Introduction
NLP is an area of practice and to be competent in this practical concern one should appreciate that NLP is also a social philosophy. It has a cultural paradigm that functions as an expressive engine to produce the beliefs and values that an NLP practitioner should adopt and express. This philosophy is transferable to the world of organizational change and will enable outstanding conscious leadership.
At the centre of every community is the cultural paradigm. This serves as a repository of assumptions, values, preferences and organizing archetypes that govern the expressive options of each community member. The paradigm provides stability and order to the organization through a select grouping of world views, high level abstract beliefs, assumptions and values that are expressed empirically through cultural themes. At the centre of the paradigm are the cultural themes, or the unquestioned assumptions that subsequently give pattern to organizational culture.
As with every learning community within NLP circles there is a cultural paradigm which functions as the expressive engine of the community. It guides and enables the value system and, to a large degree, influences how the field will develop. The early developers of NLP have made these cultural themes explicit through their work, thus revealing the underlying paradigm of NLP. Throughout this chapter I have selected 10 meta presuppositions that are widely recognized as being at the heart of the NLP cultural paradigm for review Whilst not all NLP practitioners will follow this paradigm, most will be familiar with its content. The NLP paradigm provides a set of filters through which change leaders may direct their attention inwardly and outwardly and act towards the world in general.
1 The map is not the territory
This presupposition advocates the principle that we are all map-makers in that we make subjective maps of our experience which we use to guide our interactions with others. However, these maps are not to be taken as objective concrete accounts of a reality that is fixed and proven, rather as creative symbolic representations of experience. We unconsciously delete, generalize, and distort our experiences so that we can function in the world. This fact means that we will all have slightly different or even sharply contrasting maps of the world and it is this symbolic map-making process which drives the development and active reproduction of organizational culture. An important conscious leadership capability is recognizing other people’s maps and being curious to understand the positive intentions that lie behind their construction. It is arguably not possible to create a generative field of change practice based upon collaboration and accessing the collective intelligence of the group if we do not recognize, acknowledge, and seek to understand and then integrate multiple maps of reality. Also, once the conscious change leader accepts and even welcomes contrasting maps held by others they become more secure within themselves in that they understand that these other maps are not challenges to their authority, they are simply alternative maps. The basis of dialogue (Dixon, 1996) is built upon tolerating and seeking to understand the maps that stakeholders create and hold and establishing psychological safety in groups so that our maps can be understood and respected and given recognition.
2 There is no failure only feedback
For NLP practitioners, there is no such thing as failure. We reframe failure as an opportunity for constructive feedback so that we can move forward with a richer model of the world to move closer to our goals. Every experience has the seeds of learning embedded in its structural content and we can access this learning if we are open to the idea that it exists. If we take the view or, rather, frame an event as a failure then we effectively close our minds to how we can leverage value from the experience and this framing creates a toxic memory that may inhibit future personal and group development.
When we consider that we have failed at something we define that something for what it is and, in doing so, we build walls in our imaginations that make the quest for realizing our ambitions even harder to achieve. But these walls are not real. They are our own socially imagined constructions. They result from the bricks and mortar of our meaning system and the words that we employ to build these. Change the words we use and we change our perceptions, our belief systems and our attitudes and we may build bridges that link experiences together in common pathways that lead to our ambitions rather than walls which obstruct our journey. For NLP practitioners, there is no such thing as failure. There is only feedback. This semantic strategy is truly transformational. We work towards success. We prepare for success. However, we acknowledge that to be successful in terms of realizing our ambitions we must take full advantage of all learning opportunities that are relevant to the ambition we are chasing. Therefore, any situation that takes us closer to our ambitions is an opportunity for constructive feedback; it is neither a signifier of failure nor a setback; it is always a step forward, closer to our goals.
We can learn from every situation and utilize these learnings to our advantage. When we define our state as one of failure we close off the feedback loop and shut down the opportunity for learning and freeze our progress in relation to our goals and related ambitions. For example, I always had an ambition to become a managing director of a major enterprise. I eventually gained an interview for such a post. I did not get the job and it was destined to go to another. I did not fail. I was very successful in that I had now broken through to the interview stage for a highly important social role. I had enjoyed the competitive experience associated with such a role and I had moved my identity closer towards its full realization. These responses are examples of treating the experience as one of feedback and not of failure. This kind of attitude will eventually take you to your desired future self if you apply it diligently.
A critical aspect of change leadership is building a culture of organizational learning. If we as change leaders advocate a culture which identifies situations as failures then we are making the possibility of establishing a learning culture or a learning organization far more problematic. By looking at every situation in-terms of ‘feedback’ we can maintain an open mind and a curious attitude which permits curious investigation. Instead of blaming and punishing, in a climate characterized by psychological safety we generate curiosity and seek to learn from every situation. We ask ourselves the question “That’s interesting, what can I learn from this feedback?” Of course, we will feel emotions such as disappointment, sometimes frustration and even anger though it must be recognized that these are emotions to be held in a resourceful way and if they prevent organizational learning then the potential capital to be gleaned from feedback is lost to us.
3 We own our results
This is a difficult presupposition for many people to internalize. Things happen to us and sometimes they are not particularly enjoyable. They may challenge our socially desired notion of self and threaten identity constructs that we hold dear and are, therefore, protective of. However, things often happen to us because of us. For example, I once worked for a business and was made redundant. I could have resented this event and blamed the senior management for the decision. However, I took responsibility for my own redundancy. I understood the economic and internal political conditions and acknowledged my decision to stay with the firm in the first place and my weak political position in the management team at that time. I owned my own redundancy and this attitude allowed me to progress with optimism and without anger or hatred. Subsequently, I was fully reinstated as the political situation changed and I think my attitude made this reversing decision easier for senior management.
For conscious change leaders the capability of accepting responsibility for one’s results and avoiding blaming others is a critical attribute. It is very unlikely that people will trust in a potential leader who appears to shirk their responsibilities and seek to place the fault with team members. For example, if a group does not respond effectively and generate successful change outcomes, as unpalatable as this may be for some, it does signify a failure in group leadership. If one can accept this fact, then one can learn from the situation and meta-reflect. The process of meta-reflection opens the door towards transforming the emotional, cognitive and behavioural strategies we have formed as habits and testing alternatives when engaging in what Dilts (2017) calls ‘leadership moments’ in the future. Meta-reflection involves raising our conscious awareness regarding our cognitive, emotional, or behavioural strategies and treating these as primary states and using the meta-state of curiosity to examine a specific primary state, for example anger, or avoiding confrontation, or the way in which we interact with key stakeholders.
4 We possess the freedom of choice to determine our attitudes
I touched on this theme in the previous chapter though its importance to conscious change leadership cannot be overstated. There is little argument to be made with the claim that the attitudes that stakeholders adopt towards change programmes and their leaders are significant catalysts for both success and failure. An important feature of attitudes is their source of agency. Our attitudes are our own inventions they are not the constructions of others and they are not artificial impositions on the part of others on to us. Often, we beguile ourselves into believing that our attitudes are because of other people but this is a delusional social strategy to adopt. It does have a purpose, though, in that it absolves us of responsibility for the attitude, the emotional state it elicits from us, the way we behave towards an attitude object and the social results we achieve. Viktor Frankl (2004), who survived four years in German concentration camps, wrote of his experiences that:
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
Dr Frankl was right. He understood whilst enduring hell on earth that he had a resource that the Nazis could not deny him, his free agency as a human being to own his attitude. He could have elected to hate the Germans and the Capos who brutalized his community of prisoners and who murdered his family instead, he chose to try to understand them, to build rapport with them so that he could survive. He chose not to hate them post-war as he did not wish to be a prisoner in his own mind and thoughts re-hashing past experiences and eliciting emotions of hate and bitterness that would engulf his very existence. He chose an attitude to use his experiences in positive ways to help humanity and to give credit to the memories of his murdered family. This principle is at the very heart of NLP. To be truly free is to have control over your choice of attitudes.
Thus, when we are operating as a conscious change leader and we find ourselves with an attitude towards an aspect of our role that is not resourceful we can welcome this, examine it from a state of curiosity, establish what positive intention it brings to us, understand the reality frame we have created towards a social object that we are applying the attitude towards and then either embrace and own the attitude or change it if we feel it is not proving to be resourceful. A good example is attending progress review meetings with senior stakeholders. We may hold an attitude that ‘they’ are not supportive encounters and that some members are more interested in identifying flaws than generating support. This attitude may generate a defensive emotional and behavioural state in us. If we meta-reflect and unpack the subjective dynamics behind our reality frame and attitude we can then create a reframe and select a more resourceful attitude. For example, if we take the NLP principle that advances the idea that people always have positive intention behind their behaviours we can reframe the progress meeting as an opportunity to share our work and challenges with our peers. We can embrace their feedback and look to learn from it. We can programme our minds to be thankful that we have a stage to express ourselves and to engage with other committed people who, at a level, are interested in our success. This reframing will stimulate alternative attitudes and emotional, cognitive, and behavioural states that will influence the group states at every level. This, of course, is only possible if we own our attitudes and are open to the process of meta-reflection.
5 People make the best decision at the time with the resources they have available
This principle of NLP when internalized on the part of the change manager will generate a greater capacity for tolerance and understanding. It affords the other a great deal of respect in that it advances the view that, regardless of what they would have done, we make decisions that, at the time, are the best decision they could have made allowing for the resources we had available. For example, once I had an issue with the way a direct report was interpreting their role and enacting it. I made sense of their actions and attitudes through a filter that was my ‘model’ of the role and how one should enact it. This led to tensions between us and I decided to dissociate myself from the individual concerned, which led to a breakdown in management relations. If I had the resource of meta-mirror which enables first, second and third party perceptual positioning, I would have had greater resources, and if I had known how to access different emotional states to enrich the influence of applying the meta-mirror, I would have made very different decisions which, in all probability, would have generated different relationship outcomes.
6 Respect the world view of others
Sometimes, we assume that all around us see a situation the same way that we do. This is a natural consequence of being an individual. We assume without critical reflection that our reality is a shared reality, that it is an accurate representation of the world around us. This is a significant fault line in understanding that often causes problems when one is trying to lead change work in an organization. It is very likely that our world view is simply that – it is our world view – and the world view of others will most likely be subtly different and can often be radically different. By world view I am referring to the ways in which we frame experience and interpret the meanings of the content and context of these frames of reference. For example, take a management team meeting and a presentation on the part of the CEO on the need for cultural change. Whilst the CEO may feel confident that their world view is readily available and generally shared, it is highly likely that all participants will have contrasting world views regarding the culture at work, what it is and what aspects need attention in change management terms. It is critical that change leaders are sensitive to these differences, can elicit their articulation and, most importantly, respect their differences and are able to pace the experience as expressed by others. A failure to do these things often leads to a breakdown in the collaborative spirit of a change team.
7 People always act with a positive intention
Sometimes we fail to understand the motivations that lie behind the actions people choose to take in response to a given social situation. There is a tendency across Western management culture to adopt a judgemental and critical view towards the actions of others if they do not fit in with our own deeply held world view. If we internalize the NLP principle that people always have a positive intention behind their actions then we can, instead of judging, try to be understanding and curious and to establish what their positive intention is. For example, someone who is openly cynical of a change proposal may be driven by the positive intention that provides them with comfort and protection from change anxiety. By rejecting the change proposal and adopting an openly cynical attitude they dilute the anxiety linked to their insecurity regarding coping with the responsibility of a change leader. If people sense an understanding as opposed to a judgemental state in change managers there is an argument that suggests they will be more open to persuasion, and more open to the provision of the psychological safety provided by their leader that could enable their acceptance of and engagement with the change process.
8 The meaning of your communication is in the response you get
The number one fault line that dominates the change management literature is the idea that change failure results from poor communication between key stakeholders. It is rarely appreciated that when dealing with communications of feelings and attitudes verbal communication represents less than 20% of the meaning that people create when making sense of someone’s communication. Body language and voice tone contribute the other 80%. Also, we actively delete, distort, and generalize meanings from the messages we receive as we filter message content through our beliefs, values, and assumptions. This means that, regardless of the meaning we intend, the meaning we generate is the meaning created on the part of our audience in response to our communication. Therefore, we need to work hard on communication techniques and constantly apply ecology checks to evaluate the degree to which our intended meanings are accepted by our audience.
9 We can shift perceptual position at will
As I discussed earlier, often we are trapped in our own world view and fail to recognize the existence of contrasting world views held by others, some of which we may work alongside every day. This is known in NLP circles as holding the first perceptual position which involves experiencing the world in our own shoes. We can also adopt the second and third perceptual positions. The second perceptual position involves stepping into the shoes of another and fully experiencing their world view and the associated filters and emotions. The third perceptual position involves adopting the identity of an independent observer so that we can observe ourselves interacting with others. This process was developed by Robert Dilts and is known as the meta-mirror. It is an extremely valuable change management strategy as it provides us with a very rich perceptual map through which to plan our decisions and take actions.
10 Resistance is a sign of poor rapport
Building rapport with key stakeholders is a critical part of the leadership process. Building rapport is simply a social skill that we all have the capacity to develop. Rapport can be defined as ‘the ability to elicit positive responses from the other’. This ability is an essential competence required to establish you in a leadership role. Rapport builds trust and strengthens relationships which, during periods of intense change, are critical human resources. If people are resisting change management efforts this can often be considered as a sign of poor rapport between potential change leaders and followers.
There is no doubting the quality of a relationship can be defined by the strength of rapport people have with each other. Rapport involves an incremental social process that opens up channels for dialogue both internal and external to one’s self. This is an unusual idea; the concept of internal versus external rapport. What this means is that you are both internally congruent in relation to your assumptions, values, and beliefs and externally congruent with others. When you are in a state of internal rapport you are in a high performing state. When you are in this state of mind other people sense this and if you then build rapport with them you have both internal and external rapport and this is a very powerful resource state to be in. Robert Dilts refers to the idea of people avoiding ‘airplane mode’ which means that one should not close our channels to the wider field, that is, the collective intelligence of all of us that surrounds each individual and which is, to some degree, accessible but only if our channels are open.
Concluding thoughts
The basic premise of NLP is to study the social construction of experience and to be sensitive to the nature of our internal paradigm which generates our social strategies and, thus, our results. NLP adopts a systems approach that asserts the view that all human beings coexist as part of the wider field and, therefore, the greater our behavioural flexibility, the more adaptable we can be in response to the feedback we are receiving from the field around us. We can only achieve behavioural flexibility if we are able to self-calibrate our own behaviours, identify the attitudes that generate these, work introspectively with the values and assumptions that shape our attitudes and restructure these when necessary. NLP provides the technologies to do this.
NLP offers a philosophy for organizational change leaders through which they can encourage the diffusion model of change leadership. The NLP paradigm can offer change leaders a framework of filters through which they can operate behavioural strategies that are congruent with new-age leadership practices that will resonate with a modern workforce. The NLP paradigm also holds the promise to spread throughout organizations to generate a paradigm of leadership thought that, I think, is better equipped to meet with many of the challenges associated with a rapidly changing global structure of organizations.
References
Dilts, B. R. (2017) Conscious Leadership and Resilience, Dilts Strategy Group.
Dixon, N. (1996) Perspectives on Dialogue, Center for Creative Leadership.
Frankl, E. V. (2004) Man’s Search for Meaning, CPI Cox and Wyman.