Tips for Educators
The Conservation Professional's Guide to Working With People can be used in natural resources classes where there is an emphasis on human dimensions skills. I have taught classes to graduate and undergraduate students on the techniques, and workshops to professionals in state and federal agencies. The book can also be used for a seminar series of classes
Below are a few tips that I use when teaching the techniques. Come back to the site for regular updates!
When demonstrating the verbal judo techniques, I will have the students criticize something about me (anything is fair game and they can be as critical as they want!). I will then show them how I use verbal judo to deflect their criticism and share my point of view in a non-threatening manner. Once they understand the principles, I will then turn the tables on them and become the critic and they are expected to answer me using the verbal judo techniques!
I find that teaching about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and especially Cialdini's Influence Techniques is helped by having the students watch short video clips of these techniques in action. The students can identify what influence technique(s) is being used, and the effect it might have. Political speeches, clips from the cinema, and even commercials can be used to demonstrate influence in action. You can find a host of good clips on http:/youtube. I use Nixon's checkers speech, John F. Kennedy's Berlin Wall Speech, the Crying Indian commercial from the Ad Council to name a few.
For a dramatic depiction of the increasing world population, show the video World Population Growth. This video is the best demonstration I have seen yet for the comment "a picture is worth a thousand words," and helps show why working with people is so important for the conservation professional.
Practice negotiation is useful for students in class. Break the students up into groups and give them points for meeting their interests in a negotiation, and appropriately using verbal judo if contentious issues arise. Students get time outside of class to prepare for the negotiation, and in class they are expected to determine the interests of both parties, invent options for mutual gain, and use objective criteria and other factors to arrive at an option. Issues for the negotiation can be made up; however, students also enjoy being exposed to a real problem to try to negotiate a solution, and then their results are compared with the actual outcome.
Speakers from government, academia and industry demonstrate how these skills are used in real life. Students typically are unaware the degree to which people skills are important in a biological field like conservation. Speakers can reinforce the importance of people skills, and give relevant examples of how they have used these skills in their career. I have brought agency directors, experienced biologists, media experts and government negotiators into my classes to speak.
