Would you like to gain more specificity and clarify meaning? was originally published July 5, 2019, and it is now available in video format too!
You can watch the videos in the Vlog section, or directly in my Youtube Channel https://youtu.be/K8rJE46jpKI
If you read last week’s blog It sure looks like Holmes you now know that there is a language model in Neuro Linguistic Programing (NLP) called the Meta Model, which is based on the assumption that we as humans delete, distort and generalize when we communicate. And sometimes it can be useful to recover the information from the deep structure of a persona’s map by recovering some of this information, especially if we would like to gain more specificity and clarity meaning of the speaker’s map of the world. It is also useful when we would like to challenge an imposition of rules and limits from someone else’s thinking.
Today I will look at different ways we can identify and correct when information gets deleted.
The first one is when we convert verbs into nouns, it is curious but this actually happens a lot. For example motivation, communication or behaviour, if a friend says to you “I have no motivation”, you could ask your friend, “what would you like to motivate?” Or if some says in a meeting “there is a lack of communication here”, you could reply: “how would you like to communicate?” Or “with whom would you like to communicate?” A client came to see me because she was overwhelmed as a parent at that moment, so she said about her teenage son “his behaviour is bad” and so I asked, “how is he behaving badly”? Have you noticed how the statements change when you change the noun back into a verb? Did you notice that suddenly there was movement and therefore possibility for change?
The second one is when you have to find the missing information like “I fell today” “where did you fall?” and “how did you fall?” Or “I’m so confused” you can ask, “what confuses you?” Or “when are you confused?” My daughter said the other day “I can’t concentrate mom” and I asked, “when is it you can’t concentrate? “ Or “on what can’t you concentrate? “Because I see her concentrate all the time, she a very good horse woman, for which you do need to concentrate, she also reads a lot, she runs, she goes to the gym and she creates beautiful pictures so I couldn’t help but wonder what is was she meant?
Another one is when we compare without telling the other person what we are comparing to. Like “he is better”, well “better at what?” Or “Better than who?” or “ according to who?” Or “according to research”, “which research?”
The list is long and when we begin to play Sherlock Holmes it can be difficult to stop. Just remember that even Sherlock Holmes doesn’t work all the time and just because you are now looking to recover more information you don’t have to search all the time. However this is also a very interesting tool to let you friends, family and colleagues know that you are listening to what they are saying.
I hope you are as happy as you want to be and remember being kind is for free,
Best wishes
Ivalo