Introduction
The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.
Mahatma Gandhi
This chapter compares the genesis of both the NLP and organizational development movement (OD). I shall present a picture of the seminal moments that acted as developmental catalysts for the two areas of change work and demonstrate their remarkable similarities. I close by arguing that there is a strategic need for NLP to find a new sponsor to inject vitality and purpose into the field inclusive of a significant push towards high quality research into its effects as well as aiming towards continued development of its conceptual and practical architectures. The chapter closes with a principle that is common to both NLP and to OD, which is to be successful as a change s leader, one must model the change one wishes to see in the world.
NLP can be considered as a specialized area of personal and group development which has not followed the trajectory of the OD school of thought. If we compare the development of NLP and the OD movement we can clearly see dramatic similarities in their genesis. The discussion below highlights the historical milestones regarding the development of both the OD and NLP movements. Whilst some of the development highlights bear remarkable similarity, there remains a fundamental strategic difference that has had profound influence on the credibility and potential longevity of both schools of practice.
Genesis of the OD movement
This chapter draws from the work of French and Bell (1999) into organizational development. The chapter will mention OD developers though it will not explain their work as all I am doing is recognizing their involvement in the early OD training groups as a comparator with the development of NLP. All the OD developers mentioned, and their collective writings are cited by French and Bell. The OD movement was originally founded by accident by charismatic leaders such as Kurt Lewin, Ronald Lippitt, Kenneth Benne and Leland Bradford. They literally stumbled across OD as they were engaged in an action research project into race relations issues in Connecticut. They attracted followers to their new field such as Douglas McGregor, Herbert Shepard, Robert Blake and Jane Mouton, Chris Argyris, Warren Bennis and Richard Beckard, and others. Many of the early OD developers emerged as global leaders of the OD movement. These co-developers of OD were also students at leading US universities studying social science subjects. Together, these pioneers and their followers designed training and intervention programmes targeting group change work in both community and organizational settings. The early co-developers (especially Douglas McGregor) were, to varying degrees, influenced by the psychotherapist Carl Rogers and his ideas of client centred therapy. Further, the transdisciplinary influence of leading thinkers from political science, psychology, sociology, and anthropology also helped shape the development of the OD field. The pioneers initially referred to themselves as ‘trainers’ and they established a network of ‘National Training Laboratories’ (NTLs) throughout the USA. Douglas McGregor and Richard Beckard following their cultural change intervention into General Mills decided to call their new field OD as an abbreviation for organizational development as they were thinking about a ‘systems wide’ change, not personal and individual person-centred change work.
Through collaborations in Europe, particularly with Robert Trist at the Tavistock Institute in the UK, the network of NTLs spread across the world. The main emphasis was on action research. The base for the NTLs was to be business schools in universities. The aim was to develop models of both theory and practice which could be used by managers, supported by OD consultants trained and educated in the behavioural sciences to create cultural change within organizations leading to a more ‘humane’ form of organizational practices. The developers of the OD movement desired the design of organizational cultures that maximized both economic effectiveness and the potential for the self-actualization of the human spirit in practical terms.
Over the last 70 years the OD movement has firmly established itself in thousands of business schools throughout the world. It has developed industrial connections that are now deeply institutionalized in occupational groups such as personnel managers and HRM managers. OD is central to the continuous development of these groups of managers through institutes such as the Chartered Institute of Personal and Development. There are numerous undergraduate, masters’ and PhD programmes emphasizing OD as their unit of study. Through the medium of academic research at masters’ and doctorate level the field continues to develop and grow, and new intellectual leaders are being produced organically through the research and publication process. Finally, there is a healthy union between the field of OD, the practice of management, change and leadership throughout global industry.
OD has been a great gift to the world. The second great gift that the pioneers of the OD movement gave the world was the process of imbedding the movement within the institutions of university business schools. This has ensured its longevity. It has ensured a transfer of power to develop the field from the early pioneers and developers to a succession of future leaders and practitioners throughout the world.
Genesis of the NLP movement
As we know from Chapter 2 NLP was initially founded also by accident in the mid-1970s at the University of California Santa Cruz by three charismatic and curious men: John Grinder, Richard Bandler, and Frank Pucelik. They also stumbled across NLP as they were engaged in an action research project into how to model excellent practices demonstrated by people who consistently generate success in their field. They initially modelled three outstanding therapists, Virginia Satir, Fritz Perls, and Milton Erickson. Both Bandler and Pucelik were students at the University whilst Grinder was a professor in linguistics and a full-time faculty member. They attracted followers to their new field, such as Robert Dilts, Judith Delozier and Stephen Gilligan, who were students at the University of Santa Cruz. From what I can gather from the limited historical literature on the history of NLP deposited by the originators, the name Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) was coined by Grinder and Bandler as they were perplexed as what they were going to call their new field, although the official history of this naming process remains a blurred affair.
Grinder et al., in collaboration with their followers, became global co-developers of NLP. As I understand the history, Robert Dilts, as a seminal developer, had a significant influence on the design of the first NLP practitioner and master practitioner training and intervention programmes targeting individual change work in community and organizational settings. This is a fundamental difference between the OD and NLP movements; OD targets group change and cultural change, whilst NLP targets individual change and social influencing processes. However, this difference is what excites me personally about the two fields: that is the idea of a collaborative convergence.
The original founders and developers of NLP were all influenced by the various fields of psychotherapy and the transdisciplinary influence of leading thinkers from political science, linguistics, psychology, sociology, and anthropology helped shape the development of the NLP field. Here is the second major distinguishing factor between the development of NLP and OD; NLP opted for commercial training schools, disassociated from university faculties offering practitioner certificates as convenient models of learning, targeting mass market appeal. The OD strategy in contrast was one of research and practice through university models of transmission and diffusion.
Through their network of ‘franchised’ NLP institutes, NLP grew exponentially throughout the world as a commercial product targeting the personal development market. The main emphasis was and remains on practice. This is the third substantial differentiator between the two fields. Whilst OD aimed to generate both theory and practical applications into group change and development, NLP publicly distanced itself from the academic approach and the emphasis on generating theory and created a hegemony that privileged practical applications that ‘worked’. This strategy has characterized the field for over 40 years and may yet prove to be its nemesis. It has potentially stunted the potential for developing NLP as a distinctive body of knowledge and practice and has created an easy target for its critics. Charges of pseudo-science; non-evidence-based claims; and cult mentality are and continue to be directed against NLP. For example, famously, Wikipedia published the following statement regarding NLP:
NLP has since been overwhelmingly discredited scientifically, but continues to be marketed by some hypnotherapists and by some companies that organize seminars and workshops on management training for businesses. There is no scientific evidence supporting the claims made by NLP advocates and it has been discredited as a pseudoscience by experts. Scientific reviews state that NLP is based on outdated metaphors of how the brain works that are inconsistent with current neurological theory and contain numerous factual errors. Reviews also found that all of the supportive research on NLP contained significant methodological flaws and that there were three times as many studies of a much higher quality that failed to reproduce the “extraordinary claims” made by Bandler, Grinder, and other NLP practitioners. Even so, NLP has been adopted by some hypnotherapists and by companies that run seminars marketed as leadership training to businesses and government agencies.
Compare the above with the way that Wikipedia describes OD:
Organizational development as a practice involves an ongoing, systematic process of implementing effective organizational change. OD is known both as a field of applied science focused on understanding and managing organizational change and as a field of scientific study and inquiry. It is interdisciplinary in nature and draws on sociology, psychology, particularly industrial and organizational psychology, and theories of motivation, learning, and personality. Although behavioural science has provided the basic foundation for the study and practice of OD, new and emerging fields of study have made their presence felt. Experts in systems thinking, in organizational learning, in the structure of intuition in decision-making, and in coaching (to name a few) whose perspective is not steeped in just the behavioural sciences, but in a much more multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approach have emerged as OD catalysts or tools. Organization development, as a growing field, is responsive to many new approaches.
According to my perspective, the Wikipedia account of NLP is understandable albeit potentially influenced by the writer’s unconscious bias, given its self-admitted dissociation from academic research and its distancing from university-led critical study. However, from a personal experience of practicing and teaching NLP, I have a firm belief that the foundations of its methodology are solid and that many of its claims are valid. Yet, this anecdotal evidence is a paradox when it comes to defending the credibility of NLP as its critics often say that this is not ‘hard’ evidence, yet, paradoxically, in business faculties throughout the university world a qualitative approach to academic study into organizational change using the world view, experiential statements and perspectives of the individual manager is accepted as evidence in many peer reviewed journals. In fact, there is a growing call for the crafting and submission of ‘auto ethnographic’ accounts into change management, and/or leadership practices by the editorial boards of peer reviewed journals and a move away from quantitative studies into organizational behavioural change and a move towards qualitative experiential based subjective change work, the premise of NLP interventions.
The base for the NLP teaching faculties was to be commercial NLP schools operating under the control of a commercial institute, not a university. The aim, as I read the situation, was to make money and sell commercial training products and to make a difference in the world. This does not mean that the early pioneers and developers were not primarily interested in emancipatory projects – they were very much interested – it is to say that the commercial model dominates over the research orientation that the OD movement has maintained over the last 70 years. Yes, OD practitioners and consultants also aim to make money out of their products and they often market their products by emphasizing economically efficient benefits to their clients before emancipatory; however, I do feel that within the university faculties and implicit in much of the OD literature is an emphasis on humanistic values and gains.
NLP can be an emancipatory project
There is no doubt, though, that NLP is also at its heart an enabler for the realization of an emancipatory project. Within its techniques there is the promise of the freeing up of limiting beliefs that are damaging the quality of one’s life experience and social relationships. Within NLP there is also the explicit aim of developing rapport between people to break down barriers based on ignorance and prejudice. NLP, as with OD, is interested in creating change dialogues; powerful dialogues either internal to self or external and between groups. These dialogues are the only way humans will resolve many of their differences and create open channels for developing emancipatory projects. In the world we live in today, and that of tomorrow, the need for social technologies that enable generative dialogue has never been greater.
NLP and its global reach
Over the last 40 years the NLP movement has firmly established itself in NLP schools throughout the world. It has developed models of practice that are now deeply institutionalized in activities such as sales, leadership, personal and group change, teaching, and therapy. Unfortunately, there are few undergraduate, masters’ and PhD programmes emphasizing NLP as their unit of study. Nevertheless, it must be stressed that NLP has had an enormous influence on the shaping of coaching and the development of coaching as an industry targeting individual and group change. Through the medium of popular books, the field continues to develop. However, in contrast with the OD movement. which imbedded the movement within the institutions of university business schools. NLP has failed to establish an organic model of reproduction and self-renewal that has a life force of its own beyond the influence of its founders. Yes, there are many NLP inspired projects being led by charismatic developers throughout the world today, though I cannot see how these will last. If they are not imbedded into an institutional learning structure allocated with university faculties with the theory and practice of NLP decoded and woven into degree programmes at undergraduate, postgraduate and doctorate levels then I worry that, through time, NLP may wither on the vine that produced it. We need, I think, an open dialogue between two very compatible fields of practice which at their hearts share a common philosophy interest which is a union between OD and NLP and, for me, this can only happen if NLP is accepted into and is motivated to join business school faculties as a legitimate area of academic study into the theory and practice of social and cultural change at the level of the individual and of the group. This strategy, for me, would ensure its longevity. As with OD this will ensure a transfer of power to develop the field from the early pioneers and developers to a succession of future leaders and practitioners throughout the world.
Closing comments: model the changes you want to see in others
On a closing note I would like to emphasize the importance of role modelling. To really learn how to do NLP one needs to be totally immersed in the culture of NLP. Delozier, a co-developer of the field, refers to this process as ‘getting NLP into your muscles’. This is a process of developing what Bourdieu (1991) called a ‘cultural habitus’, literally imbedding the NLP philosophy and methodologies into your emotional, cognitive, and behavioural expressions. Doing NLP should be an automatic cultural response to any given social situation. This kind of NLP autopilot needs to be nurtured if it is to develop. Through time, with constant practice at a level of conscious competency you will practice NLP at an unconscious level just as you drive a car from A to B over long distances and have little conscious recollection of the driving process, yet, generally, you arrive safely at your destination. This level of practice, what we call unconscious competence, is the hallmark of learning.
Yes, absolutely one can model the exercises and internalize the ideas contained throughout this book and achieve breakthrough results; however, if you are a manager with a powerful interest in OD and you wish to develop NLP-inspired courses for your management community then you do need to train as an NLP practitioner, trainer, and developer. You need to ‘be the change you want to see in your world’.
References
Bourdieu, P. (1991) Language and Symbolic Capital, Polity Press.
French, W. L. and Bell, C. H. (1999) Organizational Development, 6th edn, Prentice Hall.