Module 10. Glossary
Terms of the module
- Conclusion and closing of a talk
- Feedback questions (6)
- Life review (3 positions)
- Opening of a talk (8 techniques)
- Public speaking (continuous influence)
- QCIC (4 competencies)
- “The fabric of a talk” (7 steps)
- The power of small steps (15)
- The psychology of speaker confidence (4 pillars)
- Vision of the future (a session on 4 horizons)
Conclusion and closing of a talk
The conclusion is consolidation: “we’ve come to the end, let’s look back: we’ve learned what A, B and C are”; then written feedback — “write down what you found valuable and how you can apply it,” telling a partner what you’ve learned, and from each person — one thing they are taking away, and it’s fine to repeat what others have said. The closing is the selling part in five lines: thanks for the trust, time and attention; “are there any of you who have already decided that this could be interesting and will help you cope with…?”; “perhaps there’s someone else who wanted to raise a hand but didn’t?”; “perhaps someone needs more information or has questions”; “and are there those who have decided for now that this isn’t of interest to them, but are open…”. Two scientific foundations: Kahneman showed that memory judges an event by its peak and its end, and so the finale determines how the whole hour will be remembered; memory research has shown that recalling something fixes it in memory better than hearing it again — and when everyone names one thing they are taking away, the audience is testing itself without noticing it. A raised hand is a public commitment that a person then defends as their own.
Hearing people share their wins, the audience goes over all the material again in memory — this is the best review. The closing sells honestly: it asks about a decision, doesn’t pressure, and leaves every door open, including the door “no, but I’m open” — and it is through that door that people later come back. The finale of “The fabric of a talk”; the honest definition of sales (module 4) and the funnel (module 7) put into practice in public speech.
Feedback questions (6)
Six questions for participants at the end of a talk, a training or a meeting: what have you learned; how will you bring what you’ve learned into your life; what results will become possible thanks to this; what will you start doing — five items; what will you stop doing — five items; how will you thank yourself when you’ve done these five items. The order of the questions repeats the classic levels of training evaluation — knowledge, behavior, results — and the fourth and fifth draw on what Peter Gollwitzer called implementation intentions: a plan written down as a specific action is carried out several times more often than a general “I’ll apply it.” The sixth question is self-reinforcement, which, according to Bandura, sustains behavior longer than any external reward, because it doesn’t depend on whether anyone else has noticed.
The questions turn what was heard into commitments people make to themselves, and so they work better than any call to “apply this”; “what will you stop doing” usually turns out to be stronger than “what will you start,” because it frees up space. The same set works for summing up your own day, a book or a course — and this glossary too. It rests on open questions (module 1) and on thanking yourself for a step from the 24-step goal model (module 2).
Life review (3 positions)
A technique for re-examining a key event from the past where a false conclusion was drawn that became an attitude. Patterns of thought, emotion and action are conditioned in childhood, and it is there that we draw the conclusions we later use as filters. The technique is not about reliving childhood but about how the prism of the past influences decisions now; in this it follows the discovery that Freud called deferred action and the French school made its central concept: a past event gets its meaning not when it happened but later, after the fact, and so its meaning can be revised. The event is described from three positions. The Parent: how the adults ought to have acted so as not to cause harm — without “shoulds,” as a flexible preference: it matters, it would be great, it’s desirable; this is how you cultivate in yourself the Nurturing rather than the Critical part. The Child: what the child wanted — so as to acknowledge and name your feelings and desires, which as a child you couldn’t put into words. The Adult: the most important position, which completely rewrites the negative attitude into an active life position, bypassing the traumatized child and the critical adult.
An example from the course: a mother acting from the Critical Parent scolds a child for asking for help with homework, and the child derives the rule “never ask anyone for anything, do it all myself.” In going over it, no labels are used: not “mother is bad,” but “Mom acted badly” — this is exactly what Klein called the mature view: holding both the good and the bad in one person, without splitting them into a villain and a saint. All three positions are internalized — Vygotsky showed that an outer conversation becomes an inner one — into the way you treat yourself: I take care of myself the way my parents took care of me; I’m as happy as they allowed me to be; I’m as adult and responsible as my parents were. New attitudes are formulated without extremes: not “I’m the very best,” but “I’m learning and growing”; not “everyone’s a jerk,” but “I’m learning to choose a healthy environment.” A continuation of the work with the shell and counter-permissions (module 8), in the positions of CAP+ (module 1).
Opening of a talk (8 techniques)
The tasks of the opening are to spark interest, break the ice of reluctance to engage, and draw people in. Let them know it will be quick and that you value their time and attention. Give them freedom of choice: you are the ones who will decide what to do — even if these are company rules. Spark interest in the topic: this concerns you specifically. Spark interest with practical results for life. Make the audience participants: your opinions, your examples. Agree on the rules: I’ll be asking you for examples — please give them. Arouse interest through mystery: there is something that allows a successful person… And a technique for difficult cases: “Which of you hates me? Raise your hand” — name the resistance first. Aristotle already required two things of an introduction — to win goodwill and to arouse interest; the second technique rests on Jack Brehm’s discovery: any threat to freedom of choice gives rise to resistance, and so the phrase “you will decide” defuses rebellion before it has begun. The eighth technique is working with the group in the spirit of Bion: an assembled audience often lives in a “fight or flight” state, and the presenter who names its hostility first takes away its pretext.
The first minutes decide whether you will be listened to; the opening puts the audience in the position of co-authors rather than spectators, and a person who raised a hand or gave an example in the first five minutes won’t disappear into their phone. It applies pre-empting resistance (module 8) and intrigue (module 8) to the start of a talk; next comes “The fabric of a talk.”
Public speaking (continuous influence)
A public talk is not a one-off event but a continuous process of influencing and shaping the group’s reality. If there is less communication in a group, the group becomes smaller: either your groups influence you and adjust you to themselves, and then you shrink, or you influence them — and then you grow together with them. If you don’t influence your employees’ minds, someone else always does, and that influence doesn’t always lead to cooperation with your intentions. How often you repeat what you want to stay in people’s heads matters more than how well you do it. In his work on group psychology Freud showed that a group gathers around a figure it makes its shared ideal, and so a leader cannot help but influence — the only question is whether consciously; memory research explains the rule of frequency: what is repeated seems truer, and this works for the company’s goals just as it does for rumors in the smoking room if the manager stays silent; Edgar Schein found that an organization’s culture is created not by what is declared but by what the leader systematically pays attention to.
What to talk about systematically: the company’s goals and the elements of the ideal picture; the group’s values; successful actions as what will lead to success again; important skills. Take charge of this and draw up a plan for systematically influencing decisions; this is about occupying the space that would otherwise be taken up by anxiety and gossip, not about propaganda. This is the leader’s responsibility for the communication environment and a continuation of self-presentation (module 5) on the scale of a group; the technique — confidence, the opening, “The fabric of a talk,” the conclusion and closing.
QCIC (4 competencies)
The four competencies around which the course is built. Question — the art of open questions aimed at achieving goals. Communication — the skills of effective communication in personal and professional life. Inspiration — being inspired by the present and creating in line with your own values. Consistency — consistency, constancy and coherence in decisions and actions. Each competency has older relatives: the question as a way of giving birth to understanding goes back to Socrates; communication as an exchange of transactions between ego states — to Berne; Winnicott considered inspiration and creativity a sign of a living true self, and without consistency, according to Aristotle, there is neither virtue nor mastery — we are what we repeatedly do.
The mission of the practical QCIC course in strategic thinking is to develop the ability to think long-term and act precisely, the foundation of a person’s flourishing; one phrase holds two movements, and it is usually between the two that people fail: some think long-term and don’t act, others act precisely but in someone else’s direction. All the models of the course sort into these four: open questions and taking the lead — Q; speech techniques, agreements, negotiations — C; values, “The Hero’s Journey,” vision of the future — I; the rules of effectiveness, the power of small steps, strategy — C. The final session brings everything learned together into a single personal system.
“The fabric of a talk” (7 steps)
The logical thread of a persuasive talk. “There is an observation” — clearly visible phenomena that raise no doubt. “As a result, we get” — the visible or easily inferred result of this observation. “At the root of this is a cause”: a lack of knowledge, a wrong understanding. “Transition” — that is why I want to help you deal with the cause by giving you the right information and tools. “The solution could be something that eliminates…”. We present what we want to sell — the right action, tool, approach. Get the audience’s agreement that this really can help them cope. The fabric’s closest relative is Alan Monroe’s motivated sequence, on which persuasive speeches have been built for almost a century: attention, need, solution, a picture of the result, action; the “small yeses” at each step are a technique Milton Erickson called the yes set: a person who has said “yes” three times to the obvious finds it hard to say “no” to the next thing. The first step demands particular honesty: the observation must be indisputable, otherwise the fabric tears at the very first knot.
The talk leads the listener from a recognizable observation to agreement with the solution; each step is a small “yes” that makes the next one natural, and this is also where the line runs between the fabric and manipulation: the fabric leads to a solution that really eliminates the cause, manipulation — to one that benefits the speaker. In essence it is the same logic as in “Three circles” (module 6), only for a room. Between the opening and the conclusion — working with questions from the audience and techniques of intrigue (module 8).
The power of small steps (15)
Fifteen components of moving over the long haul. Preparation is the key thing: what five small steps can I take to prepare. Visualization — which three goals and in what way. Environment — it nudges you: which people, besides family, matter most to me. Focus — what you have decided is a priority, and what you exclude from your life. Data — analysis of feedback and statistics, counting your progress. Rhythm — what you do at the same time, every day. Living in rhythm with nature — going to bed at 10:30 p.m. and getting up when it gets light. Endure — bear the pain in hard times, but you shouldn’t endure for long. Scale — we overestimate our capabilities on the scale of a year and underestimate them on the scale of a decade. Countdown — over a long distance your strength drops, so count what remains, not what you’ve covered. “More sand” — the only way to survive in the desert is to want more sand. Continuous forward movement — champions are the ones who do more. Don’t go to bed without a map of tomorrow — a plan on paper. The darkest hour is just before the dawn — right before the finish it can be the hardest of all. What am I doing this for — the question that keeps you going the distance. The science of habits confirms the first half of the list: lasting behavior is built from tiny repeated actions tied to a time and place, not from willpower; the tenth component rests on the goal gradient — effort grows as you get closer to the finish, and seeing how much of the path is left gives you strength; the last one rests on the idea that Frankl, following Nietzsche, brought out of the camp: he who has a “why” can bear almost any “how.” Psychoanalysis knows the power of small steps under the name of working through — the slow, repeated labor without which understanding remains mere knowledge.
The model rests on the systems principle (module 1): small changes in anything are changes in everything. Big changes break against resistance, small ones pass beneath it; consistency matters more than the size of the step, and the eleventh component is the most paradoxical: to love the sand, that is, the distance itself, and not only the oasis at the end. The heart of Consistency in the QCIC model; here the principles of professionalism (module 7), the rules of effectiveness (module 8) and “Breaking it into parts” (module 9) come together.
The psychology of speaker confidence (4 pillars)
A speaker’s confidence is not the absence of nerves but four pillars. You must have nothing to hide: transparent intentions and honest content. You don’t fight what arises inside you: if you’re nervous, say so. You don’t fight what arises outside you: displeased faces — “I have a feeling that…”. You are a professional, and your intention is to be useful. The first pillar is what Rogers called congruence: a person whose words match their intentions doesn’t spend energy keeping themselves under surveillance; the second and third are acceptance instead of struggle, and research on social anxiety has confirmed why this works: fear of an audience is held in place by attention turned inward, to your own face and voice, and the more a speaker watches themselves, the less they can see the room. Adler called the fourth pillar social interest and considered it the best remedy for insecurity: someone busy being useful to others has no time to fear for themselves.
Attention directed at being useful to the listeners rather than at yourself removes most of the anxiety by itself; “I’m nervous,” said out loud, usually evokes not contempt but sympathy, because the room is nervous along with you. The main pillar according to the course: the confidence that you have already done this and seen that it brings results. A continuation of preparing for a talk (module 5) and of the professional’s thinking (module 7); it rests on stable self-esteem (module 8) — confidence doesn’t depend on the reaction of the room.
Vision of the future (a session on 4 horizons)
A structured life-planning session: 10 years, 4 years, 1 year, a quarter — from the farthest horizon to the present, filling in the plans in more and more detail; the working rules are openness, honesty with yourself, and permission to dream without judgment. On each horizon: describe yourself in as much detail as possible — to have, to do, to be able to, to be, the place, the people around you, the flow of an ordinary day; formulate goals through “want / can / must” — positively and achievably; who you are there and what you are like, which values inspire you; what is the deep need to achieve this and what is your value to the world; what could get in the way and how to plan for it; what will motivate and support you; which key stages make up the path; what you choose to add to this vision. Strategists call the movement from the far horizon to the near one backward planning: first the desired future, then the path to it, traced backward — this is how you plan what can’t be reached as a straight continuation of the present; the four words of the first question are arranged in ascending order, and the last one, “to be,” Fromm considered the only thing that can be neither bought nor lost. Psychoanalysis adds a test of authenticity: a goal whose description brings no feeling to life usually belongs not to you but to your script.
The culmination of the course’s goal-setting line: vision of the future as a principle (module 1), the 24 steps of a goal (module 2), the career map (module 3), “Hello, My New Year!” (module 5), the 12 elements of strategy (module 9). The ten-year horizon gives direction, the quarterly one gives the first steps; they are connected by the power of small steps, and the session counts as a success if afterwards there is something to do tomorrow.