State of Mind Coaching & Training

In yesterday’s post, I inadvertantly layed this overgeneralized gem in your lap, “My best advice for professionals is to learn (by study, observation, and practice) how others in your field sell as the natural progression of the onboarding process.”

What a pile of gobbledegook that mess is.  I sort of pride myself on giving you pieces of the puzzle that you can immediately place in the puzzle.  So let’s do that now.

Study:  Study means mainly reading books, listening to audio books, attending seminars, and building a circle of friends around this whole thing about influence.  Be constantly casting a net for information and ideas both timeless classic ones and new cutting edge concepts, as well.  Then, draw distinctions between them.

Observation:  I have been fortunate enough to see first-hand a large variety of people.  People employing a large variety of styles, techniques and strategies.  Observing while having the filter of influence always on.  In other words, I have put myself in position to see, really see, what’s going on during a persuasive moment between two or more people.  Then, back up to re-trace the verbal and non-verbal play of events that made the difference.

Practice:  This is the biggy.  Put in practice, these verbal and non-verbal play of events that made the difference can then, and only then, be honed into a “marketable” skill.  By applying what you’ve learned and observed, you can then add and subtract to find the common denominators and test, test, test to make sure they are true persuasive elements.

Persuasive elements, true persuasive elements, are effective in a large variety of contexts.  For example, “persuasive elements, true persuasive elements…” is a repeater pattern that amplifies as well as clarifies and emphasizes the point I’m making.  This pattern, if you will, is applicable to just about any conversation in just about any personal or professional context.

So, my point is this, notice how I have repeated words and concepts in this post in a way that amplifies the original point so that it also clarifies and emphasizes your ability to learn faster and more fully how others in your field sell so that you can learn the difference that makes the difference and apply them and adjust accordingly because, after all, you’re doing this naturally anyway now or else you wouldn’t have gotten to this point in your life, right?  Right.

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He who studies books alone will learn how things ought to be, and he who studies men will know how they are.  -Charles Caleb Colton  #contrast

You can observe a lot by just watching.  -Yogi Berra  #simpletruth

There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.  -Will Rogers  #paraprosdokian

Look at the means which a man employs, consider his motives, observe his pleasures. A man simply cannot conceal himself!  -Confucius

The more you observe politics, the more you’ve got to admit that each party is worse than the other.  Will Rogers

Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.  -Marcus Aurelius

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.  -Marcus Aurelius

Study serves for delight, for ornament and for ability.  -Francis Bacon, Sr. #epitrophe

The object of education isn’t knowledge; it’s action.  -Thomas Kempis  #contrast  #alloiosis

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.  -Henry Ford  #simpletruth

Photo Credit:  Dave Pearson on Flickr

But what if you’re not?  2nd easiest is to learn it from someone who is.  But what if you don’t know anyone?  Meet someone.  But what if I’m not good at meeting people?  Start here.

The top organizations out there spend a lot of time training employees.  Do you work for one?  Most of the time, a new employee starts by riding with, sitting with or talking with one of the top performers.  This is a great place to start.  Better yet, it’s a great place to continue.  When employees job shadow each other throughout their tenure, they are more likely to perform at a higher level.  How can I say this? 

The top performers I’ve had the privilege to watch and talk with have all mentioned that they learn best this way.  They usually don’t just come out and say it, they talk about it it the general course of our conversation.  Which, by the way, is the best way to get someone’s operating patterns.  More on that later, though.  Back to how they learn best.  When I get them talking about where, how and when they learned certain things, it’s almost never from a speaker, in a book or audio program, even.  It’s consistently “from so and so” that they job shadowed. 

So what does this all mean?  It means that if you’re an manager of people or the person managed, find opportunities to job shadow the top performers.  If you are a top performer, job shadow others, anyways.  Typically, the only difference between middle performers and top performers is either 1. Work Flow Efficiency or 2. Persuasion Effectiveness. Middle performers have great skills, you just have to search for them.  When job shadowing with middle performers, top performers now “it” when they see and hear “it.” 

Middle performers job shadowing middle performers have a tougher time disseminating effective persuasion effectiveness, but it is still a good idea.  They can be thrown off by drive-by successes.  Meaning, they fall into the false success hole of thinking something is effective when, more likely than not, it was something else working in their favor.  This creates confusion about what truly works and what doesn’t.  None the less, though, job shadowing IS the best form of learning for all parties involved.

The National Training Laboratories is (possibly falsely) credited with producing the foremost document stating that teaching each other is the most effective format for learning.  The learning pyramid shows the average learning retention rate is 90%! when you teach others.  That’s exactly what is happening when you job shadow.  You teach them. They teach you through a natural learning process. Learn from others. Would you rather do it the hard way or the easy way?

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Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.  -Douglas Adams

Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.  -Eleanor Roosevelt

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm… As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands. One for helping yourself, the other for helping others.  Audrey Hepburn

What really matters is not just our own winning but helping other people to win, too.  -Fred Rogers

Photo Credit: Flickr user dkuropatwa

A fellow Toastmaster asked me the other day, “How do you come up with your topics? Your topic selection seems random, but very interesting”  I said, “Well, I read the job description in the Toastmaster’s manual, then use whatever comes to mind.”  “Really?” she said, as if that couldn’t possibly be all there is to it.  I said, “well, I’m constantly reading about different things, so I constantly have new ideas floating around in my head.”  “Oh,” she said.  Then I added that sometimes I’m already working on a project for something outside of Toastmasters and I just mold that to whatever the project requires.”  But, it’s not like I have 7,500+ Speech Topics.

If you’re constantly reading,  talking about and doing new and exciting things, you’ll have something to talk about.

It works like this.  Have you ever bought a automobile, and suddenly now your noticing all the exact duplicates out on the road?  Where were they before?  They were there, you just never noticed them.  But, now that you have that automobile, you are searching for them and possibly comparing the features and condition against yours.

This same things happens with ideas.  Earlier I blogged about things that come in 3′s.  Constantly casting a net for ideas that match what you’re focused on is how I get to 3. 

For example, when I blogged about What Every Presenter Should Know…, I noticed later the day I posted that that someone did those things and wasn’t even a professional presenter, yet.  In comparing Star Trek to Star Wars, he talked in depth about one, talked briefly about the one he didn’t like, then went on to finish with the one he likes better.  Pretty cool when you start noticing these things.

When you are contantly interested in learning new things, starting now, you will notice that it’s just because they are top of mind that you’re noticing them.

Advertisers and marketers of all sorts know that if they keep their name in your face, when you need what they do, they’ll come to mind first and foremost.  Doing this constantly, you’ll notice how it just becomes habit.

Photo Credit: Sameer Karmarkar on Flickr