Harnessing Automatic Thoughts and Behaviors
We have a couple of friends that take stunning photos of birds in flight. One of them frequently captures photos of a beautiful Barred Owl. I had always thought that they only came out at night, so I was very curious how my friend kept consistently getting such good photos of what appeared to be the same owl in broad daylight. Then finally I got the chance to find out how.
She invited us for a ride on her pontoon boat to go out into Kissimmee’s Lake Toho. It was that trip when I got the answer to her owl photography skills. We got on the boat at her house, and they drove it through a canal, and then into winding, scenic Shingle Creek.
Squirrel: While not the topic of this article, it is nice when we blend the beauty of nature in with man-made structures. It is nice to know that this amazing natural area is located within a stone’s throw of endless, daily gridlock traffic.
Shingle Creek (photo, (c) 2019 Christi Kapp
Back to the story - We rounded a bend and they stopped the boat. They took out their cell phone, connected it to a Bluetooth speaker, and started to play a YouTube video of a Barred Owl hooting.
In about three minutes, we heard a return call. We then saw and felt the rush of air as an owl swooped right over the boat. It then landed back up in a tree where it twisted its head around in curiosity. The sound had triggered an instinctual response.
When a bird does this, we call it an “instinct”. In this situation, the owl heard a competitor, thought that its space was invaded, and it came to investigate. .
When this same sort of behavior happens in a human in response to an event, we call it either a habit, or an automatic thought.
Automatic thoughts / habits are frequently associated with negative things. But - when awareness of these thoughts is used correctly, it can be a helpful tool to learn how to harness conflict to be more productive.
Owl sketch (c) 2019 Christi Kapp
When conflict events occur, this can trigger an automatic thought, which in turn triggers a destructive response. When this happens in a team, the individual interactions can rapidly spiral out of control which makes achieving team goals difficult. This situation can be changed!
To help team members learn how to “catch” and “reframe their thoughts”, DataPsy’s trainers leverage Wiley’s proven Everything DiSC® Productive Conflict facilitation toolkit.
To learn more, or to scheduling a consultation or training session, please fill out the form below. It’s possible to make your team OWL right again using the power of Productive Conflict.