What is strategic NLP?

Maybe you've read something about NLP, found it interesting and, a few days later, caught yourself reacting the way you always do.

Same meeting. Same argument at home. Same decision put off.

You learned something new. And yet the result hasn't changed.

What if the point weren't knowing more tools, but seeing what repeats before using them?

What is NLP, first of all?

At the origins of Neuro-Linguistic Programming there is a question: what do people who get exceptional results do differently?

Richard Bandler and John Grinder, the co-founders, began to observe professionals capable of achieving particularly interesting results, such as Virginia Satir, Milton Erickson and Fritz Perls.

They weren't only trying to understand what they did. They were trying to recognize how they did it.

The difference that makes the difference.

Which strategies did they use? How did they organize their own experience? Which elements of their behavior and communication could be described, learned and reproduced?

From this work of modeling, NLP developed.

The name holds three dimensions: the nervous system through which you perceive, the language with which you attribute meaning, and the way you organize these processes toward a result.

If you want to explore its origins, you'll find a broader explanation in what is NLP.

But let's go back to the initial question.

What are you doing, inside yourself, when you get a result you didn't want?

Why “strategic”?

In the Premium I propose a simple idea:

If a result has a structure, that structure can be understood, learned and replicated.

It applies to the results you want.

And it also applies to the ones you keep getting without wanting them.

Think of a behavior you've repeated for years. At first it may have been a response you chose consciously. Then, by repeating it, it became more and more automatic.

Until you no longer say “I do it,” but “this is how I am.”

And here something interesting happens.

It's one thing to tell yourself:

“What's wrong with me?”

It's another to tell yourself:

“I used a strategy that, in this situation, isn't useful.”

The first sentence closes on identity. The second opens a possibility.

It's the same way of looking that I learned to use as an engineer.

When a crack appears in a wall, that crack is an effect. To understand its origin I have to look at the structure, the conditions and the stresses that produced it.

Repairing only what I see might not solve the problem.

With repeated behaviors the principle is similar: before looking for a technique to change the result, I begin by observing how that result is produced.

What sentence do you tell yourself when something keeps repeating?

What does it observe, exactly?

First of all, the state you're in while you're going through a situation.

It's not your character. It's not your identity. It's not your destiny.

It's a temporary setup.

In the model I use, four elements help organize it: physiology, focus, internal representations and internal dialogue.

If you want to explore them, you'll find an explanation in what is an internal state.

I also observe the map: the way you represent what happens.

The fact is one thing. The meaning you attribute to it is another.

Two people can go through the same situation and build very different experiences from it.

And the same person, in different states, can react in different ways to a similar situation.

We don't react only to events. We also react to the state we're in while we go through them.

Think of the last time you said something you regretted shortly after.

What state were you in, right at that moment?

Where does choice come in?

Between what happens and your response, a space can open.

That's where you can begin to intervene.

When you don't recognize that space, the autopilot takes over: you react as you've already reacted so many other times.

Imagine an evening, after a particularly complicated day.

You get home. You're tired, maybe irritated, and the first person you meet receives your mood, even though they have nothing to do with what happened.

In the Premium I propose a small experiment.

Before going in, pause for a moment. On the landing or in the car.

Straighten your back. Lift your head. Take a few deep breaths.

Notice how your state changes.

Then go in.

You haven't changed the day. You've changed the state in which you tell it.

And if you change the state, you may discover that the way you choose to respond changes too.

When did you last choose, instead of reacting?

How is it used in conversations?

At work, at home, in a negotiation, words can open or close possibilities.

Strategic NLP doesn't consist in looking for an effective sentence to use on any occasion.

It consists in recognizing what is happening and choosing how to organize the communication.

In the book I propose a sequence:

First you build the relationship.

Then you use language that opens possibilities.

Next you ask questions to recover the missing information.

Finally you steer the conversation toward a new representation or a concrete action.

It's what I call the double track of language.

Imagine this conversation.

A colleague tells you:

“I never manage to finish on time.”

You could answer:

“You need to organize yourself better.”

But what have you really understood about his difficulty?

Let's try differently.

“I understand, meeting deadlines isn't easy right now.”

First you acknowledge the situation, without judging.

Then you open a space:

“Let's see if we can find something that might help us.”

And you introduce a precise question:

“You told me you never manage. Has there been at least one time when you managed to meet the deadlines?”

He reflects.

“Yes, last month, when we had split the work into two deliveries.”

Now you've recovered a piece of information that wasn't available before.

You can steer the conversation:

“Interesting. What about that way of working could we use in this project too?”

You didn't give him the solution. You showed him a path he had already walked.

And above all you didn't have to interpret what he was thinking or imagine the causes of his behavior.

You asked questions.

You recovered information.

You expanded the possibilities.

Which sentence, in your conversations, contains a “never” or an “always” that no one has yet checked?

Is it a therapy?

No.

In my work, strategic NLP is not psychotherapy and is not offered to diagnose or treat clinical disorders.

These fields require the skills of licensed healthcare professionals.

If you want to better understand the boundaries between the different activities, you'll find more in NLP, coaching and psychotherapy.

And if you wonder which NLP results are supported by scientific research, I talk about it openly in does NLP work?.

Some NLP claims haven't received sufficient scientific confirmation. It's important to know this and to distinguish personal experiences from the available evidence.

Before trusting a tool, you can ask yourself what it promises and what it doesn't promise.

Where do you start?

You start by seeing.

Only afterward do you intervene.

In the path I propose, Volume I is dedicated to recognizing the structure. Volume II explores in depth the tools for intervening.

On the page dedicated to the method I describe how this approach came about.

If you want to start from the basics, Volume I is the first step.

People see the effects. Few see the structure that generates them.

So I leave you with a question.

Which effect, in your life, would you like to start looking at from somewhere else?

A small exercise

You don't need to start with a particularly difficult situation.

Pick one you know well. Something that tends to repeat.

1. Choose a situation. An argument, a postponed decision, a reaction you'd like to change.

1. Recognize the sentence. Write down exactly what you tell yourself in that moment. Use your own words, without correcting them.

1. Shift your attention from identity to behavior. If you wrote “this is how I am,” try turning it into “I act this way when…” If you wrote “I can't do it,” try specifying what, exactly, you can't do yet.

4. Ask three questions, in this order. - “What makes me say I can't do it?” - “What would I need in order to succeed?” - “What would happen if I succeeded?”

1. Observe. Reread the initial sentence and compare it with the answers. What do you notice? Has anything changed in the way you represent the situation?

You don't necessarily have to produce an immediate change.

The aim of the exercise is to begin to see something that might have escaped you before.

And from there, to explore different possibilities.

To go deeper

You've seen that strategic NLP doesn't start from technique.

It starts from observing the strategy that generates a result and from the possibility of intervening on its structure.

In the the Premium Edition of Strategic NLP – The Invisible Blade I explore the presuppositions of NLP, the techniques for working on beliefs and the applications of the double track of language in work, sales and conflicts.

You'll find models, tables and practical examples to move from observation to intervention.

But you can also start with something much simpler.

The sentence you wrote in the exercise.

Maybe, rereading it now, you'll notice something you hadn't considered before.

For further reading:

• The fundamental presuppositions of NLP
• The map is not the territory