Introduction
This chapter will address the ways in which the mindsets of change leaders can be shaped and changed through adjustments to the meta-programmes we habitually use (O’Connor & Seymour, 1984). The meta-programme we choose influences the nature of the emotional, cognitive, or behavioural state we adopt as a social strategy and these internal strategic decisions have a powerful influence on our social results as change leaders. I will employ the NLP model of meta-programme auditing which will help change leaders to recognize un-resourceful meta-programmes and transform these into resourceful states that enable successful change leadership outcomes. I will also examine a technique known as ‘perceptual positioning’ as a method of calibrating and changing our meta-programmes through a role-modelling exercise.
Kinds of meta-programmes
Meta-programmes operate at a level of unconscious thought. It is quite possible for a person to go through their life unaware of the existence of their own meta-programmes and the ways in which they influence their social results and, thus, their experience of life in general. NLP enables us to become aware of our meta-programmes, to calibrate them effectively and to intervene in their structural content to change them. If this methodology alone was the only contribution of NLP to the world it would be a significant contribution to serve humanity productively.
Table 11.1 provides examples of 10 fundamental meta-programmes that change leaders should become aware of.
Table 11.1 Perceptual filter analysis
| Meta-programme | Perceptual bias | Relevance to change leadership |
|---|---|---|
| Away from or towards risk | Does the change leader gravitate towards risk or away from risk? Do they prefer to remain in their comfort zone or experience situations that stretch them and thus run the risk of damaging their reputation or sense of self? | Change management by necessity involves ‘loosening the lid’ on the models that people hold as archetypes of ‘how’ things are and ‘how’ things work. Therefore, an ability to be comfortable with risk and to even enjoy being out of one’s comfort zone is a positive resource for a change leader to have. |
| Internal or external validator | Does the change leader assess the quality of their workmanship internally and thus ‘self-validate’ or do they prefer to obtain validation from outside sources, i.e., are they dependent on the appraisals of others? | Change management is a very subjective affair that involves collaboration. The workmanship of the change leader is defined by the quality of their leadership relationships and the change management outcomes. Therefore, the methods through which we define ‘well-formed outcomes’ is critical to the change leadership process. The change leader needs to be able to seek the views of others to create the performance indicators that define what success will look like. They need external validation. |
| Match or mismatch | Does the change leader mainly look for differences in relation to the perceptions of others and their own? Alternatively, does the change leader look for similarities between their perceptions and those of others? | Initially when developing a change programme, we are seeking to locate differences in approaches that can be adopted by the organization. This involves mismatching As the programme develops complex problems will emerge that require different points of view and perspectives to be integrated in the change dialogue. This again needs mis-matching. However, there are critical times when we need to match the thinking patterns of key stakeholders to build consensus for change and to cement new ways of thinking and behaving. |
| Failure or feedback | Does the change leader respond to set backs as ‘failures’? Alternatively, does the change leader respond to setbacks as opportunities for ‘feedback’? | The issue with perceiving setbacks as ‘failures’ is that it is both a judgemental strategy and it closes down critical reflection. Perceiving a setback as a feedback opportunity encourages dialogue and organizational learning. |
| Static or dynamic | Does the change leader view social situations as ‘fixed’ models of reality? Alternatively, does the change leader view social situations as ‘dynamic’ and fluid models of reality? | If one considers cultural change, or behavioural change, then one needs a mindset that sees the organization as a fluid dynamic system that is open to change. If one perceives the organization as a closed system that is static and relatively fixed (‘that’s just how things are’) then it would be difficult to imagine a change leader being effective with this mindset. |
| In-time or through-time | Does the change leader prefer to experience time as it unfolds (in-time)? Alternatively, does the change leader prefer to ‘stand over’ time (through-time), to view it as a historical, present, and future construct that is part of a systematic whole? | In-time change leaders may find themselves absorbed by immediate local issues. This can block their ability to ‘see’ the patterns unfolding because of their actions. Through-time change leaders can take a high-level vantage point and ‘see’ the timeline that has led to the present and construct a view of how it may unfold going into the future. |
| Chunking up or chunking down | Does the change leader prefer the ‘big picture’ which involves ‘chunking up’ to the top-level details? Alternatively, does the change leader prefer ‘chunking down’ to the gritty details? | If the change leader prefers chunking up as a dominant meta-programme they may miss the granular details that are shaping future circumstances. The ‘Devil is in the detail’ as they say. If the change leader prefers chunking down, then they may find themselves stuck in the ‘mud’ and unable to articulate the bigger picture. |
| Judgemental or curious | Does the change leader adopt a ‘judgemental’ approach to others? Alternatively, does the change leader adopt a curious mindset towards others, i.e., they seek to understand their behaviour and the point of view driving it and why they hold it? | A critical competence in a change leader is the ability to understand people and to relate to them. If the meta-programme drives the change leader towards judging people against their own internal models, then this will act as a barrier to building empathy and understanding with others. A state of curiosity is a resourceful mindset for change leaders to be able to access. |
| Problem or opportunity | Does the change leader perceive challenging situations as ‘problems’ that need to be solved? Alternatively, does the change leader perceive challenging situations as ‘opportunities’ to learn, grow and develop? | There is much debate in the literature regarding the idea of ‘the learning organization’. The foundation to the learning organization is the capacity of change leaders to establish an organization-wide COACH state. If the mindset is to ‘solve’ the problem and move on, then arguably this leads to an emphasis on ‘closure’. Alternatively, if the mindset is to exploit the opportunity for group learning then arguably the problem gets solved and the organization ‘learns’ how to learn. |
| Compliant or strong-willed | Is the orientation of the change leader to comply with the authority of others? Alternatively, is the orientation of the change leader one which resists authority and seeks to demonstrate strong will power? | A significant challenge facing organizations is in-fact a lack of ‘leadership’. I adopt the view that leadership involves seeking out differences, encouraging dialogue, confronting challenges, and pushing boundaries. If the change leader has internalized a meta-programme which privileges compliance over independent mind, then perhaps they will be limited in their change leadership capabilities. |
Meta-programmes can be described as filters that select experiential data and we use this data to formulate a social strategy. Our meta-programmes, as biased compasses of the mind, can lead us into COACH state, or they can lead us into CRASH state. The aim of NLP is to develop cognitive flexibility in change leaders so that they can calibrate the meta-programme that is guiding them and, if necessary, change it to a different directional compass if it is not proving to be resourceful and is leading the change leader into CRASH state. This process of reflective thought is called meta-reflection and represents thinking about thinking. As previously discussed, meta-reflection is a process of mind through which we stand over and above conscious thought to review the ways in which our thought patterns (meta-programmes) are constructed and the influence they are having upon us at the behaviour and attitudinal level and thus the influence they have on our social results.
The model meta-programme is extremely useful as a diagnostic tool to gauge the state of an organizational culture across multiple dimensions. Its utility lies in the fact that it starts with the individual as a meta-programme profiling device. Then, by aggregating the number of profiles we can identify meta-programme patterns in a cultural domain and generalize with a high level of confidence about the characteristics of the cultural paradigm of the organization. We can also identify the ‘desired’ changes that individuals are seeking in their culture and identify group patterns through the aggregation of data collected. Inserted into each of the dimensions, of the meta-programme audit checklist, as shown in Table 11.2 below, are ‘meta-programme symptoms’. Please rank (on a scale of 1 through to 10) each symptom in order of how each variable matches with both your present and preferred thinking style.
Table 11.2 Meta-programme audit checklist
It’s not a case of ‘this’ or ‘that’
The important observation to make regarding meta-programmes and their relevance for change leaders is that it is not really the case that one type is correct all the time. I am encouraging a contingency approach towards our choice of meta-programmes. The point is to become aware that we have meta-programmes, identify them and understand their content and the direction they point us towards and the ways in which they influence our choices of social strategies and, thus, our results. The key to this process of managing our meta-programmes is critical self-awareness. This process is helped by adopting a different perceptual position which involves stepping into the shoes of someone who uses a different meta-programme to ourselves and building a sense of how it feels to try it on for size, to get a sense of how it feels and the emotions it creates, the strategies the person selects and the social results the person obtains.
The technique developed by Robert Dilts called ‘Perceptual Positions’ is based upon adopting various perceptual positions to enable for example conflict resolutions. The technique involves imprinting one’s self into any one of four alternative perceptual positions.
• First position: one’s own perception of a situation or object
• Second position: that of other stakeholders involved in your dynamic
• Third position: that of the objective observer detached from your dynamic
• Fourth position: that of all three positions synthesized to give you a wider perceptual map
This model provides us with multiple vantage points from which to perceive a phenomenon of interest and, thus, enrich our map of reality thereby giving us greater sense-making resources. It also enables the development of empathy and greater rapport between conflicting stakeholders. It can also be used as an exercise to identify with role models or as a device to develop one’s critical self-reflection skills, and it can be used to understand the perspectives of key stakeholders during change. For example, if I habitually used ‘chunking up’ (which means being interested in broad brush details) as opposed to ‘chunking down’ (emphasizing micro details) as a meta-programme I could use the following NLP pattern.
1 Identify someone who preferred chunking down.
2 I could initially fully associate with chunking up in the first perceptual position and ask myself the following questions:
• What do I believe to be true about chunking up as a strategy?
• Why do I value chunking up over chunking down?
• How do I use the strategy of chunking up?
• When do I use the strategy of chunking up?
• What success do I achieve through chunking up?
• What capabilities do I have which enable successful chunking up?
3 I could adopt the second perceptual position (my role model) and step into their shoes to simulate their thinking patterns, perspectives, emotions, strategizing and appraise their social results. The kind of questions that I would ask myself are:
• What does this person believe to be true about chunking down as a strategy?
• Why does this person value chunking down over chunking up?
• How does this person use the strategy of chunking down?
• When does this person use the strategy of chunking down?
• What success does this person achieve through chunking down?
• What capabilities does this person have which enable successful chunking down?
4 Then I can step out of the second perceptual position and move to what we call in NLP our third perceptual position which is the independent observer who can observe both ourselves and the role model operating their respective meta-programmes and thus get a sense of how others relate to the two approaches.
5 Then we step into the fourth perceptual position which is our reflective learning space, or our meta-position. From the meta-position we can reflect on all three perspectives and this provides us with a much richer perceptual map and awareness of meta-programmes.
6 The next step involves anchoring both meta-programmes, i.e., chunking up and chunking down against the perceptual mapping experience. Then when we need to we can fire the anchors and access either chunking up or chunking down, or even merge the two meta-programmes together to create a middle ground approach to thinking about change management details.
Conclusion
In conclusion, you will enable far more effective change leadership abilities as you start to unpack the meta-programmes that can both block and enable successful organizational transformation. You can intervene in your subjective processes and restructure your meta-programmes to generate new emotions, cognitions, behaviours, and social strategies. This shift in our own mindset requires meta-thinking and critical self-awareness. It also requires a desire to change and improve upon our cognitive, emotional, and behavioural flexibility. This involves accepting the idea that mind and body are part of one integrated whole.
Reference
O’Connor, J. and Seymour, J. (1984) Training with NLP, Thornson.