"The training has made a lasting impression on me. For me, Andy and Cees opened up an area of expertise that I've been trying to acquire for years, but none of my teachers could make the implicit knowledge they had in that area explicit. How to connect to people, so that they will open up to you?
But finally, Cees made it explicit. His models are an easy to understand depiction of a reality we all know, but which is centered in the heart, in the feelings, and therefore very hard to translate into words. What to say, what intent do you need to make people trust you, to be trustworthy?
It seems so simple but it's actually a highly developed skill. Thanks to Cees, it's now a skill that can be acquired in less than the many years of practice it would have taken otherwise."
Meaningful Relations Communication Trainings
Every management book or self help guide points to listening as the quintessential aspect for continued success. What they don't reveal is that there is a science (or art if you prefer) to it. Listening can be learned.
Listening goes hand-in-hand with the ability to ask significant questions. The better questions we are able to ask, the more impact we have in our contacts with others. Socrates himself for instance, gained recognition for the questions that he asked as opposed to his writings. Questions create opportunities where the mind is unresolved and incapable of action.
It may sound like a cliché but in the question lies the answer. Understanding how questions facilitate meaning (and the experience of flow to arise) is a process that can be learned. Questions expand our current frame of reference, integrating everything we know and adding the bits that bring us closer to ourselves and the goals that we have in mind.
And this can all be learned in 3 days.
9 minute introduction to Meaningful Relations
This is a video recorded question & answer session with Cees de Bruin, the co-founder of Qbist and head developer of the Meaningful Relations training program. In this condensed 9 minutes of edited footage, Cees introduces the training experience, the methodology and the things that participants can expect to take away from their participation.
Audio: English Subtitles: Dutch Run time: 9:05
It’s hard to listen to yourself over your own voice. Yet in the discovery of meaningful relations, connecting with others is very much connected with the ability to listen to yourself. As Doug Larson once said, "Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk." It may seem like stating the obvious, but the mind has gotten into the habit of dispensing thoughts and ideas into the world. It happens, unaware. Gaining awareness around this process in yourself is an opportunity to rediscover and completely alter the possibilities.
Questions, when connected to a new awareness, are the most effective means of discovering anew. How to generate such questions? What to take into account? How to use them as a means of improving interactions as such?
Experiencing a wisdom that was yours to begin with
This is a compilation of 5 interviews with former participants of the Meaningful Relations Training Program. All interviewees took part in the 3-day training and the interviews were shot weeks or months after the conclusion of the training period.
Longer versions of all of these interviews (with subtitles) are also available.
Audio: English / Dutch Subtitles: English / Dutch Run time: 9:24
How the training works? The most direct and least decorated description would be that skills are used to create awareness, which is then used to increase consciousness, where new meaning takes shape. Yes, this is a mouthful, but it is actually quite simple. This is to say that skills are not the end goal, but rather the means to facilitate discovery around our shared human condition.
Participants adopt new behavior as the by-product of their own realizations. The bonus to this approach is that behavior is not imitated or forced. If anything, at the conclusion of the training, participants will be notably more genuine in their contact, with skills integrated as a natural by-product of this new awareness.
This type of learning approach has been referred to as "Experiencial Learning". Instead of giving it a name, it could be best described as "learning by doing". It builds on your life experience and blends new experiences that broaden the possibilities of what's considered possible in contact with others.
The following video has been highlighted because it demonstrates the development of 'meaning' as a researched and recognizable state. Martin Seligman illustrates how positive psychology, and the development of meaning, have come as a welcomed alternative to more familiar developmental approaches.
Video Spotlight - A cutting-edge perspective on meaning
This is a presentation done by Martin Seligman in Monterey, California.
In this video, Martin presents his vision on the current state of psychology and brings forward the context for meaning in the development of one's state of being.
Audio: English Run time: 25:05
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 9.0.115!
Business Roles as the focus of Meaningful RelationsSales Role: Salespeople are placed in an arduous position. They are bound by results that depend on others, and at the same time, they are asked to build trust and create meaningful contact with the people that they are interacting with. A contradiction that appears irreconcilable. Or is it?
What salespeople will have at the end of this training is a consciousness of where their determination to “get a deal in” blocks the exact results that they are looking to achieve. And most important, the salesperson will not be limited by this awareness, but intuitively know what to do next. ContinueManagement Role: In this training, people with management responsibilities will learn how to adopt questions as a highly developed skill / consciousness. You could consider this a crash course in coaching, but it is certainly more than just that.
Participants will discover how the mind works when it is confronted with an obstacle and make use of this awareness to generate questions. It is the art of simultaneously taking away barriers and adding motivation in an interaction. In the well-known book by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, he describes this as the state of “flow”. Continue
Experiences Shared
Rani Piputri Financial Advisor
The training was an eye-opener, an ear-opener and a heart-opener. I have been very skeptical about “soft skill” trainings.
In this limited training period I have already experienced a tremendous shift in my life. I honestly did not expect this.
Audio: English, Run time: 4:50
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 9.0.115!
Trudy Mulder Business Owner
The best way to describe the experience of the training is a face lift on the inside.
I did not imagine that 24 hours after beginning the training I would be able to use what I learned so effortlessly.
It may sound overly dramatic but it feels like I've seen the light.
Audio: Dutch, Subtitles: English Run time: 4:43
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 9.0.115!
Peter Mijderwijk Business Owner
To compress my experience in this training to sound bite would not cover the depth of emotions that I have.
An energy begins to flow that you did not know was there.
Audio: Dutch, Subtitles: English, Run time: 4:50
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 9.0.115!
Fernand Veldkamp Marketing Manager
Independent of what you think you already know, find out what you are missing.
It was exciting and challenging to experience how pre-determined my actions were in my contact with others. It’s incredible to see what happens when the patterns no longer predetermine your life.
Language: Dutch, Subtitles: English, Run time: 4.26 minutes
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 9.0.115!
Mischa Spin Project / Program Manager
For me the training brought meaning back into my life.
What I took away from the training is that although you are pushed to go away from problems, it does not need to be the way.
I discovered a new freedom that puts the challenge back into my work. Language: Dutch,Subtitles: English, Run time: 4.44 minutes
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 9.0.115!
Communication Training, Stephan Covey, Leadership, Decision-Making, Communication Skills, Passion, Change Management, Buy in, Questioning Skills, Listening Skills, Empathy, Sympathie, Active Listening, Social Skills, Consultative Skills, Napoleon Hill, Negotiation, Ego, Personal Coaching, Relationship Coaching, Group Intervention, Visioning, Time management, Project Management, Human Resource Programs, Advanced Communication Training, Byron Katie, Inter-vision, Soft Skills Development, Peter Senge, Conflict Management, Buying Facilitation, Buying Cycle, Consultative Selling, Systems Thinking, Systems Selling, Listening, Mentoring, Coaching, Anthony Robbins, Consciousness, Self-Awareness, Meaning, Paradigm Shift, Group Training, Group Alignment, NLP, Compassion, emotional intelligece, critical thinking,
