Say, “Thank you for your opinion.”

This person has an opinion about your life, and world, and truly believes that he knows what is best for you.

If you choose to disagree with him, then you have engaged in a power struggle and nobody wins when this happens.  If you are successful, and are not having any problems, then just continue to do what you do.  Say, “Thank you,” and move on with your life.

I know it can be offensive and hard to swallow.  Give yourself a break, don’t borrow the stress, just say “Thank you.”  I would be willing to bet that the more you say, “Thank you for your opinion,” the less you will hear the words, “You should ________.”

Give it a shot and please let me know how it works out… you really should!

Submitted by:

Jeff King, Trainer and Co-Owner

316.288.6305

Have you attended an Next Element Seminar?

If so, here’s an opportunity to chat with, and ask Jeff questions.

For 1-hour, you and 9 other individuals will be in a chat room with Jeff King.  This chat room will be a Q & A, and discussion in a video-conference format.  No question is out-of-bounds, and if you have been to a Next Element seminar you are eligible to participate.  We can talk about communication, drama, change, motivation… anything goes!

How do I sign up?

•     Get a Google+ account (you have to have a Gmail account to do this)
•     Find Jeff King and join “NE Chat”
•     E-mail Jeff King at jeff@next-element.com to reserve a space
•     Video chat and webcam is required
•     When the day arrives for the chat session, log into your Google+ account and join
the NE Chat circle and the action will begin!

When are they?  May 14, June 25, July 16 – 2:30pm Central DST

How do I pay?  Oh yea and how much? $40 per chat session

When you reserve your space with Jeff, you will receive an invoice from Michele (michele@next-element.com).  You may pay by snail-mail or PayPal.

What if I have questions as to how to get started?  E-mail Jeff@next-element.com

Don’t you just love loaded, indirect questions?  Even the way I worded this question is loaded…because I’ve already decided the “right” answer is YES.

A question is not a question if you already have your mind made up.  If you are hiding your true desires or if you are fishing for a specific answer, it’s a setup. Asking loaded questions leads to second guessing, superficial agreement, resentment, defensiveness, guilt, and negative energy.

If you have an opinion, share it.  If you want something, ask for it.  If you have an idea, articulate it.  Take ownership over what you want and stop expecting others to read your mind.

Questions only work when you are open to learning.  The spirit of a question is CURIOSITY.  If you are curious, inquisitive, and open to learning, your questions won’t be loaded.  They won’t invite defensiveness.  They will build trust and goodwill.  You will learn more, find better solutions, and be a better leader, parent, and friend.

Want to practice curiosity?  Try these four tips:

• Avoid starting your question with a negative (e.g. Don’t, Won’t, Shouldn’t). Instead of “Shouldn’t we give her another chance?” try “Should we give her another chance?”
• Avoid WHY.  Among Five W’s, Why is most likely to come across feeling like interrogation.  Instead of “Why is your report late?” try “Your report is late. What got in the way of you completing it?”
• Get rid of loaded modifiers. Words like exactly, really, precisely, and truly make the question impossible to answer and imply you are looking for perfection.  Instead of “What, exactly, do you mean?” ask “What do you mean?”
• Adjust your body language. In front of a mirror or trusted friend, directly face the person, make eye contact, avoid looking “down on” them.  Practice asking a question and get feedback on how it comes across.

Want to learn more about how to improve your communication? Give us a call, attend a Next Element Process Communication Model seminar, and subscribe to our e-newsletter and blog.

Accountability is about follow through.  Doing what you say you will do, finishing what you start.  At the most basic level, accountability boils down to motive, or intention.  Intention that is made overt, aligned with desires, and acted upon results in accountability.

Accountability falls apart when intentions are not dealt with appropriately:

• when competing intentions hijack desired outcomes;
• when an intention to follow through is assumed instead of clarified;
• when ulterior intentions are assumed;
• when real intentions are held secret.

Closing channels holds others accountable.
Closing channels is one of the most powerful ways to clarify intentions, and make overt the ulterior motives that can interfere with accountability.  And, it sends the message to others that they can count on you to respond to the best intentions.  Each channel has only one true/best intention behind it.

Channel               Motive/Intention
Emotive                 To play and accept unconditionally
Nurturative           To care without strings attached
Requestive            To ask without expectations
Directive                To command without attack

When you close a channel enthusiastically, authentically, and sincerely – using all five behavioral cues for the complimenting part, you accept, and therefore make overt the best and true intention of that channel.  No guesswork.  No assumptions.  No ulterior motives.

For example, your partner opens the Nurturative Channel with “I love you.”  You close with a sincere and appreciative “Thank you!” using all five behavioral cues.  By closing the channel, you lift up the intention of caring without strings attached.  If this was not the other person’s intention, their bluff has been called by your response.  You have sent the process message, “If you use this channel, I will count on you to follow through with caring – taking you at face value.  If this is not your intention, don’t use this channel with me.”

The key message: Close channels. Be consistent, be authentic, take people at face value, and you will raise accountability with all those around you.

Learn how to open and close channels with all personality types by attending a Next Element Process Communication Model Seminar.

Submitted by:

Every year we attend the annual international conference for the Association for Challenge Course Technology (ACCT), a gathering of the best and brightest in challenge course design and construction, canopy tours, and zip lines. As Jeff mentioned in his recent blog (link to blog), all signs point to growth in this industry.

Next Element doesn’t operate a challenge course. We don’t build zip lines. We don’t supply equipment to anyone in this industry. So why are we involved? The answer lies deep within the Costa Rican jungle on the side of a volcano. (click here to read rest of the story)

On a recent trip to Costa Rica, my wife and I, along with her sister and husband, enjoyed a wonderful zip tour on the side of Arenal Volcano. Flying through a 200 foot high tropical jungle, seeing monkeys, and learning about the forest canopy ecosystem was a treat. Zipping 45 mph across a 1/4 mile span of cable was exhilarating.  And, the views of lake Arenal from a 4000 ft elevation were breathtaking!

You know what really made the day though? Our two tour facilitators. Of course they were competent, attended to safety, and helped us feel secure. What was special, however, was how they attended to our needs, paid close attention to each one of us, and “learned” our personalities along the way. They had an uncanny skill in quickly forming relationships with us and then using this to customize our experience accordingly.

This is why we are invested in the challenge course industry. Because as the market grows, the zip lines get longer and taller, and the adrenaline rush more outrageous, what will eventually separate the best from the rest is the interpersonal skill of the facilitators.

People pay for compelling experiences that don’t just leave them breathless, but leave them altered in meaningful ways. They pay for relationships that transform how they see the world and themselves. We predict that as the competition heats up, the ultimate differentiation won’t be the length of your zip line or the height of your climbing tower, but the soft-skills of your facilitators.  We do what we do so we can equip facilitators to change the world, one person, one experience at a time.

We are ready with the tools and training to meet this need.

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:

• 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.

Your title is like a window of opportunity to connect, motivate, listen to understand, and model healthy conflict, which carries a responsibility beyond having the final say.

Do Happier People Work Harder?
By Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer
Published: September 3, 2011

Teresa Amabile, a professor at Harvard Business School, and Steven Kramer, an independent researcher, are the authors of “The Progress Principle.”

LABOR DAY is meant to be a celebration of work. Yet, on this Labor Day, few have reason to rejoice. Even those who have jobs.  The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which has been polling over 1,000 adults every day since January 2008, shows that Americans now feel worse about their jobs — and work environments — than ever before. People of all ages, and across income levels, are unhappy with their supervisors, apathetic about their organizations and detached from what they do. And there’s no reason to think things will soon improve.

Employee engagement may seem like a frill in a downturn economy. But it can make a big difference in a company’s survival. In a 2010 study, James K. Harter and colleagues found that lower job satisfaction foreshadowed poorer bottom-line performance. Gallup estimates the cost of America’s disengagement crisis at a staggering $300 billion in lost productivity annually. When people don’t care about their jobs or their employers, they don’t show up consistently, they produce less, or their work quality suffers.

Over the past decade, we researched the micro-level causes behind this macro-level problem. To gain real-time perspective into everyday work lives, we collected  nearly 12,000 electronic diary entries from 238 professionals in seven different companies. Our study charted each person’s psychological state each day, and asked respondents to describe one event that stood out during that day. Our analysis revealed their inner work lives — the usually hidden perceptions, emotions and motivations that people experience as they react to and make sense of events in their workdays.

The results were sobering. In one-third of the 12,000 diary entries, the diarist was unhappy, unmotivated or both. In fact, workers often expressed frustration, disdain or disgust. Our research shows that inner work life has a profound impact on workers’ creativity, productivity, commitment and collegiality. Employees are far more likely to have new ideas on days when they feel happier. Conventional wisdom suggests that pressure enhances performance; our real-time data, however, shows that workers perform better when they are happily engaged in what they do.

Managers can help ensure that people are happily engaged at work. Doing so isn’t expensive. Workers’ well-being depends, in large part, on managers’ ability and willingness to facilitate workers’ accomplishments — by removing obstacles, providing help and acknowledging strong effort. A clear pattern emerged when we analyzed the 64,000 specific workday events reported in the diaries: of all the events that engage people at work, the single most important — by far — is simply making progress in meaningful work.

As long as workers experience their labor as meaningful, progress is often followed by joy and excitement about the work. “This time it looks good! I feel more positive about this project and my work than I’ve felt in a long time,” one programmer wrote after she’d completed a small but difficult task. This kind of rich inner work life improves performance, which further supports inner work life — a positive spiral.

Unfortunately, many companies now keep head count and resources to a minimum and this makes progress a struggle for employees. Most managers don’t understand the negative consequences of this struggle. When we asked 669 managers from companies around the world to rank five employee motivators in terms of importance, they ranked “supporting progress” dead last. Fully 95 percent of these managers failed to recognize that progress in meaningful work is the primary motivator, well ahead of traditional incentives like raises and bonuses.

This failure reflects a common experience inside organizations. Of the seven companies we studied, just one had managers who consistently supplied the catalysts — worker autonomy, sufficient resources and learning from problems — that enabled progress. Not coincidentally, that company was the only one to achieve a technological breakthrough in the months we studied it.

Working adults spend more of their waking hours at work than anywhere else. Work should ennoble, not kill, the human spirit. Promoting workers’ well-being isn’t just ethical; it makes economic sense. Fostering positive inner lives sometimes requires leaders to better articulate meaning in the work for everyone across the organization. Sometimes, all that’s required is that managers address daily hassles and help with technical problems. If those who lead organizations — from C.E.O.’s to small-team leaders — believe their mission is, in part, to support workers’ everyday progress, we could end the disengagement crisis and, in the process, lift our work force’s well-being and our economy’s productivity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/opinion/sunday/do-happier-people-work-harder.html?_r=1

Personal growth, team development, dealing with diversity and opening the lines of communication are topics that merely skim the surface of what Kaleidoscope Learning Circle, LLC, Birch Run, Mich. can offer. And did we mention these skills are taught in partnership with horses?

The program provides a home for six horses who partner with people inside a state-of-the-art, $500,000 facility. The founder and owner of Kaleidoscope Learning Circle, Tracy Weber, stays busy caring for these horses and preparing customized leadership curriculum for her business and organizational clients. She contracts with a three equine specialists/mental health facilitators who share her vision of creating something “great” for each client. She also credits her accountant, attorney and the folks who clean horse stalls for their critical role in the business.

Tracy Weber with "Al"

And that’s not all Weber does. She is a single mom, constantly seeking the perfect work-life balance. She holds a PhD and teaches coursework at four universities ranging from customer relationships to equine assisted learning, even serving as a graduate adviser and on a student’s dissertation committee.

Partnering with horses is unique in leadership circles but for Weber they are a part of her life journey. She says a horse is often called a mirror. They are very aware of the power dynamic and have a keen instinct of what is going on around them. They live in herds, much like human beings, who live collectively and follow the leader.

Weber begins her relationship with each client by asking questions to achieve the desired outcome. She then organizes activity with the horses that reflect the client’s goals. The horses, she says, help people become more aware of how they are treating a partner or co-worker. Through interactions with the animals, clients find a safe, trusting place to discover how to improve a relationship by identifying beliefs, assumptions and choices.

Several years ago, Weber discovered the Process Communication Model (PCM®), after attending an educational conference and sitting in on the three-day PCM seminar taught by Next Element’s Jamie Remsberg and Nate Regier. Already an advocate for open communication and helping others learn, Weber says she knew PCM and equine-assisted learning could be merged.
“Both PCM and equine-assisted work allow for development that is not just about content,” Weber says. “It helps people understand how students or employees learn, creating those environments and supporting all personality and communication styles. PCM makes teachers and facilitators more proficient and helps develop credibility.”

She says her first three-day PCM experience showed her the differences and similarities in those around her and made it transferable. No other personality test added the kind of insight to organizational culture as to how people are motivated or how to invite people out of distress, Weber says.

“When I was introduced to PCM I knew I’d found ‘it,’” she says. “In PCM language – I am a “persister”  and have been

on crusades my whole life, and I didn’t realize that’s what they were. PCM allowed me to appreciate and extend an “invitation” rather than a crusade, and that if it didn’t work, these tools taught me to extend my invitation to someone else, or move on, as opposed to not being effective. In my business, PCM gives me the confidence in my ability to facilitate.”

In line with her practice of open communication, Weber has opened her Rolodex of contacts, clients and community stakeholders to Next Element. She does so to connect the people she works with and cares about, and because it is also her personal commitment to present equine programming with Next Element all over the world.

Remsberg now travels to the Great Lakes Bay region several times a year to conduct public PCM seminars, and collaborate on the unique kind of leadership facilitation Weber offers. She says even though horses are primarily non-verbal communicators, it makes sense to incorporate PCM into Kaleidoscope’s training because the animal responds to what is coming at them. Tones, posture, gestures and facial expressions are non-verbal ways horses behave and communicate and, when connected to the PCM world, provide experiential tools that help people learn from each other.

Jamie, Jeff, Nate and Michele thoroughly enjoyed their special team-development opportunity with Kaleidoscope Learning Center!

“Tracy is hardworking and dedicated to what she believes in,” Remsberg says. “Next Element and Kaleidoscope align around PCM because the tools we use – whether it’s horses or coursework – make for effective, productive communication.”
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Written by Rhonda McCurry, contract writer