Many of these tools and techniques can be very powerful. This, in turn, can lead to the accusations of NLP being “manipulative”. First question – how do you define the difference between manipulation and influence? Second point, is a chisel a murder weapon when in the hands of Michelangelo and he is sculpting “David” or “The Pieta”? Yes, in the wrong hands, NLP has a lot of manipulative tools, e

In this article I want to cover four key aspects:

• Why knowing more about NLP and its uses might be useful for you and others in your organisation.
• What NLP is and some of the key principles.
• How it has been used in some organisations.
• What you might be able to do with it in the future.

Although I have been involved with NLP, and using it in work and other parts of my life for over 10 years I am not one of the evangelists nor do I believe it is a panacea! I am not aiming to defend NLP. I have my own views about what it is and how it can work for those who want to learn more about it – but I can offer no empirical evidence for these and do not intend to. Over that time I have realised that it can help most people, and in many different ways. Whether improving the communication and influencing skills of individuals; enabling managers and leaders to operate more effectively; giving sales and customer service people more options when dealing with the wide range of prospects and clients, helping teams to work together, providing tools to address problems or providing everyone with a better understanding of themselves – the list is not limited to particular disciplines or groups.

One of the biggest problems with NLP is its name!! Neuro Linguistic Programming is hardly the branding of a smart marketing team! Apart from being somewhat “user-unfriendly” the last word often carries negative impressions for many. Without giving the whole history, suffice to say that the original developers of NLP, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, were involved in mathematics and linguistics. Much of what they identified and developed was based on the work of well-known linguistics experts – one of whom (Alfred Korzybski) had already used the term neuro-linguistic in his work. The principle is that the “neuro” is to understand how we process and think about things, the “linguistics” is to consider the words we use and the clues within those, and finally, the “programming” is how we have generated the patterns within ourselves and keep running the programmes. (As in computing – even if the instructions within the programme to do not appear to be relevant or make sense.) The key is within this last part and the following definition builds from it: NLP is a set of guiding principles, attitudes and techniques that enable you to change behaviour patterns as you wish."

A fundamental premise of the early work done by Bandler and Grinder was that they wanted to study people who were excellent and to identify what the specifically they did to achieve this. They wanted to be able to break this down and identify the specific elements – and then teach or impart these to others in order to improve their performance. (Hence, a simpler definition which stated that NLP was “the study of excellence”.) From this early work a number of tools and techniques were created, some were adapted from different disciplines, and others have been developed by people such is Robert Dilts.

Many of these tools and techniques can be very powerful. This, in turn, can lead to the accusations of NLP being “manipulative”. First question – how do you define the difference between manipulation and influence? Second point, is a chisel a murder weapon when in the hands of Michelangelo and he is sculpting “David” or “The Pieta”? Yes, in the wrong hands, NLP has a lot of manipulative tools, es

One of the biggest problems with NLP is its name!! Neuro Linguistic Programming is hardly the branding of a smart marketing team! Apart from being somewhat “user-unfriendly” the last word often carries negative impressions for many. Without giving the whole history, suffice to say that the original developers of NLP, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, were involved in mathematics and linguistics. Much of what they identified and developed was based on the work of well-known linguistics experts – one of whom (Alfred Korzybski) had already used the term neuro-linguistic in his work. The principle is that the “neuro” is to understand how we process and think about things, the “linguistics” is to consider the words we use and the clues within those, and finally, the “programming” is how we have generated the patterns within ourselves and keep running the programmes. (As in computing – even if the instructions within the programme to do not appear to be relevant or make sense.) The key is within this last part and the following definition builds from it: NLP is a set of guiding principles, attitudes and techniques that enable you to change behaviour patterns as you wish."

A fundamental premise of the early work done by Bandler and Grinder was that they wanted to study people who were excellent and to identify what the specifically they did to achieve this. They wanted to be able to break this down and identify the specific elements – and then teach or impart these to others in order to improve their performance. (Hence, a simpler definition which stated that NLP was “the study of excellence”.) From this early work a number of tools and techniques were created, some were adapted from different disciplines, and others have been developed by people such is Robert Dilts.

Many of these tools and techniques can be very powerful. This, in turn, can lead to the accusations of NLP being “manipulative”. First question – how do you define the difference between manipulation and influence? Second point, is a chisel a murder weapon when in the hands of Michelangelo and he is sculpting “David” or “The Pieta”? Yes, in the wrong hands, NLP has a lot of manipulative tools, e

One of the biggest problems with NLP is its name!! Neuro Linguistic Programming is hardly the branding of a smart marketing team! Apart from being somewhat “user-unfriendly” the last word often carries negative impressions for many. Without giving the whole history, suffice to say that the original developers of NLP, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, were involved in mathematics and linguistics. Much of what they identified and developed was based on the work of well-known linguistics experts – one of whom (Alfred Korzybski) had already used the term neuro-linguistic in his work. The principle is that the “neuro” is to understand how we process and think about things, the “linguistics” is to consider the words we use and the clues within those, and finally, the “programming” is how we have generated the patterns within ourselves and keep running the programmes. (As in computing – even if the instructions within the programme to do not appear to be relevant or make sense.) The key is within this last part and the following definition builds from it: NLP is a set of guiding principles, attitudes and techniques that enable you to change behaviour patterns as you wish."

A fundamental premise of the early work done by Bandler and Grinder was that they wanted to study people who were excellent and to identify what the specifically they did to achieve this. They wanted to be able to break this down and identify the specific elements – and then teach or impart these to others in order to improve their performance. (Hence, a simpler definition which stated that NLP was “the study of excellence”.) From this early work a number of tools and techniques were created, some were adapted from different disciplines, and others have been developed by people such is Robert Dilts.

Many of these tools and techniques can be very powerful. This, in turn, can lead to the accusations of NLP being “manipulative”. First question – how do you define the difference between manipulation and influence? Second point, is a chisel a murder weapon when in the hands of Michelangelo and he is sculpting “David” or “The Pieta”? Yes, in the wrong hands, NLP has a lot of manipulative tools, e

A fundamental premise of the early work done by Bandler and Grinder was that they wanted to study people who were excellent and to identify what the specifically they did to achieve this. They wanted to be able to break this down and identify the specific elements – and then teach or impart these to others in order to improve their performance. (Hence, a simpler definition which stated that NLP was “the study of excellence”.) From this early work a number of tools and techniques were created, some were adapted from different disciplines, and others have been developed by people such is Robert Dilts.

Many of these tools and techniques can be very powerful. This, in turn, can lead to the accusations of NLP being “manipulative”. First question – how do you define the difference between manipulation and influence? Second point, is a chisel a murder weapon when in the hands of Michelangelo and he is sculpting “David” or “The Pieta”? Yes, in the wrong hands, NLP has a lot of manipulative tools, e

Many of these tools and techniques can be very powerful. This, in turn, can lead to the accusations of NLP being “manipulative”. First question – how do you define the difference between manipulation and influence? Second point, is a chisel a murder weapon when in the hands of Michelangelo and he is sculpting “David” or “The Pieta”? Yes, in the wrong hands, NLP has a lot of manipulative tools, especially when you see some of the websites and others about “Mastering the Art of Seduction” etc!! It has to do with the integrity, and intention, of the user.

For me, one of the most powerful applications of NLP was using it on myself. It helped me to know me even better, to recognise that I could develop even more flexibility in my actions and interactions and to take more responsibility for my own thoughts and actions. There is a particular model used within NLP called the Neurological Levels of Alignment (or Logical Levels) which can help in a wide variety of ways, and I have found of great benefit for me – and with individuals and groups within clients. (Get in touch to ask for a diagram.) Although some analysts happily take it apart and disprove it – in my experience it works! Basically, make the changes closer to the centre and they will be more long-lasting.

Applications in the workplace

"NLP could be the most important synthesis of knowledge about human communication to emerge since the sixties" Science Digest

There is no limit to where NLP, or parts of it, can be applied. From writing advertising copy to customer service people handling phone calls, managers motivating their people or sales people developing their skills to win over more customers, the limits are within the mind of the users.

Although NLP has many “direct” business applications, I believe that its most powerful use is for individuals to improve their self-awareness and to develop greater skills in their self-management, communication and interpersonal dealings. It can help improve their Emotional Intelligence. The 5 Pillars of NLP (expanded from 4!) give a good indication of what it is. Outcome thinking, sensory acuity, flexibility, rapport and state management, cover what the key elements are – and offer a caveat about the potential for jargon! Taking each of these:

Outcome thinking: - being clear about what you want to achieve, the aims or goals that you want. This can cover long, medium and short-term outcomes. Fundamentally, it is about doing things for a reason.

Sensory acuity: - paying attention to what is happening and the signals you are receiving. The better you can become at this, noticing changes in voice tone, small shifts in body language, the actual words people are using or even eye movements, the more you can understand the other person and how tune into them. (Those of you who are familiar with the concept of “eye accessing cues” and “representational systems” may like to know that in strict research terms they do not score highly as predictors. However, it does pay to improve our ability to pay attention to others!)

Flexibility: - “If you continue to do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got”. If something is not working – do anything else! We can become creatures of habit, yet good communicators and influencers are those who have developed more habits so that are n