COMMUNICATION
Co-creating programs with people who are open to learning provides both of us, the client and KLC team members, an opportunity for growth, fun, and living into a higher purpose. One organization that lives their truth is Next Element (NE). Next Element Consulting, located in Newton KS, provides organizational development consulting, advising, and training for businesses, schools, and healthcare organizations across the United States and abroad.
The founders, Nate, Jamie, Jeff, and Michelle, provide a training tool called Process Communication Model (PCM). PCM was discovered by Dr. Tabai Kahler. The assessment provides a sequence, or process, by which people interact with each other. This tool shows that human behavior can be identified objectively, literally second by second, as either being communication or miscommunication. The patterns, positive and negative, are sequential, measurable, and predictable.
Because they are master facilitators of this process, their organizational culture permeates all things PCM. The four founders are purposeful and intentional with their words, tones, postures, gestures, and facial expressions. Such that, as a sender of information, each one works to precisely compliment the receiver in a manner that engages and motivates them.
I returned from my first PCM training filled with much enthusiasm. This communication tool made such sense in understanding myself and others. A condo, a series of six parts of your personality, was built based on your responses to a questionnaire. The base defined the main parts of your communication.
As a Persister, opinions and values matter most to me and I am dedicated, observant, and conscientious. Requestive is my preferred channel of communication. I appreciate when people recognize my work and conviction. Lastly, when in distress I push my beliefs, get frustrated with those who don’t believe, and am critical or suspicious. Spot on!
I loved this tool so much that when Next Element offered their next training, I gave the three-day event to my husband, Randy, as a Christmas present. He’s not really into all this training and learning stuff, so it was a stretch for him to agree to attend. Though he knew when we first started dating that this is my jam, I insisted he discover his love language, take an emotional intelligence quiz, and several others. He was willing to do the PCM training because when he read my profile, his response was, “I finally get you.” Whew!
Randy’s profile is that of a Thinker. His preferred way of being is using thoughts and logic. He is responsible, logical, and organized. He also likes the requestive channel of communication. You can warm his heart when you recognize his work and time structure. When he is in distress, he over controls (boy, does he!), is frustrated with those who don’t “think” and is critical around time, responsibility, and fairness.
One of the important things to understand with PCM is we are all all six (persister, thinker, harmonizer, rebel, promoter, and imaginer) of the personality parts, just in different orders and with individual depth of each part. What that means is we can meet anyone at their preferred style, by paying attention to their word choice, facial expressions, and other cues. This is significant, especially when someone is in distress.
I can recall a time when my house basement flooded. Using a squeegee I was trying to move the water that had accumulated around the stairs, around the corner to the sump pump drain. Randy was there to help, also shoving and sloshing the water toward the sump pump. When frustrated he gets angry as a way to cope. His personality came shining through when we was shouting about the fact that there wasn’t another drain in the middle of the basement – “It didn’t make sense”. Knowing that his frustration was not targeting me, rather simply his way of dealing with things, helped me stay calm and not take his anger personally.
Situations such as the flooding incident, offered Randy insight into himself. The insights from PCM may have saved our marriage more than a few times! He was so convinced of the power of this tool, that he used money from his family foundation to bring the NE team to Frankenmuth. We coordinated a half-day PCM training for thirty-one area community leaders, including his two sons and mother.
Because the NE founders would be in town, I offered to introduce them to Equine-Assisted Learning. It fit perfectly with their ongoing efforts to build a strong and healthy team. They focused a lot on personality differences and how that plays out in terms of communication, motivation, distress, and team dynamics.
The four founders and their PCM profiles are:
Nate – Promoter base. A promoter is adaptable, persuasive, and charming. When they are in distress they manipulate by setting up arguments, creating negative drama, and ignoring or the rules.
Jamie – Thinker base. Jamie’s profile means she is responsible, logical, and organized. When she is in distress, she over controls, is frustrated with those who don’t “think” and is critical around time, responsibility, and fairness.
Jeff – Rebel base. Rebels are spontaneous, creative, and playful. When they are in distress, they blame. They are negative and complaining, “Yes, but…”, and use phrases such as “if it weren’t for…”
Michelle - Thinker base. Michelle’s profile means she is responsible, logical, and organized. When she is in distress she over controls, is frustrated with those who don’t “think” and is critical around time, responsibility, and fairness.
The last activity of the day was reflective round penning. This activity was designed to introduce pressure, asking, and intention. We set up the roundpen in a circle twenty 6’ panels in the center of the arena. I, and the four NT team members gathered around the outside of the pen.
Stacie went into the circle where Charlie was patiently waiting. She demonstrated moving Charlie around the inside edge of the pen by positioning her body toward his hind quarters. She focused her energy, faced him with her gently raised her arms, putting pressure on him as an ask to move forward. He walked off slowly, so Stacie increased the pressure by moving closer, asking him to pick up speed. He started to trot. She waved her arms adding even more pressure, so he begrudgingly began to canter. After he moved into the canter, Stacie rewarded his behavior by stepping back and releasing the pressure.
After a short time of him cantering to the right, she shifted her body, turning him to now circle to the left. Having done this countless times, she demonstrated a beautiful dance, with Charlie simply doing what he was asked, not showing any frustration. When she completely took the pressure off, he turned toward her and walked into the center of the pen to meet her. He had “joined up” with her, recognizing her respectful leadership.
Nate went first, his Promoter personality loves action. He aggressively tried to move Charle around the pen. He rushed up to him, arms spread wide, his energy pushing him without touching him. Charlie moved away from the pressure at a high speed kicking up dirt from the arena floor. Charlie swirled his neck in frustration, his tail whipping side to side, indicating his annoyance.
Michelle Jamie and Jeff could be heard strategizing about what they would do differently because they recognized the difference between Stacie’s calm leadership and Nate’s more aggressive approach. Each of them then took their turn asking Charlie to move around the roundpen. Their communication styles were reflected in their approach and Charlie’s responses.
Their time together really brought the differing personalities to light. The parallels to their team were immediately apparent, giving them important insights. We learned during the debrief, that the horse experience held up a mirror for them in a new way to recognize things they were feeling or experiencing, but didn’t know how to talk about.
We wrapped up with the Mr. Potatohead closing activity. A big Mr. Potatohead holds four other little potatoheads. Included are arms, eyes, hats, glasses, ears, and a mustache or two. The invitation to the group is co-create something that represented their experience together. The Next Element team, over giggles, crafted several potato heads all with dominant eyes and ears representing their profound learning. They proudly walked us through their creation, excitedly recalling the insights they learned through our training.
I learned later, that the whole team talked about the experience for a long time, sharing its lasting impact. It helped each one of them own parts of themselves that they had previously felt were not OK. They each got to see how their personality could be a real asset in certain situations, when used properly.
Share a time when you caught yourself being yourself. What was significant about the experience?
Did you take what you learned from that experience and apply it to other situations? How?
Is there something in the future that you’d like to change, that could be changed by you communicating differently? What actions will you take to make that happen?