Business NLP For Dummies E-Book

Lynne Cooper

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Seitenzahl: 550

Beschreibung

Achieve business success with Neuro-linguistic Programming People around the globe use NLP to improve their communication skills, build rapport, make positive changes, and accomplish their goals. When used in a business context, NLP techniques can transform both your own and your team's performances. This practical guide to NLP at work will help you increase your flexibility, become more influential, and achieve professional success, whatever your career. * Use NLP techniques in the workplace - overcome barriers to success and develop a winning mindset * Build effective working relationships - improve your communication skills and create rapport with your colleagues * Lead people to perform - enhance your ability to inspire peak performance * Make changes that drive success - set and achieve ambitious goals

Leseprobe

Business NLP For Dummies®

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

What You’re Not to Read

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organised

Part I: The Difference That Makes the Difference

Part II: Building Working Relationships That Work

Part III: Leading People to Perform

Part IV: Achieving Business Excellence

Part V: The Part of Tens

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go From Here

Part I: The Difference That Makes the Difference

Chapter 1: Achieving Business Excellence with NLP

Reprogramming the Mind for Success

Defining NLP

Studying and observing

Even more definitions

Evaluating NLP for yourself

Using NLP in Business

Enhancing interpersonal effectiveness

Leading peak performance

Improving business results

Chapter 2: Overcoming the Barriers to Success

Working with NLP at Work

Achieving Elusive Goals

Addressing the problem with problem thinking

Focusing on desired outcomes

Noticing What You’re not Noticing

Celebrating your senses

Improving self-awareness

Understanding how others tick

Increasing Flexibility to Accomplish More

Building Positive Relationships

Benefiting from NLP in the Work Place

Appreciating other perspectives

Transforming performance

Taking charge

Maintaining integrity

Chapter 3: Utilising NLP Principles at Work

Perceiving the World Your Own Way

Responding according to your map

Acting for good reason

Embracing Feedback, Forgetting Failure

Eliminating failure

Taking responsibility for communicating well

Influencing isn’t optional

Realising You’ve Got What You Need

Building Flexibility to Make Changes

Doing something different

Flexing for advantage

Choosing to have choices

Making NLP Principles Work for You

Part II: Building Working Relationships That Work

Chapter 4: Understanding More, Achieving More through Communication

Winning People Over

Communicating with more than words

Focusing on people power

Responding to others’ responses

Taking charge of communications

Working with Different Maps of the World

Judging from your own maps

Filtering: Creating individual maps

Mastering Communication

Chapter 5: Making Sense of Other People for Better Influence

Celebrating the Senses

Making Sense of the Senses

Doing it my way

Identifying your VAK patterns

Detecting Visual, Auditory, and Kinaesthetic Thinking

Following the eyes

Listening for language clues

Looking for signs

Using VAK Awareness to Influence

Communicating one to one

Influencing a group

Writing with VAK

Chapter 6: Building Rapport: The Heart of Successful Relationships

Appreciating Rapport

Creating success through rapport

Noticing rapport

Building Rapport, One to One

Identifying rapport experiences

Listening and watching

Matching others

Pacing and leading

Developing Rapport with Groups

Talking with No Body: Rapport in the Digital Age

Matching the communication medium

Fostering telephone rapport

Creating e-mail rapport

Breaking Rapport: When the Chat Needs to Stop

Chapter 7: Using Words to Get Results

Pinpointing Patterns: Metaprograms

Finding a place on the spectrum

Meeting the metaprogams

Being heard and understood

Putting square pegs in square holes

Talking Generally or Specifically

Recruiting with general/specific

Identifying general/specific patterns

Influencing based on general/specific patterns

Discovering People’s Level of Initiative: Proactive/Reactive

Finding a place for everyone

Identifying proactive/reactive patterns

Influencing based on proactive/reactive patterns

Moving Towards Goals or Away From Problems

Identifying the toward/away-from pattern

Influencing based on toward/away-from patterns

Selling Change: Focusing on Sameness or Difference

Considering customer sameness/difference patterns

Identifying sameness/difference patterns

Influencing based on sameness/difference patterns

Getting Work Done: Creating Choices or Defining Procedures

Identifying options/procedures patterns

Influencing based on options/procedures patterns

Giving the Right Amount of Feedback: Internal/External

Managing based on internal/external patterns

Matching positions to internal/external patterns

Identifying internal/external patterns

Influencing based on internal/external patterns

Becoming the Monsieur Poirot of Metaprograms

Practising trial and error

Taking just one bite at a time

Chapter 8: Choosing and Anchoring Positive Emotions

Tuning In to Your Emotions

Feeling those feelings

Changing how you feel

Choosing Your Emotions

Discovering anchors

Figuring out the emotions you want

Setting new anchors

Building more powerful resources: Chaining anchors

Pulling out the heavy artillery: Stacking anchors

Removing negative anchors

Preparing for success: Future pacing

Generating Positive Feelings in Others

Providing a positive anchor for someone else

Changing unhelpful anchors

Anchoring groups

Part III: Leading People to Perform

Chapter 9: Leading from Within: Managing Your Emotions

Experiencing Emotions in Business

Realising the Impact of Your Emotions

Identifying your state

Noticing your impact

Detecting internal conflict

Building Better States

Changing your physiology

Noticing the positives

Looking after yourself

Finding new meaning: Reframing

Changing Your Emotional Responses

Programming your remote control

Accessing memory qualities

Fine-tuning memories to change experiences

Associating and dissociating

Making good use of your inner voice

Chapter 10: Inspiring and Motivating with Artfully Vague Language

Engaging Hearts and Minds: The Milton Model of Communication

Modelling a powerful influencer

Creating a receptive audience: The nature of trance

Skimming the surface or going deeper

Engaging the Emotions

Pulling the Right Words out of Your Hat

Leaving stuff out: Deletions

Making your own interpretation: Distortions

Compiling patterns: Generalisations

Employing other powerful patterns

Metaphorically speaking: Stories

Paying attention to four small words: Can’t, try, but, don’t

Choosing to Be Artfully Vague

Working with groups

Advertising

Putting it in writing

Motivating one to one

Motivating yourself

Chapter 11: Giving Feedback to Fuel Improvement

Preparing to Give Feedback

Appreciating the challenges of giving feedback

Knowing how much feedback to give

Readying yourself

Utilising the power of rapport

Making Feedback Meaningful

Tapping into other people’s patterns

Being aware of the ‘but’

Providing clear evidence

Ensuring Your Feedback Makes a Difference

Directing attention to where change needs to happen

Making change stick

Receiving Feedback

Chapter 12: Coaching for Peak Performance

Coaching for Change

Improving the performance of others

Improving your effectiveness

Preparing to Coach

Coaching with NLP

Creating well-formed outcomes

Playing with perceptual positions

Progressing through the logical levels for change

Developing pattern awareness

Managing emotional states

Questioning for Insight: The Meta Model

Skimming the surface – or going deeper

Using precision questions

Noticing musts, shoulds, need-tos and have-tos

Identifying ‘them’

Coaching Cleanly

Using Clean Language

Coaching quickly

Chapter 13: Handling Difficult People

Meeting Some Difficult People

Working with People You Just Don’t Get

Gaining new perspectives

Recognising different perceptual positions

Choosing the best perspective

Making Changes to Tricky Relationships

Looking for the Positive Intention

Bringing Change to Political Situations

Stepping into stakeholders’ shoes

Achieving greater influence through flexibility

Part IV: Achieving Business Excellence

Chapter 14: Creating a Compelling Vision

Crafting a Vision that Motivates

Tapping into all the senses

Magnetising with metaphor

Generating a Meaningful Team Vision

Building Commitment: Sharing Your Vision

Conveying the vision

Storytelling

Planning for action

Harnessing Beliefs and Values

Working with beliefs

Energising with values

Walking the talk

Knowing values when you see them

Chapter 15: Maximising Success through Change

Leading Change

Finding the Difference that Makes the Difference: Logical Levels

Navigating the levels

Adapting the environment

Changing behaviour

Expanding capabilities

Fine-tuning beliefs and values

Choosing identity

Defining purpose

Aligning Levels for Change

Looking to levels for personal change

Aligning different roles

Aligning for organisational change

Coaching Others through Change

Chapter 16: Setting and Achieving Goals

Creating Well-Formed Outcomes

Knowing what you want

Taking responsibility

Defining the specifics

Checking where, when, and how

Accessing resources

Identifying the impact

Making Your Outcomes Irresistible

Acting as if you’ve achieved your goal

Anchoring an outcome

Exploring the bigger benefits

Getting started

Developing Outcomes at Work

Helping individuals create outcomes

Developing shared outcomes for teams

Empowering organisations with well-formed outcomes

Building success with well-formed outcomes

Chapter 17: Modelling Winning Performance

Patterning Yourself on Others’ Successes

Remembering how you got started

Benchmarking

Developing a Model of Excellence

Building a model

Testing a model

Taking away what you don’t need

Passing on a model

Discovering the Strategies of Genius

Innovating like Einstein

Problem solving the Disney way

Modelling Yourself – For Yourself

Part V: The Part of Tens

Chapter 18: Ten Business Benefits of NLP

Recruiting the Best

Making Effective Change

Achieving Goals

Enhancing Performance

Enhancing Creativity and Innovation

Motivating and Energising People

Decreasing Response Times

Keeping Talented People

Communicating Effectively

Improving Teamwork

Chapter 19: Ten Tips for Using NLP in Business

Practise, Practise, Practise

Make It Up Good

Be in Rapport

Do a Bit at a Time

Avoid the Jargon

Try Out New Techniques

Change Yourself Not Others

Stay Curious

Notice Your Successes

Have Fun

Chapter 20: Ten Online NLP Resources

NLP University

Association for Neuro Linguistic Programming

The NLP Conference

Anchor Point

The Professional Guild of NLP

Resource Magazine

NLP Events

The Clean Collection

NLP Weekly

Success Strategies

Chapter 21: Ten Great Reads to Build Your Business NLP Library

Visionary Leadership Skills

Successful Selling with NLP

Words that Change Minds

Presenting Magically

Self-Coaching Leadership

Tools for Dreamers

Training with NLP

The Unfair Advantage

Consult Yourself

Communicating Strategy

Business NLP For Dummies®

by Lynne Cooper

Business NLP For Dummies®

Published byJohn Wiley & Sons, LtdThe AtriumSouthern GateChichesterWest SussexPO19 8SQEngland

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About the Author

Lynne Cooper facilitates organisational change and leadership development. With extensive business and management experience, she uses NLP to help business leaders bring about fast and sustainable change for themselves and their organisations. Lynne specialises in developing leadership skills and improving team working to maximise performance, working one-to-one, and with groups. Lynne is an NLP Master Practitioner, a certified Clean Facilitator and an accredited coach. She is director of Change Perspectives and a business trainer with PPD Learning Ltd.

Author’s Acknowledgements

I, like so many others, owe a huge debt of gratitude to the originators of NLP, Richard Bandler and John Grinder and the many other NLP developers who have contributed so much to the field – Judith DeLozier, Lesley Cameron Bandler, Robert Dilts to name only a few. As a result of their work people, businesses and communities are achieving so much more – this book is just one example of these achievements.

Business NLP For Dummies is based very much on my own experience of taking NLP into organisations to improve individual and business performance. That would never have been possible without learning from, and being supported by, some of the most outstanding trainers in the field. Particular mention must go to Judith Lowe, James Lawley and Penny Tompkins. Special thanks too to my dear friend and colleague, Mariette Castellino, from whom I have learned so much, and all those clients who had faith in the difference that working with us could make.

Thanks to the team at Wiley, including Simon, Sally and Nicole, for guiding and supporting me through the writing of this book, and to Chris for his diligent and knowledgeable contributions. Particular thanks to Brian Kramer, whose insights and incisive questions added so much to the end result.

Many thanks to friends and family for their forbearance. They’ve been sorely neglected, but much loved, through the process of writing this book. And last but not least, thanks to Glen, Victoria and Chelsey, who have encouraged, supported and nurtured me with tea and cake in the long hours of writing.

Publisher’s Acknowledgements

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Introduction

Today’s work places can be stressful places to be – at least for some. Businesses are continually working to adapt to fast-changing environments, to stay ahead and make profits. Not-for-profit organisations are repeatedly challenged by the demands of achieving more with less. Individuals work harder under the constant pressure to perform better and achieve more. And many people are dissatisfied with their situation and want change – a more fulfilling job, career, or income, or an improved balance between their personal and working lives. I’ve written this book because this is the kind of feedback I get on a day-to-day basis when working with people at work – and because my experience has taught me that Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) is a valuable approach to making the improvements and transformations that these people seek.

NLP transformed my own life, in particular my working life. I used NLP to get in touch with what I really wanted, and to develop the flexibility and skills to achieve it. At the start of my journey I would never have imagined that I would change my career and use NLP full time, doing work I love – coaching and facilitating others to make positive change at work.

NLP enables you to understand what makes you tick; how you think, how you feel, how you make sense of everyday life in the world around you and how to take charge of your life. Whether you wish to put in place a few subtle changes to your performance, influence or achievements at work, or to turn your whole working life upside down, you’ll find some fantastic tools in NLP to help you. I wish you well on your own personal voyage of discovery.

About This Book

This book takes you through the practical applications of NLP within the working environment, and guides you through exercises and techniques to refocus and streamline your thought processes. Whether you’re interested in improving your communication skills or polishing your leadership techniques, this hands-on guide gives you the tools you need to take control and achieve your goals within the work place.

If you are new to NLP you can discover a whole variety of techniques in this book to learn and use to achieve your elusive goals and make improvements to your working life. If you already have knowledge of NLP, I trust that you’ll find some of my ideas and approaches to using NLP in the work place new and interesting.

I have selected the aspects of NLP that I have found most useful in supporting people to identify new possibilities, take action and achieve more, in my work with organisations. I have structured the book so that you can dip into any chapter to discover some practical ways of using NLP to handle the specific challenges you face at work, including:

Improving your influence to achieve more

Leading and motivating others

Developing a vision – for yourself or the business

Coaching others to perform well

Accomplishing goals

Handling tricky relationships

Making effective change

You’ll probably find some new stuff in this book – things which require you to think and act a little differently to your normal way of operating. Take the opportunity to use the techniques and exercises I’ve given you to build your understanding and skill. In my experience, the best way to learn NLP is to experience it. Test it out for yourself, and notice any disbelief slip away as you find yourself getting results.

Conventions Used in This Book

To help you navigate through this book, I’ve set up a few conventions:

Italic is used for emphasis and to highlight new words or terms that are defined.

Boldfaced text is used to indicate the action part of numbered steps.

Monofont is used for Web addresses.

What You’re Not to Read

I’ve written this book so that you can easily understand what you find out about NLP in a business context. Although after all this work I’d like to believe that you want to scour my every word, I’ve made it easy for you to identify material that you don’t absolutely have to read. This is interesting stuff, and you’ll benefit from it, but it’s not essential reading:

Text in sidebars: The sidebars are the grey shaded boxes that appear here and there. They share personal stories and observations, and flesh out the bare bones, but you can skip them if you wish.

The stuff on the copyright page: Well, of course, read it if you will, but if you’re like me, you’ll not get excited about the legal stuff and reprint information.

Foolish Assumptions

In writing this book, I made a few assumptions about you. I assumed that you work – maybe you have your own business or are employed by a large organisation. I’ve also assumed that you are attracted to this book because you’ve heard something about NLP (you may even already know and work with NLP concepts), you’re curious to learn more, and you’re interested in personal or business improvement. Learning more about how to use NLP effectively at work will be indispensable if any of the following apply to you:

You want to improve your own performance at work.

You have a vision – a dream career, job, or income – that you just can’t seem to reach.

You want to improve business performance.

You find other people are often the biggest barriers to your success.

You want to take back control of your working life.

How This Book Is Organised

I’ve divided this book into five parts, with each part broken into chapters. The parts structure helps to keep related material together. The table of contents gives you more detail on each chapter, so you can dive in wherever you want to.

Part I: The Difference That Makes the Difference

This part is where you get the basics on understanding and using NLP in a business environment. I introduce you to the NLP thinking behind engaging with and influencing others, increasing your flexibility to get the results you want, setting and achieving goals, and applying the principles of NLP to overcome barriers to success in the work place.

Part II: Building Working Relationships That Work

An important NLP concept is creating advantage through excellent relationships and effective influence. Part II gets up close and personal with the business of communicating in business, from understanding how other people’s thought and speech patterns work through to building rapport and maximising influence in the work place. I also delve into how to manage emotional states and motivating others – and yourself!

Part III: Leading People to Perform

Wouldn’t your working life be a whole load easier if others would just do what you wanted them to? This part gives you the tools you need to help your work colleagues perform to the max. I explain the importance of emotional intelligence in driving people’s responses, how to inspire and enthuse others, and how to effect change in difficult relationships. I also cover the value of well-constructed feedback and positive coaching in supporting and developing employees to perform at their best.

Part IV: Achieving Business Excellence

This part focuses on how to use NLP to effect real change in a business environment. Starting from the creation of a vision colleagues will want to buy into, and how to generate fast and sustainable change, I go on to explain the value of generating the sort of well-formed outcomes to which they will want to aspire. I also let you in on the secrets of modelling the strategies of those who have already met with success.

Part V: The Part of Tens

If it’s a For Dummies book, it has a Part of Tens, and this one is no exception. Here you’ll find ten business benefits to using NLP, tips for using the principles in everyday situations, and run-downs of the best in NLP resources and books. The works, in other words, on the works.

Icons Used in This Book

The icons in this book help you find particular kinds of information that may be of use to you:

This icon highlights practical advice to put NLP to work for you in work situations.

This icon is a friendly reminder of important points to take note of.

You’ll find this icon beside stories relating real-life experience of NLP in action in business. Some are real; others have their names changed; while others are composite characters.

You’ll find this icon highlighting things that you may like to experiment with to start to translate the theory into action for yourself, and to build your NLP skills.

Where to Go From Here

You don’t have to read this book from cover to cover, but you will benefit greatly if you capture it all at the pace and in the order that’s right for you. Use the table of contents to see what you are attracted to first. For example, if you’re keen to improve your business relationships , try Chapter 6 first. Or if you’d like to hone your coaching skills, turn to Chapter 12 first. One of the common themes of this book is flexibility, so feel free to approach the book in whichever order works for you.

Part I

The Difference That Makes the Difference

In this part . . .

Welcome. The chapters in this part deliver the basics on understanding and using NLP in business. I introduce you to the NLP skills you need to engage with and influence others and increase your flexibility to get the results you want. I also show you how to set and achieve goals and apply the principles of NLP to overcome barriers to success at work.

Chapter 1

Achieving Business Excellence with NLP

In This Chapter

Getting familiar with NLP

Discovering NLP business benefits

Achieving more with NLP

Taking charge of your career

Influencing others

Building a career, getting an interesting job, and finding opportunities to progress are important to most people. After all, you spend a huge amount of time at work. You hope that your career brings personal development, fulfilment, and, of course, the means you need to live a comfortable life. Yet sometimes your working life falls short of your expectations and hopes.

Making a success of your working life and achieving your professional goals and dreams depends on more than your qualifications, experience, and job-related skills. These days, getting on at work relies on exceptional communication skills and the ability to flex and change continually. Understanding the principles and tools of neuro-linguistic programming, or NLP, can help you become an excellent influencer, as well as acquire the self-awareness and techniques to adapt and change to achieve your aspirations.

If you’re ready to take charge of your life at work – and to stop allowing your fortunes to be dictated by bosses, colleagues, employers, customers, or anyone else – then this book is a good place to start. Find out more about the value of NLP in business in this chapter, before moving on to discover dozens of ways to put its principles to use in the rest of the book.

Reprogramming the Mind for Success

Making change happen at work often seems difficult. Have you ever found that, no matter how much you try, you’re still frustrated in your efforts to make things better?

Maybe you’ve been so determined in the past that you worked harder and harder, yet still didn’t get what you wanted. This experience isn’t so surprising, certainly if you subscribe to a core NLP premise, explored more in Chapter 3, that:

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.

So in order to get a different result, you probably have to make some changes and find alternatives to your tried-and-tested actions and responses to people, situations, and challenges. At the heart of NLP is the idea that if you continually seek new choices and try different things, you achieve what you want.

The fact that you’re reading this book suggests that you may well be ready to make some changes. Throughout the book I show you how to use NLP to discover the drivers of your thinking and behaviour. You can discover how to detect the patterns and habits that you hold unconsciously – and realise when these patterns and habits are very useful to you, as well as when they aren’t.

Think of your brain as a bespoke computer, programmed to run you. As with any software program, you only notice the bit that comes up on the screen. The detailed and sophisticated program is running behind the scenes, out of your awareness. You may not realise that some of this software can be deleted, installed, or upgraded to get far more effective results. The same can be said of your unconscious mind. After you start paying some attention and observing how your mind is working, you have the choice to delete, upgrade, or install whichever bit of ‘thinking software’ you desire.

NLP offers you the keys to unlocking your own potential. Reprogramming your mind for success is in your hands. Removing previous limitations is inevitable. Your dreams become your goals, and they’re goals you can achieve.

You can’t change other people. All you can change is yourself and how you respond to other people. When people around you are ready to change, you can use many of the tools and approaches you discover in this book to coach and help them. Turn to Chapter 12 for more on coaching others.

Defining NLP

One of the first challenges to face when discovering NLP is the name itself. Neuro-linguistic programming sure is a mouthful.

When you break the name down into its component parts, however, the relevance of each part becomes clearer:

Neurorelates to your neurological system: how you use your five senses both to experience the outside world and to create your internal world by remembering and imagining. Your conscious and unconscious thought processes activate your nervous system, which influences your physiology (breathing, posture, movements and so on), how you feel, and what you do and say.

Linguisticrefers to the way people use language to make sense of their experiences, to talk to themselves, and to communicate with others. Everyone has distinct patterns in how they use language, and these patterns provide tremendous insights into people’s thinking.

Programmingis just like computer programming, only relating to the human brain. A program – for a computer or in your brain – is a succession of steps designed to achieve a particular result. Your personal programs lead to the results you get and the impact you have on yourself and others.

Since its introduction in the 1970’s, NLP has been defined in many different ways. The following sections delve into what exactly NLP is – and isn’t.

Studying and observing

Leaders in the field of NLP most commonly describe NLP as the study of the structure of subjective experience, which is a very obscure way of saying studying how individuals think and behave. Studying and observing very precisely what human beings think, say, and do is the cornerstone of NLP, giving insights into the internal workings of people’s minds. Understanding how someone does what they do well allows you to create a model of that capability so you can replicate their excellence. You can also detect how you, or someone else, is managing to create the results you don’t want – and then make changes to achieve your aspirations and goals.

NLP gives you skills and tools to find out how others achieve great results. You can build models of others’ capabilities and try them out for yourself. In addition, NLP originators Richard Bandler and John Grinder (see the nearby sidebar ‘The origins of NLP’), as well as many others in the field, have developed and created a wealth of models and techniques for creating change and influencing effectively.

Even more definitions

The scope of NLP extends beyond business-specific skills and techniques and has led practitioners to develop many other ways of describing NLP’s essence.

Some definitions focus on NLP’s strength in the area of communications and define NLP as:

The art and science of communication.

A communication model based on working with patterns of thinking, language, and behaviour.

The key to successful communication.

A set of powerful influencing strategies.

Other definitions are concerned with excellence and define NLP as:

A behavioural model of outstanding talent.

A methodology for replicating behaviour that generates exceptional results.

A user’s manual for the brain.

Still other definitions focus on achieving goals, considering NLP as:

A process by which you can achieve what you want in life.

An attitude of mind.

Skills and techniques for designing and creating your future.

The difference that makes the difference.

As you can see, NLP can be many different things to many different people – from a science to an attitude.

In my experience, people who learn about NLP take what they want from the wealth of available insights and techniques. How you define NLP after you begin your journey of discovery is entirely up to you. What’s important is that you explore, experiment, and have fun while finding out what NLP can do to support you to improve your business life.

The origins of NLP

The seeds of NLP were planted in the early 1970s at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Richard Bandler, a mathematics student, and John Grinder, a professor of linguistics, started the collaboration that led to NLP. The duo studied three leading psychotherapists:

Fritz Perls, the creator of the school of therapy known as Gestalt.

Virginia Satir, an exceptional family therapist.

Milton Erickson, one of the most influential hypnotherapists and psychiatrists of our time.

The success of these therapists intrigued Bandler and Grinder. Their styles and personalities seemed quite different, yet they were each achieving amazing change with clients with very significant problems.

Bandler and Grinder identified that some similar, fundamental patterns underlay all three therapists’ work. In the mid-1970s they published their discoveries in TheStructure of Magic, Volumes 1 and 2, and two volumes of Patterns of the Hypnotic Technique of Milton H. Erickson, M.D.

Many other leaders in the fields of communications, systems theory, (the study of complex systems in science, nature, and society), and psychotherapy informed the development of NLP. In particular, Gregory Bateson, an anthropologist with an interest in linguistics, systems theory, communications theory, and psychotherapy, provided a strong influence.

NLP was born out of the originators’ development of specific models of excellence, aided by a number of colleagues and students, who themselves have made significant contributions to the field. These include Judith DeLozier, Lesley Cameron-Bandler, Robert Dilts, David Gordon, Stephen Gilligan, and many others. Over the last 30 years, others have developed and contributed new models (using the NLP modelling capabilities evolving in the field)and extended thinking in NLP. The quest to study human excellence continues.

In its very early days NLP was used primarily in personal development and therapy, Before long it began to be used in a much broader range of situations, including business.

Evaluating NLP for yourself

In the many years I’ve been using NLP I’ve come across a few people who are resistant to NLP. They have preconceived ideas from things that they have heard – or indeed they may have just had a bad experience of working with an unskilled or badly trained practitioner.

Those few people I’ve met who have negative perceptions of NLP have described it as brainwashing or manipulation, pop psychology, even new age mumbo jumbo! Well, everyone is entitled to have their own map of the world (I talk more about maps of the world in Chapter 3).

My experience in working with NLP in business is that, used wisely and ethically, NLP opens up the opportunity to develop a better life and career for anyone – if that’s what they want. Try it out for yourself and then draw your own conclusions. Everyone is entitled to their own map of the world – including you!

Using NLP in Business

Over the years, the use of NLP tools and techniques has exploded around the world, in every conceivable walk of life. NLP is now applied in counselling, education, parenting, health, personal development, coaching, voluntary service, sport, and, not least, in business. New discoveries, new models, and new ways of thinking are continually emerging from the many people whose talents NLP has unleashed.

Business people now widely use NLP. Forward-thinking organisations embrace NLP because they benefit from its positive effects on individuals, teams, and overall business performance.

As you read this book you discover many ways to apply NLP to business, whether you wish to:

Get better results for yourself

Support others to achieve better results

Drive change in your business

As well as the tools, NLP is also an attitude of mind that incorporates:

An awareness of self: Noticing and understanding how you habitually think and behave.

A high sensitivity to others: Paying close attention to others and using what you observe and hear to step into their worlds.

A future outcome focus: Aspiring to make changes and achieve all that you desire.

Your journey through NLP is a voyage of discovery. With this book – and perhaps other books, workshops, and online resources – you can sail through the wide variety of valuable tools, techniques, and models on offer.

In this book, I introduce many aspects of NLP thinking and approaches that are employed successfully in business. Use as much or as little of this information as you please. I suggest you prioritise and use those parts of NLP that appeal to you most. Then build your skills and add more NLP gems to your tool kit as you’re ready.

This is a book about NLP in relation to your work, career, and business. The book does not deal with NLP as therapy. But if you’re suffering from serious personal issues, NLP can help. It has been an effective tool for curing phobias, overcoming post-traumatic stress disorder, and responding to anxiety and other major issues that affect health and happiness. I suggest you contact the Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapy & Counselling Association (www.nlptca.com) to locate an NLP specialist to help you with your specific issue.

The following sections address key benefits of including NLP tools and techniques in your business life: communicating, leading, and achieving the best results.

Enhancing interpersonal effectiveness

Modern-day business success demands not only good interpersonal skills but also exceptional powers to influence and persuade. The need for communication pervades all business activities:

Within the business. People need to work together, cooperate, negotiate, influence, inspire, and motivate others to get the job done.

With customers. Good customer service is critical to keeping competitive advantage. Paying close attention to customers’ wishes and communicating in ways that have meaning to customers are essential.

With the market at large. Getting your message across effectively to prospective buyers and managing communication through broadcast and online media are constant challenges.

With others. Communicating with and influencing stakeholders, including shareholders, financiers, community groups, and others, is extremely important. Good supplier relationships are also critical for success.

In their early analysis of highly effective therapists (see the sidebar, ‘The origins of NLP’), Richard Bandler and John Grinder identified a range of key underlying patterns of communication that are common to success. From this initial research, they developed models – representations of what excellent influencers were doing – that generate both personal change and highly influential communications. The models for greater interpersonal influence appear largely in Parts II and III of this book and cover the key themes of:

Developing awareness of yourself and others

Building rapport

Influencing language

Handling emotions

The following sections address the communication-based benefits of NLP.

Understanding differences between you and others

The journey to becoming an exceptional communicator starts with discovering and understanding your own patterns of thinking. These patterns drive the way you feel, act, and react. Everything you’ve experienced in your life – and the way your brain has filtered this information – determines what you think, believe, value, and feel. To find out more about the unconscious mind and its filtering process, head to Chapter 4.

Right now you may not be aware of many of your habitual ways of thinking, evaluating, and making decisions. But your unconscious mind is steering you. Find out how to identify your patterns from the language you use and the things you do in Chapters 5 and 7.

Guess what? Other people aren’t like you! While some people may resemble you, others don’t at all. As you can read in Chapter 3, NLP adopts the principle that all people have different maps of the world. Even when two people share an experience, they notice different things, have different responses, and store different memories.

Targeting your language

After you know how to detect patterns, you’re likely to start seeing and hearing the patterns of others – and notice those that are different to your own. You can then adapt the way you talk to people so that you make perfect sense in their maps of the world!

Becoming more flexible in how you communicate is the key to developing exceptional influencing skills. Knowing others’ patterns gives you the information you need to target your words to them, as if you’re speaking their language rather than your own.

Turn to Chapters 4, 5, and 7 to find out how to use words and phrases so that someone whose patterns are dissimilar to yours can understand and respond. You may be amazed by what you can achieve with some subtle shifts in your language.

Using rapport

Rapport is that natural connection between people when all conversation seems to be effortless. Discussions flow easily and everyone has a sense of respect and underlying trust.

You no doubt have some colleagues with whom you simply seem to get along well, and business conversations are just plain easy. These people are probably most like you in terms of their patterns, and rapport happens naturally. With others at work, this kind of rapport is much harder to find.

Persuading a colleague and getting him on your side is so much easier when you’re in rapport with him. Thanks to the modelling work of NLP pioneers, you can create good rapport in situations where it previously seemed difficult, and influence more effectively. Find out all about rapport in Chapter 6, including how to use body language and words to attain it.

Managing your emotions

Humans are highly emotional beings. Powerful feelings are wonderful when they work for you. In business, many emotional states can be useful: excitement, interest, calm, and confidence, to name but a few.

In contrast, strong negative feelings don’t often help you work to the best advantage. Anger, anxiety, frustration, demotivation, and stress are some of the states I come across in business people, none of which supports best performance.

You may well have worked hard to control your emotions at times. Trying to manage or suppress a strong feeling is often a battle. Yet having the capacity to choose how you feel, rather than have your feelings control your reactions and behaviour, is essential for success in:

Leading

Influencing

Achieving

Negotiating

NLP tools and techniques help you find ways to choose your feelings. When you opt to modify your emotional response to a difficult situation, you can alter how you act and react and get a far more positive outcome. Chapters 8 and 9 hold an array of approaches to changing your emotional responses to get the results you want. You can also use these techniques to coach others to change their emotional states when doing so is beneficial to them.

Leading peak performance

For business excellence, you need to get yourself and others working most effectively. This is a leadership job. Regardless of whether you have the job title of leader, you still lead people when you’re:

Guiding

Directing

Managing

Controlling

Influencing

Good performance comes from you, your team, your colleagues, or others on whom you rely, such as suppliers. As you communicate more effectively with yourself and others, you can influence and lead excellence to achieve business success.

Leading yourself

Creating the life you want, including the kind of work and career that you desire, starts with self-leadership. Leading yourself is about taking charge of your working life to get where you want to go. When you lead yourself well, you:

Establish your personal goals or outcomes

Choose your emotions and state

Become aware of your own unconscious patterns

Build your behavioural flexibility

Reprogram your unconscious for success

Discover all the wonderful ways in which you can make this happen as you read through this book.

Inspiring and motivating

Getting people to listen to you, agree with you, or be inspired by you affects your success, whether you’re the CEO or the new kid on the team. Businesses depend on people. People need to be persuaded, motivated, and enthused to back new ideas and put their best into their jobs.

NLP models and approaches for communication in this book are particularly useful if you want to:

Gain agreement, approval, or consensus

Call others to action

Persuade people to join you in your opinions or judgements

Encourage and motivate others

Pass on information that you believe is important

Generate passion or excitement

If inspiring others is what inspires you, I recommend you jump straight to Chapter 10. There you can find out how to choose your words to engage others’ emotions positively.

Coaching others

Coaching others to improve performance is considered increasingly important in business these days. The days of managers telling staff what to do, rather than coaching them to develop skills, may well be limited.

Many business leaders believe that NLP offers the most powerful coaching tool kit available today. Throughout this book you can discover insights and techniques for improved communication, as well as tools for personal change. All of these, including the specialist coaching models I present in Chapter 12, provide a wide array of approaches to incorporate in your coaching.

Giving feedback

If performance improvement is important to you, then giving and receiving quality feedback is essential. In many organisations, feedback is still sparse and too infrequent. Feedback is all too often used only when bad news needs to be delivered, while praise and encouragement for a job well done are often overlooked.

Chapter 11 outlines how to use NLP thinking to direct meaningful and actionable feedback, so that others truly understand what they’re doing well, where they need to improve, and what those improvements may look and sound like in order to increase their personal effectiveness.

Handling difficult relationships

Most people find certain situations or individuals at work challenging to handle and seriously detrimental to progress. To get the best business performance, people need to be able to work well together and overcome difficulties and differences.

Getting past the problems caused by relationships that just don’t seem to work or situations that seem complex and stuck becomes easier with NLP. The NLP models of master communicators identify what those with exceptional influencing skills do to change such relationships positively, and you can use their techniques to influence others.

Explore how to gain new insights into difficult relationships and build your flexibility to get the results you want in Chapter 13.

Improving business results

Although the early NLP models were based on the study of individual excellence, they apply equally well to achieving great results across a business. If you want to maximise business performance, this book offers many NLP tools that can serve you well.

Creating vision, values, and goals

All businesses have goals. Some have a vision. All have values, although they may not be the ones they say they have! I spend a lot of time in organisations of all sizes, and I rarely find an employee who’s bang up to date with the company vision and values, and often not even the goals. After all, the vision is so often just a bunch of words that aren’t easy to remember. Much the same can be said for the values. And the goals are a bunch of numbers that aren’t really going to change the way anyone does his job.

Applying NLP to the process of crafting vision, values, and goals brings a whole new perspective.

NLP focuses on sensory experience – what you see, hear, and feel. When a sensory description brings vision, values, and goals to life, people start to understand, anticipate, and align with them. To find out how to develop a compelling vision, meaningful values, and inspiring goals, look up Chapter 14.

The NLP model for goal setting is known as a well-formed outcome, which you can find out more about in Chapter 16. This kind of goal is far more motivating to people within a business than is a brief description of financial targets.

Effecting change

If one constant exists in business, it’s the need to make changes, small or large, in order to be competitive, generate the desired results, and adapt to the rapidly changing environment in which the business operates. Business leaders frequently find major change difficult. Changes to structure, processes and systems are often complex and slow, and many don’t achieve the hoped-for outcome.

Much of NLP has been modelled from successful personal transformation. These models, when used to support organisational change – which of course depends largely on individual change – are equally powerful. Using NLP to create change within a business involves:

Influencing and motivating people to make changes more effectively.

Setting well-formed outcomes and meaningful action plans that people buy into.

Developing more flexible individuals as a result of greater awareness of self and others.

Making changes at the right level of thinking.

The NLP logicallevels model (more on this in Chapter 15) determines the kind of changes individuals should make in order to achieve their goal. Changing the right things is the difference that makes the difference.

Modelling best performance

Modelling is the essence of NLP. Understanding how you or someone else intuitively does something exceptionally well is a valuable skill in business.

You can model exceptional performers in any discipline to determine precisely what they do that gets great results. You can then transfer this model to other people and other areas.

Modelling is a very different approach to attempting to improve performance through standard skills training. Very often good performers aren’t aware of what they do to get results that’s different to what others do. Modelling identifies subtle thinking and behavioural processes that separate average and exceptional performances.

Think of all the things you’d like to do well if you only could. If you want to raise standards and do even more things well, find out how in Chapter 17.

Chapter 2

Overcoming the Barriers to Success

In This Chapter

Shifting your focus from problems to goals

Using your senses to good effect

Thinking and acting more flexibly

Understanding and working with differences

Taking control of your work life and your future

Do you believe that barriers exist that prevent you from being successful at work? Or does this way of thinking about whether you get what you want make little sense to you?

Herein lies some of the essence of NLP: Noticing how you think about things. Being aware of how you use language to express your thoughts. Paying attention to how others think. And making changes as a result to reach your goals.

Take a moment to consider the title of this chapter: Overcoming the barriers to success. It’s just the kind of phrase business leaders – maybe you – use liberally. Except the phrase in the world of NLP is more than just a throwaway. It gives lot of clues about how the person who said it is thinking.

Consider what you can assume, or presuppose, from this title. You can assume that success is possible. Barriers exist. The barriers are probably metaphorical rather than literal. You can overcome them. Getting success involves overcoming barriers, which suggests that barriers are a problem.

Other unconscious thought processes may be wrapped up in this statement as well, although you may not be able quite to pinpoint them. For example, you may be curious to know: Success at what? How big are the barriers? How many barriers exist?

Paying attention to language and thought processes, being curious, and asking questions are all fundamental aspects of using NLP. In this chapter, you find out more about NLP tools and how to use them to help you overcome barriers to success in your work place.

Working with NLP at Work

Choosing to use NLP to support you in getting the success you want in your working life may be the best decision you ever made. You really can overcome barriers, achieve exciting things, and realise your potential. NLP gives you a heap of wonderful tools and techniques. How well they work is up to you!

NLP does require you to do some things that you may not be doing currently. These are summarised in the four pillarsof NLP,which, are:

Setting your goals. I emphasise the importance of goals, or outcomes many times in this book. Establishing an outcome, is all about knowing exactly what you want, in any situation. After you establish outcomes you stop thinking about the problems you no longer want (or need to overcome) and focus on the future. See the section ‘Achieving Elusive Goals’, later in this chapter, and Chapter 16 for more on goal setting with NLP.

Using your senses. Paying close attention to the world around you with all your senses – sight, touch, hearing, as well as taste and smell – is a critical part of using NLP well. As you develop your sensory awareness, you find out much more about how you and others act and react, and have the opportunity to make productive change. The section ‘Noticing What You’re not Noticing’, later in this chapter, and Chapter 5 offer more on the power of your senses.

Behaving flexibly. You want different results to what you’re currently experiencing – otherwise why are you considering NLP? Everything you discover in this book gives you more options in how you think, what you say, and what you do. Keep on changing what you do until you get what you want, and remember: the path that leads to realising your goals isn’t always a straight one. Check out ‘Building Flexibility to Achieve More’, later in this chapter, and find out many different ways in which to be more flexible throughout this book.

Building relationships. You can’t always achieve what you want in life in isolation from others. You may well need other people’s co-operation or support. For that you need quality relationships built on trust, mutual respect, andresponsiveness – all of which indicate great rapport, the connection between two people that enables good communication. As you find ways to create and deepen rapport with others, you can discover even more success. ‘Building Positive Relationships’, later in this chapter, and Chapter 6 explore ways to build great work relationships.

As you try out different aspects of NLP at work, you may find certain things confusing or awkward – or maybe things just don’t go as you hope. Don’t give up! What you’re doing with NLP is trying things that are new and different. Sure, they may not feel natural or ‘right’ at first. But new approaches and skills rarely do. Stick with the strategies and techniques I outline in this book, even when you feel that you’re venturing outside your comfort zone. That’s where you’re likely to learn the most.

Achieving Elusive Goals

So much of this book is about achieving things that you may think I’m presuming you haven’t accomplished all that much in your life to date! Just to set the record straight, my belief is that you’re already a successful human being. Of course, you may or may not recognise how successful you are, but that’s another matter.

NLP can support you to reach for your elusive goals – things you want but somehow never achieve. Whether your elusive goal is clearing your in-box, getting an unhappy person to smile, feeling full of energy on Monday morning, or completely transforming your business, NLP techniques and strategies can help, particularly if you haven’t yet managed to reach your goal.

NLP concentrates on achieving goals by making adjustments to how you’re thinking – specifically shifting away from solving problems and towards a focus on outcomes.

Addressing the problem with problem thinking

When things aren’t going right, people naturally focus on the problem – often on the problem only. Many organisations consider problem solving an important competence.

The only problem with problem solving is that you tend to think long and hard about the problem, and therefore use the same thinking that created the problem in the first place.

What do I mean by this? Well, a problem’s only a problem if you find it so. Think of a scenario where two people get made redundant. Each has a different response:

Response 1: I’ve lost my job. I hate having nothing to do. I need to get work before the money runs out.

Response 2: It’s great. I’m getting a paid break from work so I can do some of the other things I’ve always wanted to do. Now I can concentrate on finding the much better job I’ve been wanting.

Both of these people have been made redundant, but which one of them experiences redundancy as a problem?

Turn to Chapter 9 to consider reframing, a way of thinking about a situation which helps you to explore alternative meanings, so that you’ve more choice about how you think – and feel – about something you experience.

Focusing on desired outcomes

An outcome is the NLP word for a goal or something you want. To achieve an elusive goal, you need to think about the outcome – what you want – rather than what you currently have and don’t want (the problem).

Figure 2-1 illustrates the way to separate a problem from an outcome. By moving away from where you are now, your present state, you can move towards where you want to be, your desired state.

Figure 2-1: Moving from problem to outcome.

You find out all about how to define your outcomes to ensure success in Chapter 16.

John, a regional manager for a retail pharmacy chain, regularly hired temporary pharmacists. He needed to ensure that on each branch pharmacist’s weekly day off, a replacement pharmacist was in the shop. Temporary pharmacists were in short supply and some John booked just didn’t turn up. John spent much of his time solving this problem from week-to-week. and month-to-month. When John stopped grappling with the problem and set an outcome – a reliable group of pharmacists to provide weekly cover, which were easy to organise – his thinking, and behaviour, changed. John employed two additional permanent pharmacists and staggered the branch pharmacists’ days off. He then had guaranteed, reliable cover for his ten pharmacies at the same financial cost, and gained over eight hours back a week for himself to do his job more effectively.

Noticing What You’re not Noticing

Think about a regular journey you make, maybe your trip to work every day. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you pay attention to?

And even more importantly: What do you not see and hear?

NLP offers several techniques to expand your awareness of the physical world you inhabit and your inner world.

Celebrating your senses

You have five senses:

Seeing

Hearing

Feeling

Smell

Taste

You can easily take your senses for granted, but when you tune into them they allow you to experience the world in wonderfully rich and vivid ways. With a little effort, you can use your senses to collect more helpful information for your conscious mind. Discover how to get more from your senses in Chapter 5.

And your senses aren’t just valuable in your experience of the outside world. You also use your senses when you create or recreate things in your mind. So your memories and your thoughts are all formed with your senses. You may hear an inner voice talking to you, see pictures in your mind, and have feelings about situations long after, or even before, they’ve happened.

As you read about NLP, you realise the importance of having your senses on full alert and developing high sensory awareness of yourself and others. You start noticing things you haven’t been seeing, hearing, or feeling.

How much more can you discover the next time you do that regular journey? Test yourself and discover at least ten things you didn’t pay attention to before.

Improving self-awareness

Paying close attention to yourself is something that’s alien to many people. After all, many believe that you are who you are, and that’s it.