neuro-linguistic programming

[Helen Thomas]

neuro-linguistic programming seems to be creeping into many jobs lately.
Or rather I know people who say they are doing NLP.

Hopefully this is a fad that will go away. Sounds mad.
[ June 14, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

[Jon McDonald]

Have you ever tried any of it?

[Dmitry Melnik]

neuro-linguistic programming seems to be creeping into many jobs lately.

Do you mean that NLP skills have become required to land any of those jobs? What kind of jobs are you talking about?

Or rather I know people who say they are doing NLP.

That's interesting. What do they say they are trying to achieve by doing NLP?

Hopefully this is a fad that will go away. Sounds mad.

What is it that sounds mad to you about using NLP in work-related situations? I am just curious

[Helen Thomas]

The jobs are mostly in training. A person who is training to become a consultant of it looks as though she has been run over by a bus and dragged through a bush backwards. A friend, so I am a bit wary of it.

The core of it is about being positive and helping others reach their potential. So I gather.

Perhaps there's nothing wrong with it, per se. Only with the method of conveyance.

Caveat emptor. Buyer beware.

I've watched some tapes of Anthony Robbins. He seems to preach common sense
but I am not sure which bits are NLP.
[ July 06, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

[Dmitry Melnik]

The jobs are mostly in training.

I would say that it's good for a trainer to have some NLP skills.

A person who is training to become a consultant of it

Consultant of what?

looks as though she has been run over by a bus and dragged through a bush backwards.

Oh, no! It does not happen all the time, does it? May be just during the training sessions

A friend, so I am a bit wary of it.

I can imagine...

The core of it is about being positive and helping others reach their potential. So I gather.

The core of what? NLP itself? the training that your friend conducts?

I would agree that being positive (and so on) is the core of seminars that Tony Robbins teaches.
He is good at what he is doing, but teaching NLP is not main purpose of his seminars. Even though
he uses NLP heavily in the training, and teaches a few technics.

One of the essential skills being taught during NLP Practitioner's training is the ability
to communicate better with people, and better understand them. The ability to notice nuances of
person's mood changes by observing subtle (and not so subtle) changes in facial expression,
posture, changes in tone of the voice and language patterns, by reading the "body language". The
ability to put your message in exactly right words to be better understood by this particular person.
It's very useful skill for most situations in life, and for a job as a trainer/instructor in particular.

[Helen Thomas]

Now I am curious . What's your background with NLP.
And Jon Macdonald's ?

Dmitry , do you attend Tony Robbins seminars ? What do you get from it ?

Paul McKenna in London does an NLP Practitioner's training.
[ July 07, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

[Jon McDonald]

Originally posted by Helen Thomas:
Now I am curious . What's your background with NLP.
And Jon Macdonald's ?

Dmitry , do you attend Tony Robbins seminars ? What do you get from it ?

Paul McKenna in London does an NLP Practitioner's training.

[ July 07, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

I took a lot of trainings in it from the late '90s to mid 2000. with through practitioner and master practioner and several assorted trainings (hypnosis, DHE, etc...). Never went to Tony Robbin's seminar, but we did watch it during our practitioner to see how he uses NLP during his presentation. Here is a hint, if you go to one of Tony's seminars and feel a strong desire to buy his books and tapes its working on you .

I've never met Paul McKenna, but I have heard a lot about him. Is Richard (Bandler) still doing practitioners with him. I heard they have something like 200-300 people at their practitioner courses.

Most of the people I met at seminars fell into one of 3 catagories. They were either in IT, owned there own business, or were corporate trainers. The hypnosis seminars tended to draw more healthcare workers than business people.

To keep this related to jobs, I must say that those seminars dramaticly improved my interviewing skills and my ability to gain trust, friendship, and cooperation with my coworkers.

If you have any questions, please ask away.

Jon

[Dmitry Melnik]

Now I am curious . What's your background with NLP.

I have been hanging around with quite a few NLP-trained guys
and gals for a year or so. Have been reading books, listening/watching
tapes, practicing few techniques even longer. Now I am in the middle of
my Practitioner's trainig, and have a desire to learn as much of this stuff as I can handle. It's useful, and it's fun

Dmitry , do you attend Tony Robbins seminars ? What do you get from it ?

I have not attended any of his seminars, listened to the tapes though.
Listened just enough to find out what his teaching is about. At that
moment I was looking for a solution for some specific problems, and I
moved on with my research as soon as I got his point.

Paul McKenna in London does an NLP Practitioner's training.

He is a famous guy. Must be good and expensive

[Jon McDonald]

Originally posted by Dmitry Melnik:

Paul McKenna in London does an NLP Practitioner's training.

He is a famous guy. Must be good and expensive

Actually, one thing some NLP trainers in the UK (and the US) were upset about was that he could undercut them by offering Practitioner and Master Practitioner with himself and Richard Bandler (Co-Founder of NLP) for less than other trainers would charger for Practitioner Training alone. He did this by relying on one of the oldest principles of economics, economies of scale.

Jon

[Jon McDonald]

Originally posted by Dmitry Melnik:
Now I am in the middle of
my Practitioner's trainig, and have a desire to learn as much of this stuff as I can handle. It's useful, and it's fun

I forgot to ask, who are you doing your practitioner training with? Are they in the US?

Jon

[Dmitry Melnik]

I forgot to ask, who are you doing your practitioner training with? Are they in the US?

www.nlplearningsystems.com
Dallas, TX

[SJ Adnams]

are you sure they are not doing 'Non Linear Programming' ?

http://www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/otc/Guide/faq/nonlinear-programming-faq.html#Q1

i.e. writing optimisation software?

[Helen Thomas]

Originally posted by Dmitry Melnik:

He is a famous guy. Must be good and expensive

�700 a session according to a blog. What is this you have to practice everyday - what goals do you set ? Same question to Jon McDonald.
[ July 07, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

[Jon McDonald]

Originally posted by Helen Thomas:


�700 a session according to a blog. What is this you have to practice everyday - what goals do you set ? Same question to Jon McDonald.

[ July 07, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

That is probably how much he charges for private sessions of (changework) where he helps them with specific issues (e.g. stopping smoking, phobias, increase athletic performance, etc..).

You don't HAVE to practice anything. However, depending on what area you wish to apply what you have learned, you may want to practice certain exercises to improve the NLP skills that come into use most often in that area. For instance, when I learned it, I was focusing a lot on persuasion. One of the tools NLP has for that involves the use of certain language structures and patterns when communicating. One method to practice those structures was to write examples of them down and/or say them into a tape recorder everyday. You do that for a few weeks and your skill with the language patterns will skyrokect. Another way to practice is just to talk with everyday people and pay attention to what patterns related to NLP they are exhibiting.

One thing I would recomend is not to think of NLP as some sort of positive thinking, motivational seminar experiance. Rather, I view it as a collection of tools based on new ways of observing human behavior. It isn't a science in that they don't state "This is how people are". Instead, think of it more as a collection of heuristics such as "If person A is exhibiting X, do Y and you will usually get Z response. Not always, but usually."

Jon

[Dmitry Melnik]

700 a session according to a blog.

According to a blog? What prevents you from asking for a price directly?
http://www.paulmckenna.com/nlp_practitioner_training.html

What is this you have to practice everyday

The techniques you learn. They are very experiencial, meaning that
you don't learn them by reading a book. It's like riding a
bicicle, or doing card tricks. The more you do it, the better you
get at it.

As Jon mentioned, you don't have to practice all of the techniques.
Just the ones you want to master If you practice everything, soon
you'll discover your favorites, the ones which work best for achieving
your goals, or solving your problems, starting with most important
ones Along the way you'll develop intuition on which techniques
could be useful for what.

So far I have found most useful the ability to solve internal conflicts,
to master my emotions, to be very attentive to things people say and do,
and change my behaviour accordingly, to get results I need.

what goals do you set ?

Small short term goals, and big long term ones

Like certain outcomes in negotiating a contract, or a design meeting.
Or finding out what authors of a business requirement document really
want, and which requirements are very important, and which ones are not.

Or the goal could be a career, or long term personal relationship.

[Helen Thomas]

Thanks Jon and Dmitry. You both provided somw valuable insight into NLP.
So it's more than a passing fad.

[Helen Thomas]

I dug out some Tony Robbins tapes Personal Power and Get the Edge.
And one from PAul McKenna's. All which I was given but promptly forgot.We'll see how it goes.
I'm glad I asked the question and thanks for all the input.

Tony Robbins entire course costs something like $21,000. As if....
[ July 09, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

[Dmitry Melnik]

You are welcome, and good luck with your study

BTW, did you find out how much Paul McKenna charges for the practitioner training?
[ July 09, 2004: Message edited by: Dmitry Melnik ]

[Anton Golovin]

Any sort of discipline that seeks to control other human beings, even if it purports to strive to achieve positive results for them, is nothing else but to the detriment of all involved - the actor and the actee. That is why your friend looks so strange (to answer your post.)

[Helen Thomas]

Originally posted by Anton Golovin:
Any sort of discipline that seeks to control other human beings, even if it purports to strive to achieve positive results for them, is nothing else but to the detriment of all involved - the actor and the actee.

The emphasis and focus of the study must be on oneself to better understand oneself. If you are not getting the reaction you'd prefer how can you modify your behaviour to get better reactions from people you interact with.

There is a fine line where you alone can allow yourself to be manipulated or be manipulative.

[Helen Thomas]

Though I understand men have shorter "patches" of focus and are happier the more they have in the day whereas women focus on something for longer periods , relating it to several other things and would worry at it until there is some resolution or another more pressing matter needs focussing on.

Men would wholeheartedly focus on dinner, a football match, a movie but women can eat dinner but not remember exactly what they had for dinner or the movie they just watched. Tehy'll be worring about tomorrow's dinner.

[Anton Golovin]

Originally posted by Helen Thomas:


The emphasis and focus of the study must be on oneself to better understand oneself. If you are not getting the reaction you'd prefer how can you modify your behaviour to get better reactions from people you interact with.

There is a fine line where you alone can allow yourself to be manipulated or be manipulative.

I speak from the experience of having done some NLP, and I would not advise it either for manipulating others or "improving" yourself. There has never been a professional evaluation of NLP by Board-certified psychologists, so the psychological value of it is not clear. Moreover, NLP is in essence self-coding, which can lead to very disastrous results, such as wiping out the trait of abstract thinking, essential for a programmer. Don't use it - you will lose surely, and gain nothing.

[Anton Golovin]

That's why without women we, men, would not have dinner at all and would starve to death or suffer from severe malnutrition.

[Mark Herschberg]

This is not Meaningless Drivel. Please keep comments on topic. While borderline this does fall under personal/career development, so I don't mind keeping it here. However please keep the thread focused.

--Mark

[Anton Golovin]

It's a great forum where moderators do their job with this exemplary alacrity.

[Helen Thomas]

Originally posted by Anton Golovin:


I speak from the experience of having done some NLP, and I would not advise it either for manipulating others or "improving" yourself. There has never been a professional evaluation of NLP by Board-certified psychologists, so the psychological value of it is not clear.

True. There hasn't.

Moreover, NLP is in essence self-coding, which can lead to very disastrous results, such as wiping out the trait of abstract thinking, essential for a programmer. Don't use it - you will lose surely, and gain nothing.

Companies use NLP for self-improvement course. It's also seen as a vehicle for shattering any pre-concieved beliefs about oneself that prevents one from pursuing different goals. If what you are doing currently isn't working try something else.

[Anton Golovin]

I can only relate my experience, and that experience tells me it is not only a strange thing, but a dangerous thing as well. I am quite good at it, too, but I voluntarily gave it up.

For instance, it has been frequently observed that a person, cured of smoking by NLP, for instance, drops to the usage of heavier drugs; and that is criminal in practice, I am sure you will agree. It is impossible that the medical profession would ever endorse such "cures." As far as "shattering beliefs," shattering a human leg leads to some sort of reaction from the said human, and shattering a trait of the psyche by analogy leads to equally disturbing psychological reaction, which may be of differing degrees of transparency, duration, severity and delay of onset.

I am sure that with due thoughtfulness, the said companies, who employ NLP for the improvement of their workforce, would realize that they are in fact providing a psychological procedure with unproven medium- and long-term side effects. for instance, practicing hypnosis without a psycghologist's license is illegal, and NLP, being a form of coercion, should be made illegal, too.

In short, there is a very real possibility that this "self-improvment" will cause the self-improver to erase certain valuable parts of his personality, notably, the business and professional qualities, for instance. The danger lies in that we simply do not know ourselves, and to alter the super-complex mechanism of the human personality without knowing absolutely all the details can cause disaster.

And it follows that if we do not know ourselves, we surely do not know other people even as well as we know ourselves.
[ July 11, 2004: Message edited by: Anton Golovin ]

[Helen Thomas]

I hear you, Anton. Companies will have to keep an eye on their staff on NLP to see whether it's working for them or not.

I followed another link from the link on the first post to Noam Chomsky. He could be a mentor for the founders ?
And Lucian Freud,too ? Which would add some respectability IMHO.

[Dmitry Melnik]

I can only relate my experience, and that experience tells me it is not only a strange thing, but a dangerous thing as well.

Sir, being a curious rookie I would like to learn from your valuable experience, if you don't mind. My questions to you are:

How come that after you had done all those internal and external ecology checks and future pacing, you ended up with not only strange, but dangerous things as results? (which sounds to me as un-ecological results of various degree)

If you think of any beneficial (or at least less dangerous) ways of practicing NLP, what would they be?

Thank you for answering.

I am quite good at it, too, but I voluntarily gave it up.

Sir, I think that you've done very right thing. I am taking my hat off, and gods bless you.
[ July 12, 2004: Message edited by: Dmitry Melnik ]

[Helen Thomas]

Here's a people and performance development consultancy that uses both Emotional Intelligence and NLP.

EQ at work

NLP and EQ

Someone else introduced me to Daniel Goleman books on EQ. I think she had a crude interpretation of what EQ meant but good at turning events to her advantage.
[ July 12, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

[Jon McDonald]

In my experience, using NLP done without any formal training can cause some problems/complications. The biggest reason for this is that people don't perform what we term "ecology checks". For programmers, this is similar to performing unit tests and functional tests for software that will be released. I personally in my several years of doing NLP have not seen problems occur when "ecology checks" are done. Even when they are not done, the most common response of the person is to simply revert back to the old behavior.

I've seen (and done) several "stop smoking" pieces of changework with people and I can say that I have NEVER EVER seen anyone resort to an illegal drug to replace cigarrettes. The worst I've seen has been someone eating more, but I have heard that that is common with people who stop smoking.

I don't place any positive or negative value on NLP as a whole, it is all a matter of how one uses the tools they are given. I personally use it for self-improvement and persuasion and have found it works spectacularly in both areas. Gaining rapport and establishing a bond with your interviewer is a powerful tool in landing a position. When someone really likes and wants to hire YOU, often times, they will try to adjust the job requirements to fit your skills. I've seen more people hired, retained, and promoted primarily because the right people liked them a lot than any other reason. Conversely, I've seen situations where someone is skilled, but disliked, and management searches desperately for a way to fire them.

I'm not going to get into the whole "NLP is about controlling people" arguement, other than to say this:
If NLP teaches you how to control people, why hasn't some NLPer "controlled" Bill Gates' secretary so that they could be given a personal meeting with him? They could then "control" Bill Gates and force him to sign over all of microsoft to him. That would be my plan if I could "control" people . WAIT!! What if Bill Gates is a Master Practitioner of NLP and that is how he became so rich with Microsoft !?!?

Jon
[ July 12, 2004: Message edited by: Jon McDonald ]

[Mapraputa Is]

Helen: I followed another link from the link on the first post to Noam Chomsky. He could be a mentor for the founders ?

I read Bandler & Grinder's "The Structure of Magic" book (couldn't finish it though) and they make use of tree-diagrams to show sentences' "deep structure" as opposed to "surface structure". These I think are Chomsky's insight. From what I read, Bandler & Grinder's book was born out of recording Virginia Satir's terapy sessions.

[Jon McDonald]

Also, in the U.S. the legality of hypnosis is completely dependent on the State you live in and how they define hypnosis. I have never had any legal problems with it, but that is just because the state has a MUCH more limited view on what hypnosis is than I do (my view is so expansive, that I often doubt whether such a thing as "hypnosis" exists). For instance, in states where hypnosis is restricted to psychotherapy, "guided visualization" usually isn't. I do neither. I just like to talk with people.

Jon

[Helen Thomas]

My 3 year old niece's EQ is pretty high. She has her daddy exactly where she wants him and it drives *his* mother mad.

[Anton Golovin]

For me the question is more of awareness, in terms of the actee awareness, of what is going on. It is true, you can be likeable for no other reason than mirroring your interlocutor, but that is rather taking advantage of the situation. Basically, you set aside your true personality for a while and present a false front. Typically, it carries psychological consequences for self. It also sinks a practitioner to a manipulative view of his environment: instead of being nice to others, he seems to be nice to others with a hidden agenda. I mean, I am sure few people bother to trace out what really goes on with themselves when they practice NLP. It is seductive in the way that personal power is seductive. I do agree that skill is not always a guarantee of promotion, by the way, but at the same time, think of productivity losses if people are hired solely based on their likability - especially in the software development business, where everything is so abstract and mathematical. Of course, it is perfectly feasible that some great programmers could also be very likable people, but overall, I think programmers are rather abstract.

In short, I think that the practice of psychology will always remain oriented about the person's free will and never take NL{ into any serious consideration; and since professionals don't, I don't think personally that I should.
[ July 12, 2004: Message edited by: Anton Golovin ]

[Mapraputa Is]

Well, emotional intelligence is for a separate thread.

[Helen Thomas]

Too right, Map. They are each confusing enough on their own let alone considering both.
(Try drawing a tree diagram for that)
Now I am

If G is context-free, this structure can have the form of a tree with its root node corresponding to the starting symbol of the grammar.

[ July 12, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

[Dmitry Melnik]

I've seen (and done) several "stop smoking" pieces of changework with people and I can say that I have NEVER EVER seen anyone resort to an illegal drug to replace cigarrettes. The worst I've seen has been someone eating more, but I have heard that that is common with people who stop smoking.

That must be because you know how to do "quit smoking" changework effectively and safely, and you are good at it.

The first thing I thought of when I read about doing illegal drugs as a side effect of smoke-quitting was a phobia of smoking installed into the smoker, and nothing done about the part of the smoker's personality which was responsible for keeping the smoking habit. In this case I would be surprised if no strange side effects have shown up.

[Helen Thomas]

Originally posted by Dmitry Melnik:

BTW, did you find out how much Paul McKenna charges for the practitioner training?

Just out of curiousity I sent an e-mail to his site's e-mail address a few days ago and have yet to hear from them.

[Helen Thomas]

Funny enough this popped in my mail a few seconds ago.
It reads like gobbledy-gook to me at the moment.

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[ July 14, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]