Crafty Listening     

Logical Levels

Miscommunication and misunderstanding occur when people ‘process’ on different Levels. ‘Targeting’ appropriate levels can improve the effectiveness of our interventions and enhance the quality of our relationships. Combining them with Clean Language Questions is very powerful!

Spirit

Above and beyond our ordinary everyday interactions is another dimension, another level of energy. This energy will prompt either loving or fearful relationships, behaviours, beliefs or Identities.

Relationship

This is the way we expresses ourselves with other people. Our values and beliefs will determine and manifest in our relationships with people, other living creatures, and things. Relationship is the context in which our behaviours, values, capabilities make sense or have purpose.

Identity

This is who we are, what we believe ourselves to be and hope others will recognise. Many people are very insecure and cannot separate out their opinions (values and beliefs) from their identity. This often stems from insecurity or lack of self esteem.

Values

Our sense of what is right and wrong, what is permissible or not, what is the way to behave. Values ‘tell’ us what and who matters. At best they underpin guiding principles - but people tend to have ‘wish lists’ of values which are dependent rather than guiding principles, i.e. they do not “walk their talk”.

Beliefs

Most people's value / beliefs are handed down to them. They are seldom updated beyond late teens – maybe not even since early childhood. Our sense of 'permission' will be influenced by what we were (are) told by authority figures as well as our beliefs about who we are and what we are capable of.

Capabilities

The skills and abilities that we have, or that we (believe we) can develop.

Behaviour

What we do. Our actions - verbal and physical - in reaction to or designed to change or influence our various environments

Environment

Environment sets limits on and creates opportunities for action and encompasses all other levels. Basically, it’s any given time and space (where and when)

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You will perhaps have noticed that the levels in this box are inverted compared to the list above.
Every level intertwines with and impacts on every other level. Indeed, thinking of them as levels is only really useful for considering them in a dynamic sense.

The environment, for example, which is basically time and place - where or when - offers opportunities for and sets constraints on our behaviour.

Behaviour is what we do at any given time and place. We might know what to do and when and where to do it, but lack the necessary skills or capability.

If we do know how, we might be hampered by limiting beliefs and bedrock assumptions about what is allowed or worthwhile or worth the effort. Or we might have values that do not encourage us or serve us well. Low self-esteem, for example, is just such a value.

Everything we do says something about who we think we are; our personal sense of self i.e. Identity.

We express ourselves, and our sense of self by the way we experience and demonstrate our relationship to everything else i.e. all the other 'levels'.

Changes on any level may affect the levels 'above' - and will affect all the levels 'below'.

This is not a tablet of stone! Do consider whether this framework might give you different, useful insights into problem solving, conflict resolution, information gathering and decision making.

Combining Logical Levels, Clean Questions and Well Formed Outcomes creates a powerful way of discussing, debating, deciding important or trivial matters.

Spirit can be thought of as the energy or attitude with which we approach anything: the environment, our own and other people's behaviour, developing or relinquishing certain skills, rethinking fixed beliefs and outdated values, re-evaluating our sense of self, and reconsidering how we relate to self and others.