GOING DEEPER: Elements of the Experiential Array

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External Behavior

External Behavior is significant since it is the interface between you and the world. It is through your external behavior (what you say and do) that you are known to, and have an impact on, the world. External Behavior includes any whole body movements, part body movements, postures, tempos, facial expressions, or verbalizations that contribute significantly to the manifestation of the ability.

Throughout most of human history, and in most societies, the elders in the community were respected and consulted for their experience. There was good reason for this. There still is:

When the first child of one of the authors was born, the boy did not cry. Instead, he burbled quietly and looked around. This, as it turned out, was a ruse. In fact, he could cry with the best of them. His father held him, walked, rocked, jiggled, cooed, jostled, patted and fed him. These ploys generally had no effect. (This was not entirely true. The author's efforts usually had the effect of intensifying the crying.) And these failures were all the more galling because the author's mother-in-law, Dotty, could comfort the boy within a minute (not "minutes," but a minute). Was this ability to soothe a baby the genetic prerogative of grandmothers? Could it be learned by a man in his twenties?

Dotty rocked the baby in the same creaky rocking chair that the author used. Deciding that it must be the pace of her rocking that made her so effective, he adopted that same pace when rocking his son. The boy only continued to cry. Next the author noticed that grandma also patted the child's bottom in the syncopated rhythm of a beating heart. Confident now, the author added this element to his approach, rocking and pat-patting that bottom just as he had seen it done by Dotty. But his son did not care about his father's confidence, and continued to cry. His father even experimented with patting variations, all of which either had no effect or had the effect of promoting crying into wailing.

As if he was trying to spot from where a card shark was pulling all those aces, the desperate author began to closely scrutinize grandma's technique, looking for the subtle trick she was playing. What he eventually noticed was that she set her mouth in a very distinctive way as she rocked the baby: her lips were slightly pursed, and the corners turned down a bit. The author practiced this face a few times, then took up his crying son, rocked him and patted his bottom in syncopation. And when the author also pursed his lips and turned down the corners of his mouth... it worked.

The Interface

This will be one of our shortest essays, and this despite the fact that in it we discuss the one aspect of modeling that is of primary interest to people: behavior. It is understandable that the initial inclination for most of us is to focus on behavior. After all, our interest in someone's ability is, ultimately, a desire to reproduce in ourselves that person's behavior. That is what is most obvious about a person and that is where the action is. And those actions make possible the outcomes we hope to attain by making those abilities our own. So, why is this essay short? Because the processes that make all that external behavioral action possible take place on the inside.

Previously our focus has been on the structure of internal experience. The mostly internal processes that constitute our beliefs, strategies and emotions capture the lion's share of our attention in our approach to modeling because, as we have pointed out several times, behavior is largely a manifestation of those internal processes. All of us have examples of this, of times when we have tried to behave in ways that were different from how we felt. What happens? The behavior is usually incongruent and difficult to maintain, and requires constant vigilance. Even if we feel we have pulled it off, it will have taken a lot of effort. Essentially, we were fighting ourselves, or (to be more precise) fighting to squelch the behaviors that would have been a natural expression of how we were thinking and feeling.

We have also repeatedly tried to hammer home the fact that none of the elements of experience operates independently of the others. Nor is one element of experience responsible for conferring an ability, just as no one musical instrument is responsible for a symphony. An ability is something that emerges from the dynamics of the various elements of experience operating together. And of course this orchestra of experience includes External Behavior.

External Behavior can be something as obvious as "running around the room" or as subtle as "leaning slightly forward." It can be simple, like "a raised eyebrow," or complex, like "explaining my perspective to the other people." And it can be the use of certain words, as when one typically prefaces an explanation with "I would like to give my opinion," or it can be the tonality with which things are said, as when one says "I would like to give my opinion" in a squeaky and hesitant voice. So, by "External Behavior" we are referring to everything that we do on the outside: anything that can be seen or heard by someone else and, in the context of modeling, only those things that are necessary for an ability to work:

External Behaviors are those behaviors, movements, facial expressions, verbalizations and voice tonalities that are significant in manifesting an ability.

It is obvious that we behave, and that our behavior has effects. External Behavior is so evident to us - so much what we notice and talk about - that we do not accord it the level of regard that it actually deserves. And that is this: In terms of the world, our thoughts, cogitations and feelings mean nothing. Our behaviors, however, mean everything. Of course, what each of us thinks and feels means something to us, and that is fine. But it is important to recognize that it is only through behavior that we have an impact on the world, or that the world knows us. The only way the world can know the opinions forming, the discoveries unveiling, the ideas sparking, the visions appearing, and the feelings stirring inside the vast world of your experience is through what you do; through your facial expressions, and through what you say and how you say it. Behavior is the only interface between you and the world.

Why Not Use Only External Behavior?

Since it is through External Behavior that we interface with the world, why not simply devote our modeling efforts to identifying essential behaviors and adopting them? There are three important reasons:

ACCESS - Of course there are some abilities for which External Behavior seems to be sufficient. Soothing a crying baby is an example of just such an ability. It is important to remember, though, that none of us are ever just our behavior (nor are we ever just our feelings or just our thoughts); we always come as a package. Undoubtedly, when the author set his mouth in just the same way as grandma, that unique facial behavior led to many subtle - though significant - dynamic shifts in how he was thinking and feeling as well. And, in a cascade of effects, these internal shifts probably created other, behavioral shifts that were essential to his successfully soothing his son (for instance, affecting how firmly he patted his son's bottom, or how relaxed he was in the rest of his own body).

Still, for most human abilities, merely mimicking External Behavior does not give us sufficient access to essential internal processes. Being able to forgive someone, debugging computer programs, or appreciating modern art are all examples of abilities for which patterns of belief and thinking are essential. Holding out your hand to someone who has wronged you will not necessarily create the empathy needed to actually forgive that person; but feeling that empathy is likely to make it easy and natural to hold out your hand to him. Similarly, scrolling through screens of computer code will not reveal to you what to respond to as you scan those lines; and peering at the paint-spattered canvasses of Jackson Pollock may not reveal to you how to engage with his paintings.

Of course External Behavior may be important or even crucial to successfully manifesting a particular ability, but only manifesting the behaviors does not give us access to the necessary internal processes. Internal processes generally guide and inform External Behaviors much more strongly than do External Behaviors guide and inform internal processes. (This is the "flow of effect" we talked about in Essay 3.) Because of this, for most abilities merely manifesting the External Behaviors involved does not give sufficient access to the internal processes that actually make the ability work.

RELIABILITY - A second reason for not confining our modeling to External Behavior is found in the automaticity with which most true competencies operate. The exemplar of an ability does not consciously put herself through the Behavioral paces of her ability, but instead automatically responds with competent External Behaviors. It is important to keep in mind that experience comes as a package. Behaviors do not operate in spite of thoughts, thoughts in spite of feelings, feelings in spite of beliefs. The dynamic combining of all of these elements within a context is our experience. If an ability is reliable - that is, we can be assured of it operating when it is needed - it is because the person has an internal structure of experience that supports the needed External Behavior.

Behavior that is not supported by congruent internal processes will not persist over time. For instance, most of us have personal experience with trying to hold a teenager to his or her responsibility for taking out the garbage. (In fact, most of us have been on both sides of this experience.) Despite explanations, exhortations, promises and reminders, that garbage stays put, even to the point of over-flowing. The concerns that are operating in a parent's experience regarding taking out the garbage are not to be found in the experience of most teenagers. But eventually these nascent adults reach a time in their lives when those concerns are found in them, and then they take out the garbage without needing to be told. (And so, years later, can be mystified by their own children's inability to remember such a simple task.) But until then, that behavior is not an integral part of their experience, and the way the trash typically gets taken out is through parental vigilance. The only way un-integrated behavior can persist is through vigilance, that is, through consciously exerting oneself to manifest the behavior when it is needed. (Of course, vigilance can maintain a behavior long enough that it leads to a reorganization of internal structure, which then supports the manifestation of the behavior without further need of vigilance. We speak more about this in Essay 18: Acquisition.)

DEPTH - Exemplary abilities are usually robustly responsive, which is the third reason for modeling the internal processes behind the External Behavior. If you try to manifest an ability solely by clothing yourself in its External Behavior, the unpredictability of the real world will soon unfrock you. Having only the behavior, you become an automaton, and your ability becomes brittle, precarious and easily overwhelmed. Life is not an assembly line, offering you the same two pieces of metal to bolt together again and again. It will instead throw at you all kinds of experiences in endless combinations. Most exemplars of an ability operate within a range of External Behavior, rather than hewing to a rigidly specified set. Because of the variability in real life, true competency is revealed when a person can continue to competently manifest an ability even as the demands of the situation change. This flexibility of response comes from those internal processes that guide and inform External Behavior.

Of course, the structure of one's internal processes may themselves be so narrow and regimented that they are just as unresponsive to changing situations as are prescribed External Behaviors. But this is almost never the case with people who are exemplars. One of the reasons they are exemplars of a particular ability is precisely because they have a structure of experience that allows them to flexibly respond when manifesting their ability.

EXTERNAL BEHAVIOR AND MODELING

Access, reliability and depth; for these reasons it is usually essential to explore the exemplar's internal processes as well as her External Behaviors. The flow of effect regarding the elements of experience does not mean that External Behavior can be ignored; only that it is probably not in and of itself sufficient to manifest competence in an ability. (In some cases, however, External Behavior may be sufficient - along with vigilance and practice - to acquire competence. That is, External Behavior may, in time, generate the internal structures needed to maintain it in a reliable and robust way. See Essay 18: Acquisition.)

Identifying the External Behavior of an ability is not a problem when we are modeling an ability that operates in a very narrowly defined context, such as that of soothing a baby. But what happens when the ability operates in a relatively wide context that is subject to all kinds of variables? For instance, the ability to forgive is not only a matter of saying, "I forgive you" in a certain tone of voice, accompanied by appropriate gestures. Forgiving a loved one may involve External Behaviors that are somewhat different than those for forgiving a stranger on the street, or a nation, or oneself. Does all this mean that, for most abilities, is it necessary to catalogue ALL of the exemplar's patterns of External Behavior?

Fortunately not. The relationship between External Behaviors and the internal processes that mandate them is actually a great advantage to us in modeling. Very simply, most of the External Behaviors that are significant in an ability will be naturally generated by the ability's internal experiential structures.

Of course, no amount of modeling of an exemplar will encompass all of her experience and, so, will also not account for all of the exemplar's behavior. But that is okay because we do not want to become the exemplar; we want to acquire enough of her structure of experience to be able to manifest the ability that she has. And so we need to reproduce in our own behavior only those External Behaviors that are essential for the ability. In addition to what is essential for the ability, the exemplar will manifest an endless variety of other behaviors that are either "irrelevant" or "idiosyncratic":

*    "IRRELEVANT" behaviors are those behaviors that have little or no connection to the ability itself. Suppose we are modeling an architect for her ability to design spaces that fit the people who live in them. We notice that, as she is creating possible spaces in her imagination, she sits, breathes, blinks, sharpens her pencil, answers phone calls, sips tea and so on. It is probably the case that none of these External Behaviors is relevant to the ability to design homes that fit people. They may be important aspects of other abilities simultaneously operating in her world (answering the telephone may be essential to the ability to maintain business connections, for example, and sipping tea may be her way of keeping alert), but these behaviors are not relevant to the simultaneously operating ability of home design. As usual, the way to determine whether or not a particular piece of behavior is irrelevant is by stepping-in and testing it in your experience: does it make a difference in your ability to manifest the ability?

*    "IDIOSYNCRATIC" behaviors are those behaviors that are essential for the exemplar to manifest her ability, but are not essential for the ability itself. In the example of the architect, for instance, suppose we discover that as she is creating possible spaces she taps her teeth with a pencil. To test out the importance of this behavior, we take the pencil away from her and discover that she suddenly has great difficulty running her internal design strategy. This strongly suggests that tooth-tapping is essential for this exemplar to be able to manifest her ability. Do we then need to tap our teeth as well if we want to be successful using her strategy? Or is this an example of the exemplar's idiosyncratic behavior, behavior that is not really necessary to reproduce in the model? We can answer this by stepping-in and testing whether or not teeth-tapping makes a difference in our ability to manifest the ability. We can also sort idiosyncratic from essential by comparing this exemplar with other exemplars of the same ability. If we find that all of them tap their teeth as well, then probably it is a naturally necessary External Behavior for this particular ability. If the other exemplars do not tap their teeth, then this is idiosyncratic behavior, and is not necessary to include in the model.

When modeling we are not interested in capturing External Behavior that is either irrelevant or is idiosyncratic. And we have no need to capture all of those External Behaviors that naturally emerge when we operate out of the exemplar's structure of experience. What then does that leave for the model in terms of External Behaviors?

What we want to be sure to include in our model are those External Behaviors which are essential to the ability, but which one might not necessarily and naturally do as a consequence of operating out of the exemplar's internal structure. In other words, behaviors that would not occur to you to do if you had not been told to do them. For instance, suppose an essential piece of External Behavior for the architect is that she relaxes the muscles of her body as she is designing. In eliciting her Strategy for imagining spaces and feeling what her clients would feel, we might not discover this behavior of relaxing the muscles of her body. More importantly, what we do learn about her Strategy may not lead us automatically to relax our muscles when we take it on. (Perhaps making the extensive internal visualizations involved in her Strategy creates tension in our bodies!) In this case, then, "Relax the muscles in your body" becomes an element of External Behavior that is both essential to the ability and (because we cannot rely on the rest of the Array to automatically initiate it) necessary to note explicitly in the model.

In modeling Lenny's ability to maintain a diet to control his diabetes, we found one External Behavior that emerged as both significant and not necessarily an automatic consequence of taking on the internal structures of his experience: "I talk about it [dieting to control his diabetes] a lot with other people." This External Behavior is not mandated by the structure of experience we had already modeled from Lenny. (There is also an underlying structure for "Talk about it a lot with other people," as there is for everything we do. But the ability to do that is not what we are modeling in Lenny, so it appears as a piece External Behavior. If we had difficulty with doing it, we could model his ability to talk a lot with others about his diet regimen.)

And yet, when you take on that behavior, you immediately discover its effect on, and importance to, the ability to maintain the diet. To begin with, talking a lot with other people about dieting to control his diabetes reinforces why he is doing it, strengthening the cause-effects and keeping in his awareness the significance of his present choices to his future. In addition, people very often praise him for what he is doing, and are obviously impressed and interested. This validates what he is doing and his effort, as well as creating a community of support. And finally, each time he talks about what he is doing and why, it creates a public recommitment - a personal reaffirmation - to the difficult path he is on. This, then, is a piece of his External Behavior that we want to be sure to include in the model of his ability to maintain a diet.

* * *

One of the simplifying attributes of the Array is that it captures primarily those elements of experience that are operating as the exemplar is manifesting her ability. Still, sometimes we find something that, though operating "outside of the Array," nevertheless contributes to the ease and competence with which the exemplar manifests the ability. The Array makes a place for these "contributing factors," and they are described in the next essay.

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