“Our behaviors, particularly under stress, bring our core to the surface.” ~Joe Hoffman  Applied to learning to listen- or changing our listening habits.

Joe Hoffman wrote an insightful blog post “Enterprise Values”

In the center of the post Joe said  “Our behaviors, particularly under stress, bring our core to the surface.”   That simple fact accounts for so many failures.   The solution is to over-train.  Train until you could do the new procedure in your sleep.

Sea story: In the Navy I was on a Nuclear Sub and we drilled and drilled and drilled and drilled.   When I had to perform in real situations like flooding, fire, equipment failures, human errors, or other emergency I rarely made a mistake nor did anyone else.  The reason: over-training.

Application to listening: If you and I want to improve our listening skills we need over-train ourselves so when a stressful situation comes up, we perform well.  The trick to this is to expect to loose 50% of the skills and knowledge the first few times  we need it.    In the beginning we need to take extraordinary actions like massive practice.  Putting a string on your finger falls into this category.

Application to courageous conversations: The Jan 2010 Compass Coaching Map I choose was Create Courageous Conversations.   So, I decided to blog about it during the month and through the rest of Q1.   I am still at it.   Still finding holes in my skills.   Still noticing that sometimes when I need it most (stressful situations) it sometimes vanishes and I revert to previous habits.   So, the training continues.

Application to management development: I am becoming convinced that the biggest reason for management training failure is we as management and training managers send people to 8 hours of training and expect it to overshadow 18 years of previous practice of the habit that we want to change.

You can see the Listening Strategies mind map here.

Learn4Life: Create Courageous Conversations 17-20 (linkes to 1-16 in that post)

The Compass map on Courageous Conversations (not the mind map) was developed by Margie Warrell and Soni Pitts.

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My plug for Compass and Kristy my Coach:

Kristi Arndt, PhD, IAC-CC
Compass Presidential Ambassador & Founding Team Coach
kristiarndt@yahoo.com
Experience the Gift of Compass
www.ilovecompass.com
Affordable Life Coaching Programs
www.compassclient.com
Rewarding Business Opportunity
www.compassrep.com

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Jim Sutton
Facilitating Performance Improvement in the digital age
Web 2.0 Community & Business
About Me Page