Unique Change

I was travelling back from London yesterday after a great few days with my co-author and fellow collaborator Philip Harland. On the journey home I began chatting to a young lady next to me, after a little while she began to tell me about a particular issue she was having. I listened attentively and per the model of ‘Clean’ made no judgements or inferences of my own model of the world, even though it was and is tempting sometimes!!!

After hearing her story – I asked her if she was able to find someone else on the train she was able to tell he r story to, thankfully the person sat opposite was willing and was comfortable with been the next set of ears. I primed the new listener with the simple instruction, “Just be there and listen, it is very important that you offer nothing back”. This was the second iteration of her story, she looked at me for the next installment.

“Well, it looks like you’re going to have to find four more people to tell this story to, just let them know before hand what you want them to do… just listen” and off she went…

She only found one more listener whilst I was on the train. I trust that by now she has told her story 6 times each to a different person, and I fully expect that her problem is not constructed in the way it was when she first told it, in fact there is a very good chance it isn’t a problem at all now!

This is the experience which stimulated the development of the process in the previous post. So, what is happening here? Well, the iterative use of the question “Tell me your story” or “What is the problem?” has quite a magical effect, with each iteration in the sequence, new cognitions, new learnings occur, old beliefs and un-important information are dropped.

Have you ever had the experience when at college or work, especially in today’s age of computers, of typing out a thesis or piece of work and the power goes or the PC crashes? When this occurs what is the form of the work or thesis on the second iteration? How is it different from the original? Would you be willing to throw the second one away and do it again? Maybe another 4 times just to see how the thesis or work evolves?

That’s quite a challenge and maybe not appropriate for a letter thanking your suppliers for delivering so quickly, but what if it is for your own personal development, for a new research project, for a business development project?

If something is worth doing, is it worth doing enough times so it’s got that magical quality to it?

For more information on the use and theory of Six – visit www.powersofsix.com

Peace and love

Matthew