Socratic Arts' Newsletter

A Monthly Newsletter by Roger Schank

Teaching the Unconscious

I play softball in the old guy’s softball league in Florida. I started playing a few years ago and I discovered I wasn’t really very good. This was a bit surprising since I had played in the University softball leagues while I was a professor and had only stopped playing in my forties. I wasn’t a bad player then. There hadn’t been that long a hiatus. And I was playing against people a good deal older than myself since I am rather young as recent Florida transplants go. I used to be a good hitter and I wasn’t now. The reason was easy enough to understand. In the university leagues they play fast pitch. A batter has a second or so to decide about swinging. It is all instinct, at least it was after having played for forty some odd years.

But, in Florida, old guys play slow pitch. The pitcher throws the ball in a high looping arc and it is a strike if it lands on the plate. Quite a different experience from trying to hit a ball that is zinging by your head. Should be easier, no? Not for me. It took a bit of thinking to figure out why.

I analyzed how I was swinging, when I was swinging, what kinds of pitches I was swinging at, and I came to many different conclusions. I realized I needed to wait longer before I swung. I realized I had to stop swinging at inside pitches (the ones that almost hit you.) I realized that I had to stop swinging at pitches that looked good but yet dropped in front of my feet. I realized I had to see the bat hit the “sweet spot” on the bat. I realized I needed to change my whole approach to hitting in fact.

OK. I realized a lot. I had come to many conclusions. Now what? Just do it, right? Aha. Not so simple.

You can’t just do what you know you should do. Why not? Because your unconscious isn’t listening to what you have to say.

You can tell yourself to do this that and the other but your “self” isn’t listening. Did you ever wonder why what you learned in school isn’t still in your head, or why you can’t remember what your spouse wanted you to get on your way home? Or, why the things you decide to do to improve your business or make more money or be a better person don’t actually ever get executed? The answer is simple: you can’t learn by listening – not from teachers, not from your spouse, not from helpful suggestions from wise people, and not even from yourself.

Why not? Because it is your unconscious that is in charge of executing daily activities -- from swinging a bat to driving home to talking to people you want to make an impression on, to getting along with your spouse. Your conscious can make decisions, but your unconscious pretty well does what it is in the habit of doing. The unconscious is a habit-driven processor.

Bad habits, as they say, are hard to break. Actually, all habits, good or bad, are hard to break. A new swing is really hard to develop as is a new way of selling or a new way of treating people or driving a new route home.

This is the real use of education: the creation of new habits. This can only be done in one way. The unconscious only learns in one way. It learns by repeated practice. The only teaching that works is the kind of mentoring that helps someone execute better while they are practicing.

And this brings us to my key question about education. How is a high school football coach different from a high school history teacher?

Before we attempt to answer this question we need to consider why it is an important question to consider. In general, I think most people would agree that the behavior of these two types of teachers is likely to be quite different. In our mind’s eye, we see images of yelling and crude behavior versus refined lecture and discussion. But, let’s get beyond the superficial stereotypes and think about what they teach rather than their style of teaching it.

The history teacher at his worst, teaches facts, and at his best, teaches careful analysis of sources of facts.

The football coach at his worst, teaches that someone could never possibly do something and, at his best, coaches someone to do something better.

The history teacher teaches the conscious. The football coach teaches the unconscious.

This makes sense if we view education (in school) as a conscious affair. It certainly seems to be a conscious affair. We discuss history we don’t do history. And, it makes sense in football since the coach doesn’t need players who can discuss football he needs players who can execute.

Which of these is relevant in corporate training?

For most employees it is the unconscious that needs to be taught, not the conscious.

All those power point presentations that tell employees where the bathroom is and what the company values and who is in charge of accounting and how to behave on a sales call? Forget them. No one remembers them two minutes after they hear them. And if they did happen to remember them? They wouldn’t recall the information when they need it because the information was presented to the conscious out of the experiential world in which the unconscious operates.

What to do then? All this information to convey and an unconscious who doesn’t listen. What’s a trainer to do?

Stop talking for one thing. No one is listening.

Then, figure out how the unconscious listens. One way the unconscious listens is when it sees proper behavior. Children model parents and new employees model old ones. Make sure the old ones do it right – or give trainees good models to hang out with. Another way the unconscious listens is when it is frightened or excited. The unconscious is an emotion-driven entity, quite different from the rational conscious. Talk to it emotionally. Make it care. Stories work too. Why? For the same reason people remember movies. Because they were moved by them. Stories have an emotional impact when the viewer identifies with the situation and feels that it is happening to him.

And then there is PRACTICE. The unconscious learns by practice.

So, stop telling yourself what to do. Start doing it -- in limited practice environments. And practice a lot, until your unconscious has been trained so that it can do it when you aren’t thinking about how to do it.