Touchy Feely
by Christian Recknagel
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In the world of organizational and leadership development, "touchy feely" is a familiar phrase. We mostly hear it as a form of resistance to participating in something that engages our emotional capabilities rather than our intellectual capabilities. It seems to be used to describe any experience that does not feed our learned desire for intellectually stimulating, fact based, clinically proven information. If it doesn't have a tested model, hasn't been proven through Harvard approved case studies and volumes of research, it has little credibility and is therefore...touchy feely. What I find interesting is that the experiences that seem to move people the most toward behavior change and performance improvement are those that speak to a deeper part of us than our mere intellectual capability. The experiences that tend to cause people to step back and question their current mindsets and wonder what new paradigm might be useful to them are usually things like losing a job, being assigned a completely new role/responsibility, making a big mistake, taking an international assignment, having a child, 9/11. These experiences cause is to step out of our comfort zone and more importantly, cause us to step into the realm of the unknown, where all of our attained knowledge and past experience is not as readily applicable. Since we can't rely on our intellectual capabilities alone to get us through, we access deeper, more primal capabilities. It seems that dramatic change occurs on the "touchy feely" level rather than the level of intellectual understanding.
I can remember when I first started facilitating development trainings, I had a mindset that it shouldn't matter what clothes I was wearing. My performance should overshadow my appearance. Besides, just because my sense of style was different, that doesn't make it wrong. Many people told me of the business etiquette rules that guide corporate culture as it relates to proper attire. I read the articles describing the impact of first impressions and the judgments made on initial contact. None of this was enough to cause significant change. Then, I had an experience that moved me. A visceral, ego confronting, mindset shifting experience of direct, constructive feedback. A client suggested that my choice of dress seemed a bit informal for the image of their multinational, fortune 500, financial services corporation. After the initial internal reaction to this shot to my current mindset, I realized that even in the face of excellent performance, my sense of style could cause my client to be dissatisfied. The client's feedback TOUCHED that deeper part of me that caused me to FEEL the need to change.
There seems to be a misunderstanding about the difference between "touchy feely" experiences and more concrete, credible, content based experiences. As one famous intellectual icon once said, "the intuitive mind is a gift and the intellectual mind a faithful servant. We have created a society that worships the servant and has forgotten the gift." Many current experts are guiding us back to the gift. Daniel Goleman's seminal work on emotional intelligence has inspired a mindset shift in corporate environments to value the emotional/intuitive aspects of people. John Kotter of Harvard University, has studied the effectiveness of change initiatives and found that the core success factor in successful change is the effectiveness of the change leader to connect with people on an emotional level. "People change what they do less because they are given analysis that shifts their thinking than because they are shown a truth that influences their feelings." In other words, people change when their feelings are touched, rather than when their intellect is fed. So we are beginning to see that people change more readily when they are moved at an emotional level. When I say emotional, I am describing the level of intuition and experience that Einstein refers to, not merely the level of having emotions like happy, sad, depressed, etc. I am referring to that deeper essence of ourselves where we experience things rather than just think about them. That place in all of us that gets inspired and motivated to take initiative and be creative. This place is our innate capacity for common sense, creativity and wisdom that is accessed when we are moved to see the world differently. This is why "touchy feely" experiences initiate change and improve performance. When people gain access to their capacity for creativity, compassion, and inspired action, their skills and abilities are re-energized and they are able to operate at higher levels of performance and efficiency. The key is not forgetting this connection between our capacity and our capabilities. Our capacity is the pool of wisdom, inspiration, intuition, creativity and common sense that serves as the inner resources we draw upon to apply our capabilities appropriately and effectively. When development initiatives, whether they are training programs, teambuilding sessions, strategic planning retreats or one on one coaching meetings, are grounded in tuning people in to their inner resources, they create the same context that dramatic life experiences do. These initiatives create an environment that helps people realize, not only that they have this capacity, but how to access this capacity. New capabilities are more easily learned when people are accessing their capacity for inspiration and wisdom. "Touchy feely" becomes a powerful force for change. Research is beginning to show it is the most effective source for sustainable change.
©2006 Christian Recknagel