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No, it's not true that only 7% of your meaning is communicated by your words - Mehrabian Miscommunication

I've heard this so many times, I completely assumed it was true - and passed it on to other people. It goes that when you're communicating, 55% of the communication comes from your body language, 38% from your tone of voice, and only 7% comes from the actual words you use. It sounds really compelling and makes a great case for paying attention to your delivery and posture.  Where did that rule come from? The original paper was by Albert Mehrabian in 1967. He and his team were interested in whether the way you say words affects how people interpret your meaning. They had three groups; They asked 25 people to look at a list of 15 'neutral' words like 'maybe' and imagine someone saying them to another person. They were asked to rate on a scale of 1-9 how much they thought the speaker liked the person they were speaking to.  They asked 17 people to listen to recordings of someone saying those words in a positive, neutral and negative way, and to rate how much they t...
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Johari Window

It was feedback week with the HITScotland programme, and it sent me down quite the existential rabbit hole. We talked about the benefits of asking for feedback and the importance of self-awareness as a leadership skill. So how do you develop self-awareness? How do you know if you're self-aware? I landed on a video  discussing the Johari Window, an exercise developed by a pair of psychologists  to train self-awareness especially in teams. From a list of attributes (which I stole from wikipedia), I picked 10 I most closely identified with. Then I asked three people from my personal life and 3 from my work to pick 10 they thought described me. Then I drew it all out on a diagram (it's in the shape of a window. You see what they did there?).  The words which appear larger were mentioned by more people. I didn't really know what to expect going into it, but I hoped there'd be some revelation of how I'm perceived by the people in my life and what they've come to expec...
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"You can choose choices but not outcomes."

I've just finished reading The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. His main character Nora and I share at least one core anxiety - the fear that we're not making the right decision, and if we'd made a better decision, we'd get want we wanted. Nora is maybe in a slightly more tense situation, but she has the advantage - she gets to make the decision again if she gets it wrong. What are you supposed to do if you're just a normal non-fictional human and have to live with the consequences of your decisions? What makes a good decision? Decision making was a recent module in a management training I've been enjoying from HIT Scotland. We spent quite some time trying to define a 'good' decision, and the ideas came from a whole spectrum of places. Was the decision based on sound logic? Was it rooted in experience and information, or pure instinct? Did it take into account other people's perspectives? Was it made in a calm, thoughtful way or in response to stress?...
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How to win friends and influence people

 I've been meaning to read this book for years, and I was pleasantly surprised that there was really nothing in it that I hadn't found for myself or read somewhere else at some point. It's a nice collection of action points, and clear directions to follow which always appeal to me. And it was an excuse to make a mind map! It's been forever since I've made a mind map, but it's actually been very inspiring to recognise the parallels between mind maps and our neural networks. The kinaesthetic aspect of spatially arranging information could be really helpful in delivering training and supporting recall. I sense there's a lot to explore on the topic of including mind mapping in training delivery and the benefits it might bring.
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Using real world behaviours to identify DISC styles

 After discussing the DISC model as part of the Tourism and Hospitality Talent Development Programme, I was keen to start applying it to my relationships. But I instantly ran into a problem - how can you begin to work out the styles of the people you're working with, so that you can try to change your communication style? I've never been great at reading people, and in the past I've created models that help me identify people's behaviours and possible motivations. So it seemed like a natural instinct to try to suggest behaviours that might indicate someone's style and organise that information in one place.  And so this diagram was born.  Each side of the diagram gives an impression of the behaviours that might be more natural for people with those styles. I'm looking forward to trying to see these behaviours in my managers and colleagues, and see whether it helps me identify how best to communicate. 
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