THE 10-10 GAME and the 20 SECOND RULE: Were all bad communicators, but dont realize it. The human brain can only listen to about 5-10 words and recall them with any degree of accuracy. Thats one sentence, about 10 seconds. But most people talk for an average of 3 minutes before pausing. That means that the listener will only recall about 1/20th of what you said...and it probably is the wrong 10 words! Thats why, when I teach communication strategies to my executive MBA students, to my clients, to teachers, therapists, attorneys and corporate leaders, we do a 10-10 game. You hold up your fists in front of you, raising one finger for each word you speak, and you must fall silent when you run out of fingers. Then you let the other person respond with 10 words as you deeply listen and pay close attention to their facial expression. This rapidly trains your wordy frontal lobes to speak with profound clarity. In therapy and business meetings, you can solve problems in 10 minutes that often would take two hours. That is bankable and why its part of our core training program in LMUs business school, where I teach. Try this exercise with a colleague or a friend or family member. It feels weird at first but it slows you down (improving neural comprehension) and it’s actually impossible to get anxious when doing this training exercise. Do it with your kid: they’ll love it and actually listen to you (because you will have listened to them!). Practice the 10-10 game with 3 people and youll see that your whole communication style will shift (we all speak to fast and too long for other people to understand us!) PS: when practicing the game, cut your rate of speech in half. It increases comprehension in the listeners brain! Then, when talking with a colleague, if you feel like you’re not making rapid progress, invoke the “20-Second Rule” meaning that each of you must only speak for 20 seconds (about three sentences) and then let the other person speak. I use this strategy with most of my NeuroCoaching clients and we uncover and resolve major issues in 10-20 minutes, issues that usually take hours in traditional coaching or therapy!
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 18:34:39 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015