4MAT and "The Helium Freeze"

Newsletter 32 - 5 October 2005 This is the newsletter for www.mindtools.com. You have received it because you have subscribed to our double opt-in newsletter. This newsletter is published by James Manktelow of Mind Tools Ltd, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London, EC1V 4PY, United Kingdom. To contact us, please email us from this page.

Contents: In This Issue... 4MAT Training Design The "Helium Freeze" How to Lead Offer Extension Mind Tools Store A Final Note

As the seasons change and the holidays approach, most of us find ourselves a little distracted. Thoughts of holiday plans and additions to our already full schedules can be both stressful and trying, making renewed focus a true challenge.

The tools and techniques you'll find at Mind Tools can help you sail through these times and other challenges with greater ease. Everything from time and stress management is covered on the Mind Tools site, with tools from these areas and many others (such as communications, leadership, project planning, decision making and more) covered in-depth on the site and regularly in the newsletter.

What's more, there's much, much more to come! Each day, with your help, we uncover new skills and techniques that you can use to "power up" different areas of your life and career. You'll see these coming through onto the site over the next weeks and months as we work hard to bring you fresh information, up-to-date techniques and proven tools that you can rely on as you climber higher and higher on the ladder of success. More about this in our next issue!

In this issue, we introduce you to 4MAT - a useful tool helping you to train people in a way that most suits their own preferred learning styles. This is essential if you're to help all members of your team reach their maximum potential (and not just the ones who are most "in tune" with the way you think).

And, in a guest article by Scot Aaron, we present the "Helium Freeze", a helpful visualization technique that helps you freeze out negative thoughts.

Also, a point of embarrassment: In our last issue, we let online newsletter readers know about our 7 day, 25% off launch offer for “How to Lead”, but didn’t include this discount information in the email version. To be fair, and so that all readers can take advantage of this offer, we’re extending the offer for another 7 days (until 12 October - visit http://www.mindtools.com/cgi-bin/sgx2/shop.cgi?page=HowtoLead.htm to find out more).

As always, we encourage you to share the information in these newsletters with anyone in your organization who you think would benefit from it. We also hope you will let us know if there is any topic you would like to see covered, or any applicable service or product you would like to read more about.

Best wishes, and enjoy this issue!

What's New?

A great way to do this is with our new interactive quiz – it's our featured article/resource in today's newsletter. Take the quiz online by clicking the link within the article (this scores the quiz automatically for you), or print this newsletter out, and use good ol' fashioned technology (pen and paper!) to score it yourself.

Also new at Mind Tools this week is our article on RFP Documents – "RFP", in this case, stands for Request For Proposal. Whether you're hiring a consultant to work with your team, or looking for a major new supplier to provide essential services to your business, you need to know exactly what you'll get from a potential supplier. A good way to do this is by using a Request For Proposal process. Read more about this by clicking here.

Enjoy the newsletter and the motivation skills quiz, and have an excellent day!

James & Kellie

New on Mind Tools:
4MAT - Delivering Instruction That Everyone Can Understand
Article by James Manktelow

Why Use the Tool?

We’re all familiar with times in our life when we really “connected” with instructors, making learning a real pleasure and making acquisition of new skills almost effortless. And we’ll also remember times when we just weren’t “on the same wavelength” as someone we had to learn from. Learning became a difficult, unpleasant, slow chore.

And at times when we may have trained others, perhaps in a formal training role or in passing knowledge on to our teams, we’ve probably found teaching some people easy, while others seem to have difficulty even with really simple things.

What’s particularly frustrating is that the mismatches of style that cause many of these learning difficulties have long lasting effects, in terms both of personal outcomes and of team member and team performance.

4MAT is a different approach to instruction that seeks to overcome these differences in style, engage all learners, and present information in a format and using an approach which suits all.

If you are responsible for training and coaching team members or others (and most managers and professionals are, to some degree), then you need to know 4MAT and use it to a greater or lesser extent if you are to get the best from all of the people you are developing.

Important Ideas 1: “Learning Styles” David Kolb’s ideas of experiential learning and learning styles lie at the root of 4MAT. Kolb (a well-respected learning guru) argued that there are four different learning styles, and that different people prefer different approaches for learning information: The “Converger” style: Preferring concepts and active experimentation; The “Diverger” style: Preferring practical experience and reflection; The “Assimilator” style: Which prefers abstract modelling and theoretical reasoning; and The “Accommodator” style: Preferring practical experience and active testing. Now these terms are quite difficult to grasp and remember. Peter Honey and Alan Mumford proposed a similar approach with much more intuitive terms: “Reflectors”: Who like to stand back and gather information before coming to a conclusion; “Theorists”: Who want to fully understand the theory behind a subject before they feel comfortable with it; “Activists”: Who want to learn by diving straight in to new experiences, and don’t particularly like theory; and “Pragmatists”: Who want to see the practical use of what they’re learning, and want practical techniques. Theory can follow later... The argument is where an instructor caters to a learning style you like, you find learning quick and easy. But where an instructor has a different preferred approach from the one you like, learning can be difficult and unsatisfying. And as an instructor, while you might instinctively like one style, you’ll have to take the learning needs of people who prefer other styles into account if you’re to train them effectively. Important Ideas 2: “Experiential Learning” Kolb also argued that adults learn many types of skills most effectively by learning from experience (“experiential learning”). This involves learning through the following steps: Taking an action and seeing its effects; Understanding that this effect will reliably follow from this action; Forming a generalized mental principle or rule about what’s happening; and Testing this rule (loops back to 1)

4MAT (developed by Bernice McCarthy at www.aboutlearning.com) is a process you can use to train people in a way that suits all learning styles and which incorporates Kolb’s ideas on the stages of experiential learning.

Using the Tool:

At the heart of 4MAT is a 12-step learning cycle that learners go through as they learn new skills. Effective instructors work with this cycle, seeking to engage the learner; provide information, knowledge and theory; deliver the skills being taught; and cement the knowledge learned. This process is shown below:

During the first three steps of the cycle, your focus as an instructor is on winning the attention of your learners, and engaging their interest in the subject. You are seeking to help them understand the real value (to them) of what you’re saying, and get the learner to think about how what you’re saying fits in with and enhances his or her existing experience.

During steps four to six, you build learners’ knowledge, and encourage them to find out facts for themselves. In doing this, you help learners make connections between what they already know and what you are teaching. And by finding out facts for themselves, they learn the broader context into which information fits. This all helps to build a good theoretical foundation of the subject.

During steps seven to nine, you teach the practical skills that come from the theory, and encourage learners to test their understanding of the material. This is where learners confirm and refine their understanding, and apply and generalize the information they’ve learned.

Finally, during steps ten to twelve, you encourage learners to extend creatively their use of the skills you’ve taught. This gives practice in the new skills, and helps them reinforce and “cement” their learning.

By structuring a learning session using this approach, you can engage and satisfy people who learn best with all of the different learning styles:

• Reflectors get the opportunity to gather information and reflect before they come to a conclusion;
• Theorists get the chance to learn new ideas and fit them into existing theories before they put them into practice;
• Activists get the opportunity to “dive in” at an appropriate stage of the process, and learn and try out new techniques; and
• Pragmatists see the techniques they’re learning firmly grounded in reality, with practical benefit and relevance explained from the outset.

Tip 1: Here we’re looking at the central part of 4MAT: It’s a sophisticated system, and there’s a lot of surrounding information. To find out more, visit Bernice McCarthy’s site at http://www.aboutlearning.com or read her book About Learning, which is available at Amazon.com. Tip 2: Different situations often attract people with different preferred learning styles, and people often self-select themselves into groups (or even professions?) with preferred approaches. If you find that your audiences (or members of your audience) have a strongly dominant preferred learning approach, you need to adjust your approach to cater for this. Also, different types of information need different approaches. As ever, use your common sense to decide the approach you use. Tip 3: You can find out more at the following URLs: Kolb Learning Styles: www.infed.org/biblio/b-explrn.htm Honey & Mumford Learning Styles: http://www.campaign-for-learning.org.uk/aboutyourlearning/whatlearning.htm 4MAT: http://www.aboutlearning.com/all-about-4mat.htm Also, there’s a lot of cross-over here with the Myers Briggs types we looked at in on 29 June: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/Newsletters/29Jun05.htm

Example:
We’re not going to give an example here: Rather, we’re going to ask you to think about this a little.

Which of the Honey and Mumford learning styles most describes your preferred way of learning (even if it is a bit of one, and most of another)? And when you think about the people you have to instruct or coach in your day-to-day life, what learning styles and aptitudes do they show? (Incidentally, try asking them which of the approaches they prefer!) What does this tell you about the teaching approach you should use?

And when you think back to past learning sessions you’ve experienced, were there approaches that worked well for you, and ones which fell flat? For example, are you a theorist, who was bored by practical work at school? Or a pragmatist who just couldn’t get on with pure mathematics? And were there teachers from whom you just couldn’t learn, who you now realize just weren’t on the same learning “wavelength” as yourself?

Again, what does this tell you about your instructional approach? And, knowing this, what are you going to do?

Summary:
At the heart of 4MAT is a twelve stage process which you can use to structure a learning session to ensure that people with preferences for different learning styles can get the most from them. By using 4MAT, you can adopt an approach that will help all of your people learn effectively from you, not just those who happen to share your preferred approach to learning.

In the first three steps of the cycle, your task is to win the attention of your learners and engage their interest.

During steps four to six, you give them information they need, and help them build their own knowledge of the subject.

During steps seven to nine, you teach the skills the learners need, and encourage them to test and apply these theories.

And during steps ten to twelve, you encourage learners to creatively extend the use of skills and internalize the knowledge they’ve gained.

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Guest Article:
Healthy Thinking: Freeze Negative Thoughts
By Scot Aaron

We all know negative thoughts can build up pressure, activate unwanted emotions, and stop us from achieving our goals. Most of us also recognize that struggling to stay positive can sometimes skew our view of reality.

Ultimately, the goal should be to balance or align our lives, actualize our own potential and to share and grow, without letting negative thoughts and unwanted emotions plague our fight to stay positive and remain productive.

This said, now is the time for us to grow, not tomorrow, not next week, not next month. For each day we can grow a little more.

In striving for success, however, there is a technique, referred to as “Helium Freeze” which, when used correctly, allows for the “freezing” of negative thoughts, stopping them before they drift further into your mind and your work and wreak unwanted havoc.

A Starting Point

We all know about helium balloons. Helium exists as a component of our air. Higher percentages occur in natural gas deposits. When helium gas is compressed (like air in air conditioners) it can turn into a very cold liquid. In fact, liquid helium almost reaches absolute zero and provides the coldest temperatures we can get on Earth.

Now, apply this freezing method to negative thoughts. Simply immerse your negative thoughts, images and feelings in liquid helium; hence, the Helium Freeze.

Of course, this is a bit of a visualization process, as well as a easy technique, for while you cannot actually place your damaging thoughts in helium, you can use this little trick or thought process to become aware of your negative thoughts and to finally stop them in their tracks.

Expanding of the Technique Yields Stronger Results

Now, lets consider another dimension of this Helium Freeze.

How can we know for sure what the best outcome or ultimate future will be for us individually? For example, most of us would agree that more money would make life easier. However, what if acquiring more money leads to more distraction where we avoid learning and accomplishing what is best for us?

This is where we let the sun shine and consider the second part of the Helium Freeze. Take thoughts and, in your mind, project them straight into the center of the sun.

The rationale goes like this. The bulk of energy from the sun stems from the fusion of helium 3 to helium 4. [Fusions start with single protons of hydrogen to heavy hydrogen, until helium 3 (2 protons and 1 neutron) fuse to helium 4, releasing energy and 2 protons.] Lots of scientific words, I know, but stick with me here, for applying the principle makes great sense and it is easy enough to do.

All energies on Earth, including negative thoughts, can be thought to stem from helium fusions in our sun. Mentally freeze the thought with liquid helium. Send this frozen package into our sun’s center. Once placed there, you can revisit these thoughts at your convenience and go back and freeze past thoughts and images that may be applicable, yielding even stronger results.

On one hand, let the center of the sun represent energies being generated for our future on Earth. If a thought is meant to strengthen and empower, bonds will connect and direct power from the sun’s center.

On the other hand, let power in our sun’s center repel and eject negative, disempowering thoughts.

Combat Negative Thoughts – Applying the Principle

In summary, learn today how to finally put negative thoughts in their place.

Next, empower connections to your positive realities. Say you have to choose between a few possible directions. All can be positive, but only an unfolding of the future will ultimately show which choice is best. Freeze these possibilities and project them into the center of the sun and revisit as often as needed to make the most informed decision possible. This allows for more positive outcomes, while not tying up your brain with clutter. And, as you play the cards you are dealt by life, all will unfold as it should.

Now, just trust in your projections and allow reality to play itself out, keeping a close watch on your negativity and working to contain it when it surfaces, either by using the freeze technique or by any other means that works for you. The point is to simply combat negativity and to organize your thoughts in a more positive and productive manner.

And, finally, allow positive thoughts and events in life to inspire you and to affirm the course to take as you move forward on the path to happiness and success.

Scot Aaron has written "Get Free from the Chains of Pain," and "Love Your Neighbors? Discover the Real World Religions". The last book is available at amazon.com or ordered at bookstores. His personal webpage is at http://scotaaron.com.

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"How to Lead: Discover the Leader Within You" Offer Extension

Just a reminder of the extension of our 7 day, 25% off launch offer on our “How to Lead: Discover the Leader Within You” course, which we’ve extended until 12 October (while we announced it in the last issue of our online newsletter, we missed it out from the email version...)

Visit http://www.mindtools.com/cgi-bin/sgx2/shop.cgi?page=HowtoLead.htm to take advantage of this offer.

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The Mind Tools Store:

• The Mind Tools E-book:All of the articles on the Mind Tools website in one convenient, easily-downloadable, easily-printable PDF file. We have excluded advertising to enhance clarity and have formatted sections to be easy to read, print and use. More >>
  
  
• How to Lead: Discover the Leader Within You: Learn the 48 simple but essential skills you need to become an excellent leader. More >>
  
  
• Make Time for Success!: Make Time for Success teaches the 39 essential time management and personal productivity techniques that help you bring your workload under control and maximize your effectiveness, so that you can make the most of the opportunities open to you. More >>
  
  
• Design Your Life E-Class: This e-class helps you think through what you want to do with your life, and helps you set the powerful, compelling goals you need to achieve your ambitions. More >>
  
  
• Mind Tools Relaxation MP3s: Download 15-minutes of intense relaxation in MP3 format with our relaxation MP3s. Put stress behind you, and face the rest of your day with renewed energy and enthusiasm. More >>

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A Final Note From James

If you have not taken the time to review “How to Lead: Discover the Leader Within You,” (http://www.mindtools.com/cgi-bin/sgx2/shop.cgi?page=HowtoLead.htm) I encourage you to do so over the next few days. As we have said in several newsletters, the Mind Tools team worked very hard on this project and we are all eager to share it with you - we really do believe the program can be pivotal in helping people become excellent leaders.

We have also been hard at work researching and writing about new tools and techniques, the first of which, 4MAT, is debuted in this edition. We have a long list of new tools that we are working on and you can look forward to seeing these on the Mind Tools site and in upcoming newsletters. As we get into a rhythm on this (we’re still not quite there yet) you’ll find useful new tools on the site almost every time you visit.

And as always, please keep letting us know what you would like to have researched and/or reviewed. Your input and support will continue to help us build Mind Tools as a resource that can help many, many people around the world achieve real excellence in their lives and careers.

Best wishes, and until next time!

James & Kellie

James Manktelow & Kellie Fowler

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