Is this off-topic? 2

[N1GHTEYES]

This issue touches on NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). NLP involves how the words we use affect people. So, given that...
"This forum is for light-hearted discussions on words, word usage, grammar, and related topics to improve our ability to communicate effectively and to help project the right image."
... I suspect it is relevant. If not, I'll happily withdraw the question.

Here is the situation:

I will shortly be participating in a "Speedovation" event at work. The basic idea is that:

There are five topics.
Each participant spends 3 minutes with a facilitator on each topic.
During those 3 minutes the facilitator briefly outlines the topic then encourages the participant to brainstorm ideas and suggestions relating to the topic.
The facilitator then captures those ideas and the participant moves on to the next facilitator who deals with the next topic, and a new participant moves in to work with this facilitator.

It is like an idea production line.

Most of the ideas will be repeats, or impractical, or irrelevant etc. However, it is hoped that a few will be new and worthwhile - thus making the event worth the effort.

My question is this - as a facilitator, can I use any NLP techniques in my very brief intro to the topic, to stimulate the participant into a more useful frame of mind - e.g. one in which his ideas flow more freely, or he is more creative etc?

I am aware of NLP, but I've not really studied it, and I don't have the time to do so before the event. Is there anyone on the forum who is sufficiently au fait with NLP to suggest a few key words or phrases which I might work into the intro which could get their mental juices flowing?

Any suggestions gratefully received.

Tony

 

[SkipVought]

Trigger words. Like a vector. Where there is amplitude and direction.

Skip,
[sub]
Just traded in my old subtlety...
for a NUANCE![/sub]

 

[N1GHTEYES]

Skip, would you care to elaborate at all?

Are you suggesting the key thing is the words (in which case which would you suggest?) or the method of delivery?

Tony

 

[CajunCenturion]

The question if fine for MAI. The key to NLP, as I understand it, is to understand your audience and to identify the triggers that work for them. Based on your description, you have very little time to get to know the participant, so you have very little time to build any kind of rapport that will allow you to get into their comfort zone, if you will, so that you can communicate with them on their terms.

In three minutes, I would think your best technique would be to use positive reinforcement body language to spur additional ideas. After the first participant gives the first idea, purposefully respond with some specific type of body language response that you believes gives the impression that you think that's a great idea. If the participant then responds with another idea, keep it going. If not, then try a different response to the next idea. Each time, note how the participant responds to your body language and continue to refine that response to keep the participant involved and the ideas flowing. Understand, however, that with the next participant, you need to start over, as that participant may read your body language differently.

Again from my perspective, the key to NLP is to recognize that you're not trying to program your audience to communicate with you so they'll respond appropriately to you. NLP is about programming yourself to use to the right words and triggers so that you communicate with your audience so they'll respond appropriately to you. That takes time and interaction and will be a challenge in just three minutes.

--------------
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Wise men speak because they have something to say, fools because they have to say something. - Plato

 

[N1GHTEYES]

CC - thanks for the comment. My (very) limited understanding of NLP would indicate you are right about it being more about conditioning oneself rather than the other person. I certainly intend to try the kind of thing which you suggest.

Additionally, given that this is a 3-minute exercise, and hopefully the bulk of that 3 minutes will be given over to them not me, I was hoping for some quick'n'dirty verbal "tricks" which might be inserted into my opening script to maximise the participants' initial creativity, confidence & openness.

I know that I have read some NLP stuff which has talked about how to generate "scripts" for certain purposes, with a view to empowering the recipient to respond in certain ways, by means of specific key words and phrases. Unfortunately, my memory being what it is nowadays, I'm blowed if I can remember much about it, or even where I read it.

To be really honest, I'm not entirely convinced that NLP (at least some aspects of it) is any more than smoke'n'mirrors. However, as long as the script I use is not actively detrimental to the process, it seems I'd lose nothing by giving it a go.

So, for now what I think I need is some suitable keywords/phrases etc.

Any suggestions?

Tony

 

[SkipVought]

I was trying to paint a brief word picture that came to me, reading your intro.

This seemed to me like TRIGGER words would be needed. LOADED words, that, like a vector, point in a certain direction with a strong or weak value. In this case, you want to craft and present words with STRONG value, that evoke or trigger a response TOWARD, in the direction of, the desired results.

Do you know any of these people? Analyogies, pictures, figures of speach, illustrations are among the techniques to get the juices flowing in a brief moment.

Skip,
[sub]
Just traded in my old subtlety...
for a NUANCE![/sub]

 

[2ffat]

I would be very interested in know how this all turns out. Was it productive, humorous, nerve racking, a fiasco, etc., etc., etc.? I've never heard of NLP and would like to know more from some one who has used it.




James P. Cottingham
[sup]I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229![/sup]

 

[N1GHTEYES]

Maybe it would help if I give a bit more background.

This is a session organised by our Innovation Office. That is less grand than it sounds, in that, while the IO has about a hundred or so trained facilitators, they all have "day jobs". The IO itself usually has only a handful of permanent staff - and even they all have other responsibilities.

The session will take place over an extended lunchtime in a temporary area set up for it off the canteen lounge area. Workers will be invited to drop in to participate for 15 mins each (5 topics, 3 minutes each). One facilitators will be stationed at each of 5 topic areas. Every 3 minutes, each worker will cycle from one topic to the next until they have done all 5.

The workers are mostly engineers, but there will also (hopefully) be some secretaries and folks from admin, facilities, security, legal etc.

At the end of the session, the ideas will be collected and analysed in slower time to work the good seeds into suitable proposals.

The purpose of the exercise is to generate ideas to: save money, improve working conditions, boost morale, reduce costs, invest wisely, etc...

Tony

 

[N1GHTEYES]

2ffat - a pilot session has already taken place at one of our other sites. Less than 50 participants took part, but that was mostly limited by the number of facilitators available, rather than a lack of volunteers.

Several hundred ideas were generated in one lunchtime session, though it has to be said that many of them were identical. Maybe a fifth of them represented truly unique proposals.

The analysis and assessment process is still ongoing, but some have already been accepted and either implemented, or steps are in progress to implement them. No metrics are yet available for how much money is likely to be saved, and other goals - such as impact on morale - are fairly intangible and hard to measure.

The scheme is nothing to do with NLP per se. I just thought it might be a useful tool I could use to craft a script which boosts the chances of getting good ideas.

Tony

 

[SkipVought]

This is akin to the fact that giving a 3 minute speech can be much more challenging than a 20 minute speech.

You must give much prior thought to focus and distill and hone your points for the greatest impact in the shortest amount of time.

Skip,
[sub]
Just traded in my old subtlety...
for a NUANCE![/sub]

 

[N1GHTEYES]

Skip - I agree with you. That is why I was wondering if I could start by sculpting the script around keywords which are generally considered to be freighted with maximum impact to generate the mindset I want to engender in the participants. Hence the NLP question.

By the way, I probably was not clear before - the 3 minutes is for the whole interview. Most of that should be taken up by the participant giving his ideas. My "speech" is intended to be a very brief intro - say 30s or so?

Tony

 

[SkipVought]

Yes, I totally understand.

Skip,
[sub]
Just traded in my old subtlety...
for a NUANCE![/sub]

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> I've never heard of NLP and would like to know more from some one who has used it.
NLP has its history in therapy. What the therapist would do is get to know the patient by learning what words and phrases the patient finds comforting and those words and phrases which the patient finds frightening. That can be done by listening to the words the patient uses to describe bad things and what words are used to described good things. As therapy continues, the therapist uses fewer and fewer of the 'bad' words and more and more of the 'good' words.

From time to time in these forums, we've discussed word connotations and word denotations. NLP is concerned about learning each individual's word connotations and what role that word plays in that person's perception of reality. The next step is then for the therapist to program him/herself to use those words which have the proper connotation in the listener's view of reality.

In other words, the theory behind NLP is that I want to communicate effectively with you, and perhaps get you to change in some manner, then I need to program myself to use words based not on what I think they mean, but rather, based on what you think they mean. Before I can do that, I need to first learn the words that are meaningful to you, and what you believe that meaning is. That's not something you know going into a relationship, but something that is learned over time from within a relationship and the therapist has to make a concerted effort to get into that frame of reference. That takes time and interaction. Again, its history is in primarily therapeutic applications.

It is coming up more and more in the business world simply for the purposes of effective communications, but it requires the speaker to adapt to the listener's frame of reference. If you're in sales, and you want to close the deal, then it's probably a good idea for you to be able to program yourself to talk effectively in the buyer's frame of reference.

Again, in this situation it's going to be a real challenge from an NLP standpoint, because you don't have the opportunity to learn anything about the participant beforehand. One thing you can do is control your body language responses as ideas are being presented to hopefully convey positive reinforcement so the ideas keep coming. As far as using trigger words in the intro, you're really guessing because you know nothing about the participant. For one participant, you could say 'we're looking for creative ideas' and their response is, 'not again, this is a waste of time because this company is clueless about creativity'. For another person, that same intro, 'we're looking for creative ideas' could generate a 'finally, now I have a chance to show them I can think outside the box'. In either case, the single word 'creative' triggers opposite responses. The challenge for N1GHTEYES is to start with the phrase 'we're looking for creative ideas', immediately judge the participants reaction to see which camp they (might) fall in, and then finish the sentence with either 'but I think you're far more able to provide traditional ideas' or 'and you're just the one to help think outside the box'.

--------------
Good Luck
To get the most from your Tek-Tips experience, please read
FAQ181-2886
Wise men speak because they have something to say, fools because they have to say something. - Plato

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> So, for now what I think I need is some suitable keywords/phrases etc.
Suppose you're going to hear management speak and you decide to play buzzword bingo. Based on your corporate culture, what are the 24 words that would go on the bingo card? I would avoid everyone one of those words.

Think back over the various staff meetings that you've attended. When someone said something that got the staff excited, what words did they use? Those are words that I would consider trying to use. You want to try to use words that have positive connotations in your corporate culture.

--------------
Good Luck
To get the most from your Tek-Tips experience, please read
FAQ181-2886
Wise men speak because they have something to say, fools because they have to say something. - Plato

 

[N1GHTEYES]

CC - your suggestions on word selection sound like an excellent idea. Conveniently, the company recently ran a competition to select the 5 key words which represent it best. I guess there were probably about 24 or so in the list we had to choose from...

From my limited exposure to NLP (purely from reading - no personal experience) I think your take on it, and how it would apply in this case, seems pretty much spot on - at least for the Jedi version - and I will have a try. Given the short time I have, both to give the speech and to prep for it, I was hoping to also make a brief foray into "the dark side".

So, the kind of thing I had in mind was to use "embedded commands", possibly preceded by a phrase to induce cognitive dissonance to aid reception and acceptance. I vaguely understand that process - at least in principle - but I have no idea how to go about it in practice. I intend to try to ferret out the required info before the session, and give it a go. It will be interesting to see if it actually has any effect (which, to an extent at least, could be judged by the relative proportion of the total suggestions which come from "my" topic).

Even then, however, it would still make sense to tailor the specific command words to the recipient, so I guess a useful thing to do between now and then is - as you suggest - sharpen my visual acuity so as be able to pick up on their cues.

Tony

 

[tcsbiz]

So, the kind of thing I had in mind was to use "embedded commands", possibly preceded by a phrase to induce cognitive dissonance to aid reception and acceptance."

This sounds dangerous to me. Trying to get into someone's mind to understand how they think so they can be brainwashed comes to mind. I would think one would need years of training to do this effectively.

I keep trying to do something about my procrastination but I keep putting it off until tomorrow.

 

[N1GHTEYES]

tcsbiz: I'd seriously doubt that anything I might say in a quick 30s intro to a topic could possibly be "dangerous". Especially as the effect I would be trying to produce would simply be to get them into a more creative frame of mind.

To do this well, and to be sure of achieving it (if it is possible at all) probably does take years of practice. But, if, with a bit of research and a bit of planning, the words I use in the intro can slightly improve the likelihood that some of the participants might think of a few more creative ideas, then it is probably worth the effort.

"Getting into someone's mind", "understanding how they think" and "brainwashing" really don't come into it. All I'm trying to do is borrow some of the same techniques that advertisers, the church, politicians and PR companies use on a daily basis - and to which we are all constantly subjected. Much as you may hate the effects that the manipulations of these groups may have on society, I don't suppose you feel that they leave you mentally scarred.

Manipulation is merely a tool. Using it to coerce, for example, old and vulnerable people to send their life savings off to some religious nutter, or some dumb kid to go and blow themselves up in a shopping centre is evil. On the other hand, using it to make it easier for somebody to quit smoking is not.

If a participant is sitting in front of me at this event, he has decided to be their because he wants to take part in a process which might improve the company in which he works. My job, in this instance, is to help him do so. My employers have the expectation that I will do my job as well as I can. So do I. So, if I can do my job better by using words which enable him to feel more creative, then that is what I should do.

Tony

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> Given the short time I have, both to give the speech and to prep for it, I was hoping to also make a brief foray into "the dark side".
What do you mean by "the dark side"?


--------------
Good Luck
To get the most from your Tek-Tips experience, please read
FAQ181-2886
Wise men speak because they have something to say, fools because they have to say something. - Plato

 

[SamBones]

This is a very interesting exercise you are participating in. It sounds a lot like the "brainstorming" sessions we used to have back when we had a Quality Program here.

I think more important than trying to use LNP to evoke good responses, is to not judge the ideas as you collect them, no matter how ridiculous or impractical they may be. Even an absurd idea may plant a seed that becomes a great idea. In a group setting, someone making a silly suggestion with the intent of getting a laugh out of the group, would often trigger someone else to really think outside the box and come up with a truly unique and insightful idea.

So, during the "brainstorming" part, where you are collecting the ideas, your response should be all positive. "Great idea!", "That's awesome." Anything negative, like "Everyone says that one", or "That wouldn't work", will shut down their flow. If you shut down the flow at idea #2 or #3, you may not get to hear idea #5 which might be the gem that you are looking for.

Treat all ideas with equal merit while collecting them. Then, later, you can sift through and separate the wheat from the chaff.

 

[N1GHTEYES]

CC - just a passing tongue-in-cheek reference to Star Wars. Being a Jedi is all goodness and light, but takes massive mental discipline and lots of hard training. The dark side is tempting because it is quicker and easier...

All I meant was that, whilst NLP (when fully applied as part of a full therapy process) might be able to do wonderful things for someone's mental health, all I wanted to do was borrow a few techniques which might have a very minor, but quick, general effect in this particular instance.

Darth Tony