise, how to explain the fact that in our world we rarely find someone in Confucius situation?  It seems, instead, that the diagram of work reality has been designed by kind of a crazy one, forcing majority of people to do things that bore them, or push them to do so ‘because otherwise…’

For this people, Zigglar’s idea could prove so helpful.  Tuning ourselves in a ‘curiosity’ mood time runs faster, and the person suffers less (my personal experience demonstrated this to me more than once).  It’s about an attentive, permanent attitude of curious interest about every aspect of our reality, in order to live it more intensely.

This will allow us to take more creative, or solving actions with higher frequency, instead of the depressing choice on claiming while doing nothing, or just doing nothing! (thus sadly ‘giving up’).

‘To explore new worlds … to find new life … new civilizations … to arrive where no man has arrived before’ was the leitmotiv of ‘Star Trek’, from its intro to the several episodes that fascinated me during my childhood (in fact I arrived to phone the TV channel asking them to move the time-schedule earlier ‘cause my grandparents were sending me to bed at half of the emission at night …and they did it!  The emission was programmed four hours in advance since my call, what meant I could enjoy ‘Star Trek’ when back from school 🙂).

Our terrestrial, human curiosity is normally the first step towards growth: ‘What about this?’ …and we go for it to discover.  ‘What if…?’ …and we do it or experience it, what normally adds something to our knowledge or understanding, and so on.

We know surely lot of people that looks normally skeptical towards everything.  It seems they live because air is for free! 🙂  Seriously hope is not your case, dear reader.

Curious people look normally ‘more alive’, that’s it.  They find, also, motivation from their curiosity, and we’re now speaking about something that really matters to everybody, business leaders included.  Curiosity builds motivation to discover, thus acting as a booster in our lives (what means: extra-energy).

From some scientific angle, curiosity has been frequently peered to high intelligence also.  Evidently, guys like Albert Einstein and similar ones have to have been all of their lives curious about something in order to move forward in their respective science fields.

So, can curiosity be built, or increased?  Can it be learned?   Million-dollar question.

Psychologists define a ‘trait curious’ person like somebody with a tendency to delve deeply into subjects that grab his attention, learning more about himself and the world in the process.

The science writer Elizabeth Svoboda says that ‘lives of curious people may not always go according to plan, but their willingness to take a chance on improvisation pays big in dividends’ and accompanies her thought with some clear examples (‘Psychology Today’, September 2006 issue).

We can now add creativity (from improvisation) to the list of fantastic things to be linked to magic curiosity.  ‘Yes but, back to the point, can curiosity be taught or learned?’

Let’s go with some advice coming from this author in order to work on our own curiosity:

Reframeboringsituations by doing something different inside them, thus turning them into a more meaningful moment.

Overcomefearof trying something new by maximizing the positive consequence of new adventures over the natural defensive reaction (always in prudent way).

Let your true passions shine by intense focus on your goals and interests that will create ‘flow’ (eliciting feelings of well being) instead of letting you feel bored while doing necessary stuff to master your talents, resources, and abilities.

Other sources speak also about clearing our minds from the beginning (to avoid assumptions), asking questions (that lead to other ones, or to revealing replies), decide to be amazed by everyday things (to find new meanings), etc.

I’m pretty convinced about flexibility from an open mind being an engine that curiosity can impulse towards permanent discoveries or new sides of the daily reality.

When being boosted towards subjects or things we have chosen (from deep true interest and curiosity) we’ll feel free, and much better + in control than when we just follow ‘automatisms’ that are there to accomplish with tedious and repetitive tasks to which we give ourselves as lambs.

Yes, a bit of ‘vital rebellion’ is key ingredient for the curiosity plate.

Best wishes from a ‘trekkie’!

‘Til the next one,

B (Sr)

 

THE PROBLEM OF WEARING A FACE

(OR …THE REASON OF EMOTION)

‘If coming emotional, manage it rational’ is often said in conflict-solving, and who can illuminate in this regard is certainly Daniel Goleman, initial driver of Emotional Intelligence, then ‘sublimated’ by him to Social Intelligence and other fields.

Emotions are the boiling kitchen where life is usually cooked, even if our rational side should be (inside the frame of this culinary analogy), the Chef in control of the final dish.  At least from Goleman’s point of view.

By presenting a triangle with ‘Feeling’, ‘Thought’, and ‘Action’ as vertex, his advice would be always to let Thought control Feeling before Action.  Easy!

We know, then, that living is a complex thing, sometimes finding us in the uncomfortable situation of asking to ourselves: ‘- Why did I act this wild way?  This is not me!’

It’s me, of course.  A side of me that precedes the highest rationalistic capacities of my brain, that came later to form part of the whole thing.

From the beginning of time, we humans have always expressed ourselves without words, just because they were so recently invented in terms of evolution.

So, we expressed mainly through gestures, guttural sounds, movements and, mainly, our face.

Pretty much as today!  …even if with a bit higher rational control to express ourselves in accurate, civilized, assertive way.

Dr. Paul Ekman, together with Harriet Oster (then followed by more scientists interested in their initial paths) worked hard in research of facial human expressions, or (in other words), the expressive consequence of wearing a face 🙂

And the previous smiley can be considered the symbol of …the only positive one!  True: from the 6 universal emotions (the ones that mean the same in every human culture or ethnic group) HAPPINESS is the only one we consider as ‘good’ in terms of social connection, further success, etc.

Here, the complete set:

 

As we can clearly see, and following the typical traffic-light code, red color dominates the scene, what means:

To bring face is dangerous! 🙂

When we laugh or smile (expression of HAPPINESS) lot of neuronal, physical, and chemical processes get combined to make us feel so good and, in addition, to invite the other ones to do so (social advantage).

And the second (less dangerous) expression could be SURPRISE, that deserves the yellow color because of its ambiguity: it can prove good if we express our joy while receiving a fantastic birthday gift …or we can express a completely different thing if entering our flat and finding it full of rats.

ANGER, DISGUST, SADNESS, and FEAR expressions are self-explaining, thus being enough to remember that, like every emotion, they play a theoretically beneficial role always in favor of the human being that ‘wears’ them …still being the four of them SO negative to everybody’s perception.

Yes, every emotion exists to put ourselves in movement (e-motion) …from where to where?  From an uncomfortable situation towards its relief.

So, ANGER (hostility) is an active reply against external aggressiveness, rejection, or negativity.  DISGUST is a defensive rejection or distance from what we don’t accept (physically, morally, etc.).  SADNESS is a compensation for hurtful losses, or non-accomplished wishes.  FEAR is an alarm signal to protect ourselves from danger.

The point is that our peers are rarely scientists interested in the sociologic effects of our external face expressions.  Normally, they tend to react instinctively (in so powerful way, then, as the subconscious levels of process are always deeper and stronger than the conscious one) to what we emit through our face.  Action-reaction.  Sounds logical?

So, what if we begin to raise awareness on our facial expressions more frequently?  I bet this will prove so beneficial to live better by better connection to people around.

Just make a trial: enter any shop with a bad expression in your face (or even a neutral one!) and ask for something from their counter.  After a reasonable time repeat the operation from a smiley, friendly expression in your face.

‘Know yourself’ says a quote in the Apollo temple front (Delphos, Greece) that Pausanias mentioned in early times of our civilization as a spark to think of Self-awareness being the precedent step to Self-control, from which we can expect lot of success in whatever we want to do.

Awareness, then, and our goal always clear in mind, can help to ‘wear a better face’ for longer, what (please, believe) will be benefiting also the world around us.

‘Til the next one!

B (Sr)

 

COMMUNI·QUESTIONS: POWER FOR SUCCESS!

‘Who makes the question has the power’ we normally say in our communication courses.  Because once you ask, the other one is already ‘working for you’ in search of a reply (what gives you control of the interaction), and the reply normally brings information (what, in the ‘era of the information’ means: power).

Thus, a single communication tool, even if a so powerful one (the Question) gives you control + power.  Do you think it would be worth considering using them more?

It’s said that for whatever goal, including the whole professional field, there’s always a question making its achievement easier and sooner.  Questions, then, are also so ubiquitous, capable of proving effective in huge variety of circumstances and needs.

Socratic maieutics, so useful to empower the interlocutor (no less) was based on questions … the journalist Frost completely disarmed the former American president Nixon (live, on TV) with his incisive questions about the Watergate case, and the examples would fill books.

The power of questions is indisputable.  Important point is, now, the ‘how’ always over the ‘what’ (as big master Marshall McLuhan clearly stated and demonstrated several times) thus being the thing, more than ‘what’ question to ask (important, of course), ‘how’ to pose the question(s).

Some people is really gifted on this: they always make the interlocutor feel they’re more important than questions themselves.  So, the questioner normally follows the flow led by the interlocutor’s replies, in versatile way, and (overall) in friendly mood, building as much closeness and confidence as possible.

Strategy behind asking is key side of the thing also: convenient now a closed (‘yes’, ‘no’, or a single concept reply), or either an open question (giving room for interlocutor’s free expression in whatever length of reply)?

Bored by a too large conversation?  Or, by the contrary, needing more time inside it to find your better choice or decision on how to take respective profit?  Questions can act as a timer also!   You can place the conversation wherever you want, shortening, or enlarging it at your will by the appropriate use of opportune questions.

If you’ve lost control of the interaction, a question can bring it back to you: while the other one thinks of the reply you’re already getting the reigns, and planning where to place the chat in the following moments.

You can become Socrates whenever you want by the use of a reflective question that will make your interlocutor meditate and, probably, change mind and act according to your veiled suggestion (what makes questions a fantastic persuasion tool).

Example:

a) ‘- John, you’re clearly underperforming the last weeks. Much more is expected from you!’ (a manager to his/her employee).

b) ‘- Hey John, with all of your talent and experience, d’you think you’re doing your best lastly?’

Just imagine what the reaction + eventual reply from the employee can be in both cases.

Are you leading a Team?  Use questions to mobilize, motivate, inspire, persuade your people!

Are you training instead?  Use questions to generate interest, and to invite to reflection, or creative debate!

Are you coaching?  Use questions to easy the other one’s discovery of own richness, and to let them move forward by finding successive motivating goals in their growth path.

Are you communicating in whatever way or circumstance?  Use questions!!!

‘Til the next time …can I count on you then?  🙂

B (Sr)

 

THE   TIME·MANAGEMENT   F🙂RMULA

A Gestalt approach to reality can mean (among other variations) complete consciousness of ME, NOW, HERE.  Awareness.

Awareness about every breath we take meaning we are a breath closer to our last one.  ‘Lugubrious?’  Practical!  The more conscious we are about the true importance of every minute of our lives, the better we’ll feel invited to use it properly.

Time·Management, then, is usually a matter of Awareness.  Of Consciousness.

Time itself is so easy to measure, we’ll agree.  A chronometer is enough.  Strange to verify that such a measurable dimension can be that attached to something completely vague as ‘how happy we are’.  How?  In the professional field, the most motivated (happy) Teams are the most successful ones, usually.

Time.Management, then, is also about Motivation (from Latin ‘Motus’ or ‘Motivus’: cause of movement).  And movement means action!   The more enthusiastically active we are, the more fruitful our time will prove in the end.

And other topics normally marked as ‘must’ for Time·Management consideration are:  the ability to program action by finding difference between Urgent and Important (and prioritizing our to-do list in consequence), to program our schedule by always leaving some free time in it (for the unexpected, or for improvement of the actions there if nothing strange suddenly appears), as well as the capacity to ‘disappear to find time’ sometimes (isolating ourselves during a while without being disturbed –delayed- by usual circumstances as i.e. people coming to us for variety of things, some of them irrelevant or even stupid).

Communication remains to our humble opinion as the very key factor in saving time: the more Empathetically (capable of ‘standing in their shoes’) we are, the more rapidly we’ll be able to detect their communication style+preferences, thus being easier afterwards to ‘tune’ our emission to their favorite way of perception/reception/listening/comprehension.  And we clearly speak now about Assertiveness (accurate emission), that always comes hant-to-hand with Empathy.

Communication, then, will help us understand + be understood earlier, thus saving a lot of Time normally lost in ‘…er… can you repeat this please?  Didn’t get it yet, I guess…’

And that’s it by now, ‘cause Time runs! 🙂

Be AWARE , Be HAPPY & COMMUNICATE WELL to SAVE TIME.

‘Til the next one…

B(Sr)

 

 

THE FIFTH BEATLE (Continuous Improvement)

Together Everybody Achieves More (TEAM) is a concept that alligns with neuroscientific statement about us being more socially maleable and less genetically pre-determined that what it was always thought in order to achieve success.  So: better together than alone.

Why?  Through common effort we seem to get goals earlier and easier, improving path because of higher + more varied set of potential (talents, resources, etc.).  How?  By means of synergic behavior once the true unity is achieved.  Common Goal + Unity: good part of what establishes the difference between just a ‘group’ and all of a TEAM.   …’synergic’ was said?

The synergic TEAM’s result is always more than the simple sum of individualities.  And synergy is practiced through openness in two senses: every member being humble enough to learn from the fellows, and generous enough to teach them from the best of Self.  Permanently.

This way, a dynamic path of continuous improvement is started, based on the main principles of a solid TEAM: trust (everybody knowing ‘how good we are’ and how ‘yes, we can’ :), communication (the permanent link that keeps ideas and warmth moving on), commitment (true sense of responsibility), accountability (acceptance and appreciation of every person and their specific talents), and common goals (vision of what is expected from all together instead of only from the individual).

In parallel, these principles are telling us about the challenges to beat (their opposite ones), as i.e. lack of trust or either mistrust, fear of conflict or Selfish isolation, laziness or lack of responsibility, incapacity to recognize and value every individual together with their unique contribution, and excessive individualism that makes forget about the overall reality as a TEAM.

The dynamic path mentioned two paragraphs above means also capacity to improve the TEAM permanently by profitable integrating new hires, new blood for the higher success: ‘the fifth Beatle’ can/should be then accepted and allowed to become a new running gear to boost the already good engine.

Synergy will be letting every member to keep on track, growing permanently, and (normally) an effective leadership will be in real-time detecting every eventual need of physical growth to call the ‘fifth Beatle’ when necessary.  Diversity is the first ingredient for solid synergy, and patience to integrate the diverse ‘gears’ until best performance is another key side of the thing.

TeamBUILDING, and TeamBONDING experiences can be additional ‘yeast’ to keep the thing growing while tackling any eventual conflict or misunderstanding like the ones that can always happen between human beings, no matter how good the TEAM can arrive to be.  This is, anyway, something for the next time…

Simply said (sorry, Beatles!), it’s about being a true TEAM, instead of just a band 🙂

Good TEAM & See You Soon!

B (Sr)

 

COMMUNICATION:  THE ‘OTHER’ BIG-BANG 

Brief tenths of second make the difference: the ones of a first impression.  Marshall McLuhan said that ‘no second chance for a first impression’, adding that on this depends the rest of any communicative act.

And communication seems to be our way of proving successful (or the other thing) in life, precisely, as ‘we cannot not communicate’ (Paul Watzlawick), thus being everything we do or experience, pure communication…

Like the ‘big-bang’, the brief initial impact of our image+first movements+first sounds (voice, i.e.) in the interlocutor(s) brings the key for good part of the further interaction result:  if they like you, done!  If the other thing, ooops…

Attention to non verbal, then, from the beginning. How friendly, warm, appealing, approachable, and ‘human’ is your first impression to others?

Instead of the concentration of energy to begin the universe, these brief instants contain a huge concentration of potential to begin successful interactions.

Persuasion is, on the other hand, the only reason for us to exist (Aristotle), and in human relationships it begins by your first impression on them 🙂

‘Til the next one!

B(Sr)

 

LEADERSHIP:  AM OR FM?

Communication is, as always, the key side of leadership.  And the difference between AM and FM ways.  Lot of ‘bosses’ (AM) and few true ‘leaders’ (FM) is reality in majority of organizations…

AM (Aggressive Manipulation) Style = BOSS

The stick instead of the carrot (sorry for the bit outdated topic: it clarifies so well the thing), this style needs permanent demonstrations of power from the leader, er… boss.

When something failing at work, their question will be ‘- Who was it?’ and the following message: ‘- Prepare yourself for the consequences’.

Manipulation is the chosen way of getting things done, by subtly telling subordinates the only way of surviving in acceptable conditions is achieving the indicated (normally impossible to crystallize) goals at whatever price.

Result: a working ambiance fluctuating between fear and demotivation, with people feeling the huge pressure of ‘failure not allowed’ + insolidary ‘save-youself-if-you-can’ coexistence.

FM (Formative Motivation) Style = LEADER

The carrot is here, of course, the choice, and the first enthusiastic one is, precisely, the leader, that acts and behaves in a way that shows permanent example to their people.

If any failure at work, the main question, after ‘What’ happened, is ‘- Why?’ and, furtherly, ‘- How can we prevent this to happen again?’.  Sure improvement is, then, in the horizon.

Motivation is the favorite way of aiming to goal-achievement in this style, and relies in supporting Team-members to evolve by concreting their own potential through work. Offering Training opportunities to them is here a key strategic point.   By feeling secure and motivated, people normally reaches (and goes even over) the fixed goals.

Result: a working ambiance combining will of growth by learning from the leader (and fellows), together with healthy disposition to teach the others from the best of Self. Synergy, in other words.

Who doubts nowadays between AM and FM?  The last one is always synonym of newer, and of best quality respect to the old-fashioned AM.  FM is then our suggested choice.

Let’s hope this article LEADS you towards nice paths in your interaction with your people 🙂

BF (Sr)

 

EE EXPANDED EMPATHY TECHNIQUE© (ADVANCED COMMUNICATION & COACHING)  

GOAL: to rise empathetic rapport during our interactions, in order to get higher, more profitable levels of confidence, comprehension, and success.

Based on our physical + mental architecture, this integrative technique aims to help communicators/coachees raise their empathetic levels of expression, thus building a higher, more productive rapport with interlocutors (crucial side of successful communication and coaching).

EXERCISE FOR 2 PARTICIPANTS WORKING IN PAIRS

Elements: 8 (Expression Smileys) hand signs.

1) STORY·TELLING: sitting in front of each other, participant A tells a short (let’s say 1 minute long) story to participant B, that should pay evident attention.  The story can be instantly improvised, or product of a previous reflection/ memorizing minute.

Participant A: awareness about emitting something (a story) in summarized, clear way (meaning, added value to emission, etc.) + accurate emission in time (structure, timemanagement).

Participant B: need to demonstrate evidently attention to the speaker (consideration, non verbal expression, etc.).

2) SMILIED STORY: A tells same story to B, that will show to the speaker different Expression Smileys signs during the exercise, in order for A to adapt face expression + general mood (tone, style) to each shown sign, independently from the story characteristics. Further short MUTUAL FEEDBACK: both A and B comment about own sensations, experiences, etc. during the exercise.

Participant A: versatility, adaptation to emotional contexts, higher awareness about key role of expression in emitted messages, etc.

Participant B: control, decision-making, observation, awareness about key role of expression in communication, etc.

3) ACTED STORY: now B tells a (different, obviously) short story to A, who will be ‘acting’ as better as possible each part of the narrative, still sitting, in silent way (only mimics, gestures, face expressions, movements, etc.).  Further short MUTUAL FEEDBACK: both A and B comment about own sensations, experiences, etc. during the exercise.

Participant A: non-verbal/body-language expression, high attention, versatility, improvisation, connection, etc.

Participant B: awareness about emitting something (a story) in summarized, clear way (meaning, added value to emission, etc.) + accurate emission in time (structure, time-management).

4) EE ROLE-PLAY: both participants agree on a realistic interaction (talk) as i.e. a walk by the street (friends or accountants roles) or a professional meeting (supervisor and employee, i.e.) to be used as main-frame for the role-playing exercise, where:

A (again) begins emission while B is showing high attention + implication through evident verbal (short confirmation or motivating expressions), and non-verbal (gestures, facial expressions, etc.) actions, in order for A to feel listened, comprehended and supported by B.  The verbal + non-verbal behavior (from B) should be ‘realistic’: evident enough to prove influent and controlled (at the same time) to avoid inconvenient exaggerations.  Then roles can be shifted (B emitting and A attending, to continue the conversation) until ending the exercise.   Further deep MUTUAL FEEDBACK: both A and B comment about own sensations, experiences, etc. during the exercise + describe achievements through analysis and reflection.

Both Participants (A and B): intense interaction, raised empathetic expression, emotional management, adapted acting abilities, effective real-time feedback, clarity, connection, etc.

FRAME: any kind of interpersonal (presence) talk between persons at whatever level, including business, or coaching situations.

META-FRAME: ethic intention of producing an always beneficial influence in them + practical approach to achieving fruitful results from a higher level of connection in the interaction.

HOW IT WORKS:

1) Activation of the interpersonal channels (sight, voice, gestures, physical –including facial- expressions, audition, smell, eventually tact, etc.) to establish connection with interlocutor + high attention level→ mainly receiver, and awareness about accurate (structured, driven, summarized, worthy) emission→ mainly speaker.

The high level of intensity in the reception helps to avoid the typical ‘sub-vocalization’ state, consisting on paying only partial attention to our interlocutors because of assigning the other part to our own ego (inner dialog or reflection on personal stuff, or interests).

The need of accuracy in the emission, in order to cope with the goal of telling a conditioned message (short, complete, understandable, etc.) allows to raise the worthy content, thus rendering the conveyed stuff more valuable in terms of ‘density of meaning’.

2) Activation of our ‘mirrorneuronal tissue (proven equally affected/stimulated by both true human facial expressions, or graphic smileys) starts raising empathetic implication towards connection, crucial side of communication.  On the other hand, awareness about emotional implication in interactions’ success enriches capacity to influence + versatility.

3) Body-language adds more intensity + efficacy to higher implication into connection, by taking advantage of the evolution-anthropologic evidence of non-verbal aspects being basement for humans interaction since millions of years ago, while spoken words exist since ‘just’ some 50.000 years ago→ we are mainly non-verbal beings!

4) Jumping in the evolution scale towards nowadays’ modern ways of interaction, we connect both verbal and non-verbal channels in strategic way, in order to prove more intense (and influent) in the interaction positive result.

SUMMARY: diversity of aspects are combined in this integrative technique, from higher awareness to influent implication, from constructive elements (senses, representational systems, brain functioning –mirroring, afferent+efferent impulses-, etc.) to strategic management of communication, in order to benefit both reception and emission.

NOTE: implemented for the first time by 2015 during our intermediate level Coaching seminars, this technique has been replicated by Managers and Supervisors of professional teams in order for their people to achieve higher results through improved communication …with fantastic outcomes .

 

TOUCH’N GO TECHNIQUE© (QUICK CONVERSATIONAL HYPNOSIS) 

Pilot’s jargon for an exercise consisting in shortly landing and immediately taking off again, let’s name this way the rapid, ‘chirurgic’ technique to insert a suggestive message in our interlocutor’s mind, furtherly explained.

GOAL: to influence somebody’s opinion, decision, behavior, actions, through a key thought being inserted in the most powerful side of their minds (the unconscious one).

1) SUGGESTION: we say (verbalize) the thought, concept, idea we want to insert in their unconscious mind by slightly varying some characteristics of the emission (tone, speed, etc.) respect to the ones we are using alongside the whole conversation with the person(s).

2) FASCINATION: we immediately speak about something (whatever) else after the suggestion having been ‘launched’, now recovering the ‘normal’ tone, speed, etc.), in order to get quick conscious concentration of the person(s) in this new subject, thus distracting them from analyzing or paying attention to the previous (suggestive) stuff.

FRAME: an interesting (emotional, inspiring, appealing, etc.) conversation that is having them focused and wanting to go forward with it.

META-FRAME: ethic intention of producing an always beneficial influence in them.

HOW IT WORKS:

We alter the ‘orthodox’ order of application (Fascination+Suggestion) in classic, basic hypnosis by inserting first the suggestion, then distracting by calling their focused attention on something else while the key thought is already active in their unconscious minds to influence on them  (better if we distract them with something so appealing, based on their highest interest).

The appealing conversation lowers the barriers (filters) people normally put in order to ‘defense’ themselves (‘critical factor’ in the hypnosis jargon) from outer harm or menace, thus easing access to their unconscious processes in order to positively (please remember ethics!) influence them.

NOTE: every hypnotic action should begin by the hypnotist achieving first the so called ‘H+’ state, consisting in:   a) connecting with interlocutor(s) by best feelings towards them (appreciation, love, etc.);   b) putting Self in the right frame (relaxed, focused, etc.);   c) connecting through smile, hands-shake, mention of things in common, etc.   d) communicating a sense of trust, calmness, comfort, and security.

 

DMA · DIDACTIC MENTAL ANCHORING TECHNIQUE© (ADVANCED TRAINING SKILLS) CLICK HERE! 

 

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