Motion Needs a Motor

Poison oak is profoundly communicable, at least for the four out of every five people allergic to its oils. I am not among the lucky 20 percent, and reserve a special variety of envy for those folks who are. I’ve broken out in rash without ever actually touching the stuff. The most recent insidious point of contact occurred somewhere on the banks of the Deschutes River during a fishing trip this summer. I had been hyper-vigilant the entire time. No matter. Two days after returning, a rash appeared that grew so voracious I had to take prednisone to quell it. I’ll spare you any additional details.

In the last two newsletters I talked about how important process and synthesis are to learning. This is how we learn most things. Through my latest bout with poison oak I gained a fresh understanding of how contagious poison oak can be. This was my process, and like all helpful processes it was messy. So what am I to do in light of my new understanding of poison oak? This question ushers us into the fourth element of effective structure in communication, Motor. Good process helps us understand something better. What was once abstract is now more concrete. Just what should it look like for us to act on this new understanding?

Imagine you’re working with a group of youth to help them avoid the use of tobacco. You’ve taken them through a clear introduction, opened the topic to exploration and discussion and synthesized their dialogue, thus forming a more crisp understanding vastly more relevant and meaningful to the youth. This doesn’t imply they’ve “arrived,” or will never alter their understanding. But it has now become more concrete–something they can and should act on.

Here is your opportunity to do something remarkable. Most people, like the youth in the example above, expect you to tell them what to do. Don’t do this! They’ve not asked you to. During Process you helped them explore their own ideas about the topic. In Synthesis you helped assemble their ideas. Don’t now alter course and impose your ideas upon them as to how they should act. Engage others to help them draft the most concrete, logical action they can, based upon the conclusions they’ve drawn from the process. There is a process in deducing action. If you tell them what they ought to do, you short-circuit this process.

Here are the simple steps to take during the Motor phase:

1. Summarize students’ ideas into something relevant and meaningful. This is the truism they can and should act on. But how?

2. Pose the question to your participants, “This being true, what should we do?” Let your participants answer this question. Facilitate interaction. Do as you did during Process but for the purpose of helping them determine new ways to behave.

3. Synthesize their ideas. Work with your participants to make their ideas as vivid as possible. Continuing with our example, “You say you think you should avoid others that use tobacco. If we could see you avoiding ‘others that use tobacco’ in the next 24 hours, what would that look like?” Make them work for their responses. Only then will they own them.

I’m writing with an assumption: You hope that the people you work with will do something different as a result of your time spent with them. It would be most disheartening to learn that your time, devotion, and effort spent with people amounted to inertia. The Motor element keeps the engine revved and wheels turning in the right direction. Through Motor you help others define what it is they want to do differently, and set down a new path. This is the change we seek.