NLP Presupposition-If One Person Can Do Something, Other People Can Learn to Do It

Neurolinguistic Programming began with this presupposition. Richard Bandler and John Grinder sought out people with exceptional abilities, used a methodology they labelled "modeling" to codify what these people actually did, as opposed to what they thought they did. This presupposition, along with another one "People can learn anything if you break the "chunk" sizes down small enough" allowed them to replicate excellence in many areas.

Modeling allows us to observe and interview people with excellent abilities and create a model of how they do it, then teach others how to do it. This led, among other things, to the NLP "Strategies" model, in which we are able to identify how people do things now, such as make decisions, and then teach them a new process which was learned from excellent decision makers.

One of the most frequent applications is to help people improve their abilities to learn. One of my associates adopted a nonverbal autistic child who had been in Kindergarten in an institution for three years. Using this presupposition, along with incredible love and the persistence of both herself and schools, has the boy going into mainstreamed sixth grade, doing age appropriate work. She very consistently modelled how he learned, then found materials which would use those strengths, while stretching him to learn in new ways. The only downside was the investment of thousands in learning materials that the schools didn't have and couldn't even legally use.

This has been my basis of learning for years, and has caused some stress in my life. When I wanted to learn something, I intuitively sought out someone who did it well and asked that person, or those people to teach me. It resulted in a wide variety of skills, but difficulties in convincing others that I had the skills, as they weren't learned in a university.

One of the best applications of this approach, which predates NLP by thirty or so years is the work or Reuven Feuerstein with his theories and methodologies of cognitive modifiability. Since the end of World War Two, he has been successfully mediating and improving cognitive abilities of children and actually improving IQ. His latest book, Beyond Smarter, Mediated Learning and the Brain's Capacity for Change, from Teacher's College Press outlines how his process works for increasing a young person' ability to learn.

This presupposition challenges us to think of possibilities in ways that most cultures inhibit. We tend to develop beliefs in limitations, and, whether or not those beliefs are true, defend them. This sabotages both global human development, and the success of the individual.

So, ask yourself what you would like to do that you haven't learned, find someone who is good at it, and stretch yourself. It can be fun. For my older readers, it also helps stall the onset of senility.

NLP Presupposition-People Work Perfectly to Get the Results They Get

Perhaps the most practical of the NLP Presuppositions is that “People work perfectly to get the results they get.” To many people, this seems extremely obvious, at least on the surface. It is very similar to Einstein’s statement that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.”

When you really explore this presupposition, it applies at many levels. If you wake up in the morning, and habitually experience an emotional state that you don’t like, then this presupposition would have us assume that you are doing something in your mind to contribute to that experience, largely unconscious, and automatic.

For example, I once worked with someone who habitually started out her day feeling confused and agitated. This feeling began her day every day, and it was usually ten in the morning or so before she was able to move out of it. We worked together to help her pay attention to what pictures, words, and other experiences she had when she first woke up that had been outside of her awareness. She discovered that when she first woke up, she had an automatic statement running through her head before she was even awake. It said, “I don’t understand.” It was her internal mantra before she even went to the bathroom!

With some NLP work, she learned how to first listen for, and confront the dialogue, then change it, and she was able to create a positive emotional state and some motivation right away.

It isn’t just what you say and think to yourself. If there is any area of your life in which you aren’t getting what you want, you work perfectly to get the results you get, rather than the results you want. One of your challenges will be that what you are doing is largely unconscious, and you may be unaware of the part of your behavior which sabotages you. It will take working with someone else to identify what you are actually doing, rather than what you think you are doing. This works because there are things others cans see about us that we can’t see in ourselves. A part of our behavior is always unconscious and it often takes someone else to bring it to our awareness.

Another challenge is the allure of the familiar. A part of your brain is attracted to that which is familiar, even though it might be killing you. So you eat, smoke or do other things which damage you, and you want to do something different. You start behaving differently, and then become uncomfortable with the change, and go back to your old behaviors, in spite of the fact you know it isn’t good for you. In this case, you work perfectly to try new things, sabotage yourself and go back to the old behaviors until you probably give up. As in the case of my client, you will probably need someone to help you identify what you are doing, and how to do it differently if the change is going to succeed.

So if you are trying to make changes that don’t work, talk to friends, others who have succeeded, coaches, or perhaps an NLP practitioner to help you identify what you are actually doing and change it.

Not Knowing We Don't Know

Lao Tzu: To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty

I have an inspiring quotes app on my new Android phone, and this quote showed up yesterday evening. It cuts to the heart of so much of my frustration lately in many areas. "Not to know, yet think that one knows will lead to difficulty."

This truth is at the heart of so many issues we face today. We are a nation of people who are convinced we know, based on very short, biased snippets of information coming from various sources. Yet, we are a nation of overwhelming ignorance when it comes to in depth information about important issues. We have a wide knowledge base that is about as deep as a mud puddle. It leads us great difficulty.

For example, many of us know enough about Global Warming to hold very strongly held uninformed opinions both pro and con, and will engage in strong debates while never taking the time to really learn about the issues related to Climate Change. This plays out socially, and politically. We are most likely to vote for the politicians who parrot, and perhaps share, our ignorance on this and many other issues. The truly frightening thing is that we have no way of knowing we don't know because we are convinced we are right. Once we form beliefs, we defend them, no matter how shallow our evidential basis for the beliefs.

In my life, the issue of not knowing, but thinking you know has played out in my work with several states and client agencies. It has become a trend in government to appoint very bright, ambitious people to supervise areas of government in which they have absolutely no in depth expertise. These people often replace people who have put many years of hard work into building imperfect systems, but systems which have strengths. When the new people come in, with a mandate for change, they destroy both the strengths and challenges of existing systems by making wholesale changes which fail to build on the practice wisdom of people with both years of experience and in depth knowledge.

Some of the examples have been appalling. The fiasco in my own state when it turned over all traditional welfare services to IBM, a company obviously very knowledgeable about the needs of people with no money. Those of us who had worked with people in poverty immediately knew the system wouldn't work, in fact couldn't work, but the people who could have guided the State in the process were marginalized and it has led to hardship for families and extraordinary expense for the state.

However, it isn't just Indiana, it is a widespread governmental practice, especially at state levels, to put the bright and well intentioned, but ignorant in control of areas impacting all of us. Then, those people are challenged to make changes far more rapidly than is possible without destroying the strengths of the systems they supervise. In large part this comes from the fact that we are electing bright people with knowledge of how to get elected, business, and perhaps law, but who have no education or knowledge in governing. Since they don't know what they don't know, they hire others like themselves and the well meaning ignorance is propagated down the levels of the system. When people who have knowledge and experience challenge the new people, they either learn to be quiet or are replaced with yet another new person with little expertise.

Lao Tzu said to know, yet think that one does not know is best. The second best option is to not know and think that one does not know. So it seems it is best either way to assume we don't know and ask a lot of questions when we are navigating the world. I think this is especially true if you happen to be someone who is in a leadership position with little experience in your current areas of responsibility.

The older I get the more I realize that I know little. I have several opinions within my areas of experience and training, but those are just my perspective. We need people in leadership to show less blind, ignorant certainty, and more wide eyed curiosity. It is only by believing we don't already know that we concern. All learning starts with a question.

All Purpose Questions: Experience, Identify, Analyze, Generalize

"To state a theorem and then to show examples of it is literally to teach backwards." (E. Kim Nebeuts)

I have constantly felt, and often stated, that one of the greatest gifts of my life was to have H. Stephen Glenn as my first boss. He was the developer of "Developing Capable Young People", one of my favorite training programs which was taught in fourteen countries. (http://www.capabilitiesinc.com/)

Steve taught me how to think about working with youth, and, for that matter, adults. One of the tools he used to coach me, and taught to others was the "EIAG" process. This process facilitates Inductive Learning. This involves the process of learning by example -- where a system tries to induce a general rule from a set of observed instances. It also involves classification -- assigning, to a particular input, the name of a class to which it belongs. Classification is important to many problem solving tasks.

By responding to most experiences through a process of questioning which allows young people to draw conclusions and generalizations from those experiences is the easiest, most efficient way of creating learners that I know. Steve often said our goal is not to teach, but rather to create learners. Once people learn to learn, they can apply the skill anywhere. Using the EIAG process frequently helps young people build in internal cognitive strategy for inductive learning and reasoning. This is the process:

Experience-either a naturally occurring experience, like a conflict with another or any daily experience, or an experience created in a learning environment. Any experience, from role plays, lectures, simulations or group explorations can be the starting point of inductive learning. I even use the process when discussing assessments, surveys, etc. with people.
Identify-help the learner identify what was significant in the experience. (What questions)
- What did you like about it?
- What didn't you like?
- What were three new things you might take away from the experience.
- What was unique?
Analyze-help the learner think critically about what they took away from the experience. (How questions)
- How is what you liked about the experience useful to you?
- How might even the things you didn't like have use if you think about it?
- How might you use the three new things you identified in the experience?
- How is that unique?
Generalize-help the learner find potential applications in their lives for the what they have learned. (Where, when, and with whom questions)
- Where might you apply what you have discovered from this?
- When might that be useful?
- In what contexts will the new things you identified be useful?, In what relationships?
- Who else in your life might benefit from what you have learned?

The lists of questions I have here are far from exhaustive, but I wanted to offer a process, and some example questions. Play with it. To learn more about this, and Developing Capable People, feel free to contact us.

People are Map Makers, and the Map is Not the Territory

One of the more powerful contributions that NLP has made to our culture is the popularization of the concept of cognitive maps. People are Map Makers means that we are always dealing with the world through our perceptions, through our "map" of the world. As we move through the world, we experience the world through our senses:

Sight,
Hearing,
Touch
Smell
Taste

We use these senses as we move through the world and build an internal representation of this external input in our brain (the map). You – and everyone else - do not respond directly to the world, but rather to the ‘map’ or ‘model’ of the world you create. In the process of building your map, you filter information based on your values, beliefs, memories, culture and social background. You therefore respond to your maps, rather than directly to the world.

This is important in many ways. Most of the map is developed by age nine, so early experiences are critically important. Young people who experience positive bonds, safety and love in their early years develop drastically different maps than young people who experience overwhelming trauma early in their lives.

The process continues throughout life, however. We continue to build and evolve our maps, and focus on those things in both our external environments and delete anything that doesn't seem important to our maps. We even distort what we take in to keep it consistent with our maps. Then we generalize that our maps really are "truth".

Once a person has a map based on painful experiences, distrust, and trauma, it is very difficult for that person to completely rework his or her map of the world. This is important in many ways. To the extent possible, we need to provide positive, loving, stimulating environments for young people during their early lives. If we must intervene in cases of abuse and/or neglect, we need to provide stability as soon as possible, along with a great deal of nurturing and support, so that they can integrate these experiences into their maps, along with any negative experiences.

In foster care,for example, we know that the fewer placements a young person has, the better the outcomes in adulthood. I believe this is largely due to both positive experiences, and the avoidance of the negative map making results that occur with multiple transitions and the feelings of powerlessness that go with them.

Take a few minutes and think of your map of the world. If you are involved with helping children, what led to that? If you are of a particular religious persuasion, what contributed to your development of those beliefs? Think about your political perceptions. What contributed to your viewpoint?

What does it mean to you that you are responding to your map of the world, rather than the world itself?

NLP Presupposition: "There's No Such Thing as Failure, Only Feedback"

One of the most important of the Presuppositions for me, especially in working with young people is "There is not such thing as failure, only feedback". It is especially useful for young people who are struggling with motivation, self esteem, but it works for all of us.

When something doesn't go as we planned we tend to see that as failure. Depending on the seriousness of the situation we might then get angry, irritated, sad, depressed, worried, guilty or whatever. None of this serves any useful purpose. In fact, it can lead us to give up, exactly when we need to push on.

But what happens if we see the situation as feedback rather than failure. A real life demonstration of how not to do something? Instead of being wrong we've learned something. Instead of feeling bad we are free to form a new plan of action and try again. Is this cosy, rosy-tinted 'positive thinking'? Not exactly.

Edison identified about a 1,000 ways not to make a light bulb before he found a suitable material for the filament. A number of best-selling books (i.e. million sellers plus film) were turned down by more than two dozen publishers before they were accepted for publication. Then there was the poor talent scout at Decca records who rejected the Beatles as having no future in music!

Perseverance is one of the most important traits we need to develop to overcome challenges, to maintain motivation and to succeed. In several of our youth programs, this was kept on a poster in the room where we worked. Whenever something didn't work, we would point to the poster, and ask what feedback we could gain from the experience, develop a new plan and go from there.

Try it, it is useful.

Presupposition: "The Quality of Your Life Depends on the Quality of Your Communication"

One of my favorite NLP Presuppositions, and one of the most applicable in almost any area of life is"The Quality of Your Life Depends on the Quality of Your Communication". It assumes that as you improve your communication, your experience in the world also improves. The assumption holds for both internal and external communication.

Internally, this would apply to our self talk, any pictures and movies we make in our heads, even postures and other manners in which we communicate with ourselves, maintaining and manipulating our emotional and physical states. This type of communication is addressed in most therapies which have been shown by research to be effective. Even the developments of maturity and wisdom is a process of cleaning up this type of communication.

Externally, the quality of the communication will largely determine the quality of results you get in your relationships with others. In human services and youth work, this, in my opinion, is the most critical issue for success.

I don't believe that programs change people. Quality interactions with people who work within programs, other clients, and others change people. This works when external communication effects the type of internal communication clients have with themselves over time.

We have all had experiences of this phenomena. We have had inspiring teachers, mentors, and experiences with peers which have changed us. We have also had encounters with people who were charged with helping us who had no positive effect or even negative effects.

The determining factor in whether we change is the kind of communication, the type of relationships that occurs. A teacher with poor communication skills can spend many hours with us and have less effect than one with good communication skills can have in just a few days. My most effective teacher in high school taught me for just one semester. He changed my life. My most effective mentor, the one who inspired the course of my career only worked with me for a year.

If this is a useful presupposition, then it isn't effort alone that produces outcomes in human services. It is the quality of the effort, of the communication that is effective. So providers need exquisite communication skills and need to spend significant time with others in order to make a difference in their lives. Without these skills much effort is wasted.

Disciplining Our Thoughts

Yesterday a friend of mine was relating a conversation she had about her son to some service professionals. She was talking about how he did in school, and how funny she found him. Then someone made a comment about how he sounds like he would be good actor or comedian. It was then that my friend brought up that he was nonverbal and autistic. She related how the whole energy of the conversation shifted. The others went from sharing openly as mothers to complimenting her on adopting such a child.

Then she related that most of the time, she just thinks of him by his name, and doesn't even consider the problems, and it always surprises her when she gets the reaction in which the diagnoses become the most important issue. "Like they are his identity or something." I think I should mention that she has produced what seems like miracles with this child since she has had him.

My friend demonstrates a discipline of thinking that we all need to adopt. She sees her son as a whole person first, keeping in mind that his diagnoses present special challenges in helping him grow, learn and develop. Our identity is so much more than our labels, whether they be diagnoses or other labels. I personally try to first frame everyone I meet as a child of the same creator, and a human being first. This helps me stay clear in developing a relationship which is nurturing.

When we think in terms of an Autistic child, Reactive Attachment Disordered child, even a hurt child, we have the conceptual and language cart before the horse. Identity is so much more than autism, disorders, or even being hurt. The very filtering of our description through these labels guides our minds to think in terms of deficits and limits. It would tell us that the most important thing about my friend's son is that he can't talk well, rather than focusing on his math ability, his great giggle, and how he smiles when his mother tells him she loves him.

It also has us thinking that the most important thing about an abused child is the abuse because that is what comes first in the thought. The most important thing about any child who has been abused is the human spirit within needing bonding, safety, and nurturing of their potential.

Think about it.

Question of the Day: "What is important about asking the questions of the day?"

The last few posts have offered a number of suggested questions to ask young people in your life. The last questions were "What is important about ______?" and "What will that do for you?". In an attempt to stay consistent with my suggestions and avoid why, I am asking what is important about these questions. What will it do for young people and yourself if you use them?

There are many benefits to asking these questions. The simple answer is they guide young people to think in new ways, and that is true. There is much more to it. Referring back to previous blogs on H. Stephen Glenn's developing capable people model, we have a need to help young people develop the perceptions that they are Capable, Significant, and Influential. Steven realized, as do many youth development theorist, that the most important of these perceptions is that of significance. Young people need to know that they matter, that their opinions matter, and that someone cares about them. This is the basis of bonding, which with many young people is the greatest challenge also. Asking the questions in a respectful manner communicates that you believe a young person is significant. Listening to an honoring their responses further cements that perception.

Through asking these types of questions you also communicate that the young person is Influential. The questions are framed to acknowledge there ownership of their own lives in the long run. "What kind of _____________ do you want to be" language implies that the person asking the question accepts the fact that you are in the drivers seat in your life. In my work with Casey Family Programs, one of the most impressive things to me was the title of their youth development framework for youth in foster care. They titled it "It's My Life". The title itself declared that young people were the ones who would drive the bus.

There is also an implicit message that the person being asked the questions is Capable of answers which will contribute to his or her own success. By asking about someone's intentions about their character as an adult, you communicate a belief that they are capable of creating positive characteristics.

A larger message to you here is that you are the message. If you use methods like the ones I describe in my articles, you will be communicating meta messages that young people are Capable, Significant, and Influential. If you fail to engage them in these processes, you will communicate their insignificance. If you challenge them without asking appropriate questions, you will communicate their incompetence and helplessness. It is the competence of the adults interacting with young people that makes the most significance difference in their lives.

Questions of the Day: "What is Important About ___________?" "What Will That Do for You?"

I have introduced these questions before, and want to revisit them because I have found them to be the most important ones in my repertoire. These questions replace "Why". In our trainings, we encourage people to make their environments "NO WHY ZONES". One might ask, "What is important about creating No Why Zones?" Why is an unpredictable question. We might get the same answer we would get if we were to have asked one the questions listed above, and that would be fine. However, we risk getting defensive response, and where there are negative beliefs involved, why will often reinforce the belief.

"What is important about ___________?" asks a person to go inside and identify the values and beliefs that are tied to something. A young person might say, he wants to be the next Kobe Bryant. If you ask about the importance of being like Kobe, he might say, because Kobe is respected. If you ask what else is important, he might answer that he makes a lot of money. You can ask the question several times, and you will unpack the goal to discover that the young person perhaps wants to be respected, make a lot of money, have nice cars, and a pretty wife.

"What will that do for you?" is a similar question. It might unpack values, and it might lead to more of a cause effect answer. "What will it do for you to be like Kobe might lead to "I will be able to buy anything I want." I suggest alternating the questions.

You can ask these questions anytime you would be tempted to ask Why. It isn't that it is bad if you forget and ask Why, but try these on and develop them as new habits and you will learn much more about others as they learn about themselves.

Ray Hoskins Blog

Personal Life Coaching, Youth Development, General Youth Advocacy

Filed under: Neurolinguisting Programming