This is an experiential task about increasing your sensory acuity – your awareness, your ability to decode the available sensory information – and to use that enhanced acuity to improve your communication with others.
“Would you tell me please which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the cat.
“I don’t much care where….” Said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the cat.
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
In my work helping leaders deal with difficult situations, I often find that a concept from the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) can make a big difference to the way we approach problems. As a joke, I sometimes call this the concept the one-page guide to a successful life…. It goes like this:
Outcome
Know what you want, have a clear idea of your outcome in any situation.
Acuity
Be alert and keep your senses open so you notice what you’re getting
Flexibility
Have the flexibility to keep changing what you do until you get what you want.
As an example of how these three simple words can help, consider the sometimes difficult issue of giving feedback.
Firstly, lets assume that within the relationship you have permission (and perhaps a responsibility) to give feedback. And secondly, lets assume that the feedback is in relation to a fairly significant issue that is impacting on the person’s ability to adequately perform their role.
For the sake of an example, imagine you are a manager with responsibility for a group of professional staff. You want your team to work collaboratively internally and with other groups. Over a few occasions you observe less than useful behaviour from one of your staff members (lets call her “A”). She is quick to dismiss other’s ideas and input and she is reluctant to delegate project elements to other members of the team, even though this is important for the project’s success. You have decided that you need to give “A” feedback but you are worried that it might backfire.
Now try applying the Outcome, Acuity, Flexibility concepts…
Outcome
· My desired outcome is for “A” to understand how her current behaviour is getting in the way of the project’s success and, consequently, her success;
· Also, I want her to change her behaviour and to do so willingly ad happily.
· Also, I want “A” to remain motivated about the project but to recognise that she needs helps from others to ensure its success.
Acuity and Flexibility
· I begin the conversation. Fairly soon, I can see by “A”s behaviour that she is feeling very defensive about my comments. My message is not getting through, or at least not the way I want it to.
· I stop and change tact. I reassure ‘A” that she’s valued and needed on the team.
· I try a different approach - asking questions and listening. Now we’re getting somewhere; she’s admitting she needs input and help from the other team members. However, I realise that she’s not really committing to doing anything different herself, to changing her own behaviour.
· I change tact again, different questions and some gentle confrontation. “A”s admitted she needs help from the others; now she needs to acknowledge that through her communication style, she sometimes chases people away.
· I know the conversation’s not finished but I can see that “A” is tired and has probably gone as far as she can in one day. I make a time to continue the conversation and ask ‘A” to think about what kind of help she would like from me before our next meeting.
Notice how the manager in the above example remained aware of her desired outcomes, and was able use her acuity to be aware of what was working and what wasn’t, and was able to amend her approach as needed. This is what we mean by Outcome, Acuity, Flexibility. Another way of saying this is:
If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. If what you’re doing is not working, do something else.
Or the well known quote (variously attributed to Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Rita Mae Brown and an old Chinese proverb) might also be helpful:
The definition of Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Developing sensory acuity
So how do we develop our acuity, our ability to notice what is happening for someone else (before they storm out of the room).
Below is an exercise adapted from Joseph O’Connor and John Seymour’s book, Introducing NLP: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People.
The exercise involves developing the skill of calibration. Calibration is the NLP word that means recognizing when people are in different states. This is a skill that you already some ability with and that you already use at least in some situations. For example, think back to your last encounter with a tantruming two or three-year-old. Chances are you had some warning before the tantrum came – a dropped lip, tearing eyes, a change in posture.
But as O’Conor and Seymour note:
“Often our calibration is so poor that we only notice someone is upset when he starts to cry. We rely too much on people telling us verbally how they feel, instead of using our eyes and ears. We do not want to calibrate from a punch on the nose to know that a person is angry, nor do we want to hallucinate all sorts of possibilities from a twitch of an eyebrow”.
The answer is of course to practice!
An exercise with a partner
Team with your learning partner (or someone else willing to experiment).
Ask them, without talking, to think of a person they like a lot. As they do this, notice any changes in their physiology. This may include changes in:
· Their eye position;
· The angle of their head;
· Their breathing - deep or shallow, fast or slow, high or low;
· Facial muscle tone;
· Skin colour;
· Lip size,
· Tone of voice.
Now ask your partner to think of someone they dislike. Notice the changes.
The third step is to ask your partner to switch between thinking about the two people, letting you know when they are switching. Remember, you are looking to notice changes in physiology. Keep doing this into are sure you can detect some differences in their physiology. In NLP terms, you have now calibrated these two states of mind. You know what they look like.
The fourth step is to ask your partner to think of one of the people, but without telling you which one. Can you tell which one it is by reading the physical cues you have already identified?
Practising sensory acuity
Now that you have experienced consciously practicing sensory acuity in an artificial situation, see if you can pay more attention to using this skill in other situations.
Using sensory acuity is about paying more attention to the people around you and to using the information you gain to improve your communication with them. If you can “sense” that the person you are giving feedback is becoming upset, you don’t have to wait for them to tell you. You can alter your approach earlier to ensure that you both remain in a functional state.
However, it’s not about mind reading or assuming you “know” what’s going on for the other person. Using your sensory acuity helps you pay attention to the other person in the conversation and helps you gauge when to keep doing what you’re doing and when to try something new.
Finally a word of warning
Developing your sensory acuity (and accompanying flexibility) is about staying open to what happening in any interpersonal situation. As Zen philosophy teaches, to take in new information, you must first “empty your cup”.
“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
Nan-in was a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912).
Quoted in Shaseki-shu in Paul Reps, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, p.5
In his book, Deep Survival, Lawrence Gonzales, reports on his research on people operating in survival situations. He analyses a range of situations – on high altitude mountains, in deep snow, in the wilderness – where people who didn’t survive looked and saw what they expected to see. He argues the survivors looked and were open to the changes in the environment. They saw the subtle shifts, the warning signs and they were able to recalibrate their mental models and alter their plans accordingly. He notes:
“A closed attitude, an attitude that say, ‘I already know’ may cause you to miss important information”
The same principle applies in interpersonal communication. Practising sensory acuity is a way of consciously remaining open to what is happening in any given communication exercise. Please don’t assume you have the ability to know what’s going on for others; rather use your sensory acuity as a tool to help you be curious about how others are responding to your communication; as a tool to help you ask the better questions.
Good Luck!
Copyright: Sue Sampson 2012
