Sometime all it means is that you aren’t doing anything uncomfortable or different.  In this case, you are sitting down on the job of life.  A higher level of authenticity involves standing up, and taking responsibility for your entire life, and your entire personality, all your potential.

Process Communication describes six unique personality types within each person, arranged in order of preference, much like the floors of a condominium.  Your BASE floor is present near birth and determines your preferred communication style throughout your life.  Your PHASE floor predicts how you are motivated, and how you get negative attention when you are in distress.  Then, there’s a whole lot more that often gets overlooked.

I recently had the pleasure of participating in a Process Communication Model seminar led by Jerome Lefeuvre of Kahler Communication, France.  We explored what it means to “stand up in your condo.”  We were taken through an exercise that helped us explore our signature strengths from each floor of our personality condo.  We shared stories of things we were proud of, sought feedback from peers, and became more familiar with the less visited floors in our own condominium.

Stand Up. Stand Tall.
You are more than your base and phase.  You are more than your strongly developed floors.  You are a whole person with six floors, a unique constellation of gifts, perspectives, and abilities.  When you stand up in your condo, develop and use the character strengths from bottom to top, you open up all sorts of new perspectives and possibilities.

Authenticity is more than sticking with what you know.  It’s about growing into your full self and sharing that with the world.

So don’t limit yourself with old-school authenticity.  You aren’t too old, too stuck, too tired, or too successful.  Stand up, look around, and reach for your true, fullest self.

Attend a Next Element Seminar and find out your PCM Structure.

Submitted by:

Who is “we?”  Have you ever heard statements like these at home and work:  “We should really do something about that!” “We need to make a decision‚” “We should get this done by Friday‚” “We need to do a better job of keeping the house clean.”

“We” has you leaving the conversation wondering who’s we, and whose doing what?  It also can be interpreted as a passive tactic, of not asserting what you really feel/think/believe, or a defensive move for avoiding conflict or responsibility.  Either way, it leads to miscommunication.

So here is what you can do if “we” shows up in conversation.   First, trust intentions.  Stay curious, wanting and waiting to listen and understand.  Second, openly, and without opinion or assumption, ask for clarification.  (If you’ve already formed an opinion, judgment or assumption, it’s tough to be truly open.)

If you have been trained in the Process Communication Model (PCM), you know we are also talking about using appropriate parts and channels (what’s in front of you?) in how you ask for clarification.

Rest assured that if you do nothing, “we” will keep hanging around and tasks will never get completed… because “we” doesn’t do anything.  A frog could get more done.  If you want to know more about the PCM, give us a shout. Ribbit.

Submitted by:

In the coming year, look for the continuing evolution of PCM with Next Element.  Our passion is to help you communicate for a change!

-NR

Read Seth Godin’s entire blog post…

Tools vs insight

How is your vocabulary? It’s a vital tool, certainly. Do you know these words?
a, after, and, as, die, eternal, first, gets, gun, have, in, is, job, life, me, mouth, my, pushing, saying, step, that, the, to, Tyler, waiter, you.

How about these?
a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.

The first list contains every word in the opening lines from Fight Club, the second is the entire word list from Green Eggs and Ham.  Of course, neither you nor I wrote either of these, regardless of how well trained we are in what the words (the tools) mean.

Knowing about a tool is one thing. Having the guts to use it in a way that brings art to the world is another. Perhaps we need to spend less time learning new tools and more time using them.

from:  http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/12/tools-and-insight.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Fsethsmainblog+%28Seth%27s+Blog%29

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FEATURED CLIENT

Our featured client this month is Meramec Adventure Learning Ranch in Eastern Missouri.  Brett Bailey, director shares in this article, “Next Element has taught us how to more effectively bridge the transfer-of-learning gap, which is essential to the work Meramec offers its young participants.  We give youth the ability to recognize they have something unique and special to offer.  I believe that inspires a lot of purpose, which goes a long way toward developing efficacy and hope.”  Click here to read the article.

WHITE PAPER

There are a number of things that our parents told us when we were growing up that are not true, things like, “If you do not eat your green beans you will not grow up to be big and strong.”  However, one of the many things that they told us that is true: “You can do anything you put your mind to.”  This is why we like to say: “own your potency,” and this is how we define it: own and acknowledge your efficacy, effectiveness and strengths. Owning your potency is how you achieve success. Click here to read more of Jeff’s thoughts on this subject.

PCM NUGGET

Conditional vs. Positional – It’s a Matter of Degree! For more on the difference between first and second degree distress, check out this blog post…

NE CORNER

We celebrate and welcome new NEOS® users: Kathleen Friesen, Friesen Group, North Newton, KS; Michelle Axell and Jennifer Nelson, ID 287Plymouth, MN. And new PCM® trainers, Jason Leal, Prairie View, Newton, KS and Donald Morris, Savvis, St. Louis, MO.

PLAY TIME

Last month we asked “What three words could change your life?”  What we were looking for: “Need, But, and See” – as shared in Jeff’s White Paper. We neglected to specify “if you never use them again,” so we received a lot of inspiring and fun submissions. (Thank you!)
- I love you
- Impossible is nothing
- Process Communication Model
- I was wrong
- Your life matters
- I am pregnant
- Open, Persistent, Resourceful
- You are hired!

And, the first person who gave us the answer we were looking for was Carolyn Wilhelm, CFO of Kidron Bethel Village in North Newton, KS.

We learned a little lesson about communication ourselves with that one!

For December, we will give $100 to the person who submits the most compelling reply to Jeff’s white paper on Owning Your Potency… All entries must be submitted as comments on this page of our website.

GOT PROCESS POLL

New question… visit gotprocess.com, scroll to the bottom of the page and place your VOTE!!  “What is life like when you have Reactor-Persister as your base-phase combo?” vs. “What is life like when you have Workaholic-Persister as your base-phase combo?”

UPCOMING SEMINARS

We hope you’ll take advantage of the special 20% discount, exclusively for our clients and friends, to join Nate’s Lorman Education audio conference on February 14.  The title is “Effective Techniques for Productive Meetings”  Click here to learn more.

And… due to popular demand, we have added a PCM Core Competency Training to our schedule, January 11 – 13 in Newton KS.  This one is filling up fast, we hope you’ll reserve your spot soon!

Are you a PCM Trainer?  We’re offering an exclusive NEOS Certification just for you!  Join Jerome Lefeuvre from France and the Pauley’s from Maryland, January 19 – 20 event in Newton KS.

We would love to see you in one of our workshops at the Association for Challenge Course Technology’s (ACCT) Annual International Conference in Boston, MA – February 9 – 12.  Discover more on our website!

Facilitating Self-Efficacy – March 7 – 18, Newton KS

NEOS Certification – March 9, Newton KS

Visit our calendar often for upcoming seminars and events!

“I have been to a number of self help, motivational and improvement seminars during my career.  This by far outranks them all.  Very worthwhile investment of my time. Wish I had this information 20 years ago.”  - Dan Roberson, Exec. Broker, PDC Companies,  Little Rock, AR

    PocketPCM

Don’t leave home (or for some, go home) without it.

HOT WINGS UPDATE

Brian Kenady, outdoor education student at Georgia College, is enjoying some tasty Irish Whiskey Glazed wings at Fionn MacCools in Jacksonville, FL during the AEE international conference. These wings were doggone good!

We’re throwing down a challenge for 2012.  How many of these top ten places will we get wing sightings from y’all?

Brett Bailey, director at Meramec Adventure Learning Ranch (http://www.meramecranch.org/), is part of a statewide program that works with at-risk youth to discover and capitalize on their strengths and inspire change in their perspective. As a Great Circle ® agency, Meramec offers experiential adventure and wilderness programs in an effective way to teach skills that are therapeutic in a real-life environment.

Meramec is one of the most extensive high adventure facilities in the Midwest. With a 28-element high ropes course, team development initiatives, zip lines, and an adventure lake, ranch programs utilize outdoor, adventure, and wilderness experiences to help participants focus on key attributes to make a positive impact in the world around them.

Bailey says camp attendees gain mastery of skills and demonstrate how efficacy can change their lives. Though many of the youth have faced extreme cases of abuse and neglect, Bailey says after they work through building a fire, lashing logs together, or conquering a 40-foot tower by climbing and rappelling, the camp is truly a catalyst for change.

“We believe no other place builds that integrity, service, and interdependence between individuals better than the outdoors,” Bailey says.  “It’s pretty neat to watch efficacy grow and translate that into concrete examples, or use the river as a metaphor for where they are in their journey of life.”

Meramec Adventure Learning Ranch offers programs ranging from a day trip to 8-14 day cottage trips designed to meet specific objectives for the group’s treatment goals. Each program works to inspire growth and efficacy while also placing participants into a state of disequilibrium. Bailey says when a person feels off balance, it is natural to reach out for something stable. Research and personal success stories have proven that working through nature’s survival challenges can inspire change in hard-wired responses. The combination of the outdoors and the idea of disequilibrium go hand-in-hand to make each group adventure a purposeful trip.

“We give youth the ability to recognize they have something unique and special to offer,” he says. “I believe that inspires a lot of purpose, which goes a long way toward developing efficacy and hope. Next, they can reconstruct perceptions of things that have happened in the past. They will say to themselves, ‘That experience wasn’t my choosing, but I can use it to make me into a better, stronger, healthier person.’”

One year ago, Bailey and his co-director, Kassey Odneal, discovered the talents of Next Element and brought Nate Regier and his team on board to develop an assessment that could track the progress and outcomes of the work at Meramec. After deep, thorough discussions of Meramec’s goals, objectives and programs, and an onsite visit, Regier certified Bailey and his team in NEOS®, an assessment program that tracks three attributes of effective functioning: openness, resourcefulness, and persistence. Next Element also offered training in self-efficacy and Process Communication® for portions of the Meramec team.

“Brett and Kassey are passionate, full of energy and have a deep commitment to their clients,” Regier says. “Our work has been primarily research-focused and we are  equipping the Meramec team to be intentional about the work they are doing around self-efficacy. The time we’ve spent with them to design a product that will measure the ranch’s progress and outcomes is very unique to their goals – it is not a cookie cutter approach.”  Bailey says Next Element has also taught them how to more effectively bridge the transfer-of-learning gap, which is essential to the work Meramec offers its young participants. He says with any adventure program, the biggest challenge is making an individual connect what they’ve learned, or the skill they’ve mastered, to a situation at home.

“The cool thing about Next Element is that they are geared to individual and team development,” he says. “They are focused on changing and inspiring growth in each individual, and that’s our focus as well. In some ways we are a different animal as there are not too many programs in the Midwest that do therapeutic expeditions for this type of at-risk youth. Next Element has experience working with all those things, both in the adventure realm and therapeutic realm. That was a big selling point for us.”

Building relationships and changing perspective which can inspire is what Meramec is all about. Bailey says he witnesses incredible success stories of the youth who’ve come through Meramec programs. At the end of each journey in the woods with a fire, primitive hut and edible plants and amazing youth, he gains more perspective each time.

“If we can inspire and facilitate a change in our kids’ perspectives through the growth of efficacy, then instead of viewing a mountain as too high or too big, they will see they have the ability to get over it,” he says.

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By Rhonda McCurry, Contract Writer

• Have your meetings become a forum for competing agendas, apathy and wasted energy?
• How much time do you waste arguing, nitpicking policies, chasing rabbit trails, delaying decisions, and talking around the real issues?
• Is scheduling another meeting the only guaranteed outcome of your time together?

While meetings have a place and purpose, too often they are experienced as unneeded, unproductive, and unsafe, thus fostering a cynical and apathetic attitude among participants which negatively affects the organization at large.  Effective meetings build alignment around common goals, support innovation and decision-making, and facilitate direct, accountable action, and include each participant as a valuable part of the process.  In this live audio conference, you will learn tips to notice and combat drama in your meetings, identify logistical details to keep meetings on task, engage and motivate a diverse audience, and facilitate a more safe, creative, and accountable meeting atmosphere.

The result: More enthusiasm, more productivity and innovation, less wasted time and energy.

 As our guest, you are eligible for 20% off the *registration fee!

Essential Techniques for Productive Meetings
February 14, 2012
1:00PM EST – 2:30PM EST (Noon – 1:30PM CST)

Please see this attached marketing publication for more details: LORMAN ED_ProductiveMtg_Feb14_2012

Register online: http://www.lorman.com
Call: 866-352-9539
*Discount code: F2716129
Priority code: 15999

We look forward to having you in attendance and will be prepared to answer your questions and provide you the latest information on this topic.

FEATURED CLIENT

Our featured client this month is Kidron Bethel Village, a retirement village in North Newton KS.  Read how they increased communication effectiveness by 20 – 40% in six key areas.  The article can be read in its entirety by clicking here.

PCM NUGGET

“PCM leaves no-one indifferent because it is so pertinent, complete, and predictive” – Jerome Lefeuvre, Kahler Communication France

From California to Michigan, Vermont to Florida, and right here in the Midwest our experience has been the same as in France. PCM is transformative. We will continue to expand the reach and impact of PCM, innovate, and explore the depths of what this tool can do.

CONTEST

The first person to reply to this question correctly, “What three words could change your life?” will win a $25 gift card of their choice. (This prize has already been awarded)

GOT PROCESS POLL

And the winner is…How can I adapt my communication style and stay authentic?  Authenticity isn’t just about “sticking to your guns.”  Being yourself is about being all you are, accessing all your potential and qualities to be effective with others. Read more by clicking here.

UPCOMING SEMINARS

• Process Facilitation Seminar – Nov 14 – 16, Newton KS
• NEOS Certification – Nov 15 – 16, Newton KS
• Advanced PCM® Conflict Resolution Seminar – Nov 17 – 18, Newton KS
• PCM® Trainer Certification – Nov 28 – Dec 2, Newton KS
• To register, or find out more about any of these seminars, click here.

Here is a blushworthy quote from an attendee of a Process Communication Model Seminar hosted by the greater Wichita area Young Presidents’ Organization…

“I say modern life is conceived through communication. Have you ever moved an object without touching it? That is influence. That is what Nate & Jeff did.“  – Mark Hamade,  Chief Operating Officer at PKM Steel, Salina Steel, MSS Transport

If you haven’t purchased the PocketPCM from your local apps store yet, what are you waiting for?  This handy-dandy, at-your-fingertips communication tool may be just the thing you could use for one of those “awkward moments” at those upcoming holiday parties!

In case you missed it Nate’s article, “Problem Employees: Invest in them or invite them out,” was recently published by the Wichita Eagle.  Click here to read the complete article.

We are so excited to hit this critical mark! Many advisors have told us that most start ups don’t make it this far, and if they do – once they hit that three-year mark, success is much more attainable.

We have never questioned our ability to make it. And, since we chose not to participate in the recession, success has always been our only option.

We often get asked what is the secret to making it this far. It’s no secret. The keys to our success are integral to what we intend our clients to experience when working with us.  In no particular order of importance, here’s what we practice:

ACCEPT. First, we ACCEPT every one of our owners for who they are.  We all work differently, train differently, do social media differently, and the list goes on. The bottom line is that we ACCEPT all of our differences as wonderful and useful. And further, we do not judge those differences or put anyone in a box who thinks, acts or goes about business differently.

VALUE. Second, we VALUE everyone’s opinions. We may not agree and we not may follow each other’s advice every time. Still, we value and respect each person’s opinions.  We also invite all to share their opinions in staff meetings, emails, chats, or client feedback sessions. Opinions will always have a place.

HERE. Third, we want every one to be HERE. This may be via phone, Skype, e-mail, instant message or in-person. Wherever we are, we honor everyone’s presence and we want that presence.

HAPPEN. Fourth, we want to make it HAPPEN for Next Element. We want to make decisions as fast as our infrastructure will allow us. Then, once we have reached a goal or accomplished a task, we push on faster. Making things HAPPEN is not only important, it is a mandate for us all.

IDEAS. Fifth, we invite and entertain all IDEAS. We may not pursue all IDEAS. We may not use all IDEAS. Our intent though, is to have an open door policy on sharing all IDEAS – any time, any place, no matter how far out they are.

LIKE. Sixth, we LIKE each other for who we are. We are all different in how we live our lives. We are different in our approaches to faith, parenting, fashion, and work environments. We LIKE each other without condition. There are no strings attached at Next Element.

These six keys are something that we at Next Element follow and strive to put into practice every day. We also teach this to our clients and invite them to put this into practice.

These six keys, ACCEPT, VALUE, HERE, HAPPEN, IDEAS and LIKE are an integral part of why we are successful today and will be successful in the future.

Our first official staff meeting in our new office in 2008. (Nate was the photographer)

• We’re Three Today!
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• Lessons From an Unlikely Hero
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