SHAKING THINGS UP: BEHAVIOR CHANGE, EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING AND A WHACK ON THE SIDE OF THE HEAD

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I was at the Chief Learning Officer Breakfast Session in Boston last week and one of the speakers, Dr. Tracey Wilen-Daugenti from the University of Phoenix said something very interesting.  She told us the brain has seventy thousand thoughts a day.  I heard a similar fact on NPR but they added that 90% of those thoughts we had yesterday.  So my question is:  If 90% of our thoughts repeat daily and what we think and feel effects what we do and say, what is the best way for learning to occur to truly change behavior?

It seems to me we need to shake up our old patterns of thinking in order to develop as a leader.  At The Ariel Group we do this by engaging people in experiential learning where people actively participate in new ways of thinking and behaving.  We use unorthodox methods from the lens of the theater, so unless you’ve been trained as a professional actor you’ve never experienced these exercises.  They are new to you. They weren’t part of the seventy thousand thoughts you had yesterday.  They push you, challenge you and stretch you so that you can move out of your patterns and expand your communication style.

For my own development, I enjoy consulting Roger von Oech’s Creative Whack Pack and his book A Whack on the Side of the Head On his blog, he says,

“The more often you do something in the same way, the more difficult it is to think about doing it any other way.  Break out of this ‘prison of familiarity’ by disrupting your habitual thought patterns.  Write a love poem in the middle of the night.  Eat ice cream for breakfast.  Wear red sox.  Visit a junk yard.  Take the slow way home.  Sleep on the other side of the bed.  Such jolts to your routines will lead to new ideas.”

Learning happens in unconventional ways.   What experiences have you had that have truly changed the way you think and feel and therefore, your behavior?

Tags: Chris Webb,creativity,experiential learning,Roger von Oech