Having conquered the Postulate of the Best, (everyone can only do his best in every moment of his life) the road should now be downhill, the most is done.
The question now is: what can we do, and how, in order to be able to obtain that the other, a complex system like us, self-determined and autopoietic like us, does what is good for us too.
And while we do this, also obtaining the acknowledgement of Helper from the other, in order to power his/her "route stabilizer", we constituting for the other guide and reliable reference, at least in the limited area of the things we do together, also and above all when we are not physically in his/her company ...
We have conquered the most difficult and important thing, to set the emotional interaction base, now we are able to govern it: the other is doing its best, working hard, it is impossible to be angry at the other for this ... and then?
The Seven Step technique can work, once we have achieved the Postulate of the Best ... after the initial and immediate positive acknowledgement, then straight to the point: in a few words, simple and well chosen, indicate what is not acceptable, and then stop, say no more, think of nothing else, do nothing else, stand still, let's see what the other person does.
Because the other will do something, in its virtual environment its systems work at full capacity, in the real environment, shared with us, it can remain still and silent, overthrow the dozens of reasons, justifications for its actions: in general terms, the other is now tackling with the alarm that went off due to its failure to function properly, and can deal with it in many ways.
What part we have in what is happening to him now, is one of the things that the other person, whoever he/she is, must necessarily answer: he/she can be so agitated and worried that doesn't even notice the emotional base we are on, he/she can read every detail of the real environment as a threat, and react accordingly.
Time is needed, the other needs time, and it helps if we stay still, we do not put other things into play, we stand still and wait, aware of how disquieting and hitting our silence, our quiet can be perceived... and how much this quiet, this silence pushes the other to do something, even increasing the level of agitation.
It is a calculated risk, at least the first time we use this "technique", the other still does not know which way we will follow, and, unless they are expert on the subject, not even imagine that there may be more than one way to unravel this type of skein: the basic technical scheme is applicable to seven different classic "problems" of managing the interaction with collaborators, and after some executions, the other will know from the very beginning where this does take us, and how.
Not the first time, obviously, an occasion that requires particularly careful preparation on our part.
We remain in patient observation for as long as necessary, necessary to the other to complete the first elaboration, once this was called "listening", or "active listening", but patient observation is better.
Patient observation includes listening, of the other and of ourselves, of our voices , includes the observation of physical actions, postures, gestures: the key point is to stand still, to maintain the emotional position allowed by the postulate of the best, whatever comes from the other is the fruit of its best.
Before activating the next step, it is necessary to wait until the other has finished its first processing of what is happening.
How do we understand when the other has finished his first elaboration of what is happening?
Sometimes it's easy, the other immediately begins to comment, object, justify, rail, and after a while stops, is silent: not that the elaboration of the other necessarily ceases when he/she stops telling us how things have been and are, but his/her silence generally indicates that the counterattack is sufficient for the moment.
Our silence, immediately following the brief and simple indication of what is not acceptable (attention, only of what, not of why), is not a question, it is silence, we have not asked to give an explanation and an account, we simply stayed in silence.
But that silence is a question, mute, formulated in a not too precise way, and perhaps we are not even the ones who posed it, but life itself: the other is told that what he/she has done is unacceptable, behind the unacceptability lies a threat, in the real environment maybe, perhaps a malfunction of its systems, or inadequate neural codes ... it is necessary to respond to the threat.
And he/she will do his/her best to respond adequately, while we remain still, in patient observation.
Then he/she is silent. And even that silence is a question, mute, maybe not even addressed to us, we cannot know for sure, we have no direct and total access to their virtual environments ... here, we can try to move the third step, which concerns the armored reason that makes unacceptable what we declared unacceptable.
To put it in romantic terms, this is the heart of the technique: our intent is, authentically, to protect our interlocutor from threats to its survival, to its success, aiming to modify the code that the other has used to identify what action to take and that, although fruit of its best, has produced an unacceptable result.
Sometimes it is much less easy, the flow of the words of the other seems unstoppable, infinite, or worse, to our silence the other responds with an impenetrable silence, not a gesture, not a motion, not a reaction of the face.
The seemingly endless flow must be tolerated. And how do we get along with mutism?
I do not know. I wait a bit, even a minute (and it's very long, try it), before I move ... and then I try to ask: what do you think?It generally works. Sometimes not, the impenetrable silence continues. In that case, how can we manage?
Again, I don't know, I still wait, even a minute (in my opinion, prolonging the silence beyond a minute risks turning the action into a challenge, we don't need it), and then I try to say something about silence, about its silence, like, we have a problem and you remain very quiet, really quiet... how come?
Inside the silence of the other, in response to our silence, there can be anything.
It is impossible to indicate, here or elsewhere, all the configurations that can be produced, and the punctual way to deal with each of them: we need to be able to arrive together to identify and share the good armored reason that makes unacceptable what we declared unacceptable, and that necessarily must be something that threatens the survival and success of the other.
How we get there, the emotional set we maintain, what we identify and share with each other are the first important ingredients that can allow the other to acknowledge us as a Helpers, and willingly accept our guide.
How long does it take to do this? A few minutes, the first few times ... and then less and less.
Is it worth it?