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Neuro-Linguistic Programming – In A Week Mo Shapiro Hoddern and Stoughton, 1998
Sunday – What is Neuro-Linguistic Programming?
Monday – Personal and Working Beliefs
Tuesday – Knowing yourself and others
We represent information internally using our senses. The way we do this is called our Representational Systems, using
Any good communicator will use the three main representational systems (visual, auditory and kinaesthetic). Different people will have different preferred system – there will typically also be a strong second and a weaker third.
The metaphors people use reveals their representational systems, for example:
Research suggests we can also tell the type RS used by someone by their eye movements:
Also a right-handed person tends to look to their left when recalling past experiences, and to their right when thinking or conceptualising.
Note different people will provide different visual clues and it is necessary to use calibration to determine the RS of someone – for example ask someone to recall something and see where their eyes move to.
When someone is in “inner dialog” they will look down and to the left and can take longer to respond while they resolve their dialog.
Rapport means matching the movements (body language), metaphors and eye movements of someone in order to make them feel comfortable with you.
Matching means paying attention to how fast or slow someone is talking, how they are sitting, and ensuring you are “matching” how they are acting. As with rapport this ensures people feel comfortable with you.
Mismatching is changing your body language, speed of speech, use of metaphor etc to create a disconnect with the other person.
Pacing and leading is about initially matching and building rapport, but then gradually leading the other person into your own mood. For example if someone is angry it can help to also speak quickly and loudly to “match” or “pace” their mood, but then gradually lead them away into a more quite and constructive tone.
Wednesday – What exactly do you mean?
Linguistic research identifies a “deep” and “surface” structure to language. If we all used the “deep” structure we would take forever to say anything, so typically we use a “surface” structure where many assumptions are taken for what someone means. However in order to clearly be sure we understand what someone is saying it can be useful to identify the “meta model” – these are a series of questions or ways of revealing the deeper structure of what is being said.
Thursday – Filter Systems
Metaprogram filters – we have metaprograms which are the main ways in which we view or construct the world. These programs filter the information we see in order for us to make sense of it and process it.
Towards/Away From – some people work towards something, others away from something – do we act to avoid something or achieve something?
Sameness/Difference – Sameness people look for things that match what they already know, what they already experience, whereas difference people look for change and variety.
Internal/External – do people measure what they do by internal frames of reference or external?
General/Detail – asked about a film they saw, does someone give you a lot of detail or a general outline?
Options/Procedures – does someone like to follow defined procedures, or look for freedom and variation?
Proactive/Reactive – proactive people are self-starters who get on with things, reactive people analyse and gather information before acting. Proactive people can ignore planning stages and cause problems later, reactive people can be too slow and not get things done.
Companies have their own metaprograms and it is worth checking if the company you are working for fits with your own metaprograms.
Sorting – look at how you sort people, places, things, activities, time and information to identify the sort of metaprograms you have.
Time travel – some people live in the past and relate what they are doing now to what they have done in the past. Future-oriented people plan and think about the future.
People typically conceive of time in two ways, either they are in time and see the past as behind them and the future in front, or (this is more common) they see time in front of them, with the past to the left, the present ahead and the future to the right. In time people tend to be less good at planning and setting deadlines. Through time people tend to be good at time management and forward planning.
Chunking – we process information in different-sized chunks. Chunking up means taking a more general, broader perspective; chunking down means looking at key factors whose detail needs to be understood for a project to be a success; chunking sideways looks at how tasks in a project fit into related or other areas.
Friday – Levels of Change and Reframing
Robert Dilts – one of the leading NLP thinkers – suggests there are six levels of learning, communication and change (neuro logical levels):
He suggests that change made at the higher level will have more influence than change made at the lower levels.
Connectedness/Purpose – your inner belief system – why am I here? Identity – who you are – what is your role? Beliefs/values – attitude and integrity, optimism Capabilities – the resources available to you that are automatic and habitual Behaviours – what you are doing – these can be learned through modelling Environment – everything outside you – your home, your surroundings
If you think about where you have issues or problems, you can usually identify where in the list of levels your problem occurs, from there you may move around the levels to identify where exactly you have issues that need sorting.
Reframing – this is all about looking at things a different way.
Context reframing means there is a positive place for almost any behaviour – if someone said “I’m too slow” you could think of a context where it would be good to be slow.
Content reframing is changing the meaning of a behaviour – find a more useful meaning for the behaviour. For example: “my mind goes blank” – perhaps you could be clearing your mind to concentrate on what you are going to say. “I am getting upset” – this shows you care about what you are doing.
Saturday – Increase your Options
One of the key questions of NLP is what do I want? Here are three strategies to think about making change happen.
Submodalities. This looks in more detail at Representational Systems. In any thought or memory you have, it consists of particular sights, sounds, touch, tastes and smells. These are all submodalities of the experience. If you think of something you like doing and note exactly what it consists of, and compare this with something you don’t like doing and again note the submodalities that this memory consists of. You can then try changing the submodalities so that the pleasant thought is perhaps brighter and louder, while the unpleasant one is quieter, in black and while, smaller and less threatening. By controlling these constituent parts of memories you can control your moods and emotions.
Anchors. An anchor is a stimulus that evokes a consistent response. The anchor has to be a specific thing – an image, a sound, a gesture or movement – or all three. You could say to yourself “relax” and think of a bridge over a river and the wind rustling the branches of a tree. Then linked to this anchor has to be a powerful set of emotions and feelings, a powerful memory.
Modelling is the process of understanding the thoughts and actions that enable someone to accomplish a task excellently. There are three parts to modelling:
Think of the person you want to model. Identify the behaviour, RS (Representational Systems) and body language Identify their filters and metaprograms Identify their neurological levels
Next Steps
Identify your outcome Identify exercises and practise them Be flexible – try lots of different behaviours and techniques
Remember: if what you are doing isn’t working, try something else.
© John Mann 2006 |