Pre-Mortem

This morning I watched a Ted Talk by Daniel Levitin, a neurologist talking about the impact of stress on our ability tothink.  It was another reminder of why it is so important to have a plan of action so that when I high emotion takes over your body and your brain you have an automatic practiced response to keep you out of trouble.  He called it a pre-mortem … like a post mortem but BEFORE the event.  Pre-mortems give you the opportunity to generate a chain of reasoning before you are in a situation with lowered brain capacity unable to think about what to do next.  The best example I can think of for pre-mortem is the CPR training I took when I was teaching high school.  Repeat the steps until they come naturally.  BE PREPARED so that panic does not have a chance to set in.

PULSE is a pre-mortem for high conflict and difficult conversations.  With PULSE training you have a set of tried and true questions to guide you through a conflict situation.  Even if your brain has moved to fight, flight or freeze because you are feeling threatened, you will have an automoatic system, a structured conversation to use as a guide to get you to a calmer place.  AND you will also have practiced skills for defusing the other persons perception of threat.  This kind of preparation allows you to get to a place where clearer heads prevail, where the corisol caused by the stress has disappated.

Step one: Prepare for the Conversation … ask How will the conversation proceed?

Step two: Uncover the Circumstance … ask What is this about?

Step three: Learn the Signficiance … ask Why is it important?

Step four: Search the Possibilities … ask What could you do?

Step five: Explain a Plan of Action … ask What will you do?

And don’t forget to breath ….