Entries Tagged 'NLP' ↓

We common say that: only ‘change’ is constant. However you know as much as I do how difficult it is to cope with change. More importantly to get your colleagues to change to live up with the ever-changing environment is the greatest challenge of most entrepreneurs and managers.

Reading the book written ‘BELIEFS  Pathways to health & wellbeing’ by Robert Dilts & two of my NLP tutors: Tim & Suzi  help me much to understand the concept of   ‘change’ and  gave me some practical tools to achieve ‘changes’ in me and others.

I have since an e-copy of the book and would be glad to share it with you. Read below an extract of the introduction to the book. You might be interested to know that Robert Dilts cured her mother’s breast cancer, which had reached a degree of metastasis, by changing her beliefs.

Would you now invest some time to document yourself on the power of ‘Change’?

My sincere wish is to make know this method of ‘BELIEFS CHANGE’ to attempt to alleviate the pains of the drug addicted population of our nation.

Change is a multilevel process . . .

We make changes in our environment;

Changes in our behaviors through which we interact with our environment;

Changes in our capabilities and the strategies by which we direct and guide our behavior;

Changes in our beliefs and value systems by which we motivate and reinforce our guidance systems and maps;

Changes in our identity of which we select the values and beliefs we live by;

Changes in our relationship to those things which are bigger than us, those things that most people would call the spiritual.

This book is about gaining more choices at a particular level of change—the level of beliefs. The purpose of this book is to provide conceptual and interactive tools necessary to understand and gain more choices within the belief systems that guide our behavior in the world around us.

I first began exploring the processes involved in changing beliefs in earnest when my mother had a recurrence of breast cancer in 1982 with a fairly wide degree of metastasis and a poor prognosis for recovery. It was in helping her on her dramatic and heroic road to recovery, elements of which are described in this book, that I became intimately associated with the effects of beliefs in relationship to a person’s health and in relationship to the other levels of

change involved in making complete and lasting behavioural change.

The first “Beliefs and Health” workshop was conducted in December, 1984. Most of the concepts and techniques described in this book are a result of that program, the

programs that have followed, and also of the work that I have done with particular individuals who were engaged in both life threatening and life transforming changes. While

the roots for the concepts and techniques presented in this book have reached widely and deeply, it draws most heavily on the principles and techniques of NeuroLinguistic Programming. The sources for the material in the book are primarily advanced NLP seminars in which the issue of

beliefs was being presented and dealt with as an advanced level skill.

The book is written in such a way that you can associate into being a participant in an actual workshop. Imagine that you are there, watching the demonstrations, listening

to the questions and answers, and participating in the discussions and exercises.

The primary purpose of the book is to provide the “how to’s” of belief change—although I hope you, as a reader, will find inspiration as well, within the concepts and examples

of the people that make up this book. I should also point out that this is such a rapidly

developing area in NLP that we already have enough updates and new techniques to fill a second volume. Thus I recommend that you approach this book as a way of expanding

your own beliefs about the possibilities and methods involved in the process of lasting change, as opposed to a simple description of techniques or procedures.

It was a full day for me on last Thursday. No! It was not because it was the 3^rd Thursday of November, the Beaujolais day. For years the 3rd thursday of November have been hectic days organizing the Beaujolais fest whilst wearing my AIR FRANCE hat and later French wine importer’s hat at Scott.

Early wake up!  I was on my feet at 6.30; against my usual 9.00 break from my pillow after listening to the news on either TV 5 news bulletin or the RFI radio news. I started my physical exercises and therapy half awakened as early as 7.30 because I had to rush to The Suffren hotel to reach before ten o’clock for the APM meeting. Surprisingly the motorway from Ebene to Port Louis was free flowing and it took me only 25 minutes to strike the Caudan Water front.

Together with the APM members we had a lively and enjoyable review of the last year activities and were very eager to prepare to the next year’s programme. The change of venue to Suffren from the usual Le Labourdonnais hotel  was very refreshing and more importantly the change to a special Andalusian Spanish buffet lunch was welcomed by all.

I came back home just in time to meet my coachees for their weekly session of an hour. We talked of G.O.D and S.C.O.R.E  NLP models and the possible applications in work and other fields.

Luckily there was enough time left for me to rest and relax in bed for half and hour before I walked in the meeting room to run the NLP practice group.

From 18.00 to 20.00, I enjoyed thoroughly the interaction with the core group discussing NLP Meta Model and practising the identification of language patterns. From the  GLAD, MAD, SAD feedback  from the participants, I could only rejoice to be told that they not only enjoyed and had fun during the session, they are taking back with them practical lessons to put in applications in their lives.

Reflecting on this Beaujolais day before striking the pillow after a light dinner, I thought that I have to be thankful to My Lord for this fruitful beautiful full day. I am so grateful to my NLP exposure.

The purpose of this post is to review The Change Acceptance Cycle shown in Figure 1 and to extract from it some pointers for managers caught up in organizational change.

The Change Acceptance Cycle

Let’s start in the upper left, with a common form of change, the introduction of new ways or arrangements at work. This might be a new process, a new system, a new policy, a new organization in the wake of a merger, acquisition or a just plain old reorganization.

It is rarely the case that changes are welcomed with open arms; they are almost always seen by some people as having losses attached. The losses might include a position, a title, a personal sense of comfort, a sense of competency, the disruption of personal and working relationships, a fiefdom, or even employment itself. The negative reactions people have to changes, then, aren’t to the changes but to the losses they create.

The initial reaction of many people is one of shock, disbelief, and even disorientation. Their world has been or is about to be turned upside down and they are discombobulated to use a good old-fashioned word.

From there, people try to quickly restore some semblance of rhyme, reason and order to their world, which for some, has been turned upside down. They do this in various ways; by denying the change will occur or will affect them; by dismissing it as inconsequential or irrelevant; and by simply disconnecting from what is going on around them, hunkering down and pretending it isn’t happening.

But reality sets in. Then people have strong emotional reactions. Some get angry, really angry. Some become fearful and are paralyzed by that fear. They don’t know what to do and so they do nothing. Others aren’t necessarily fearful but they do become anxious about what the future holds and this anxiety saps their energy and dominates their thoughts. They wallow in “what if?”

Another stage of emotional reaction is marked by sadness for the loss of what was; perhaps for friends co-workers who have been moved to other areas; perhaps for a loss of confidence rooted in mastery of the old ways that has been displaced by a lack of familiarity with the new ways; and perhaps for the loss of an organizational culture that was once highly valued. Sadness is not far from depression and people can and do become depressed. Often they become passive, like victims awaiting their fate.

Some bog down in one or more of these stages but, sooner or later, most begin to look toward the future. They get their heads up and start looking around. They also start jockeying for position in the new order, bargaining for their personal situations and scrambling to find a place for themselves.

As they begin making their way out of this cycle, they begin to accept whatever they’ve viewed as losses and they begin to accept the new ways, too. They see hope in the future and they begin to commit to the new ways.

Thus it is that people accommodate, adjust to and accept change.

Some Pointers for Managers

The first thing to know is that change and accompanying losses are inseparable. People see what they see and if they see loss there is a loss involved – at least for them. Moreover, people don’t resist change per se; instead, if they resist at all, they resist what they see as loss.

Not all is doom and gloom. Not everyone has a negative reaction to change and the intensity of the reactions people have varies with the change, the person and the perceived loss.

People go through this cycle in very different ways. Some scoot right through it; some plod along one stage at a time; some bog down in one or more stages; some seem to make their way through and out of it but then something knocks them right back into it; and some people seem to move back and forth between one stage and another. The point is that you have to deal with your people as individuals; there are no one-size-fits-all approaches to helping people accept change and its associated losses.

Chances are, in addition to helping your people get through this cycle, you have to go through it yourself. Who will help you? How do you get help? Where are you in the cycle and how do you move on? More specifically, what losses do you and others see as attached to the change? Are they real or imagined? Can you compensate for them or are they givens?

People can and often do help each other. Co-workers can be just as effective as bosses in helping each other make their way through the change acceptance cycle.

So what can you do? Well, for one thing, you can talk about it – with your people, with your peers and with your boss. You can use the cycle diagram in Figure 1 to focus the discussion and to examine the current state of affairs. You need to know where your people are in this cycle. They need to know where you are and where their co-workers are. You need to know where your boss is and your boss needs to know where you and your people are. The diagram gives you a framework for examining, discussing and dealing with the reactions to change and for facilitating the acceptance of change.

A blog post is hardly the place to set forth detailed descriptions for dealing with the many specific techniques for helping people through the cycle of acceptance but it is a perfect place to point you to some very helpful resources. One of the best in this regard is William Bridge’s best-selling book,

About the Author: My name is Fred Nickols.  I am a writer, an independent consultant and a former executive.  Visual aids of one kind or another have played a central role in my work for many years.  My goals in writing for SmartDraw’s Working Smarter blog are to: (1) provide you with some first-rate content you can’t get anywhere else, (2) illustrate how important good visuals can be in communicating such content and (3) illustrate also the critical role visuals can play in solving the kinds of problems we encounter in the workplace.  I encourage you to comment on my posts and to contact me directly if you want to pursue a more in-depth discussion.

I thoroughly enjoyed the above and would like to share it with you.

I took some of the insights of Dr. Laurie Anderson a professional executive coach and business strategic planner to work out my 4 Ms formula. You would imagine the number of ways the 4 Ms could be put to use. I was asked recently what method is used to do my coaching work.

To start with, I have to establish credibility with the coachee and work out his need. I normally use first the NLP SCORE method. Then we agree on the outcome after much questioning and listening. The 4Ms is used to describe the project.

A road map is then devised carving in sizeable chunks the overall agreed outcome.

Again using the 4Ms – Mission, Message, Method & Metrics each chunk is translated in a session project. Like a Russian doll each element of the 4M’s is subjected to the 4Ms methodology:

Mission standing for the WHAT and WHAT FOR,

Message standing for the HOW and translation in communications,

Method standing for the HOW TO, devising the most adaptable channel and ways to transfer the mission and finally

Metrics standing for HOW MUCH, the measurements to assess the tracking to the set outcomes.

Assess Four Elements

Answering these questions isn’t easy because these questions force executives to assess four key elements that should be, but are not commonly, top-of-mind:

1. Mission: Are you clear, articulate, and intrinsically connected to your purpose as a leader? Can you easily identify the core operating principles, values, or behaviors that you are committed to modeling as a leader? Would people who know you well be able to see the authenticity of your leadership platform, or does it sound generic?

2. Message: Do you have a concise, differentiating, understandable, relevant, timely, memorable call-to-action for people to follow? Do people know what they should start doing and stop doing to manifest this new state, or do they think you are just asking them to do more (what you want now in addition to what you wanted yesterday)?

3. Method: Have you figured out how your particular call-to-action should best be achieved? Can you, with confidence, show the way? Do you know the critical success factors and the elements that will guarantee your failure? Remember: people want to win but in the most effective and efficient way. Beyond surviving a change, they want to prosper with it and through it.

4. Metrics: Have you selected the core measures that you will track to ensure progress? Are the metrics credible and simple to remember, track, and report? Does everyone know and agree with how success will be determined?

It is interesting to note each element above described is subject to the scrutiny of my 5 Wifes & 2 Husbands methodical tool which is my universal questioning tool.

Last night, I spent two hours listening to the recordings I took during the eye opening seminar I attended by a Philosopher. The material was so dense that I had to stop the recording on and off to reflect thereon. I then mentally reassess my position in the light of Bertrand Vergely point of view. By so doing, I found that by using an ‘observer’ perceptual position, I could better judge the position to take, in melting some of the good sense that Bertrand Vergely was driving to some of my own convictions. I totally adhere to the thesis of Bertrand Vergely on Primary Intelligence (reptilian) and Creative Intelligence which was for me a new way of defining the type of intelligence.

Today whilst reading, an article of coaching it was suggested that one could be one’s own coach by imagination and the use of our creative intelligence. In NLP, we call this the ‘what if’ frame. This is at least how Marshall Goldsmith & Patricia Wheeler start off their script on Coaching.

The best coaching advice you’ll ever receive in life comes from a wise old person. Listen carefully:

First, take a deep breath. Now, imagine that you are 95 years old and about to die. Before you take your last breath, you are given a wonderful, beautiful gift: the ability to travel back in time and talk with the person you are today. The 95-year-old you has the chance to help the you of today to have a great career and a great life.

The 95-year-old you knows what was really important and what wasn’t; what really mattered and what didn’t; what really counted and what didn’t count at all. What advice does the wise “old you” have for you? Take your time. Jot down the answers on two levels: personal advice and professional advice. And once you write down these words, take them to heart.

In a world of performance appraisals, this may well be the one that matters most. At the end of life, if the old you thinks that you did the right thing, you probably did. If the old you thinks that you screwed up, you probably did. At the end of life, you don’t have to impress anyone else—just the person you see in the mirror.

Four Recurring Themes

When a friend once talked with old people facing death and asked them what advice they would have given themselves, their answers were filled with wisdom—and four themes:

1. Take time to reflect on life and find happiness and meaning now. A frequent comment runs along these lines: “I got so wrapped up in looking at what I didn’t have that I missed what I did have. I had almost everything. I wish I had taken more time to appreciate it.”

2. Look to the present. The great disease of “I will be happy when…” is sweeping the world. You know the symptoms. You start thinking: I’ll be happy when I get that . . . BMW . . . promotion . . . status . . . money. The only way to cure the disease is to find happiness and meaning now.

3. Don’t get so lost in pleasing the people who don’t care that you neglect the people who do—your friends and family. You may work for a wonderful company and believe that your contribution is important. But when you’re 95 and on your death bed, very few of your fellow employees will be waving goodbye! Your friends and family will likely be the only people who care.

4. Give it a try—follow your dreams. Older people who tried to achieve their dreams were happier with their lives. None of us will ever achieve all of our dreams. If we do, we will just make up new ones! If we go for it, we can at least say at the end, “I tried!” instead of, “Why didn’t I at least try?”

When we interview high-potential leaders worldwide and ask them: “If you stay in this company, why will you stay?”, we hear the same answers: “I’m finding meaning and happiness now.” “The work is exciting, and I love what I am doing.” “I like the people here. They are my friends. This feels like a team—like a family. I might make more money if I left, but I don’t want to leave the people here.” “I can follow my dreams. This organization gives me the chance to grow and do what I really want to do in life.”

To make a new beginning in life or in your leadership, look ahead to the end and then decide what to do.

Growing Into Success

Why do some people reach their creative potential early while equally talented peers don’t? We’ve all seen the near-misses: people who have talent to spare but never quite make it; and those, like the tortoise in Aesop’s fable, who enjoy eventual success that once seemed out of reach to most observers.

If you believe you are born with all the smarts and gifts you’ll ever have, you tend to approach life with a fixed mind-set. However, those who believe that their abilities can expand over time live with a growth mind-set—and they’re much more innovative.

As coaches, we encounter people who have a stellar track record, off-the-chart IQ, great technical expertise, and a track history of success—but who then reach a career plateau. In contrast, we work with individuals who, despite a rather pedestrian early track record, lack of Ivy League pedigree, surpass those who appear to be the “chosen ones.” How does this happen—and what can you do about it?

This is good news for those who do not grow up feeling chosen or special. Feeling much more like the tortoise than the hare, you may stumble along while others seem to sail through life easily and successfully—or so it seems.

In reality, the pampered and pedigreed are often the ones who stumble, due to adopting a fixed mindset. We’ve all seen folks who were tapped as stars early in life. Cheered on by doting, praise-lavishing parents, they develop the sense that their talents are God-given qualities that they can count on for future success.

What’s the problem with this? They feel entitled to succeed and become risk-avoidant, fearing the embarrassment of failure. They deal with obstacles by giving up, feigning disinterest or blaming others. Or, having enjoyed so many early wins, they keep on doing what made them successful, despite all the changes around them—not a great recipe for ongoing success.

Mark was a bright, results-oriented VP in his company and yet he offended his peers with his brusque style and impatience. His manager doubted that he could, or would, change. And Mark had no patience with fluff. He needed a clear business case for making any behavior change. Once he understood that listening more and increasing his patience would lead to better buy-in from others and improve his department’s product, he embraced the change enthusiastically. Mark implemented his development plan diligently with great results—to the astonishment of his manager.

What propelled Mark’s progress? He embraced a mindset of growth. Never a natural star or charismatic presence, he’s a regular guy who approached challenges with curiosity and saw roadblocks as signs that he needed to change strategy, increase effort, stretch himself, or try new behaviors (high emotional intelligence).

In our early meetings, Mark took a learner’s approach to his 360-degree feedback. Although surprised with the negatives, he didn’t deflect or blame his stakeholders. Although a very private man, he faced his fear of disclosing more about himself to others to enhance his leadership. In other words, he embraced the possible.

You can adopt an attitude that enables you to grow and change.

First, listen to yourself—to the internal music and lyrics that you hear inside your head? Are you telling yourself to give up? That your challenges are the fault of others, less wonderful, less “enlightened” people? Or do you tell yourself that you can figure out what abilities you need to grow or stretch toward to succeed? These belief systems are the underpinning of the success—and failure—of many.

Second, create a regular time and space to reflect on who you are—your beliefs, your vision, your inner dialogue. This will be unfamiliar and uncomfortable for those who value speed and are used to a track record of stardom. My advice: do it anyway.

Third, find a partner to serve as “spotter” and dialogue partner as you grow. This could be a trusted colleague or an experienced executive coach. They’ll help you leverage your strengths and stay out of the way of your blind spots.

Recently, Mark described how he now observed patterns in meetings. “Now that I know myself better,” he said, “I see how other people use different behaviors to manage stress. I’m less impatient with them because I know what they’re trying to do, and I don’t let it get to me.” In fact, Mark now uses his new knowledge in developing and mentoring others. His department is delivering results more effectively, and other leaders are asking him and his team to participate in highly visible and strategic projects.

So what started out as a simple self-improvement project by an ordinary guy has turned into a big win for his company—largely because he has a mindset of growth.

I like the definition of luxury pertaining to hotels in Mauritius as reported by an analyst of a fund manager of Anglo Mauritius financial services (AMFS).

Quote

We were invited to the NMHL analyst meeting at Dinarobin hotel in Le Morne. So have you ever wondered what two finance maniacs discuss from Port-Louis to Le Morne? After our usual rant of the length of the journey we started to wonder why they organized this meeting at Le Morne. Obviously the aim was for us to visit the revamped luxury hotel at a cost of Mur 200 m. A series of questions barged into our mind. Why such a massive amount? What is Luxury?How is it determined? How is the demand created?

We are sure that the many stockbrokers present have already forwarded you the outcome of the meeting in terms of financial and outlook as prescribed by NMHL’s management but we aim to provide you something different including some sometimes under-rated aspect of the hospitality business by financiers.

Here is a synthesis of our thoughts and visit:

There are no precise definitions of luxury. In fact, the least that we can say is that Luxury definitions are blurring. Luxury comes in many guises and defining a luxury hotel is challenging. As in the past, luxury is constantly evolving and means different things to different people. For some it may be a hotel offering simplicity, privacy and spiritual well being whereas for others it may be 24-hour butler service or a personal shopper. Needs may differ according to the nature and purpose of the trip, the origin of the guest and the location of the hotel.To add to the confusion, some operators have taken to calling themselves ‘7 star’ to imply an Uber luxury product. Even at the high end though there are varying degrees of luxury. This means that Luxury is a moving target. There are only a few who really have the “Midas” touch to spot these trends and exploit them. NMHL has a demonstrable past success in this endeavour. Overall, luxury is generally regarded as a combination of facilities and style and something you don’t normally experience at home.

Demand drivers- Motivation for buying luxury goods in general

Clearly the demand drivers for luxury hotels varies with the type of property and is influenced by factors such as location and whether the hotel is an urban, resort or destination property, on the size, style, on-site facilities and so on. But why do consumers buy luxury goods and services? Five main reasons are:

1.         ‘Treat factor’
2.         Perceptions of luxury delivering better quality
3.         Brand image (especially important for younger consumers)
4.         Self indulgence
5.         ‘Showing off’ – this typically lead to marketing via word of mouth

In Dinarobin….

We were tour guided in the hotel where we saw a stunning hotel that really made a good use of a breath-taking site, in particular the Le Morne peninsula. During our tour visit, we saw the famous Clarins brand. Here we realize one important reality of the hospitality businesses in Mauritius: Consumers value spas. Many luxury hotel companies are pursuing out-of-room revenue growth opportunities, including potential food and beverage outlets and spa growth opportunities in specific properties. Increased awareness of spa experiences as rejuvenation exercises, diversification of spa products to include hiking, yoga, dance classes and other multi-generational products, increasing level of branding within the spa industry in hotels and increasing disposable incomes, are some of the factors that will drive the spa component growth in hotels in future years. Those we spoke to agreed that a spa is an essential facility and revenue generator, not just added as a differentiator. Dinarobin has annexed sauna as well as hammam to complete the pleiade of services offered. We also saw the joint golf course between Dinarobin and Paradis as a massive differentiator.

At the end of the tour, we realized that the main aspect of NMHL is that it owns trophy assets located in prime spots. This explains the ability of NMHL to preserve its pricing power even at the time of crisis. NMHL has not barged into cutthroat competition. This we believe showed into the financials.

But in view of the recent world economic plague, is this stock undervalued? Are there better opportunities ahead? How will the forex environment develop? What is the state of barriers to entry? Should you invest your total savings in the name? At what time should you buy it if yes?

At AMFS we have a team of committed and experienced professionals with their minds constantly directed towards finding solutions to these dilemmas. Our expertise range from strong fundamental and technical analysis with the aim to add value to the portfolio we manage. We study business in-depth. It is something that we are passionate about.

Un quote

An NLP practiotioner would ask you: “what do you mean by a luxury hotel? Please specify the term luxury?”

Cela fait un moment que ma femme et moi sommes confrontés aux irritations que nous pose une personne que nous voyons très souvent. Eh bien, cette personne connait tout ce qu’il y a à savoir, et s’il y a des problèmes, ils proviennent de quelqu’un d’autre. Elle est la meilleure, plus forte, plus importante, a plus de connaissances que n’importe qui d’autre, surtout dans certains domaines.

Grace à un de mes tuteurs de PLN, j’ai trouve une solution:

Le Test du Macho

© 2002 Shelle Rose Charvet

L’un des aspects les plus irritants de la communication quotidienne est d’essayer de convaincre quelqu’un qui adopte une attitude de Macho. Les femmes sont souvent consternées de découvrir que, entre elles, elles peuvent tirer parti et commenter les idées de l’une et de l’autre, mais que c’est souvent bien plus difficile de le faire lorsque des collègues masculins sont impliqués. Et parfois, même les femmes deviennent Macho !

Lorsqu’une personne exécute un « programme macho », elle fonctionne comme si elle croyait les choses suivantes :

• Elle sait déjà tout ce qu’il y a à savoir.
• Elle n’a pas de problème. Elle, et tout ce qui est en relation avec elle est parfait.
• S’il y a des problèmes, ils proviennent de quelqu’un d’autre.
• Elle est meilleure, plus forte, plus importante, a plus de connaissances que n’importe qui d’autre.

Combien de fois est-ce que des décisions importantes ont été prises pour assouvir l’ego de quelqu’un ou simplement pour ne pas perdre la face ? Ecoutez les interviews à la radio. Lorsque le journaliste demande à quelqu’un s’il était surpris par la tournure des événements, la personne n’admet jamais ou que très rarement avoir été surprise. Ceci voudrait dire qu’elle ne savait pas déjà tout ce qu’il y avait à savoir. Une fois, j’ai donné une formation suivie d’un coaching optionnel. Personne n’a profité de l’offre de coaching parce que ceci aurait voulu dire que cette personne avait besoin d’aide. Actuellement, le coaching fait partie intégrante du programme de formation.

Nous devenons tous parfois Macho. Remarquez votre réaction lorsque l’un de vos parents vous dit quoi faire !

Pour être certain que même une personne qui est devenue Macho prendra en considération vos idées, vous pouvez employer le « Test du Macho » comme technique de rédaction. Même si j’ai formalisé le « Test du Macho », vous avez peut-être déjà fait vous-même quelque chose de semblable pour vous assurer que vos messages importants arrivent à destination.

Ecrivez votre document ou préparez ce que vous allez dire en employant la formule en 4 étapes pour présenter vos idées aux personnes septiques. Ensuite, examinez-le d’un bout à l’autre et posez-vous les questions suivantes sur ce que vous avez préparé :

Avez-vous dit ou sous-entendu que :

• Il y a quelque chose que votre auditoire ne sait pas déjà
• Vous lui dites quoi faire
• Il a problème et vous avez la solution
• D’une façon ou d’une autre, il n’est pas parfait et/ou
• D’une façon ou d’une autre, vous êtes meilleur que lui.

Si l’une ou l’autre des phrases ci-dessus sont dites ou sous-entendues, votre document ne passe pas le « Test du Macho ». Vous pourriez considérer refaire des phrases comme ci-dessous :

• Comme vous le savez probablement… (ensuite, dites la chose que vous suspectez qu’ils ne savent pas).
• Employez le langage de la suggestion : vous pourriez considérer
• Je sais que d’autres organisations ont eu ce problème et ce que certaines ont fait est …. Comment avez-vous résolu ce problème ? (Implique qu’ils ont déjà résolu tous les problèmes).
• Avec votre expérience et votre connaissance dans ce domaine….
• Votre rôle est…. Mon rôle est…. (pour établir des rôles différents mais égaux).

La prochaine fois que vous avez l’impression que si vous présentez une « nouvelle idée », la personne niera que c’est véritablement nouveau, essayez de suggérer que c’est peut-être quelque chose qu’elle a déjà considéré. Vous savez probablement déjà qui sont les Macho dans votre vie. J’ai découvert que lorsque je rédigeais une seconde fois pour passer le « Test du Macho », les personnes auxquelles je m’adressais arrêtaient d’être Macho et participaient plus volontiers au flot libre des idées.

J’ai publié un article intitulé : «  Dix tuyaux pour survivre au système de santé ». Ce titre a passé le « Test du Macho » parce que des « tuyaux » sont seulement des suggestions. Cet article n’aurait pas reçu autant d’attention si je l’avais intitulé : « Dix règles pour survivre au système de santé ».

De toutes mes années passées à résoudre des problèmes de communication, j’ai appris que la plus grande partie de l’effort est d’avoir une personne dans un état mental et émotionnel d’ouverture, afin qu’elle puisse entendre ce que je dis. Lorsque nous arrivons à obtenir que les gens nous écoutent et nous prennent sérieusement, c’est parce que nous avons dégagé assez d’espace mental chez l’autre pour que nos paroles puissent pénétrer. Vous ne me croyez pas ? Essayez vous-même !

How Much of Your Memory Is True?

New research shows that memories are constantly being re-written by our minds.

by Kathleen McGowan

This interesting article appeared on the July-August issue of Discovery magazine. I am indebted to Olivier who sent me the link. He knows my very keen interest in Neuro-Science, memory, emotions, and decisions.

I would like to highlight from the article a comment on addiction. This gives me a new thinking on addiction and it could lead in finding better resolve to the numerous drug addicts in our country.

Addiction is another kind of pathological remembering, but in this case the memory is pleasurable. Just as adrenaline sears emotional memories into the brain with the help of the amygdala, drugs of abuse enlist the amygdala and the brain’s reward centers to forge unforgettable memories of pleasure. Anything connected to the bliss reawakens the memory, in the form of craving. “When you see someone with a beer and a smoke and you get a craving, you are suffering from reminiscence, from an emotional memory,” Brunet says. Adapting experimental methods of forgetting to addiction might make it easier to quit.

From by NLP training, I have experienced the rewriting of a person “past history” almost permanently. Does that prove the statement made by Nader?

“For a hundred years, people thought memory was wired into the brain,” Nader says. “Instead, we find it can be rewired.”

I had always believed that civilisations with short history had restricted future, and civilisations that are rooted in a long past has a longer future. People who can draw from its ancestry, seem to have more to draw from to build a more creative long future.

“Having a memory that is too accurate is not always good,” he says. Put another way, memory and imagination are two sides of the same coin. Like memory, imagination allows you to put yourself in a time and place other than the one we actually occupy. This isn’t just a clever analogy: In recent neuroimaging studies, Harvard psychologist Daniel Schacter has shown that remembering and imagining mobilize many of the same brain circuits. “When people are instructed to imagine events that might happen in their personal future and then to remember actual events in the past, we find extensive and very striking overlap in areas of brain activation,” he says. Other researchers have found that people with severe amnesia lose their ability to imagine. Without memory, they can barely picture the future at all.

It is suggested in the document that the exercise of remembering and rewriting of our memory is done. I have been taught through several NLP protocols to achieve precisely this outcome.

That is basically what all these scientists hope to do. Nader, Brunet, and Pitman are now expanding their PTSD study with a new, $6.7 million grant from the U.S. Army, looking for drugs that go beyond propranolol. They are increasingly convinced that reconsolidation will prove to be a powerful and practical way to ease traumatic memories. Sacktor also believes that some version of the techniques they apply in the lab will eventually be used to help people. Most recently, LeDoux’s lab has figured out a way to trigger reconsolidation without drugs to weaken memory, simply by carefully timing the sessions of remembering. “The protocol is ridiculously simple,” LeDoux says.

None of these researchers are looking to create brain-zapped, amoral zombies—or even amnesiacs. They are just trying to take control of the messy, fragile biological process of remembering and rewriting and give it a nudge in the right direction. Brunet’s patients remember everything that happened, but they feel a little less tortured by their own pathological powers of recollection. “We’re turning traumatic memories into regular bad memories,” Brunet says. “That’s all we want to do.”

In the nutshell, I am fascinated to note the amount of practices of NLP that find plausible explanations through the newer discoveries in Neuro-science. To be realistic, it will not to be surprising also to learn that some other practices of NLP are not founded in the new discoveries.

I was so excited yesterday to read the Special Report of Soundview on The Brain Behind Business: How the New Neuroscience Is Changing Leadership.

Two of my favourite themes, leadership and Neuroscience, were combined, for my pleasure. My mind was so to say, reformatted instantly as I read through the document, especially at this time, when I was diligently preparing the NLP practitioner Group’s material for discussions.

The new discoveries in Neuroscience cast a new light on the functioning of the Brain, which in some cases affirming to the long time practices of human in leadership skills and in other cases dispelling others. But perhaps more importantly they are bringing in hereto new practices.

The social aspect of the Brain is now a new term and its discovery is being developed. Interestingly enough I am wondering on the break throughs that are possible with the development of Social networks and collective intelligence brought by the Face book, YouTube, flickr, and the like.

The Neuroscience of Leadership

In 2006,Strategy+Business magazine published a groundbreaking article titled “The Neuroscience of Leadership” by David Rock,CEO of Results Coaching Systems, and Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz. Rock is a management coach and the author of Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to

Transforming Performance at Work, Personal Best and Your Brain at Work, which will be published in October 2009. Schwartz isa research psychiatrist at the School of Medicine at the

University of California, LosAngeles, whose books include The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force and Brain Lock :Free Yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior.

In the story for Strategy+Business, Rock and Schwartz explain how many companies, such as Toyota and Springfield Remanufacturing Corp, have been able to create successful

business models by tapping into corporate practices that “resonate deeply with the innate predispositions of the human brain.”

Rock and Schwartz point out that 20 years of neuroscience research have given scientists and psychologists a better perspective on the ways people consciously and subconsciously

act and respond to their environments.

They write: “Imaging technologies such as functional magnetic resonance imaging

(fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET), along with brain wave analysis technologies such as quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) have revealed hitherto unseen neural connections in the living human brain.”

With the help of the latest breakthroughs in computer analysis, researchers have been able to link their theoretical work with the brain and the ways it thinks, feels, responds and perceives.

According to Rock and Schwartz, here are six things the latest research by neuroscientists can teach managers and executives about the art and craft of leadership:

1. Change can be painful because it can trigger physiological discomfort.

2. Behaviorism, “based on typical incentives and threats (the carrot and the stick),” doesn’t work for very long.

3. Constructive performance feedback, which means, “Politely tell people what they are doing

wrong,” doesn’t engage people.

4. Paying attention creates chemical and physical reactions in the brain.

5. Our expectations and preconceptions shape our reality.

6. Repeated, purposeful and focused attention can lead to long-lasting personal evolution.

The Social Nature of the Brain

Since the publication of “The Neuroscience of Leadership,” Rock continues to explore and write about what leaders can learn from new brain research. He has been fascinated by the latest discoveries in the social nature of the brain.

In an exclusive interview, Rock says that a major shift has taken place in the way neuroscientists understand how attention changes the brain. He explains,

“What we are seeing now is that attention is so much a function of the social environment. The brain is attuned to avoid social threats, like a drop in status; and to achieve social rewards, like a sense of connectedness with people.

The big surprise has been that the brain networks for social pain and pleasure use very similar networks for physical threats and rewards. This means that Maslow was kind of wrong—to the

brain, the social is as important as the physical.”