(Neuro-Linguistic Programming)

The study of excellence – Find out what works and do it
Think of NLP as an owner’s manual for the human brain. It’s the study of how we think, feel and act, marked by an intense curiosity about how (rather than why) human beings get the results they do.

NLP offers an in-depth understanding of what really happens when we communicate and how we use that knowledge to maximize the effectiveness of any interpersonal transaction. It shows an executive how to become more successful in business by:

	Building good-quality relationships
	Setting effective business goals
	Developing greater flexibility
	Managing greater self-control and more effective self-management

N Neuro
The mind-body and how it works

L Linguistic
The language we use to describe our world and to make sense of our experience

P Programming
Patterns of thought and behaviour that help us or hinder us

Presuppositions

The meaning of communication is the response it elicits

People can only respond to what they think you mean, which may be an accurate or inaccurate interpretation of your intended meaning. We need to be aware of other people’s responses to what we’re saying and adjust our communication accordingly.

Change makes change

Changing your own behaviour inevitably has an effect on the people around you. When one element in a system changes, the whole system must change in order to adapt to that changed element.

Each person creates their own reality and operates within that model which means they are always ‘right’

We each experience the world in our own way so we derive from those experiences our own understanding of the world. Thus two people may have quite different views of the same subject, simply because they have different ,though equally accurate sets of information and disagree, yet still both be ‘right’. We all operate from our own model of the world.

You get what you focus on

When we know what we want, how to get it and know when we do have it.

You have the resources within you to achieve what you want

We are ultimately able to deal with any situation by drawing on our own inner resources. In order to use a resource you must know that you have it and know how to use it.

You are doing the best you can – and you could probably do better

With the resources you are currently aware of and currently use, you are functioning at your current best. We can always be better.

Choice is better than no choice.

If you want something different you must do something different until you get the result you want. The person with the greatest number of choices in a given situation is most llikely to achieve their outcome. Tiger Woods continues to change his swing to achieve the greatest possible outcome and now he is at the top of his game.

Every behaviour is purposeful and served or serves a positive intention

The belief is that at some point a person’s behaviour served a positive purpose or intention, but not all behaviours have positive benefits for everyone. Example: An employee acts in unacceptable way and the manager who uses this presupposition assumes they had a reason that made sense to them at the time. The manager would explore the action from that point of view.

There is no such thing as failure, only feedback.

When something goes wrong and we see it as a failure that can bring about feelings of anger, irritation, depression etc. This serves no useful purpose so thinking of the situation as feedback rather than failure, we can learn from the experience. Thomas Edison is credited with having said that he did not fail 1,000 times in his efforts to make a viable light bulb, rather he successfully identified 1,000 materials which were not suitable for making a light filament. Imagine if he thought himself as a failure each time the outcome wasn’t the one he had hoped for.

What one person can do, other people can learn to do (modelling).

When you identify what a person is doing that gives them remarkable results (the difference that makes the difference), you have the ability to learn the same activity with a similar level of skill and excellence. However, the person learning that skill must want to carry out the necessary self development.

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