I have just finished some coaching with the ACU (Auto Cycle Union). They asked me to facilitate a mixture of coaching skills including some TTT, NLP and other simple to understand stuff that their coaches could understand. One thing they got quite hooked on was the very notion of the 7 +/-2. I got them to understand the brain and then linked it to understanding the filters of the brain and the way information is dealt with.

The conversation got round to that on motorcycle training days the people they were teaching to ride bikes were forgetting vital stuff. This could be a simple instruction on health and safety to a piece of vital equipment such as gloves or goggles. The group then had a discussion and the general consensus was that this caused them continual frustration especially at the start of the day usually in the first 2 hours.

Here is a scenario, a man turns up to a training day with his friend, both have never ridden a motorbike before. They are going to spend the day learning how to ride off road moto-cross bikes. In the first hour they are shown how to set up the bike, the safety features, what makes it go and stop, how you change gear an how to stay upright. They are also told about health and safety, they have to go and get kitted out with the right gear, crash helmets, fastenings straps, boots, gloves and goggles. They have to sign on, sometimes show id, show the relevant paperwork and in some instances pay for the day.

I then threw into the discussion what they had just learnt about the brain and the 7 +/- 2 pieces of information. The conversation stopped and an eerie silence came over the room. Tumbleweed blew across the courtyard outside the training room. Deep thoughtful frowns started to appear on their troubled brows and suddenly someone said……….do you think we are bombarding our delegates with too much new stuff.

I rest my case was a short reply.

Needless to say the conversation in the bar that evening (a residential 2 day course) was about what they were going to do to change the process and were very excited at the prospect of the frustrations disappearing.

Many thanks to Tall Robbie Harris for sharing his thoughts