Dianne was back by popular demand, having given us a great session last year. I think she could become a regular visitor as we had another really informative and useful practice session this time too.
Working from my brief of ‘keep it simple’ Dianne took a small but vital chunk of NLP and had us doing all the work. This is where we make the learnings. Its no good going to a ‘practice’ group and sitting on your thumbs. Getting the learning in the muscle and either practicing once more what we learnt on our NLP training, or having a taste of experiential learning for those new to NLP is what the Group is all about.

Dianne began by reminding us about our own filtering systems. (Beliefs, experience, values, prejudices, and our representational preferences {vakog} etc). How they control what information gets into our head and into our inner ‘map of the world’. She continued this brief revision explaining the difference between the ‘structure’ and ‘content’ of communication. ‘Structure’ being how we say things, ‘Content’ being what we say, the ‘story’ we tell. When we stay with structure its possible to facilitate change without needing to be involved in content. Dianne gave us a handout of a simple framework. The ‘Problem frame’ to help people identify thier problem and an ‘Outcome frame’ to help them move to a solution. In pairs we played with this handout. A asked the questions. B gave an indication when they had answered it internally. A therefore had no investment in or knowledge of B’s problem or B’s content. We played with this both ways and found it a useful reminder of ‘keeping it simple’.
Here are the questions.
The Problem Frame.
What’s the problem?
How long have you had it?
Why do you have this problem?
Who is to blame?
Why haven’t you solved it yet?
The Outcome frame.
What do you want?
How will you know when you have it?
What resources do you already have which you can use to achieve this outcome?
When have you succeeded in something similar?
What is the next step?

You can of course ask yourself these questions!
When we gathered back together we found they had often had quite an impact without having to mention the ‘content’. This made the intervention / interaction quick and focussed.

Dianne kept us working in pairs, which was a shame for me as the numbers were odd, so I had no-one to play with. However everyone else had a chance to work on their desired state in terms of a well formed outcome. Dianne asked us a question. “How many drill bits did we think were sold last year?” There was much speculation, wild guessing and ‘so what’ type shrugs. I don’t remember what the answer was ‘cos actually that wasn’t the point of the question! When people go to B&Q (other DIY stores are available) to buy a drill bit, what is it they really want? Answer: A hole in the wall!! So using this as an example in pairs we asked “What do you want?” and “What will that do / get for you?” Staying free of the content and pushing the question on in this way produced a number of clearer ‘outcomes’, finding the essential ingredient of well formedness. When resistance was encountered in making the outcome positive, sometimes its easier to say what we don’t want, Dianne gave us a simple device to physically ‘push that away’ and ask “So what do you want?”
Still in pairs we also helped our friend to describe their outcome in sensory terms. What would they see, hear, feel, taste & smell? This brought the outcome closer by describing it in present tense sensory language.
In between all this ‘work’ Dianne asked us to reconvene and share our discoveries, before sending us off again to explore ‘how you can make it happen?’ and thinking about the present state ‘What might have to be given up to achieve the move to desired state?’ In other words the ‘secondary gain’ of staying stuck!
We spent most of the evening working in pairs, learning and discovering not only how we could move ourselves but also practicing some key elements of NLP. Building Rapport, using our sensory acuity, working in someone else’s model of the world, working with structure rather than content and more!
Thank you Dianne for giving us the simple frame to play with. Can you come back next year?

Top find out more about Dianne and the courses she runs visit her web-site:
www.brilliantminds.net
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