Thursday, February 4, 2010

What do you tell yourself about other people's motivations . . .

and how does this story-line influence how you respond to those other people? (often our beliefs about others' motivations -- their thoughts behind their visible actions, or story-lines -- are negative!)

When we assume others think something negative, we have a much more difficult time overcoming conflict with them.
Charles Pellerin, author of How Nasa Builds Teams, tells us that he learned in presentation by Robert K. Cooper of Ball Aerospace that research shows "that story-lines about other people's motivations are wrong 95 percent of the time! Would you bet heavily on something important with only a 5% chance of being correct? When you notice you are running story-lines about the motivations of others, stop them immediately."

There are several steps to this process:

1. notice you have beliefs about others story-lines that you create based on their actions

2. drop any story-lines that inhibit your ability to work productively with that person

3. focus on story-lines that facilitate your ability to work productively with that person

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