Imagine standing in front of an assembly of doctors and asking, “How many of you know what the circulatory system is?” – and getting no response.
No hands raised. Blank looks.
For a doctor not to how a fundamental body system works is certainly not best practice. It’s more like malpractice.
Yet, this is my experience whenever I ask a group of business professionals if they know about the brain’s RAS (Reticular Activating System). Knit brows. Blank looks.
What does that matter? Well, the RAS is the brain’s filtering mechanism. It determines whether someone pays attention to your message, or not. The job of the RAS is to filter out the noise and focus our attention on what is new, interesting, relevant, and surprising.
You either know how to activate the brain, or not. Trying to communicate without understanding the key role of the RAS is….well, malpractice.
The RAS filters out almost everything – if it hears no clear and immediate WIIFM (What’s In It For Me), then that’s just more noise to ignore. The RAS is the gatekeeper which determines if your communication breaks through – or gets tossed aside. And that’s why we need to know how to communicate in the most RAS-friendly way possible.
Whatever role you are playing in business right now, you are attempting to communicate. This is true of sales, marketing, training, collaborating, leading meetings – even emailing. Are your communications RAS-ready?
We would not feel comfortable with a doctor who does not know about the human circulatory system. So we should not feel comfortable attempting communications without knowing how to get past the gatekeeper of all attention and focus – the RAS.
Impactiviti’s Communications Impact workshops start with five basic aspects of brain science that determine whether we get through, or get filtered out. Once the core elements of communications clarity are understood, we then train your team how to write, present, lead, network, persuade, and collaborate (including vendor and project management) effectively.
The workshops are built on the foundation of clarity principles outlined in my book, Clarity Wins.
We’ve facilitated training sessions for many life sciences companies over the years seeking to equip trainers and other professionals to make greater impact with clear communications. Reach out (AskSteve@impactiviti.com) for more information about how we can help improve your team’s performance with these unique developmental sessions.
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