When I learned to use a golf club I just went ahead and executed the movement. It didn’t matter if it was perfect or not, the only aim was to hit the ball. A bit further into the journey, the idea became to hit the ball in the right direction and possibly even at the right distance.

I had no sense of the details of the movement.

My learning was focused on somehow executing that movement. I had no clear knowledge of the details to pay attention to. And paying attention to the details is still not my focus. It would actually prevent the movement to work out right.

But I still need to learn the details. It’s by becoming aware of the different parts of the movement and how they contribute to the result that it becomes possible to transform the movement where needed.

The work then becomes to do other exercises that help to learn the different steps and execute them correctly. Doing these exercises helps to get a sense of how that part of the movement feels and how it is executed.

It’s the same when we seek to learn how to influence systems. Communication is one of these systems which consists of so many details influencing the result that it is challenging to sense their impact. By learning to step back. By sensing where a conversation is particularly fluid or tense. By discovering our reactions to a particular element. By sensing what they mean for us. There are many more details in a conversation that, once we can see them, become our allies to bring back fluidity into a conversation.