Mar
1
2009
by admin on March 1, 2009
Today we are going to talk about Shalom Schwartz ‘s The Theory of Basic Human Values. Shalom Schwartz is a Social Psychologist and cross-cultural researcher in the fields of inter-group conflict and basic human values. What the theory states is that there are 10 basic human values that are displayed in all societies and that these values interact with each other to form a circular structure based on the inherent conflict or compatibility of the underlying motivations that we discussed in our earlier post. The picture to the right illustrates the structure we are talking about… The reason that they [...]
Mar
1
2009
by admin on March 1, 2009
In the recent past values were considered one of the key ingredients to a successful attempt at persuasion. If you knew and understood what someone’s values were, you could simply package your communication around them and presto… you had their button pushed. It would be great if that were so, but unfortunately (or maybe fortunately depending on how you look at it) the human brain is not so simple. The reality of the matter is that it takes quite a bit more to successfully persuade someone. That being said, values are an important, powerful and integral part to being able [...]
Feb
19
2009
by admin on February 19, 2009
Literally, the most difficult challenge in communication is in ACCURATELY representing and EXPLAINING the concept or feeling that you are currently experiencing. Without extensive analysis and research, the average person is completely unaware of how INACCURATELY they are communicating their thoughts. Thanks to evolved processes such as heuristics, metaphor and analogy, stereotypes and predictive categorization that occur during experiential and language processing, we are still able to make functional sense of each others communication. Suffice it to say though, that when you are describing a night out with the girls… The visual, auditory and somatic/kinesthetic representations that your mother is [...]
Feb
17
2009
by admin on February 17, 2009
Today we are going to finish our 4 part professional listening series by talking about quality listening habits that you can begin developing right away and we will look at skill preparation and development at the Macro and Micro levels. First let’s talk about developing quality listening habits. There is simply no silver bullet for doing this. Countless studies have shown that NOT using old habits atrophies the neural net that produces the habit and REPETITION develops new neural nets that create new habits. So the first step is to bring cognition back into the picture. We have already talked [...]
Feb
17
2009
by admin on February 17, 2009
In revisiting part 1 of our series, effective listening is really about gathering information and the trick is in focusing your attention in a way to acquire the appropriate information. So what is the appropriate information? To help focus your mind let’s define “appropriate information” as whatever information will help advance your own interests in the communication. To think this way, you will need to: Parts of this post are protected. Please login or register for Level 2 Access – The Insider’s Club or Level 3 Access – The CGP Certification Program to view the complete contents of this post. [...]
Feb
17
2009
by admin on February 17, 2009
As we determined in the previous post, when we reduce “listening” down to its purest form, it is the process of gathering information. A communicator truly becomes an effective listener a communicator when they begin to: CONSCIOUSLY determine for what purpose the information is being gathered, AND CONSCIOUSLY determine what information specifically is to be gathered that can help to further that purpose. Before going any further though, I want to acknowledge and address the difference between EXTERNAL and INTERNAL listening. Parts of this post are protected. Please login or register for Level 2 Access – The Insider’s Club or [...]
