Nancy Love’s Weblog

I have just spent a wonderful week in Vancouver with Austin Gamey and his wife, Gladys.  Austin and I were able to blend work and tourism rather well.  We saw White Rock and Whistler and most things in between.  We also talked about the work that needs to occur to move PULSE Africa forward.  Austin’s energy and enthusiasm was contagious and although he was many hours off of his own time zone, he maintained a pace that I found difficult to match.

The future is bright for PULSE Africa with Austin at the helm.  Wonderful things will happen as he introduces his countrymen and those of other nations to the Complex PULSE Frame.  Austin rightly describes it as the PULSE Discovery Frame.  His use of that word with the Frame is interesting to me.  I always refer to it as a discovery and not an invention.  He elaborates that once something is DISCOVERED it is always with you and never ‘Un”discovered and that is true. Those who have discovered PULSE in their lives after they have been made aware of it in a classroom or in a book continue to use it on a daily basis.

That is true on this side of the ocean as well.  There are many people who have come to understand or have discovered that all conversations that come to successful, sustainable resolutions include the essential elements of the PULSE Frame.  It is how people make decisions and resolve differences successfully.  It makes sense then to use it when things are not going well to ensure a sustainable outcome that works for everyone.

Austin and I used the Frame to guide our talks.  The results are assured. We were Gentle and Honest with each other. We were open to the other person’s ideas and we used specific examples to ensure clarity.  We continued to Talk, to say what we were thinking until we had prepared, uncovered, learned criteria, searched options and explained a mutually agreeable plan of action which we put in writing.

Thank you to Austin and Gladys for making the long trip to visit with us in Canada.  Safe trip home.  The future is bright.

The Complex PULSE: Conversations for Change by Dr. Nancy Love  arrived in boxes today at my condo in Vancouver.  Exciting!!

I think it turned out really well.  I hope you like it too.  We printed 100 and will be sending 45 to Africa with Austin Gamey who is visiting here in Vancouver.  Austin and I have been thinking together for a few days now.  It is both exhiliarting and exhausting to be this intense.  It is good for me because it forces me to organize my thoughts in a way that makes sense to others.  That does not always seem possible. A good conversation like this is exactly what I needed to move the other two projects forward.

The BEACHs book is alive again and the Leadership series has new live as well.  It is amazing what the support of  other humans can do to change your own attitude toward your work.  I admit to being discouraged a few times this year but today is different.  The fruits of my writing are in my hand and the possibilities of others fill my head.  My heart is full of joy and expectation.

Could not have done it without all of you.  Thanks to everyone who reads this.  It is my testing ground for all that comes out in the books.  Your patience with me counts.

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills. Richard John Needham identified the seven ages some time after Will Shakespear wrote this :

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players,
They have their exits and entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then, the whining schoolboy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice
In fair round belly, with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well sav’d, a world too wide,
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

We recently saw “As You Like It” performed in Vancouver’s Bard on the Beach Festival.  It was a great reminder of how life moves quickly and changes without warning.  We are all aware that we age each day but the reality hits from time to time when a change in stage becomes too evident to ignore.  I ask myself where I am right now and how that influences my perception of things.  And I ask what impact the stage have on a world view or the perspective that each of us takes on the world.

I admit to the Justice Stage.  That leaves me on ly two more stages.  Yikes!  In my own way I have described the stages differently.  I was a child, I raised children, I became political and entrepreneurial and now I am moving beyond that to look at different ways to give back to the world.  I am comfortable in my role as grandmother and want to define that to have the maximum impact on that wonderful generation of human beings.  I ask myself how best to serve them. I know how I felt about people my age when I was theirs.  They seemed redundant and irrelevant for the most part.  Now I know how much they knew and could have shared with me if I had only taken the time to ask.

This generational effect is reeking havoc in workplaces these days.  The wisdom of the young is so different from the wisdom of the old.  Both are indeed relevant and valuable and yet the divide keeps the one from asking the other about what they know.  Finding away to do that might be my next project.  What wisdom can we all take from the Bard himself as we consider generational differences.

Do you have friends who feel it is their job to criticize and correct you at every turn?  Do you have people in your life for whom nothing or no one is good enough? Do these people suck the positivity out of every conversation and out of you when you let them?  And is not letting them get to you more work than you counted on?

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the energy it takes to manage relationships. I want to run away and hide.  I am pretty skilled at talking to people and think I am open to the possibilities that people present but sometimes they lean on me too hard.  I just want to shout out them “There are other was to deal with life besides burdening your self and others.”

The “glass half empty” crowd can’t see what is good in their life and don’t seem to be able to take the time to count blessings or be grateful for what they have.  they blame the world for their woes and expect others to rescue them from life itself.  For them it is difficult to find the joy, the pleasure in getting up in the morning and letting the sunshine on them.  “It is too hot.” they complain.

The other crowd that irks me sometimes is the ‘helpless’ crowd.  These people can do nothing for themselves and do not have enough confidence to even try to fix anything or any situation.  They cry for help and sit back and watch as other people solve their problems for them and them complain because they are not smart or capable but do nothing to rectify the situation.  Those people make me tired and I can only handle being around them for so long before I need to find the ‘helpful and capable’ and ‘half full’ crowds to replenish my energy.

I guard against becoming ‘helpless’ and ‘half empty’ by retreating to treat myself to some down time to rejuvenate and to pay attention to the syncronistic ways of the world.  I am not sure if that is cowardly or not.  I like to think of it as survival mode.  What about you?

Just got back from an exhausting and exhilarating jaunt to NYC.  I love the big apple as do many others.  There were hundreds of thousands of visitors in New York at the same time as I was.  That is what makes it vibrant and that is also what makes it exhausting.  Although you see lots of smiles on the street you also see lots of disconnects as people live separate lives together.  New Yorkers rarely make eye contact.  Visitors are so awestruck by the sites they don’t even watch where they are going and there are line ups everywhere.  It is apparent to me as I watch people in line ups that the human race has yet to develop a strategy for maintaining patience while in line. In the US they say ‘on’ line.  That might be because it gets ‘on’ your nerves.  To see the Statue of Liberty you stand in line for the tickets and then you stand in line for the boat.  It is an all day affair and people choose to do it.

We choose not to stand on-line, looked at Lady Liberty from afar and moved on to other places of interest.  For me the statue which was a gift from France is symbolic of the wonderful opportunities offered to immigrants to the US and for them it is a shrine.  That is understandable.  It also shows the connection between France and the US and I heard many people speaking Parisian French on the streets and in the parks of Manhattan.  Their presence is felt as is the presence of the Italian immigrants.  There are so many restaurants offering Italian and French cuisine. The four we tried were excellent.  Good food, good wine and good friends – a vacation to remember. And an opportunity to study people in crowds and begin to understand how some people thrive in these settings where others cannot cope with the lack of both privacy and intimacy in the big city.

A crucible for conflict of many kinds, New York survives.

Let me first say thank you to the Tracy Myers for a wonderful email and a great honour.  Visit the http://www.onlinehumanresourcedegrees.net/conflict-resolution website to read the very nice comments on this blog.

The title of this blog is a great line from Stephen Fry on George tonight.  Brilliant man with lots of insight into the human condition.  I am often impressed by the guests on George Stombolopoulous’ Show.  He is also a brilliant man and an effective host.  I met him once and was very impressed by his friendly smile and handshake and his genuine interest in people, including me.

We are all equally afraid and uncertain … maybe of different things.  We also demonstrate that fear and uncertainty in different ways.  Some people move toward us in their anger.  Some move with and some move away.  For some the trigger is found in the past.  For others it is the present and for others the fear is the results of what we think lies ahead in the future.    Here is a reminder of the 3 by 3 chart that helps you detect the direction and orientation of people in conversation.  It will also show you where people find their fear and uncertainty.  Knowing that makes it easier to address the fears and uncertainty with an appreciative POWER tool.

The PULSE BEACHs –9 Perceptions

Beliefs, Expectations, Assumptions, Concerns and Hopes

Last week in Calgary a couple of wonderful things happened.  First of all AAMS – The Alberta Arbitration and Mediation Society –  announced that they will be partnering with us to sponsor the PULSE program for workplace mediation.  That is very exciting.  I am looking forward to the opportunities that this arrangement will afford us.

Secondly, we hosted two PULSE courses.  Marjorie facilitated PULSE mediation level 1 while I facilitated PULSE mediation level 2.  I had the opportunity to be a role player and to get into the persona of one of my former mediation clients to play an authentic role for the new mediators in my class.  It was enlightening to say the least.  The difference between level 1 where we don’t play stump the mediator and level 2 is that we try to make things more realistic in order to prepare people for what they will face in the mediation room.  The idea is to take competent PULSE Deltas who can facilitate mediation meetings and mold them into PULSE practitioners who are comfortable using the tools and structure in what ever situation they find themselves.

For me, as role player I experienced the PULSE Frame in a new way.  Although the mediators were interjecting to keep the conversation on track, I didn’t find it intrusive or demeaning.  I found it quite helpful to have someone remind us of the path toward resolution we were on.  My novice mediators were effective with the timing of their interventions and resourceful in the face of a difficult highly emotional situation.  They did an excellent job of bringing us to resolution.  What is ironic is that what was missing for me as participant was the empathy.  That is ironic because it is the one thing that I have to work extra hard to do in my own mediations.

I live on excitement BEACH most of the time which means I look for fun and avoid pain of any kind, so emotionality is rare for me and I really don’t know what to do with it when it shows up … at least it isn’t natural for me to empathize.  Even on my other BEACHS, Power and Detachment, there is a tendency to ignore or minimize the emotional aspect of things.  So there I was in someone elses shoes thinking,  “This hurts and no one has mentioned it.”  Huge lesson for me.  One I will not soon forget.

Don’t forget to tell all of your friends about the PULSE Conference in Vancouver in August.

I am in Vancouver today and the sun is shining.  There is no other place on earth that is as wonderful, in my humble opinion, than Vancouver in the sunshine.  I can see Mount Baker, False Creek and Vancouver Harbour from my balcony.  I can also see West Georgia Street where the crowds will gather tonight to watch the Canucks on the big screen tv.  There is so much energy in this city right now.  People coming together to support their sports teams is an interesting phenomenon.  Even on the street where there are tens of thousands of people, no one talks while the game is on. But even when I am away from my tv I can hear what is happening from the crowd and I know when to go to watch the replay.

I love the way Canadians get together over hockey.  There are no specific cultural groups of what I call Hypenated Canadians who are not represented in the crowds here in Vancouver.  It is a multicultural city and everyone is IN.  I am a European – Canadian.  My heritage includes Channel Islands, Scotland and Spain.  There are many people in the crowds who look like me but many more that don’t.   I think it is telling that it is not how you look in Vancouver that gives away your heritage so much as the way that you sound.  Language is the distinguisher here and in many multicultural countries.  Language will usually reveal the generation of Canadian someone is.  I like to listen and guess.  Accents, patterns, pace all provide more clues about who the person is.  All we have to do is listen.  Looking is not enough.

tetra

When I was in Phoenix, I awoke one morning with the map of the complex PULSE Frame in my head. I have been working to free it to the paper ever since. Imagine the three sided PULSE Frame as an equilateral triangle. Now expand your vision by adding another dimension so that now you have a tetrahedron, a shape with four equilateral triangles. One serves as the base and the others wrap around the sides of the front face. If you unfold that tetrahedron out so that it lays flat you get a larger equilateral triangle, one at the top and three that fit inside each other to form the base. Are you with me?

Let’s look at each of the four triangles individually.

The first one at the top of the new larger triangle is the PULSE Frame with four parallel lines that divide it into five sections that we call Prepare, Uncover, Learn, Search and Explain. Prepare is the base of the triangle and it gives it its strength. If you further divide Preapre into equilateral triangles you get 9. Uncover divides into 7. Learn into 5 and Search into 3 and Explain is another equilateral triangle. These braces strengthen the structure and form diamonds and triangles galore – glorious triangles and diamonds.

Each of those triangles is full of meaning. PREPARE – 9 internal triangles

1. Set the tone and welcome: This is where the Delta or Conversation Leader works to create a welcoming and safe environment for inquiry. This is where the curiousity begins. “Thank you for coming” sets the voluntary nature of the conversation.

2. State the Purpose: Identifying out loud the purpose of the meeting makes it clear to everyone that we are here to come up with a plan … not just to Talk about things … but to talk about them until a mutually agreeable resolution has been reached.

3. Outline the Protocol: Invite parties to speak Gently and Honestly, to be Open to what is being said and to be Specific and use examples. Let them know that this kind of conversation works best when people agree to Talk , to say what is on their mind in a gentle way so that the other person can keep listening.

4. Describe the Process: The Process has five guiding questions … How will the conversation proceed, What is the conversation about, Why is it important to them, What could they do and What do they agree to do …. and five stages … Prepare, where the delta talks to the parties, Uncover where the parties speak individually, one at a time to the Delta; Learn where the parties have a chance to speak directly to each other; Search where the parties have an opportunity to brainstorm possible actions; and Explain where the parties work with the Delta to create a detailed plan of what they agree to do.

5. Establish Confidentiality or Audience: Theses kind of conversation work best when people feel comfortable about saying things they may otherwise keep to themselves. Agreeing to keep a level of confidentiality that makes it possible for them to share is important. Establishing who needs to know about the conversation and about the Plan of action that will result from the meeting at the beginning is important. Even if decisions about who sees the plan change when once it is written is revisited later, introducing it hear is important.

6. Determine Authority: The questions here are aimed at focusing the dialogue around things that are within the circle of influence or authority of the people in the room. If parties have come to resolve or decide on something that they have no power to change, then the conversation purpose changes. The Delta’s role is to keep them on topics that they do have the authority to do something about.

7. Describe Roles: The role of the Delta or Conversation Leader is to direct traffic, to ask the questions and record the answers, to listen and to guide the conversation using the PULSE skills to release the power of the participants to create a future together. The role of the parties is to stay engaged and use the protocol until the process is complete.

8. Set a Time: These kinds of conversations are most efficient and effective when they are scheduled for 60 to 90 minutes. PULSE conversation can also occur at the water cooler or over a five day retreat. Brief encounters can follow the structure and have great outcomes as can strategic planning sessions. Setting the time at the beginning helps people focus on the topic at hand because they know that it is for a designated amount of time.

9. Invite parties to the next level: Are you ready to proceed? Establishing a commitment to the purpose, process, protocol, level of confidentiality and authority, the roles and the time means establishing a commitment to the conversation and the relationship and the outcome it is the first step in shifting responsibility for the outcome to the parties.

UNCOVER – 7 internal triangles

1. Ask: What? What are you here to resolve? What is the title of the story that brought people to this conversation? What are the circumstances from the past that have brought people? Parties talk to the Delta at this point, one at a time to describe the situation from their Perspective. This is where the Delta begins to identify the unique Perspective of each participant and begins to listen for what might be shared.

2. Hush: Just listen. Quiet your mind and pay attention.

3. Empathise: silently. Imagine how it is from their perspective.

4. Attend: Watch body language, and facial expressions. Look for emotional response. Listen to the choice of language, pace and tone.

5. Reflect: Build rapport by matching and mismatching what you see, hear and experience.

6. Trust: Trust that people are doing the best they can with what they know.

7. Name the title or circumstance: Listen for the common title that all participants can agree is the thing they are there to do something about….. a one word title for the story. And invite participants to speak to each other in the next piece.

LEARN – 5 internal triangles

Although this piece of the Frame requires the patient, deep listening of HEART, it also requires the more deliberate evidence of listen provided with POWER.

1. Paraphrase: Show parties that you have heard what they have said by repeating it back to them or using similar words to represents the ideas they have shared.

2. Open questions: Use open questions to let them lead the conversation and to encourage them to think about what’s important to them or what’s missing.

3. Wait: “Why Am I Talking” Listen. Give them time to think and consider what has been said. Honour the time it takes to work it through. Let them have the responsibility for the answers.

4. Empathise: Name the level of emotion so that they know you “get it”. “You feel strongly” … or “this has been difficult” … work well.

5. Reframe: Identify unique and common Beliefs, Expectations, Assumptions, Concerns and Hopes … what is missing … the criteria for a collaborative future.

SEARCH – 3 internal triangles

As they Brainstorm, say nothing, capture their ideas and pay attention to …

1. Content: Are they on topic?

2. Process: Are they describing future actions?

3. Response: Are they calmer now and have they shifted to a place where they can see each other’s perspectives without necessarily agreeing with it.

EXPLAIN 1 triangle

1. The tip – the pinnacle – the plan: Is the possibility of a successful relationship firmly in place?

Triangle 2 of the larger tetrahedron forms the base of the tetrahedron when it is folded. Triangle 2 is also a tetrahedron that folds up inside the bigger one and spins to create the centrifugal force that keeps the conversation moving forward. What I see there are the skills that support the PULSE Frame and Process. Each of the faces of this smaller tetrahedron represents a set of skills. The three outside faces are divided into five sections like the Front face of the PULSE Frame. Each section is labelled starting at the base – Gentle Honest Open Specific Talk – on one face. Another face has the same five sections labelled from the base – Paraphrase, Open question, Wait, Empathise, Reframe. And the third face is divided into five sections and labelled starting at the base – Hush, Empathise, Attend, Reflect and Trust. The inner triangle which forms the base of the inner tetrahedron when it is folded contains the wheel of change and the five associated skills – Normalizing, Confronting, Transparency, Bridging and Immediacy.

Triangle 3 is to the left of 2. It represents the Response support for the PULSE Conversation. Inside this triangle you find the three points form triangles of their own and the space that is left is filled with a circle with 9 points and sections each with a forty degree view of the world. These are the nine BEACHS, sets of Beliefs, Expectations, Assumptions, Concerns and Hopes, the perspectives or frames of reference that people bring to PULSE Conversations. The Enneagram connector lines are also present in the diagram. There is a triangle inside the circle and lines connecting the other 6 points. The three other triangles that lie outside the circle are labelled. The bottom left is Freeze, the top centre is Fight and the bottom right is Flight. These are the human reflexes related to fear and threat that often lead to a need for structured conversation.

Triangle 4 to the right of 2 on the larger tetrahedron represents the content support for the PULSE Frame and Conversations. This is the power of Appreciative Inquiry. There you find a hexagon within the triangle which is further divided into six triangles and outside of the hexagon are three more triangles one at each of the three original angles. The top three triangles of the hexagon are labelled “To be Positive”, “To be Heard”, “To be Known”. The bottom three triangles are labelled “to choose”, “to act”, “to dream”. These six sections represent the six freedoms created in PULSE. The three outside triangles are labelled too. The lower left is Release. The upper point is Relax and the lower right is Relate. These are the automatic reflexes experienced by human beings when the threat is removed. A rotating image of the PULSE Complex Conversation If you know the PULSE Frame you will begin to see the strength and complexity of it visually represented with this new map. Setting the triangles in place creates the cross beams that lend the strength that is otherwise invisible but is always there, holding the conversation in place.

This is an excerpt from the new book … The Complex PULSE that I am writing for the Advanced PULSE Practitioners who are coming to Calgary in a couple of weeks. Comments and questions are welcome…..