Here’s the next bit of the interview we conducted with Dr Richard Bolstad. He’s going to talk about who this course would be useful to, and, very importantly, what makes this course different from all the other communication skills courses that are out there. This last point will be visited throughout the whole interview so that you get a sense of how revolutionary the course actually is.

Here’s the link to the first part of the Interview.

As you remember, last week we left you with Michael’s question…

Michael: Okay, that’s great. So, what makes Transforming Communication different to say assertiveness training or other similar courses?

Richard: Yeah, that’s a good question, too, because a lot of people will have done something like assertiveness training, or done some kind of listening skills course. And what they’re learning there is some very specific skills that are often quite useful. What I’m doing with transforming communication is putting those sorts of skills in a much wider context.

And so I’m not so much just interested in giving people a set of skills for getting what they want, which sometimes happens with assertiveness training, and I’m not so much interested in giving them a set of skills just to help someone else clarify and feel good. I’m actually interested in helping them create a whole relationship that works.

From the research with couples, for example, John Gottman in America has done a lot of research over the last ten years about how couples actually get on. And one of the things he showed quite clearly is that the quality of the atmosphere between the couple determines how long those people will stay together. And that quality isn’t just about learning even how to resolve conflicts. It’s about the whole relationship, it’s about how they talk to each other. And he found that you could reliably predict from listening to any 3-minute segment of conversation between a couple whether they’re going to stay together for the next year.

Now that’s quite exciting because it means that we are now starting to learn not just someone’s theory about what’s making a relationship work, but actually what you specifically say, what you specifically do when you’re in a relationship that enables two people to get on with each other, cooperate, achieve things together, and want to stay together longterm.

And that same research of course applies in the corporate environment for example.

Michael: Wow. So that sounds like really powerful stuff.

Richard: It is. It’s dramatic. And I think it’s probably the first time in history when we’ve had this good information about how that works. Everyone has known that some people are a little better at creating cooperative relationships, are a little better at getting on with people, and people have different theories about that. But what we have now is tried and tested information about it, we have research and Gottman’s research with couples for example, he would take a hundred couples and video them over an entire weekend. And so while he’s watching them on the video, afterwards reviewing it, he’s able to check in real life what actually makes a difference if he follows these couples up for the next year, what decides when people stay together.

Michael: Okay, so … I know you’ve kind of touched on it briefly: who would the course be useful to?

Richard: Well, the range is phenomenal. And, so, as I mentioned I worked with the New Zealand government. Here is a whole series of people, groups of people who are doing important things in New Zealand, and they’re making important decisions, and they’re trying to make those decisions together. I worked with the top management of the Inland Revenue in New Zealand, I’m working at present with the people in the Treasury in New Zealand there, and what they’re wanting to know most of all is: how do we create an environment where we can listen to each other, where we can cooperate with each other, and actually achieve the things we came here to do. And so, one of the things that impressed me when I started working with those organisations at the government level was, I had the idea perhaps these are such serious people that cooperation is a little almost like touchy feely for them. And what happened with Inland Revenue was I said: well, I introduce you to some of these skills, to the top management there, and I’m not really sure that you want the other skills. So, we did the first part of the course, and then they said: well, tell us what’s in the second half because it’s starting to get interesting. So then I introduced them to a couple of the processes that they would learn in the second half of the course. And immediately they said: we’ve got to have that.

So, you know, that’s in that setting. Another group I work with in New Zealand is the Retailers Association. So, there I’m working with sales people. It may surprise people who are not in the sales game to realise that actually sales is about cooperation. It’s not about one person twisting someone else’s arm. Because when that happens the other person wants to leave as soon as they can. It’s actually about creating a cooperative relationship with with someone. One that they end up feeling good about, one that they please with the results of. And so, those people from the Retailers Association wanted my skills for two things: the first thing is, they want to use this with their clients. They want to build a relationship so that the person doesn’t just buy from them once, but becomes a regular customer and comes back.

The second thing is: they know themselves that it’s not just them who are going to work in their shop. They are retailers, they have other people coming in and working there, and the quality of that person’s relationship with clients depends on how the manager gets on with them. So, there’s kind of a flow and effect.

Let me give you another example. I run this training as well for teachers and people in the education system. There again, the quality of the relationship from the centre of the organisation affects the periphery of the organisation. I did a research study one time, in a high school. What we did was, we ran the Transforming Communication training for a group of teachers in this high school. We did a careful questionaire before; it was a questionaire for all of the students, and we ran a questionaire with all of the teachers as well. Then we followed up 3 months and 6 months later, and found out what was happening…

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…And it’s really interesting what happened in that school. To find out read the next part of the interview next week.

Until then, think about what would happen if YOU changed some of your communication skills and how you could transform your communication to get the results you want.

UPDATE: Just put part 3 of the interview up. Here’s the link: part 3