S:DISS-X Practical Program INTRODUCTION
Selective Dynamic Inquiry System Skills eXperience
Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursdays from May 27-June 5
A Challenge.
If I could introduce you to a set of forms that not only help you develop others, but are developmental for you as well, would you give me a few minutes of your attention?
Let me try, briefly, to frame S:DISS-X as a practical way of Meeting People Where They Are while helping people have lives.
S:DISS-X refers to the selective use of seven forms of inquiry. These forms are simple enough to learn, but powerful enough to deepen over time. They are not merely discrete techniques. They function as a network. Used selectively, they help a person respond with greater awareness, restraint, fit, and effectiveness in real human situations.
The 7 Forms of Inquiry
- PING Insight
- PROBE Belief
- PROMPT RightACTION
- PERMIT Story
- PERTURB Assumptions
- PAUSE & Breathe
- PACE Change
Their power does not lie only in using one form well. Their power grows through density and frequency: more ways of using each form, more timely use across situations, and more thoughtful combinations as context shifts. Over time, what first appears simple becomes simplicity on the other side of complexity.
At the foundation of this work is pCc: potential, CAPACITY, and capability. In every interaction, we are listening for pCc so we can better meet people where they are rather than where we assume they should be. Because people live in changing Culture, Conditions, and Requirements, effective helping always depends on fit.
S:DISS-X is not just about asking better questions. It’s about perceiving context, recognizing readiness, and offering more appropriate help.
As these seven forms become more available, helping becomes less reactive and more generative. Interactions become more developmental, not only for the person being helped, but for the helper as well.
This work supports a range of helping functions, including:
Helping Functions
- → Cuing
- → Scaffolding
- → Supporting
- → Lifting
- → Protecting
- → Guiding
- → Reaching Out
- → Helping People Have Lives
It also sharpens our attention to what makes help actionable. Actionable help is not vague encouragement. It attends to the realities of:
Actionable Help Focus
- → Behaviors
- → Design
- → Knowledge, Skill, and Experience
- → System Dynamics
And it stays connected to what matters most through IMULL:
IMULL Framework
- → Importance
- → Motivation
- → Urgency
- → Leverage
- → Low-Hanging Fruit
When these are held well, they support RightACTION across the real dimensions of life:
RightACTION Dimensions
- → People
- →Right Skills
- → Things
- → Ways
- → Space
- → Time
- → Pace
- → Reasons
- → Results
- → Well-Being
This is not abstract theory for its own sake. It is a practical way to engage humaning more skillfully.
Humaning Includes
- → Being
- → Doing
- → Having
- → Becoming
- → Protecting
- → Contributing
- → Guiding
- → Reaching Out
All of it occurs within constraints. All of it draws upon limited resources. That is why attention to MITEAM remains essential:
MITEAM Resources
- → Information
- → Time
- → Energy
- → Attention
- → Motivation
And because good helping requires regulation, not just intention, the helper must also learn to BREATHE:
BREATHE Regulation
- → Breathe
- → Relax
- → Equilibrate
- → Adjust
- → Think
- → Home
- → Evaluate
S:DISS-X gives language to processes people are already living, often without noticing them. We are already navigating readiness, assumptions, pacing, story, action, change, and constraint. The value here is that these patterns can be made more visible, more discussable, more teachable, and more usable.
What begins as seven learnable forms becomes, over time, a more deliberate way of meeting people where they are.
Interested?
Join me for an intensive virtual exploration of S:DISS-X in action, held Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursday from May 27-June 5. Across 8 contact hours, we will work with the seven forms, the helping functions they support, and the network of models that make this approach developmental for both helper and helped.
Mike R. Jay is a developmentalist utilizing consulting, coaching, advising and helping… emergent from dynamic inquiry as a means to cue, scaffold, support, lift, and protect; offering inspiration to aspiring leaders who are interested in humaning where being, doing, having, becoming, contributing, relating, guiding to produce resilience and wellth help people lead generative lives.