His writing appears to speak to so much more than the subject of meditation.  It raises a good number of questions about our goal-setting in the business world and our constant striving to reach new objectives.  Can it really be the case that all we aim for is already here in the present moment, if only we could stop and appreciate it?

(The italics are Kabat-Zinn’s.)

“A desire for things to be other than the way they actually are is simply wishful thinking.  It is not a very effective way of bringing about real change.  At the first signs of what you think is “failure”, when you see that you are not “getting anywhere” or have not gotten where you thought you should be, you are likely to get discouraged or feel overwhelmed, lose hope, blame external forces, and give up.  Therefore no real change ever happens.

The meditative view is that it is only through the acceptance of the actuality of the present, no matter how painful or frightening or undesirable it may be, that change and growth and healing can come about…  new possibilities can be throught of as already contained within present-moment reality.  They need only be nurtured in order to unfold and be dis-covered.

If this is true,  then you don’t need to try to get anywhere when you practice the body scan or any of the other techniques.  You only need to really be where you already are and realize it (make it real).  In fact in this way of looking at things there is no place else to go, so efforts to get anywhere else are ill conceived.  They are bound to lead to frustration and failure.  On the other hand, you cannot fail to be where you already are.  So you cannot “fail” in your meditation practice if you are willing to be with things as they are.

In its truest expression meditation goes beyond notions of success and failure, and this is why it is such a powerful vehicle for growth and change and healing.  This does not mean that you cannot progress in your meditation practice, nor does it mean that it is impossible to make mistakes that will reduce its value to you.  A particular kind of effort is necessary in the practice of meditation, but it is not an effort of striving to achieve some special state, whether it be relaxation, freedom from pain, healing or insight.  These come naturally with practice because they are already inherent in the present moment and in every moment.  Therefore any moment is as good as any other for experiencing their presence within yourself.

If you see things in this light, it makes perfect sense to take each moment as it comes and accept it as it is, seeing it clearly in its fullness, and letting it go.

If you are unsure of whether you are practicing “correctly” or not, here is a good litmus test:  When you notice thoughts in the mind about getting somewhere, about wanting something, or about having gotten somewhere, about “success” or “failure”, are you able to honor each one as you observe it as an aspect of present-moment reality?  Can you see it clearly as an impulse, a thought, a desire, a judgment, and let it be here and let it go without being drawn into it, without investing it with a power it doesn’t have, without losing yourself in the process?  This is the way to cultivate mindfulness.”

Does this resonate with you too?  I’d be interested to hear your comments.

If you would like to read more from this book, it is available from Amazon here.

I took a risk last week and delivered a new workshop which I created from scratch.  It was part of a leadership programme to encourage “rising talent” to become more adventurous in their relationships with colleagues and clients.  Here are some things I learned and shared.

1.  Any companies that have achieved extraordinary success (e.g. Virgin, Apple, Amazon) have taken huge gambles requiring great courage from their leaders.
2.  On a personal level, taking more risks also pays huge dividends.  Nobody else will give us the life, job or career we want – we have to go out and create it.

3.  The problem we face is that all growth requires effort and change, and discomfort if not pain.  A butterfly has to emerge from a chrysalis.

4.
The sporting coach Tim Galwey’s has formulated this useful equation which implies the only person standing in our way is ourselves.  (See his “Inner Game of Work” and other “Inner Game” titles based on a range of different sports).  We usually face a lot of internal interference in the form of a critical inner voice.
5.  However, our self-confidence increases with the number of risks we take.  Michelle Obama said this when she visited the UK in 2011 and took a group of children from a deprived area in London up to Oxford University to raise their aspirations.
6.  The fear that clings on to our feet and prevents us from moving forward is often a fear of failure, or a fear of what others will think.  In her book “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway” Susan Jeffers says that our real underlying fear is that we won’t be able to handle what may happen.  Jeffers says that no matter the outcome, there is always the opportunity to learn, so we can’t lose.
7.  In any case, most of the things we fear don’t happen.
8.  Of course, we can choose to stay in our comfort zone with its payoffs, but there is an opportunity cost of not taking more risks.  What could we miss out on?  What will happen if we don’t do it?  Few situations stay the same so we can even end up losing what we currently have, if we don’t risk it.
9.  The inventor Thomas Edison had no fear of failure, indeed he even relished it as failures gave him the opportunity to learn more.  He is reported to have made tens of thousands of attempts before succeeding in inventing the light bulb.
10.  Buddhist philosophy teaches that the best way of dealing with fear is working through it, so that it loses its power over us.  (See my previous blogpost on this).  Often we are only afraid of fear itself.
11.  This doesn’t mean that we should become reckless in our risk-taking.  Taking risks should have a purpose and we can think through the consequences of our decisions and actions.
12.  In order to feel ok about risks that we take, our limbic system (our mammalian brain managing emotions) and our neocrotex (supplying human reasoning) must be aligned.  Decisions need to make business sense and satisfy personal and emotional issues too.
13.  Often it is a limiting belief (about our world, our perceived limitations, or whether we deserve success) that holds us back from taking action.  The problem with such a belief is that we believe it to be true.  Using various questioning techniques offered by approaches such as NLP (neurolinguistic programming) and CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy), it is possible to challenge what we believe and substitute it with more helpful thinking.
Crysalis image:  cc Micah & Erin

In contrast, we all know how energised we can be when we are tapping in to what is really important to us.  At these times, we are inspired not only to get through tough challenges but to become ever better.  When we feel motivated, we enjoy what we do and we find it easy.  As we are drawn to spending more time enjoying what we love, we become really good at it.

I’ve been thinking about this because I recently had the privilege of attending a workshop by Robert Dilts, one of the leading developers of NLP (neurolinguistic programming – a leading methodology for personal development).  Dilts has made a lifetime’s work of understanding how we can manage personal beliefs which hold us back.  None of us feel highly motivated all the time and at the workshop we learned some new ways of reconnecting with our core values when we need to.

The key principles (which are to be followed according to the best NLP practice of observing the physical sensations that arise as you ask these questions, which will point to important insights) are:

1. Identify what you want to achieve.
2. Identify what makes you want to achieve this (For example, by understanding how the organisation you work for makes the world a better place).
3. Identify what it is that holds you back.  (For example, this could be a personal belief that the situation is hopeless, that you are unable to do it, or do not deserve to succeed).
4. Identify what is more important to you than the things that hold you back.  This deep-seated motivation will keep you going regardless of the consequences.  For example, it may include the desire for security, self expression, personal validation or personal growth.

During this workshop it struck me that the power of discovering our motivation afresh is nothing less than a prevailing evolutionary force.  It is so strong that it keeps individuals and movements pressing forward to overcome seemingly impossible odds, even despite the threat of personal danger.  It is the revolutionary energy we have been witnessing through the Arab Spring, and which I heard about in person when I visited Bahrain last May.  What a difference it could make to most organisations if employees brought a fraction of such energy to work!

It is, of course, essential that we exercise wisdom and judgement so that we direct such powerful energy in the right direction.  It can be dangerous to coach individuals along the lines of, “Follow your passion” if this could lead them into unprofitable or unhealthy pursuits.  To borrow Stephen Covey’s analogy*, there is no point climbing a ladder if it is leaning against the wrong wall.

Please contact me if you would like more information about the motivational workshops that I run, “Keeping Motivation High” or if you would like to learn more about NLP training (I am an accredited trainer of NLP with the International NLP Trainers Association and able to award NLP accreditation at Diploma, Practitioner and Master Practitioner level).

* “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”.

As a teacher of NLP (neurolinguistic programming) I am used to explaining to people how they can make themselves “feel better”.  NLP has a vast range of techniques for shifting from an unresourceful (unhappy, negative or anxious) emotional state to a more resourceful one (to feeling happier, more upbeat and energised).  While many of these can achieve effective and permanent changes, it is obviously dangerous to encourage the delusion of wellbeing simply by swapping around emotional states if external circumstances do not justify it – a bit like rearranging the deckchairs on the titanic.

Chodron recommends a different approach.  She encourages us to detach from our emotional states altogether and not to pass judgement on them in any way, avoiding labelling them as good or bad, positive or negative.  Often it is our self judgement that causes us more discomfort than our state of mind itself.

She invites us to go even further, persuading us to face the fears that we have directly rather than using all sorts of activities to avoid them as we usually do.  She tells the story of a Buddhist master who is out walking one day with his students, when they are approached by a very ferocious-looking dog.  His students run away from the dog in all directions but to their surprise their master runs towards the dog directly.  The dog gets such a fright it turns tail.

While this teaching is certainly hard and would appear to require regular practice, it seems to be the only way we can truly manage our anxieties.  By facing up to them and being honest about what we feel,  even if it is sheer terror, their hold on us loosens up.  As we become freer, this alters how we experience things and we find our external world changes as a result.

Image:  cc llamnudds

If you have heard of NLP,  you probably know that it’s possible to tell how somebody is thinking by reading their eyes.   The study of REPRESENTATION SYSTEMS would not be complete without addressing this subject.

It’s important to learn because eye movements help us know

• how somebody is creating a problem
• how to suggest ways of unblocking the problem
• how other people do things successfully (their STRATEGIES).

You may be unaware of doing this, but we all create INTERNAL REPRESENTATIONS of the outside world in our minds.   The only data we have to experience, understand and interpret our experience is received through our five senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell.  (Some people would say there is a sixth sense of intuition too).   So our memories are laid down in internal images, sounds we recall and feelings we remember.  When we use our imagination, we also create pictures, sounds and feelings in our mind’s “eye”.

It is possible to determine which sense somebody is accessing when they are thinking, through the rapid movements their eyes make.  Typically, when they are accessing an internal image, they will look up.  When they are recalling a sound or speech their eyes will probably move in the direction of one of their ears, and when they are remembering a feeling they will look down.  Depending upon whether they are remembering or imagining a picture, sound or feeling will also determine the direction their eyes take.   Based on some research carried out by Robert Dilts, one of the first developers of NLP, it is believed that eye movements usually follow the following patterns:

However, it is important not to assume you know what somebody is thinking about because it is likely they will not follow this schematic exactly.  For example, they may look up and to the left when creating an internal image in their minds.  In order to read somebody’s eye movements accurately, it is first necessary to CALIBRATE them.   This can be done through running through the series of questions listed in the exercise below and noting their responses.

You will also notice that eye movements happen very quickly, follow each other in quick succession and may be difficult to read accurately as a result.  People’s eyes tend to dart about as they move from one sensory channel to another.  This “train of thought” is valuable to analyse as it reveals the STRATEGIES they are using to think through and plan a course of action.  These can be studied with further knowledge of NLP at Practitioner level.

Exercise:

In pairs, ask your partner the following questions.  Observe their eyes and note in which direction they move as they answer.  This will allow you to calibrate their eye scan patterns.

• What is the colour of your front door?  (Your partner will be making a picture of it in their mind – visual remembered)
• What does your doorbell or door knocker sound like?  (They will be recreating the sound – auditory remembered)
• What was the last conversation you had with your partner / best friend? (They will be rerunning the conversation – auditory digital)
• What is the sensation like of walking barefeet across grass?  (They will be remembering what it feels like – kinesthetic remembered)
• What will you be wearing tomorrow?  (They will have to imagine a picture – visual constructed)
• What will it sound like when you open your Christmas presents next month? (They will have to imagine what they will hear – auditory constructed)

Problem Solving

When somebody presents with a problem, it is useful to understand how they are RE-PRESENTING it in their mind’s eye.  (Are they making a picture of it?  Are they hearing something that bothers them?  – Often they may be criticising themselves or other people.  Are they experiencing a particular feeling associated with it?)  Sometimes, by asking them to access another sensory channel instead, they can unlock a solution.

A student once told me, “I didn’t pass my exam”.  At the time he was looking pretty miserable and his eyes were gazing down towards his feet.  In order to confirm the cue that he was giving me that he was accessing a kinesthetic RE-PRESENTATION of his experience, I asked him, “How do you feel about that?”  He confirmed that he wasn’t feeling great.  I then asked him what advice his teacher had given him.  At this, he lifted his head and visibly brightened a little when he told me, “She says not to worry because I’ll have a chance to resit next year”.  Part of this young man’s problem was that he was choosing to stay stuck in the sensory channel in which he had RE-PRESENTED his experience (kinesthetic) when more helpful information was available to him in his auditory channel.

With practice it’s possible to become quite adept at reading eye scan patterns.  See if you can notice in conversations with other people whether their eyes correlate to the experiences they are explaining.  Monitoring close-ups of actors on TV or in films also provides good practice.

Images:  cc Jo Andre Johansen and Mind for Business

I suppose it’s because even in cold, wet November, Paris conjures up romantic images – of  shopping in bright lights along the Champs Elysees, of a walk along the Seine, of sipping coffee at a pavement cafe.  For myself, I was certainly looking forward to a nice dinner in a smart restaurant.

The reality was very different.  I might as well have been working in Birmingham or Reading.  After having been squashed into a budget airline seat, I was collected and driven round the peripherique (Paris’ equivalent of the M25) for an hour in the dark and deposited at a hotel on a business park.  The hotel was part of a large international chain and its layout, furniture and swimming pool were exact replicas of its siblings in the UK.  In the morning, I walked round the corner to the client’s premises.  If the traffic hadn’t been driving on the right side of the road, I could easily have been back home.

Inevitably, during the next day, there was no time to step outside to take a break.  Not that there would have been much fresh air to enjoy.  There wasn’t anywhere to stroll – only small patches of manicured grass and a few forced trees that broke up the squares of office blocks.

At lunchtime, a colleague made fun of me when I asked when the sandwiches would be arriving, reminding me that we were in France and could expect a sit-down meal.  I was the one proved right.

My meal that evening in the hotel was a disappointment too.  It arrived a full two hours after I had ordered it as the staff were dealing with a large party.  It was clear that they didn’t need to care too much about business travellers who were stranded captive and had few options for eating out.

My meal the following evening at the airport before my departure was even worse.  The only restaurant available at my terminal at Charles de Gaulle was little more than a canteen, with even less ambience.

I’m writing this not only as an indictment of how far customer service levels have slipped in France in the universal drive to bring down unit costs in the hospitality industry.  In recent blogposts I’ve been pointing out how important sensory awareness is for the stimulation of new ideas, for the effectiveness of our communications and for our enjoyment of life itself.  Yet it is as if every aspect of our business life – the uncomfortable long journeys, the standardised chrome and grey boxes we work and sleep in, our sobre attire -  is now designed with the express purpose to prevent any engagement with our environment.  As our senses are dulled, we dissociate from our experience, lose energy and become dreary, less vital people.

Contrast this to the bright stimulation of a nursery or primary school environment where we entrust our youngest.  We have learned that children work best when they are enjoying themselves and having fun.  Are adults’ needs really so different?

Image:  CC Julie Anne Workman

Representation Systems

The only channels human beings have to acquire information about our outside world are our five senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting.  (Some people add the sixth sense of intuition).   These senses provide us with the “vocalbulary” of our experience (the sensory-based words we call PREDICATES in NLP).

We use our five senses to create an INTERNAL REPRESENTATION of our experience in our memory or  imagination.  We also use these  senses to express ourselves (see my previous blogpost on how to create communications that are compelling).

In NLP, we call our senses REPRESENTATION SYSTEMS and annotate them as V (visual), A (auditory), K (kinesthetic), O (olfactory – smell) and G (gustatory – taste).

Unless we are severely disabled, we able to access information through each of these channels.  However, we each prefer to use one of our senses more than others.  This is our PRIMARY REPRESENTATION SYSTEM.  This tendency may be very pronounced, or we may switch between our senses more equally.  It is rare for people’s PRIMARY REPRESENTATION SYSTEM to be olfactory or gustatory, although this is possible.

When we find ourselves stuck with a problem, we may discover that we have not accessed enough information from the REPRESENTATION SYSTEMS  we use least.  Paying more attention to these may provide us with valuable information that we have overlooked.

For example, there has been a particular issue that has been worrying me recently.   The more I dwell on it, the worse I feel (K) and I have been imagining the worst scenarios in my mind (V).   Although I listed (V) and weighed up (K)  all the pros and cons of different courses of action,  I have not been listening (A) to some very sensible advice several people have been giving me.  Now that I am taking their advice (A) on board I am more confident of finding a way through.  As you can deduce from this, my Auditory sense is the channel I tend to use least and yet it held valuable information I was overlooking (V).

Identifying the Primary Representation System

1.  We can identify a person’s PRIMARY REPRESENTATION SYSTEM by observing the types of activities they enjoy doing in their leisure time.   For example, it is likely that artists and photographers will depend highly upon their visual sense, musicians and speakers upon their auditory sense, athletes and counsellors upon their kinesthetic sense.

2.  We can also tell which is the preferred REPRESENTATION SYSTEM by listening in to the sensory-based words or PREDICATES that somebody uses.  For example:

• A personal accessing their visual sense may say things like, “It was good to see you”,  or “I can’t see the way ahead clearly”, or “I’d like to find that”.
• Somebody accessing their auditory channel may say, “I’d like to hear his point of view”, “That doesn’t sound right” or “Tell me what you want”.
• The kinesthetic channel may be expressed by such phrases as, “How do you feel?”, “I’d like to get in touch”, “We have a good handle on it now”.

3.  As with all approaches in understanding differences of behaviour, it is important not to “pigeonhole” ourselves or each other as none of us use one sensory channel exclusively.  However, there are some behavioural characteristics that are characteristic of each type.

Highly Visual People

• tend to sit forward, hold themselves erect
• be tidy and organised
• be conscious of their appearance, for example, matching accessories and colours, and are aware of the appearance of others and their environment
• tend to have lots of pictures around them
• tend to use colour
• need pictures in order to assimilate information and to learn
• speak quickly from fairly high in their chest

Highly Auditory People

• enjoy talking and may talk to themselves under their breath
• will be easily distracted by noise
• have a facility for reading and writing quickly, they learn quickly from written text
• enjoy listening to music, pick up rhythm easily
• can detect the different tones in other people’s voices

Highly Kinesthetic People

• are more relaxed in their body language and dress
• comfort is very important to them
• enjoy sports, physical movement
• enjoy making things with their hands
• may rely upon their gut instinct and intuition
• tend to fidget, use their hands to express themselves, find it difficult to stay still
• speak with a lower voice tone from lower in the chest
• are comfortable touching people and being touched
• need to “get a feel” for what they are doing

Identifying somebody else’s PRIMARY REPRESENTATION SYSTEM gives you another way of establishing and maintaining RAPPORT with them.  Use words (PREDICATES) that employ their preferred sensory channel to get on the “same wavelength” with them.  Express your communications in visual, auditory or kinesthetic ways that they will appreciate.

Synesthesia

Occasionally, you may hear somebody express a mix of different senses in one phrase, for example, “a hot sound” or “a titillating conversation”.  This is known as SYNESTHESIA.  It is as if the neurological pathways have “fused” together so that different sensory experiences are associated and experienced together.  This is a source of great poetry and  interesting metaphor.

Exercises

1.  Problem-Solving

Think about a particular challenge you are currently facing.  What information are you working with and from which sensory channel did you obtain it?  Is it a problem because it produces bodily symptoms of stress in you?  (K)  Is it something you are doing?  (K)   Is it something you have witnessed or observed?  (V)   Is it something somebody has told you?  (A)  Or have you heard or read about it?  (A).

Check which REPRESENTATION SYSTEMS you have not been using to find a solution.  For example,

• Is there a physical action you can take to resolve it that you haven’t thought about? (K)
• Can you make yourself feel better in any way? (K)
• Could you make a model to represent the challenge you face? (K)
• Are there any different ways of looking at the problem?  (V)
• Can you create a positive visualisation of a good outcome in your mind’s eye? (V)
• Could you draw a picture of it? (V)
•  Is there anything you could read which could help you?  (A)
• Is there somebody you could talk to?  (A)
• Could you tell a story about the challenge you face, inventing a desired ending?  (A)

2.  Identifying PRIMARY REPRESENTATION SYSTEMS

Work with a partner, and decide who will be Person A and Person B.

Person B asks Person A to tell them about an activity they really enjoy doing.   Person A is to talk for up to five minutes.  It is important that Person A talks in the present tense as if they are doing it now.  (They are, therefore, ASSOCIATED.  For an explanation of ASSOCIATED and DISSOCIATED, see an earlier blogpost.  When we are DISSOCIATED we tend to move into a different REPRESENTATION SYSTEM).

Person B makes a note of all the sensory-based words that Person A uses.

Which sensory channel does Person A access the most?  This gives an indication of Person A’s PRIMARY REPESENTATION SYSTEM.

Swap round and repeat.

3.  Ways of Increasing your Sensory Awareness and Problem-Solving Ability

Images:  Mind for Business Ltd, all rights reserved

Are you the kind of person who is easily affected by what is happening around you?  For example, does conflict upset you?

Would you like to be able to draw the maximum enjoyment out of special occasions?  For example, when you see a breathtaking view on holiday?

If so, learning how to associate and dissociate from different experiences as you choose will be a helpful skill for you to gain.

1.  The Concept of Association and Dissociation

We naturally move continuously from one state of mind to another.  On those occasions when we are living an experience fully, we are aware of everything in our present environment, noticing what we see, hear, and feel.  This is an ASSOCIATED state.   It is the frame of mind that martial warriors seek to maintain and operate from.   It brings our attention to the present and is very powerful,  as it summons a great deal of internal energy.

In contrast, when we are reflecting about something, going over in our minds something that has happened in the past, or considering something that might happen in the future, we are in a DISSOCIATED state.  This is a useful state of mind for planning and analysis.  It allows us to stand back, observe and achieve a distance from what we experience.

In what STATE do you find yourself in right now?  If you find you have been reflecting on the paragraphs you have just read, take a moment to become aware of your fingers on the keyboard, notice any tension in your posture, the quality of the light that is hitting your desk and listen for any sounds happening outside the room.  You will have just shifted from a DISSOCIATED to an ASSOCIATED state in an instant. While you may not have been familiar with these terms before, we recognise these different  STATES of awareness in many familiar phrases we use, such asA useful rule of thumb is to ASSOCIATE into pleasurable experiences and DISSOCIATE from unpleasant ones.  This requires that we raise our level of self awareness so that at any time we can tell which state we are operating from.

2.  Advantages and Disadvantages

For someone working in an emergency response team, in a hospital operating theatre, or caught up in active warfare, it is obviously necessary to be able to stand back and work from a DISSOCIATED frame of mind.  This  allows for reflection and cool decision-making on the best course of action.  Becoming caught up personally in the experience would not only be distressing but a severe hindrance.  (Yet, in many situations we may find it challenging to step back when things upset us).

However, if we are involved in some artistic endeavour such as performing a dance or singing, it is necessary to ASSOCIATE as fully as possible  into the experience.   No matter our occupation, it does us all good to be able to ASSOCIATE properly from time to time, to take a moment out to “smell the flowers” or observe a beautiful sunset.

Young children live most of their lives in an ASSOCIATED state which means they can enjoy experiences to the utmost.  While this means they are unable to achieve a distance and reflect when they are upset, because they live so fully in the present, they are able to quickly move on and forget.

3.  The Risk of Too Much Dissociation

In business, where we are frequently called upon to analyse and reflect, we may tend to stay in a DISSOCIATED STATE for longer than is healthy.  This can have the drawbacks of preventing us realise that our physical environment is not optimal, for example, we may ignore our need for rest, comfort and exercise and even override minor physical ailments.   Some business folk have such a lack of body awareness that they have cut themselves off from their natural capacity to sense other people around them and what is going on for them.

It is no surprise, then, that so many business communications fail to get their message across because they are tedious and uninspiring, provoking a DISSOCIATED state in others.  (See my previous blogpost on this subject).

Exercise to practice Association and Dissociation:

1. Put your hands together in front of your face as if you were making a prayer.
2. Open your hands very slowly, as if you were drawing back a pair of curtains, until  they reach your ears.  As you do this, enter the scene in front of you.  You should now be in an ASSOCIATED state.
3. Close your hands very slowly, bringing them forward until they are in front of your face again.  This will “remove” you from the scene and bring you into a DISSOCIATED state.

Exercise to raise self awareness and levels of Association:

1. When you walked into your place of work today, how much did you notice?  What colour was the front door?  Who was at reception?  What kind of furniture is there?
2. When you next step outside take a piece of paper and see how many sensory-based words (PREDICATES, see previous blogpost) you can list for each sense – visual, auditory, kinesthetic, gustatory, olfactory.

As we live in a highly visual society, it is likely you will come up with a lot of visual words.   It is also likely that unless you are a wine conoisseur, chef or somebody who works with fragrances or essential oils, you will have a fairly limited range of vocabulary to detect and distinguish things you smell and taste.

Practice using the sense that you are least aware of – you will be amazed at how much extra information about your environment comes to you!

Both images:  Copyright Mind for Business Ltd, all rights reserved

Do you need to get a message across?  If you have something important to say, it can be daunting to know how to present it in such a way that people will be interested, let alone remember it.   The ability to get your message across successfully is critical when it concerns an important change in direction, an issue of health and safety such as a firedrill, or a presentation to a client where you want to outdo the competition.

Yet, a lot of business communications are very dull and require a high degree of concentration from us if we are not to become distracted.  NLP offers many ways of making our messages more compelling.  I’ll touch on just one of them here.

I’ll never forget visiting the Thackray Museum in Leeds, a museum which tells the story of medicine.  Although it was a family outing, I wasn’t looking forward to it because I wasn’t particularly interested in the subject matter.  Imagine my surprise to find that the museum was so clever in bringing periods of medical history to life that I was reluctant to come away!  I can still remember aspects of our visit years later.   How did they make it so interesting?  By creating lifelike scenes and models, by playing filmclips and soundtracks, and even creating authentic smells.

One key way to make a message memorable is to use media and language that appeal to all the senses and fire the imagination.  There are particular words that are responsible for making a novel page-turning, a poem breathtaking and a presentation lively.  They are called PREDICATES in NLP.  Some examples are APPEAR, BRIGHT, CLOUDY, COLOURFUL, DRAW, EXPOSE, GRAPHIC, HORIZON, IMAGINE, LIGHT, MELODIOUS, OUTSPOKEN, QUESTION, RESONANCE, SHRILL, SING, TRANSLATE, UNFEELING, WRENCH.

This is explained by the NLP Communications model  (see my previous blogpost on this). PREDICATES allow us to create a sensory-rich INTERNAL REPRESENTATION in our mind’s eye.

Of course, it is not always appropriate to use language like this in business (and it would not be in rapport).  The vocalbulary we use in education, science and business mostly needs to be objective, impersonal and efficient.  This is called FACTIVE language in NLP.  Examples of  “business words” include ASSUME, BELIEVE, CHANGE, DECIDE, EXPERIENCE, FUTURE, GOAL, LEARN, MODEL, NOTICE, OUTCOME, PROCESS, RECOGNISE, THEORY, UNDERSTAND.  They can be applied to a wide range of general situations.

Can you tell the difference of impact these two types of vocalbulary have upon you?  Successful business communicators know how to switch between them for best results.  Perhaps advertising executives more than others are skilled in engaging the senses in order to capture the attention of consumers within a very short timespan.

The leading UK retailer M&S ran a most successful series of TV advertisements for its food stores for many years by emphasising the sensual experience of eating.  These two adverts were so evocative that most of the UK population can still remember their key theme years later.  Watch them here:

M&S advert no. 1

M&S advert no. 2

Exercise:

1. Consider a message you have to get across successfully.  Write it down.
2. Review it, noticing all the factive words you have used.  Replace them with words that appeal to either the visual, auditory or kinesthetic senses.  What difference does it make?

Both images:  Copyright Mind for Business Ltd, all rights reserved

As I’ve written about  in previous posts, Rapport is an incredibly important skill to master, for the following reasons:

1. It allows you to enter into somebody else’s experience of the world and understand them better.
2. It enables you to get onto the same wavelength as somebody you may have difficulty relating to.
3. It is essential for influencing somebody else, e.g. in sales or negotiations.
4. Your effectiveness in communicating with somebody will be in direct proportion to the amount of rapport you have with them, and
5. It enables you to take somebody where you want to lead them.

One of the most powerful means of gaining rapport, and the most infamous, is matching body language.  This has acquired somewhat of a bad name because it feels intrusive.  Yet, it is a naturally occurring phenomenon which occurs all the time.  It is through reading the signals of body language that we can tell immediately at a subconscious level how well people are getting on with each other.  Anthropologists call this behaviour “postural echo”.  The founders of NLP, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, called it “non verbal pacing”.

Exercise

1.  Look at the two pictures below and identify which aspects of body language portray a presence or absence of rapport.

Image:  Flickr CC Manitou2121

Image:  Flickr CC  bruisedfruits

2.  When you are next with a group of people, even if it is just walking down the street, become conscious of the body shapes people are throwing which tell you how well people know and like each other.

There are many different parts of our physiology we can use to match somebody else’s to gain rapport.  These include posture, the arrangement of our limbs, our facial expression and eye contact.  One of the most powerful ways we can influence somebody else’ state of mind is to match their breathing.

There are different ways we can match body language.  It is important to experiment with these because matching somebody else’s body language directly can be disturbing unless we are in an intimate relationship with them.

• Direct matching – I match what you do exactly, using the same limbs etc.  To make this less intrusive, I may make my gestures smaller than yours.
• Direct mirroring – I match what you do as if we were facing each other in a mirror.
• Cross-over mirroring – I substitute something you are doing for something else, using a different channel.  E.g. I nod my head to the rhythm of your speech.
• Analogous marking – I substitute something you are doing for something else, using a similar channel.  E.g. I tap my pencil on the table in the same rhythm that you tap your feet.

Exercise

1.  Match somebody’s body language using one of the methods described above.  Experiment with the effect of using different methods.

How does this change your relationship?

You may find a strange thing occurring as you do this.  Matching somebody’s body language allows you to experience physically the environment as they do.  You are thereby able to enter their “Map of the World” and gain insight into their state of mind and resulting behaviours. 

2.  Match somebody’s body language at a distance.  (You could pick somebody out of a group or somebody who is standing or seated at the far end of the room).

Notice the effect this has of bringing somebody’s attention to you and making you feel connected.   Other people may notice and feel excluded.