When working with clients in business one of the most powerful skills an NLP Business Practitioner can develop is the ability to enter into a ‘know nothing state.’

What I mean by this is the ability to shut down your own internal dialogue, stay out of your ‘stuff’ and just listen to and watch the person you are working with.  We leak all sorts of information and clues about what is going on in our world through the language we use, tonality and how we hold our body.

When you are in a ‘know nothing state’ then your mind is clear to notice lots more that you do when you are busy having a conversation with yourself whilst trying to listen to someone else.

Many times when I am working in business I find people looking at me as if I am really stupid.  I can almost hear them saying ‘why is she working with me as she does not seem to know what she is doing’ I call this entering into my ‘Miss Marple’ state.

I ask people to help me understand as I have not quite understood specifically what they mean.  I say that I must just be a bit slow so can thy help me by explaining the thing we are talking about in a different way.

You be amazed at the clarity, quality and detail you will get when you do this as most people will give you very precise information.

When I am in a state of ‘know nothing’ I imagine starting with an empty cinema screen and every piece of information I find out about is being used to build up a scene from scratch.  If that information I am receiving does not make sense then there is something missing.  It could be something that is deleted, distorted or generalised.

The moment I fill in information from my own experience it becomes ‘my stuff’ and I miss all the ways that I can help quickly resolve a situation.

Elegant use of the Meta Model to retrieve the information is key.  Questions like according to whom? Compared to what? Who specifically? How do you know? What’s stopping you?

When you ask people questions in this way they have to retrieve the answer from their own experience so you get more of the missing information.

So next time you are in a situation where there is a problem to resolve, instead in jumping in with a solution STOP.  Take yourself into a ‘know nothing state’ and ask the right questions to find out what is really going on with the person you are working with.

Stop making assumptions about what is happening.  Take the time to really find out what is going on.  Build the scene, check back with the person to see if this fits with them if not get more detail.

Look for all the clues, listen to what they are actually saying, retrieve the missing information and you will be amazed at how quickly people come up with their solutions.

How powerful will this skills be for you in business?

Innovation Starts With Great State

There are a number of articles here on The NLP Edge that talk about good state, how to get into good state, and why it’s so important to start your day with great state.

We also know that state – or mood, as some of us might refer to it – is highly contagious.

If you think back to recent interactions you might have had with colleagues, there are those encounters that leave you feeling good, hopeful, even smiling for no particularly good reason.

On the other hand, there are some conversations or meetings you’ve had that leave you feeling weak, uneasy and generally unhappy with things – or worse, feeling bad about yourself.

I guarantee that you are much more willing to embark on a project with the colleagues that make you feel energetic and hopeful, rather than the ones that make you feel you’ve just swallowed a whole bunch of poison.

Why do you think that is?

Apart from the obvious feel-good factor of being around positive energy in general, there are a number of reasons we gravitate towards the first group of people.

They give us hope: when your immediate future looks bleak in the way you choose to project it (yes, that’s also a choice), it’s natural to feel dejected, as though nothing you do is “good enough”, or that the challenges ahead are insurmountable.

When we interact with people who make us feel great, we are reminded of our own hidden resources.  We become aware of our own power to change this immediate future, which, just a moment ago, looked so bleak, yet now is suddenly filled with possibility.

By helping us get to great state, these valued co-workers give us back the hope we had just lost.

They make us feel valued: the individuals who comment on our performance in a thoughtful manner – not necessarily praise only – make us feel valued, because we feel they actually took the time to understand what we did or said.  Their feedback is such that, good or bad, makes us feel that we matter, that our contribution is noticed.

When we feel valued, it leads to a spontaneous spurt of energy to want to do more, to contribute again, to reach for the next step.  It’s natural that we want to do more of the same that made us feel great.

When we think about wanting to encourage innovation and superior performance, before we start to look at process and complicated ways of boosting creativity, it might be helpful to just get back to basics:

When you feel great, you are resourceful, creative, hopeful and committed to producing great work

When you feel bad, you are busy protecting yourself, covering your flanks to make sure you can’t be blamed for whatever disaster you’ve imagined is about to hit.

As a leader, it is your role and your obligation to help your team get to a state in which they feel resourceful.  Of course, that’s only if you want them to engage in active innovation and solving business problems.

If, on the other hand, you prefer to control them and limit their reach, then go ahead and shower them with negative criticism, hold back on thoughtful communication and keep them in blame-avoidance mode.

So, will you choose innovation today?

Science now claims that we have between 100,000 to 130,000 thoughts a day. Most of those thoughts are the same thoughts that we had yesterday and the day before and we do nothing with most of them.

So what is stopping us from doing over 100,000 things a day?

Well for a start to do over 100,00 things a day would be overwhelming so we have to edit these thoughts and decide which thoughts we going to give importance to. The moment this happens the thought connects to a feelings, which will result in action or non-action. Most people do this automatically without consciously choosing which thoughts are important and which are not.

When we decide which thought is important we activate our internal switch that releases chemicals into the body to create a whole range of feeling. These can be comfortable or uncomfortable feelings created by what John La Valle calls “Good or Bad Brain Juice”

Our bodies are dynamic and we instantly feel when we have changed ‘state’. This is the very basis of our behaviour.

How we label something will determine what type of brain juice will we make. Our unconscious mind is simply the obedient messenger. If we label something difficult then we will release the chemicals in our body that creates the feeling of difficulty. If we label something easy we release a different cocktail of chemicals that creates the feeling of ease.

The easiest way to know what type of “brain juice” you are making is to ask yourself, “What am I feeling right now?” Am I feeling comfortable or uncomfortable?

The more ‘good brain juice’ you make the more flexible and resilient you become. Resilient people recover quicker from stress and have more flexibility to adapt to circumstances making them more likely to succeed. Dr Joe Dispenser’s research has shown that people who create a lot of negative stress in their body have a weaker immune system.

There are times in life where it is ok to be angry, sad, anxious etc. However you are creating these feeling yourself. Only you are experiencing the feelings of creating ‘bad brain juice’. No one else has the muscle tension or lack of oxygen in the blood or the tiredness and exhaustion that comes from staying in that non-resourceful state.

Is staying in this state for any length of time beneficial to your mental state and more importantly your health?

Successful people develop an awareness of their state and take control of it, as being in a good state is important for staying healthy and keeping the mental clarity to be resourceful in difficult situations.

So what ‘state’ will you create now?

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Every year many people make decisions that they are going to change the way they do things. They are going to improve the way they feel about themselves and get better results in their lives. Sometimes these resolutions are made at New Year, Birthdays or Celebration days.

Why is it that time and time again the changes do not work and people soon find themselves falling back into the old habits and fail in their resolution to improve? This leads to a sense of failure and frustration that creates a need to seek out even more self-improvement programs and books.

Experience leads us to believe that when we implement any external changes in our life we will feel better on the inside. When we receive honors, degrees, and accolades from peers, it feels good. This leads to the belief that being recognized for external accomplishments creates a good internal feeling. We start to believe that by changing things on the outside, by becoming what other people like us to be our inside world will change.

When we do this we are approaching the solution from the wrong direction. We live in two worlds the inside world and the outside world. If something needs changed in the outside world for example if you have lost the key to your house you require to get a new key or a locksmith to open the door for you. In other words when you have a problem on the outside world, the solution also lies in the outside world.

On the other hand if you have a feeling that you are lacking in confidence then no matter what you do on the outside world nothing will change inside. This is something that has to be changed in the inside world. Change always begins from within.

The process starts with a change in how you think. One of the wonderful things that we now know about the mind is that it is compelled to answer any question we ask ourselves. Try this exercise for yourself – ask yourself “Why am I not confident”? Now listen to the silent answers you hear in your mind. I bet there is a whole list of because …..

Now thinking about the same thing change the question and ask yourself “How can I do things more confidently?” Are you now getting more resourceful answers?

Understanding that we have the ability to change a thought often leads to a change in lifestyle. You can ask yourself better and more resourceful questions and notice a shift in your behavior and perspective, and start to see yourself in a better light.

As you create new conversions in your inner world, there is some action required by you to avoid slipping back to your old ways of thinking. The way you change does not happen overnight.

Firstly make the commitment to change. Secondly be willing to do what it takes to make the changes that are right for you and thirdly this is not a race your unconscious will make the necessary changes at the speed and way that is right for you.

Remember to create lasting inner change the necessary sustained time and effort is always required. However keep in mind it is worth it.

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How will you achieve your successes in 2012?

The New Year (whichever New Year you celebrate) is a great time to take stock of what you have achieved and have not achieved during the last twelve months and to decide on the things you want to achieve for the coming year.

Many people make ‘New Year Resolutions’ that are going to make huge changes to their life. It may be to lose loads of weight, stop smoking, stop drinking, get a new job, start their own company etc.

They start off totally focused and decided that to achieve what they want their life has to change completely the ‘it’s all or nothing model’. They soon notice that this moves them away from everything that is familiar. As they start to do everything in a new way it soon becomes apparent that to live their life this way is too difficult and they go back to the old habits.

For some people this process can happen in a matter of hours for others it can be days, weeks or even months before they give up. By giving up they are telling themselves that the changes they want to make won’t happen.

However there is a different way to do this. When you look back at your last twelve months what did you achieve that you were really proud of?

It may have been that you started one exercise class a week and this has now become such an important part of your routine you never miss a class. Or it may be that you made a decision at work to take the lead at a weekly meeting and now people expect you to lead that meeting.

Ask yourself “How did I do this?” you will know your own answer as this is something you made the decision to do and went ahead and did it.

Now make a list of what planning and preparation you did before you started, what did you say to yourself, how did you make the time to do this, what did you do to keep on track when other things got in the way.

Now pick something you are already doing however it would make a difference to your life if you did it even better. Use the same formula that you have just listed.

What planning and preparation do you need to do? What do you need o say to yourself? How will you make the time to do this consistently? What do you have to do to keep on track when other things get in the way?

By making small changes to what you already do well so that you become excellent in that area creates the most amazing momentum. By doing this constantly imagine how your life will have become even better in the years to come.

Happy 2012 and beyond

Active Listening to Manage Risk

Active listening refers to a new level of paying attention while you listen.

It means listening with all your senses, doing your best to fill in the gaps – the so-called reading between the lines.

Risk management, in much the same way, seeks to ask the what, why and how in a way that uncovers where and when it might not go according to plan. Both involve actively seeking out the un-said, the omissions and obfuscations to get to the real information.

Research tells us that only between 20 and 30 percent of communication is verbal.  Only 20%-30%!!

This means there’s  a whopping 70% that is communicated through other means.  These include the tone and tempo of the voice, body language, and other cues that, if we are paying attention, we are able to notice, and use to better inform what we are actually hearing.

Risk management is all about making a good attempt at predicting obstacles, running various what-if scenarios, and having a plan for dealing with the situation when things don’t go as planned.

We are taught to assign a probability to each risk, so we know where to focus our mitigation planning efforts. Active listening gives you great tools in eliciting the potential pitfalls, as well as how probable they are.

How?

Picture this.  We know that as we acquire information, we delete, distort and generalize in order to understand the information we receive, assess it against our previous experiences, and “map” it in a representation that works for us.

For example, if someone says, “I had the best time in Greece”, what I envision about that statement has a lot more to do with my personal experience of a what a great time is (spending time with friends on idyllic beaches) than what could have been meant (sightseeing and seeing ancient ruins).

A discerning NLP business practitioner would question “best time” and seek some context.  The best time ever? The best time anyone ever had in Greece? Active listening means you un-delete, un-distort, and get specific about seeking to fill the holes in the information we hear.

We do this by asking questions to zone in on what is being left out, and somehow being distorted so that we can get at the truth in a very specific way.

In a business context, when   we actively seek to get quite specific about the information on our project, the tonality and body language of project team members tell us a lot about the level of certainty being attached to the information, for example, estimates of time and cost.

In a project setting while discussing objectives and targets, use your active listening skills to fill in the gaps.  In addition to undeleting, removing exaggerations and getting specific information, listen for the 70% non-verbal communication.

You will clearly hear the intention (or un-intention) of achieving the objectives.  Test out that you have same understanding throughout the project team of what it means to have accomplished the objective.

The spots where you don’t hear a clear intention through verbal and non-verbal communication are precisely your areas of risk, and the probability is directly proportional to the clarity and conviction in the intention you hear.

Only if you are actively listening.

NLP Techniques - Building Rapport

There are many NLP techniques the business practitioner can choose to focus on.  One of the most important ones is the ability to build rapport.

Relationships based on trust and mutual understanding are precursors to creating an environment of positive momentum and productivity.  It is impossible to reach a good level of trust without establishing rapport first.

So what exactly is rapport?

Here are a couple of definitions:

Rapport: a close and harmonious relationship in which the people or groups concerned understand each other’s feelings or ideas and communicate well. [Dictionary]

Rapport is the ability to enter someone else’s world, to make him feel that you understand him, that you have a strong common bond. [Robbins]

In essence, then, rapport describes a situation whereby you and your client have a feeling of comfort and kinship between you.

Rapport is easy to establish with long-time friends, family, or anyone else with whom you have a common history and shared values or bonds.  The challenge arises when you want to create rapport with a new client, colleague or your team.

NLP techniques for creating rapport focus both on verbal and non-verbal communication, and in their  simplest form, is to mirror your client’s communication style.

• match tone, tempo, volume of your client’s voice.
• use similar keywords and phraseology
• use their representational systems (visual, auditory, kinesthetic)
• match gestures, facial expressions, and most importantly, breathing patterns

In other words, ending up hyperventilating in an attempt to match breathing is likely not very helpful.

Similarly, jargon which wouldn’t naturally use might come across as awkward, and have the opposite effect of creating rapport.  Focus on listening across all your senses, and you will find that are able to mirror elegantly and easily.

Once you have established rapport, meaning you and your client are in a beautifully coordinated matching and mirroring dance, you can then begin gently leading the dance.  Your client will unconsciously follow, and you will note him reflecting aspects of your communication back at you!

The process of listening, matching and mirroring takes practice, and if practiced daily, you will be rewarded with a strong ability to purposefully create rapport whenever you wish to.

As you become proficient in your practice, you will note that it becomes easier and easier to simply assume you already have a great rapport with your client at the very beginning of your relationship.

Your unconscious will readily reflect this in your verbal and especially non-verbal communication.  This, in turn, will translate into an immediate sense of kinship with your client.

Try it – get into state, imagine the person you are talking to is a close friend, and your unconscious be sending signals to your client, and you will be able to notice the familiarity and responsiveness that gets immediately established.

Remember, business is still all about people.

NLP techniques in business are great for creating rapport as a building block to be able to positively influence and motivate your clients and colleagues.

The difference is a proactive person does things without requiring additional information.
A reactive person is incapable of moving until they have the right amount of information they need.

Think of an office situation when someone comes in and says, “you can all go home early” The proactive people have their coats on and are out the door. The reactive people will not move until they find out who has given permission and only when they are sure its ok to leave then they will move.

In business it is important to understand when someone is running a reactive or proactive programme. The pro-actives can make lots of mistakes however as they just go for it they also gets lots of successes.

The re-actives can often miss opportunities as they can take too long to get something done however when they do move it is with all the information they need. At times of change in business make sure you give your proactive people enough time to gather information about the new situation as until they have this they may appear in a state of panic.

As 60% to 70% of people are able to be both proactive and reactive the only way you will know when they are being what is to carefully listen to them.  People tell you what is going on in their minds by the language they use.

Question to identify
How do you make your decisions?

Answers

Proactive
I make my decision quickly.
I tend to know what is the right decision.
I just know what is the right decision.

Reactive
I weight up the pros and cons.
I research and take time to make the right decision.
I gather the information that I need.

Language to motivate

Proactive
Just do it
Go for it
Get on with it

Reactive
You will have all the information you need before your meeting
Lets think about how you are going to do this
The decision has been made by the board to go ahead with ……

15% – 20% of people are proactive
15% – 20% of people are reactive
60% – 70% of people are equally proactive and reactive

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A good way to describe strategies is that they are the specific recipes you follow to create specific outcomes.

To follow a recipe you get all the ingredients together and add the ingredients in the correct quantity in a certain order. It’s important to make sure you use the all the ingredients listed and follow the specific order. For you to create the dish you want if you were to put the ingredients into a mixing bowl in the wrong order, or even start to cook them before you put them into mixing bowl, you’ll get a substantially different outcome.

A strategy is the specific order and sequence of internal and external processes or internal and external experiences that consistently produces the same specific outcome. Simply put if you keep doing something the same way you will keep getting the same results.

Strategies are structured using the TOTE Model

T
Test or Trigger where the criteria for the desired state is set. This is where we think about what we want and move towards doing it.

O
Operate what we do to alter present state closer to desired state. What steps are we taking to get there?

T
Test – “Are we there yet”? Have we accomplished what we want to do?
Yes go to exit – No go back and do more until it’s done.

E
Exit – mission accomplished – We have done what we set out to do and can now move on to something else.

What are the elements that make up a strategy?

There are only 6 elements that can make up a strategy.

1. Pictures
2. Sounds
3. Feelings
4. Tastes
5. Smells
6. Self Talk

These are done either internally or externally.

To write down a strategy we use a code as follows

V Visual
A Auditory?
K Kinesthetic (feelings)?
AD Self Talk (content and checking)

Now add if this is internal or external.

VI The visual representation you have about something in your mind
VE What you are looking at on the outside
AI The sounds you are hearing in your mind
AE What you hear from the outside
KI The feelings you get when you think about doing something
KE What you can touch on the outside

Eliciting Strategies

From the eye patterns you can track when there is visual or auditory construction, visual or auditory recall, feelings and self-talk or checking.

As well as the individual patterns many people also run what is known as synesthesia patterns. This is when two modalities are closely linked. People will say for example “I feel frustrated seeing my manager” “hearing that feels good” When writing out a strategy we show it like this “I will see how I feel” V/K “I need to see how it sounds” V/A “It sounds comfortable” K/A

A strategy can be elicited both formally and informally. By asking someone ‘How do you do that?’ They will tell you their strategy.

It is important that when eliciting a strategy you identify the correct trigger by asking “How do you know it is time to ………….?” as strategies run into each other.

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Are you a dancer or not?

One of the presuppositions of NLP is that we all create our own ‘map of the world.’ In other words we create our own representation of the world by what we are focusing on.

Information comes into our mind and body through our five senses that is what we see, hear, touch, taste and smell. The amount of information we receive at any given moment is huge and for us to make sense of this we have to filter out most of it.

The filters we use to do this are our beliefs. For example if you think about dancing and your belief is that you can’t dance the way you experience dancing will be completely different from the way someone who believes they can dance experiences dancing.

This may have come from an experience of a time you tried dancing and were not able to dance the way you thought dancing should be done (usually because you were comparing yourself the first time you tried to dance to some expert dancer who had spent years perfecting their art!). Or someone may have said to you that you cannot dance.

How that belief got there is not important the fact is if you believe you cannot dance you are correct.

is it correct to expect the first time you dance to do it in the same way as someone who dances after years of practice and getting it wrong thousands of times!! NO but we do this all the time in life.

Just because you try something once and it does not match your expectation does not mean you can’t do it. Ask any expert how much time they spent getting so good that they make things look easy and the answer is always years.

So where is your focus for how you want to be? Are you a dancer that practices and hones your skills every day knowing that the joy comes from dancing every day as no two days are ever the same and there is no such thing as perfection. Or can you not dance?

The choice is yours.  Enjoy!