snip
> Margaret McIntyre asked Morty
> "It would be helpful if you were to offer some examples of this as opposed
> to continue to talk in generalities. Can you tell us some specifics of
> your work? "
The best way to get specific examples is to visit my website or read my
book. Without taking up too much space, hopwever, I'll try to summarize
as best I can here.
Based on the notion that all behavior is a function of beliefs, my
associates and I have worked with over 1,000 individuals clients to help
them eliminate the beliefs that underlie a host of undesirable and
dysfunctional behavoior and emotional patterns, e.g., serious ones like
chronic depression, phobias, criminal and violent behavior,
obsessive-compulsive disorders -- and common everyday ones such as
worrying aboyut what others think of you, the inability to express
emotions, always feeling that you're doing doing enough, workaholism.
The only research I've done has been with teen and adult offenders in
prison. See the website for details.
I've also worked with over 10,000 employees at over 30 companies to help
them change the culture (the beliefs about how to survive and succeed, and
the policies, practices, procedures, etc. that enforce and ritualize the
beliefs) and the behavior of employees. Specific examples include getting
service technicians to change their belief about their job to that of a
customer satisfier so that taking care of customers is experenced as an
inherent part of their job, so that it is performed naturally and
effortlessly. Also, getting top-down autocratic managers to become
empowering leaders. I've worked with 7 of the Bell operating comapnies,
Lands' End, and a host of smaller companies.
In organizations my goal is frequently to have each employee realize that
there is right way to do his/her job, no "the truth" aboutanything in
business, and that his/her job is to determine the best thing to do at any
given time, given the environment at the time. What I call living out of
"a truths" rather that beliefs which are "the truths." I don't recommend
a specific new culture, I recommend a meta-culture, a culture that says
that there is no right culture for all times, and it is everyione's job to
create the appropriate one at any given time. This IS a learning
organization. If you think you have the truth, you can't learn. When you
realize there is no the truth, you are always asking questions and
learning.
snip
> The process to change a decision is realy very simple: It requires nothing
> but a new decision. But this new decision must fulfill at least one important
> requirement: It must be more convincing than the old decision. I guess that
> this is the difficult part of the process. I also guess that this is why Mortys
> companies name is "decisionmaker".
I don't agree that merely making a new decision automatically eliminates
an existing belief. More often than not, the old belief is not
eliminated. Moreover, it is possible to eliminate a belief without
replacing it.
> I have some questions, Morty:
> 1.) You are talking about "eliminating beliefs",
> which I guess is a process to implement a new belief, that the old one (to
> be eliminated) is not convincing. It sounds for me like a memory erasing
> virus on a computer: Isn't this the basic process of "brain-washing"? (I am
> not saying, you are brain-washing, I am just wondering.)
As I indicated above, you don't necessarily create a new belief in its
place. E.g., You can eliminate the belief I'm not good enough, and not
replace it with anything. You are left with the sense that you are the
creator of all your beliefs, rather than identifying yourself with any
specific set of beliefs. Moreover, if a new belief is created, it'snot
one that I recommend, it's one that you choose based on the behavior yiou
want to exhibit.
> 2.) How do you assure that the old eliminated beliefs are replaced by new,
> usefull beliefs? How is decided and who decides, what a usefull belief is?
There is no such thing as good or bad beliefs. You either like the
behavior that flows from them, or you don;'t. If you don't you are the
one who decides which beliefs to eliminate (because they lead to
undesirable behavior or emotions) and you then choose new beliefs (that
lead to what you define as desirable behavior).
> 3.) Are you working with / changing the "What I need to be convinced"-
> strategy (which is a kind of behaviour) of your customers?
Not sure what you mean here. The process (I call the Decision Maker(R)
Process) can be used with anyone who is willing. The principles (behavior
is a function of beliefs) are applicable to every aspect of life and if
used properly can be used to improve sales.
> 4.) And finally, because all beliefs of one person work together as a system,
> changing or eliminating one belief will in general lead to side-effects
> somewhere else. How do you take care of these side-effects?
I'm not sure what you mean by side effects. I haven't seen any in my work
during the past 13 years. In organizations if only a couple of beliefs
(policies, procedures, etc.) are changed and the rest left unchanged,
there will be a conflict.
> You see from my questions that I do not doubt that you do what you claim
> you are doing. But I think that you are doing a very responsible
> job. Hearing that you are eliminating beliefs of thousands of people in
> less than one hour per person (per group?) gives me a very strange feeling
> (which I would not have if I just could not believe).
Individual sessions run one and a hlaf hours. In each session a minimum
of one belief usually is eliminated. At times as many as 10-12 are
eliminated. Each behvaior pattern is different and some can be totally
eliminated in 3-5 beliefs; eating disorders can take 100+ beliefs. But we
have been successful with bulimia.
I hope this is helpful. If you have a chance to read more of my material
and still ahve questions, please let me know and I'll try to answer them.
This is a radical process in that I don't know anything quite like it
(It's not like any psychotherapy or OD/OT intervention) and difficult to
fully explain in a few paragraphs.
> Looking forward to hearing more about you,
> Winfried
Morty Lefkoe
For information about the Decision Maker(R) Institute and
my book, Re-Create Your Life: Transforming Yourself and
Your World, visit http://decisionmaker.com
--"decisionmaker.com" <Morty@decisionmaker.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>