nlp briefsheet

Leith's Briefsheets

Each Leith’s Briefsheet focuses on a concept or tool that change agents and innovation activists may find useful.

What is NLP?

In his book Using Your Brain – For A Change, NLP co-developer Richard Bandler says: “Neuro-Linguistic Programming is a
name that I made up to avoid having to be specialized in one field or another.” NLP is an interdisciplinary subject which
embraces, among other things, brain/mind research (neuro), the study of language (linguistic), and psychotherapy (re-
patterning, or [re-]programming). One of the key NLP principles is multiple description, so here are three ways of describing
NLP. (1) NLP is a comprehensive and coherent body of knowledge about communication, behaviour, learning and change.
(2) NLP is the study of the difference between competence and mastery. (3) NLP is an attitude of curiosity, experimentation
and flexibility, leading to a methodology of modelling that leaves behind it a trail of techniques.

ISTORICAL

PERSPECTIVE

NLP originated during the 1970s in Santa Cruz, California, when mathematician Richard Bandler and associate linguistics
professor John Grinder studied, or ‘modelled’, three distinguished and highly effective psychotherapists – Fritz Perls
(Gestalt therapy); Virginia Satir (Conjoint family therapy) and Milton Erickson (Ericksonian hypnotherapy). Grinder and
Bandler managed to find out how these three people were able to produce such outstanding results with such consistency.
The presuppositions (tacit assumptions), mental strategies and behaviour patterns employed by Perls, Satir and Erickson
were identified by Grinder and Bandler and distilled into the discipline they named Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Grinder
and Bandler’s early co-developers included Judith DeLozier, Robert Dilts, Steve Andreas and Leslie Cameron-Bandler. NLP
initially came to public attention in 1975 with the publication of Grinder and Bandler’s first book, The Structure of Magic. It
has since been used to model high performance in many different fields.

AJOR

INFLUENCES

Influences include

the psychotherapeutic approaches of Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir and Milton Erickson

the brief therapy

methods of Paul Watzlawick and others

cybernetics (systems theory), including W Ross Ashby’s Law of Requisite

Variety

Gregory Bateson’s cybernetic epistemology and, in particular, his learning levels work (epistemology as a noun is

the set of fundamental assumptions from which a person operates.)

Bertrand Russell and Alfred N Whitehead’s Theory

of Logical Types

Alfred Korzybski’s General Semantics

Noam Chomsky’s Transformational Grammar

the TOTE

(Test

¤Operate¤Test¤Exit) model developed by George Miller, E Galanter and Karl Pribram

George Miller’s theory, “The

Magic Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two”.

NDERLYING

PRINCIPLES

NLP practitioners are guided by a set of operating principles called presuppositions. You do not need to actually believe
these statements, but you will probably find it helpful to act as though they are true. The presuppositions of NLP are as
follows:

The meaning of your communication is the response it elicits

Recognising people’s responses requires clean,

open sensory channels

People process all information through the five senses

There is no failure, only feedback; no

mistakes, only outcomes

Behind all behaviour there is a positive intention

Rapport is meeting people at their model of

the world: people operate from their own perspective of the world, rather than how it actually is

The map is not the

territory: the description of an experience is not the same as the experience itself

People with the greatest flexibility have

the highest probability of achieving the responses and outcomes they desire

Everyone is doing the best they can, given

the choices they believe are currently available to them

People have all the resources necessary to make any desired

change

Change can be quick and lasting

People have two levels of communication: verbal and non-verbal; conscious

and unconscious

Mind and body form one interactive system

Client resistance is a comment on the inflexibility of the

change agent

Modelling successful performance leads to excellence.

CONCEPTS

The four cornerstones of NLP are:

OUTCOME

ORIENTATION

(results focus),

SENSORY

ACUITY

(paying close attention to non-verbal

information),

BEHAVIOURAL

FLEXIBILITY

(choice about how to act), and

RAPPORT

(being on the same wavelength). When you are

working as a change agent, the

META

MODEL

or language model enriches your understanding through the use of specific

questions that clarify verbal

DISTORTIONS

DELETIONS

and

GENERALISATIONS

, and the

NEUROLOGICAL

LEVELS

model helps you make the

most effective intervention by addressing, as appropriate, your client’s environment (where? when? with whom?),
behaviour (what?), capabilities (how?), values and beliefs (why?), identity (who?), or transpersonal awareness (who else?).
The three main viewpoints or

PERCEPTUAL

POSITIONS

you can adopt to gain information are: first position (standing in your own

shoes), second position (putting yourself in the other person’s shoes) and third position (imagining you are a fly on the
wall). In NLP, the five senses are called

REPRESENTATION

SYSTEMS

and are labelled V A K O G: V

ISUAL

(sight), A

UDITORY

(hearing),

INAESTHETIC

(feelings/touch), O

LFACTORY

(smell), and G

USTATORY

(taste). Fine distinctions of these are called

SUB

MODALITIES

Visual sub-modalities include size, brightness, colour/black and white, spatial location, and

DISSOCIATED

ASSOCIATED

STATE

(do

you see yourself in the picture or not?). You can adjust your sub-modalities to eliminate unpleasant feelings and generate
more effective behaviour. C

ALIBRATION

helps you read another’s state more accurately. Verbal clues called

PREDICATES

indicate

whether that person is in visual, auditory or kinaesthetic mode; likewise

EYE

ACCESSING

cues, which also let you know whether

Leith’s Briefsheet
Neuro-Linguistic Programming

Written and published by Martin Leith

www.martinleith.com

October 2003

images and sounds are being constructed or remembered, and if internal dialogue is occurring. M

ATCHING

and

PACING

can

then be employed to create and maintain rapport. Resourceful states are evoked through stimulus-response

ANCHORING

and

through

ELICITATION

; this can also be used to identify

STRATEGIES

(patterns of thinking and behaviour) which can be modified

to improve performance. You can change the meaning of events by

REFRAMING

or redefining them. T

IME

LINE

work enables you

to think differently about your personal history and invent your ideal future. M

ETA

PROGRAMS

are your internal filtering and

external operating styles. C

RITERIAL

EQUIVALENCE

is how you act out your values or

CRITERIA

(what’s important to you). Moving

from the specific to the general is called

CHUNKING

; moving the in the opposite direction, or dividing something into

smaller pieces, is

CHUNKING

DOWN

. M

ETAPHOR

is used to communicate with the unconscious mind. The

WELL

FORMED

OUTCOMES

model helps you define goals in such a way that the likelihood of their achievement is substantially improved. You can then
use

FUTURE

PACING

to mentally rehearse the successful accomplishment of these goals.

PPLICATIONS

NLP is a set of tools for accelerated learning, effective communication, strategic change and outstanding performance.
Organisational applications include the specification of mission, vision and strategy, the changing of attitudes, values and
beliefs, culture change work, the development of capabilities and competences and the strategic modification of behaviour.
Organisations embarking on small or large scale change programmes would do well to study NLP, as would those adopting
The Learning Organisation philosophy (Senge, et al), and those involved in Total Quality Management initiatives, business
process re-engineering, or competence-based schemes such as National Vocational Qualifications and the Management
Charter Initiative. Specific applications include training (process and content), public speaking, negotiation and selling,
interviewing, objective setting, problem solving, creativity and innovation, advertising, qualitative market research,
teaching (including spelling and music), dyslexia resolution, management and sports coaching, psychotherapy,
counselling, habit breaking (smoking, etc.), personal development, acting, mediation, advocacy, martial arts, medical
diagnosis.

HREE

COMMON

CRITICISMS

1. “NLP is manipulative.” This is a shortcoming of certain practitioners, rather than a truth about the practice itself.
Fortunately, the large majority of NLP practitioners have respect for others and are aware of the negative consequences of
manipulation. 2. “NLP practitioners copy your postures and gestures, while noting every movement of your eyes.” (A
reference to pacing and eye accessing cues; see overleaf.) This is evidence of a very low level of skill. If you are aware of
such behaviours then it is unlikely that the person concerned has studied with a recognised training organisation. 3. “NLP
training is expensive.” It is true that the total cost of a training programme can appear high, but when the cost per training
day is calculated it is actually quite low, flexible payment terms can usually be arranged and the return on investment is
generally substantial.

HREE

MAJOR

VIRTUES

1. NLP is based on an interactive, holistic view of the world, rather than a linear, reductionist one. 2. NLP leads to
generative, rather than remedial, change. 3. NLP is not concerned with theories, only with what works. According to
Psychology Today: “NLP is the most powerful vehicle for change in existence, whether it is applied to business, law,
medicine or therapy.”