Doos and Donts in workshops

This is Nynke's growing personal list of do's and don'ts when training.

  1. Keep it safe. Do NOT wake up the reptilian brain on purpose, unless there is an explicit contract agreement that downshifting into awareness facilitation will or may be part of the engagement. Make sure experienced facilitation trainers lead such emotionally intelligent communication training.
  2. Make time for reflecting on learning.
  3. Be conscious of keys in the learning or meeting environment.
  4. Avoid negative phrases. The limbic brain passes them on to the reptilian brain. When facilitating awareness, be sensitive to ghosts. You know, those things from the past that can haunt us ...
  5. Lack of stimulus creates boredom and anxiety. Our wholebrained learning prefers diverse and attractive input, not linear and stripped down information. Present new materials in a wide variety of modes, at least 4 times for impact, and in different ways, to keep the interest of learners going.
  6. Do preparation steps together with client/customer. Meaning, you, as client or customer, steer everything, from beginning till closing.
  7. Closing is best done with a small retrospective where participants are asked for feedback, and some fitting celebration of a kind, sometimes folded in one.

Preferences

In contemporary psychology three worldviews can be recognized, of which each seems focused on a particular type of behaviors or processes: Behaviorism, psycho analysis, and cognitive psychology. Each of these worldviews can be perceived as a different brain system. Are the systems related?

The whole can be perceived as a reflection (or a perception filter) of the Triune brain.

To begin with, the distinctions seem fuzzy and many psychologists seem rather eclectic to me. A single worldview can monopolize us. Monopolization may mean certain behaviors or processes are considered more important than others.

One might consider monopolization a "bad thing". Amazingly, instead of causing "war" and "conflicts of opinion", this monopolization seems to keep psychologists out of each others hair. Psycho analysists appear to consider feelings more important than rational processes, the field cognitive psychology seems to mostly focus on. And while cognitive psychologists do not seem to care much for emotions and conditioned responses, the behaviorists appear to find a smorgasbord of attractions in those "things". There seem to be no really disruptive arguments in this configuration. Each of the three worldviews is trying, in her own way, in her own field, to make meaning of as much behavior and/or psychic processes with as little axioms and laws as possible: Maximum Results with Minimum Effort.

By combining the three worldviews, a small number of patterns can be enough to explain a multitude of processes and we have a larger hand to play with as facilitators.

And what about this for multiple perspectives and easy integration?

According to Professor Howard Gardner of Harvard University, there are at least eight different kinds of human intelligence. Individuals would possess these eight intelligences to varying extents. The first seven intelligences were addressed in Gardner's book "Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences".

Recognition of our strengths and weaknesses in the different intelligences impinges directly on our ability to generate creative outcomes in various domains: Ten Intelligences.

Triune Brain

According to Triune Brain Theory, the human brain is three systems in one, each superimposed over the other. Each system corresponds to a major evolutionary development.

Reptilian Radix

Timeline: The most ancient of the three systems is named the reptilian system or the R-complex, and it evolved around 200 million years ago. The R-complex is our survival system and only interested in the four Ss: sustenance, shelter, safety and sex. It controls heart rate, breathing, and all the things our bodies do when we are threatened, to help us deal with threats. If our Reptilian interprets learning as threatening, the gate closes, and our system receives nothing.

The reptilian system is triggered by instinct and responsible for learning:

Limbic Limbo

The old mammalian brain, or the limbic system, can be perceived as sandwiched between the R-complex and the new mammalian brain. This brain is around 60 million years old and is far more sensitive and sophisticated than the R-complex. It would be the seat of our emotion. True enough, our most memorable learning experiences are often linked with emotions. This brain has visual memory, and language is limited. Soft skills like empathy, understanding, self esteem, and a good sense of humor are perhaps critical factors in learning.

The limbic system gives access to our long term memory through emotional links and is responsible for learning:

Neo Matrix

The newest brain, the neocortex or new mammalian brain, has only been around for a few million years. In humans the neocortex is also the largest of the three brains and our key to learning. Events and circumstances do not directly cause our emotional states. We humans can use a cognitive process of interpretation between events and emotions consciously. The neocortex system can turn concepts such as compassion, justice and caring, into concrete action.

The neocortex brain is responsible for detecting patterns and making "meaning" of information we see, hear, think, speak, flow, jump, relate and thrive:

Ways of learning

Kinesthetic, auditive and visual preferences

Kinauvis preferences I use to figure out how to initially approach people with, giving clues for what might work and what not for training and facilitating a particular person or group. And of course, it's only a model, so after that I use appreciative inquiry or focused conversation to find, together with stakeholders, what works and what does not work.

Integrated learners use combinations of these preferences, depending ...

:-) Kinesthetic Auditive Visual
Learning Learns through manipulating tools and actually doing Dialogues both internally and externally; may try alternatives verbally first Needs overall view and purpose and a vision for details; cautious until mentally clear
Recall Remembers overall impressions of experiences Remembers what was discussed Remembers what was seen
Conversation Uses gestures and movements and action words Loves discussions Has to have the whole picture in detail
Spelling Counts letters with body movements and checks with internal feelings

 

Through inner ear, spells with rythmic movement

Through inner vision, or by writing and checking back

Reading Reflects action of story with body movement Enjoys reading aloud and then listening; often slow because of subvocalising Flows like a charm
Writing Handwriting can be a problem Likes to (inner) talk while writing Having it look attractive is considered important
Imagination Acts imagery out walking through the landscapes that unfold; An excellent mode for perspecting Sounds and voices, compositions, nature, deeper moods appear; An excellent mode for retrospecting Vivid imagery, can see possibilities, details readily appear; An excellent mode for long term planning, or prospecting

Ways of thinking

Induction, deduction and extensions

An "induction" is an instance of inducting, like where an Y chromosome sparks a change in an embryo for it to become male. Induction is also the act of inducing labor, where labor is initiated artificially with drugs such as oxytocin.

Perhaps inductive thinking explains why some people seem so fond of inductions into (secret) groups or knowledge. In these rituals or group meetings, an isolated conducting object gets charged by momentarily grounding it while a charged body is nearby.

Funnily enough, "deduction" seems also used in financial contexts, where it refers to any item or expenditure subtracted from gross income to reduce the amount of income subject to tax. We may keep men around for some induction after all.

 

Inductive thinking

Deductive thinking

Intent

Deriving general principles from particular facts or instances and presenting those in support of an argument or proposition

Reasoning from the general to the specific; deducing; subtracting

Dimension

Probability and likelihoods

Necessity

Inferences

Conclusions may be false even when premises are true

A conclusion must be true if its premises are true

Requires

A perfectly intelligent Goddess image, an idealized collective unconscious (or else we have a homunculus problem)

Creating infinite manifold universes (or else nothing exists)

Beliefs

A collective unconscious gestalt we can never test

Universes we can never truly visit, for we can exist only in our own

Extensions/plugins

Symbolic logic and rocking the boat on our own behalf

Sensing beyond the senses and asking for what we want

An example of the in the table mentioned deductive inferences: If we know men can not be intelligent, and you are a man, it is only logical to deduce you can not truly be intelligent, so no matter what intelligent behaviors you seem to be displaying, it probably has some other mysterious explanation.

Downside of this reasoning appears to be that we'll never discover if men have (developed) some kind of intelligence we don't know about. Okay, so let's try some inductive reasoning:

If we know you are not intelligent enough to perceive true intelligence (females), and you seem to behave rather inductive, casting spells this God gestalt is male would likely be verrry effective on you. And let's be practical. Conclusions may be false (males have intelligence), even with true premises (males can not truly be intelligent). Whatever works, you know ...

I win. I bet I'm the first breed of woman to market for the discovery (revelation) of some kind of true intelligence in men. And if you ask me, uniting with virgins seems highly overrated. Perhaps I can patent this male intelligence mechanism or process? (Excuse me, not testable)

This goes nowhere ... so ...

Gestalts are illusions, and, be they a company or a person, function more effectively when connected to context. Contextually resonant companies and people generate a sense of ownership and pride which reinforces a healthy self-organizing culture. The more this approach is embodied, the less complex the challenge of management becomes, and the more connected stakeholder purposes are in alignment with its gestalt, the clearer and more fundamental each relationship within and with the network or system and the more effective the system becomes.

When watching self and identity unfolding are interwoven, it can deliver a state where Universality of Emotion appears. We're all looking for some thing, some need to be filled, some group to be a part of and share our energy and effort and money with. Embodiments of gestalts aligned to this knowledge, are in a powerful position to have and support movements in the collective unconscious, our legacy.