INTRO
“I talk about the 4×4 Conversation Method every month, and providers usually ask for more details on it, says Greg Mayo, Men’s Healing Strategist. “So, today we’re going to be talking about it in more detail.”
Greg begins with information and examples. Then Greg and Nyles, Men’s Healing Coordinator, role play to show how the use of this method can vary in conversations.
In the first role play, Greg is a PRC employee and Nyles is an abortion-minded client. Then they switch roles with Nyles as a PRC employee and Greg as an abortion–wounded client.
4X4 CONVERSATION METHOD INTRO
Greg begins by stating broadly what the 4×4 question method is: “four questions wide, four deep.” He explains how encountered the method through his time in sales training. He presents the overlap of how sales and helping people go hand in hand. “If you’re doing sales right, whatever you’re selling, that’s what you’re trying to do– you’re trying to help people,” he says.
Greg explains that learning how this method originated “is very useful and helpful in helping us understand why this thing works, how it came about, and some ways we can take different ideas that people had about it over the centuries, literally, and apply those to what we’re doing today.”
SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND
“Seek first to understand, and then to be understood,“ Greg starts with a quote from Steve Covey, who wrote Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and The Eighth Habit. He states that having an agenda, a metric you’re trying to gauge, when a guy walks into your center is already putting you on the losing end of the battle.
Greg reiterates that you must search to understand. You can’t begin to help somebody if you don’t know them. You can’t move forward without knowing who they are, what they are, what they need, and where they’re coming from.
“That’s a lot of what this 4×4 question method is about. It’s getting to know the man that you’re getting ready to serve,” Greg says. He emphasizes the need to set aside judgment and bias so that we can truly listen to the man.
FROM THE COURT TO THE FIELD- ADAPTING SKILLS
Greg uses an image of a basketball and a soccer ball to share his personal experience and what he learned and applied. He illustrates his experience by stating he became a parent and began coaching. He realized that he knew how to play soccer but not coach it. This difference in roles made him begin to realize he could use concepts from basketball then apply them to soccer and did so with great success. [You can watch him explain the full personal experience at 6:40 in the replay video.]
He expresses this method really worked, “The kids really got it. We even did, if any of you are 90s basketball fans, we did a version of Phil Jackson’s motion offense in soccer. On a full field, a full pitch, right? And we even integrated that on the defense. It was a beautiful thing.”
He uses that experience to explain how the 4×4 method he learned from sales can be used with clients to get to the bottom of what’s going on.
ORIGINAL 4×4 BLUEPRINT: ARISTOTLE’S ANCIENT HACKS
Greg starts with presenting the “origin story” of the 4×4 method, explaining that it comes from Aristotle’s second book, “Posterior Analytics.” He says Aristotle uses this method for science discovery and shows how we can apply it as well.
Greg simplifies the first question Aristotle asked: That it is? as you want to know that it is, that it exists. You have to ask questions to understand what the problem is.
Next he speaks of understanding Why it is. What is the client’s why for being here? Maybe it’s,” I’ve been wounded, I’m scared, I’m mad, I’m angry, I’m confused, I’m anxious, I’m whatever. We have to understand the why.” Greg brings home how important the why is and its value to understanding the client’s needs.
He dives into the next question Aristotle spoke of, Whether it is”.Greg says this comes back to our assumptions. He uses the example of a client coming in and the provider needing to ask questions and not just assuming what that the client is wounded.
To finish with Aristotle’s methods, Greg presents the fourth question, What it is, and the need to ask questions to get at the client’s “what.”
Greg summarizes Aristotle used this method for science and how we can use it for serving men in our centers.
GETTING TO THE REAL DEAL WITH SOCRATIC SKILLS
Greg progresses on with the conversation and speaks of Socrates. He explains the Socratic questioning method: “It’s systematic, it’s disciplined, and it’s deep.” The method focuses on fundamental concepts, principles, theories, issues, or problems.
Greg talks about dissecting complex ideas with abortion-minded guys who comes into a center. He encourages providers to look at the complicated, complex issues that may be at play in the guy’s experience. He circles back to our prior Men’s Healing Matters webinar “Addressing Absent Father Wounds “ to illustrate this.
“Let’s say his dad wasn’t around, and he has no example how to be a dad,” Greg says. “And now he’s surprised with the prospect of being a father.” Let’s say he just got laid off from his job, and he’s not sure with the three part time jobs he’s working, what he’s going to do about a kid. He doesn’t have insurance. He and the significant other who are experiencing this pregnancy together, maybe they’ve only known each other a few months.”
Greg uses these examples to show how using the 4×4 questioning method could get to the meat of what’s really going on. “If we look at him as somebody that’s coming in with one issue, which is he’s either abortion-minded or abortion wounded, then we miss an opportunity to truly understand.”
Next, Greg moves to “challenge assumptions”. He says we should split this into two different lanes. We first have to challenge our own assumptions. “Who is this guy? What does he look like? Is he young, old, white, black, tall, short? Does he look wealthy? Does he look poor? I mean, you can go down the whole list, right? Does he have a Southern accent or a British accent? I mean, the list is endless. Whatever your assumptions are looking at this dude when he walks in, you’ve got to check them. Check your bias.” He mentions this is one of Support After Abortion’s Four Steps when encountering someone impacted by abortion.
Greg moves to the second part of “challenge assumptions” and explains the need to challenge the man’s assumptions. “He may not have any understanding of exactly what or who you are. He probably doesn’t know who you are or what you represent.”
Greg paints the picture of a man walking into a pregnancy center out of desperation. So he says the man enters a pregnancy center but his initial thoughts are “this is one of those Christian places where they’re going to tell me I’m a sinner and need Jesus”
Greg explains the way you challenge his assumptions is by being a good listener, asking good questions, and being truly empathetic.
Next, Greg focuses on the need to “uncover the truth,” which we do again “by asking the good, the right questions, and keep asking questions.”
Greg shares, “In my travels, when I’m out and about … if I see a guy that looks really, really angry and intense, my first thought is, what’s he afraid of? Because oftentimes fear is what’s right below anger. And right below fear is what my kids would say is the real, real, right? The real issue.”
Greg says when we get to the truth of what’s really going on, then we’re really close to being in a place where we can help because then “we understand what he actually needs.”
LESSONS FROM THE MONK: WHY TELLING DOESN’T WORK
Greg explains that “We don’t tell them what they need or what they need to do. We help them think through their own thoughts and feelings and uncover what they need. And we do that with questions.”
He expands on this thought with a personal story: “By the time I met my wife, I was 28 and I had spent, those of you that know my story, years and years in different kinds of recovery… I’d read countless self-help books, listened to my dad and his recovery buddies talk about recovery ideas and theories, and even went to seminars, and I’d been to therapy.”
He brings focus to his point that he thought he knew what he was doing, but how he connected what a Buddhist monk wrote, “Monasteries are great, but the great proving ground for what you think you know is relationship.”
Greg continues his story of his time in management when he told people what they needed to do and thought that was the correct way. He explains that when he got married and had kids, he realized that doesn’t work. He emphasizes that it took him a while to understand that you can’t tell people what they need to do or what they need to know. Greg says “it took me a while to understand that what I needed to do, if I wanted to share something that I thought would be helpful, is to help them through asking questions, help them sort through their own thoughts and feelings, and then they uncover what they need.”
“That’s a huge differing,” Greg says between telling someone what they need instead of letting them get to that place on their own.
He illustrates the scenario of a man coming in to receive support and that if you tell him what he “needs” to know and “needs” to do, you may think the conversation went well, but he’ll likely be one of the guys you never see again.
Concluding, Greg says with the Socratic questioning, we don’t tell people what to do but instead use the questions to uncover the truth. And he offers a reminder that the first step is to recognize that there are complex issues.
RELATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
Greg introduces relational psychology: “It focuses on improving a person’s awareness of the role of relationships and patterns in those relationships.”
He clarifies that it’s not social psychology, which is a study of how groups of people think, and interact, but instead “it’s a focus on relating to other people – how relationships work, how people relate.”
LET’S PLAY A GAME: 3 QUESTIONS & 3 DEEP WHY’S
Greg talks about a game or process from kindtomind.org that uses simple questions to practice on how to learn about someone with three simple questions . He suggests providers work on them with a staff member or someone you trust.
He starts off by asking the simple question “What’s your favorite color?” He says you may not see it as a very deep question, but it can be. You can watch this 3×3 Game role play starting at 20:04.
He summarizes this monologue role play on the question, What is your favorite color? by saying he didn’t let it end with the simple answer. He reminds us that we’re breaking down Socrates’ complex ideas even with a question as basic as what your favorite color is.
WHY ASK PROBING QUESTIONS?
“It’s very important to take the time to ask the next question,” Greg says. “That’s the only way you’re going to find out what the next thing is and get to the real problem.” He suggests, based on an article from copper.com, that it’s not that you aren’t asking the right questions, but it is likely that you’re asking them in the wrong way.
Greg then illustrates that if he were meeting with a guy who came in to a pregnancy resource center and sat down with a clipboard and started going through a list of 27 questions, he would lose the guy who is coming in looking for support. He clarifies that he’s not saying the questions aren’t important, but that he is questioning when they are being asked and why. He suggests there will be time to get to your questions after you first “figure out who he is and what he needs.”
He advises that providers integrate their questions throughout the conversation to give the natural and comforting feel. He connects this idea to his work in management and sales, and says, “I understand there’s stuff you need to know about the client or potential client coming through your door, but ask him questions in a different way. Have a conversation and learn who he is.”
Greg explains, “If you talk to him and get to know who he is, what’s making him tick at the moment, what’s bothering him at the moment, and help him find the path to what’s really going on and then a path out, now you’ve established trust. If he knows, likes, and trusts you, he will come back and see you and you can build relationship. Then he will go the path of learning how to be a dad or finding healing for his abortion experience.”
He presents an example of a conversation between an uncle and his nephew from the copper.com article. You can watch this dialgoue starting at 27:09.
ROLE PLAY 1
Greg presents the first role play – a conversation between Greg as a PRC employee and Nyles as a guy coming in who is abortion-minded. You can watch the role play starting at 28:54.
ROLE PLAY 2
In the second role play, Nyles is now the PRC employee and Greg is a man coming in with an abortion wound. You can watch this role play starting at 37:35.
ROLE PLAY ROUND UP
After the role plays were finished, Greg brought attention to his and Nyles’ different styles of asking questions. He emphasized how Nyles spoke of feelings and Greg didn’t use the words, but explained certain feelings which Nyles, the client, dug down into.
QUICK RECAP
Greg expresses that the 4X4 Conversation Method can be used at any time, such as sales, facilitation, leading groups, and talking to your spouse or children. He recaps the main points of the webinar: the origin from Aristotle’s Analytics, the Socratic method, and relational psychology. He reiterated the value in asking probing questions. And highlighted how the role plays provided examples of what good probing questions can yield in client care.
© Support After Abortion