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

 

[CajunCenturion]

It's interesting to see the different responses triggered by the term "embedded command". I think that if one were to think objectively about the various responses, one might recognize that there is nothing inherently wrong with the technique. As is the case with many tools and techniques, it's not the tool or technique that's evil, or good for that matter, it's how and why the tool is applied.

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[N1GHTEYES]

CC - that is pretty much the point I was trying to make earlier.

There are also examples of "neutral" uses. For instance, have any LPs seen Derren Brown's (somewhat more advanced!) demo's of such methods? There was one classic case where he used the tannoy system in a shopping mall to make most of the customers all raise their arms at the same moment without realising they were doing so. The puzzled looks on their faces, when they noticed that not only had they done it, but most of the people around them had too, were priceless.

I guess you could say that was not strictly neutral, but it was fairly harmless.

Tony

 

[BadBigBen]

N1GHTEYES,

nope not Bacon but real bacon, the kind that 'merkins eat for breakfast... I am sure everyone loves bacon, I know I do... he he...

Feel free to groan.

or swine... eh... whine I mean...



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[N1GHTEYES]

'Merkins don't eat bacon - at least not in my experience. That hard frazzled stuff they eat is not bacon. The only valid way in which the words "crispy" and "bacon" should appear in the same sentence is as follows:

"Anyone who turns bacon into brown shrapnel should be fried until they are crispy."

Tony

 

[2ffat]

Not that we are completely off-topic . . . Bacon is a geek thing.


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

 

[SamBones]

Mmmmmm ... bacon!

[tt](_8(|)[/tt]

 

[N1GHTEYES]

Thanks to everyone who suggested ideas for this. We have now had the event and, as some of you requested feedback, here is a quick report.

The event ran over the whole of the lunch period (12:00-14:00). Each participant spent 3 minutes at each of 5 stations where they suggested ideas relating to the particular topic for that station. One facilitator remained at each station to encourage them and record their ideas. I was the facilitator at the first station. The participants all went through in the same order.

Given the above set-up, the maximum number of participants we could handle, if we had a constant flow of participants, every transition was on time and everybody stayed to the end, and it generally went perfectly was 35. We managed to get through 33. So, 94% of max possible capacity.

I don’t have the consolidated results yet, but I’d say, on average, each facilitator recorded ~2–3 ideas from each participant. So I’d guess we had a total of >400 ideas.

Obviously, some of those would have been repeats, but that is useful info in itself as someone pointed out earlier in the thread. If one person says it is too cold, they may need to wear a thicker sweater, but if they all do, then maybe we should crank up the thermostat!

I was mainly asking in this thread for suggestions on using NLP to shape the “spiel” I gave at the start to “my” participants. As it happens, since I ran the first station, it also meant that any mood I engendered was likely to affect the whole shebang. Consequently, I also tried to use it to set them up in general to be creative and confident about their contribution, not just get ideas from them about “my” topic.

The script I used was:

while standing and shaking hands...

Hi, my name is Tony. And you are? What dept do you work in?

Please sit down.

adjust my posture to mirror theirs as they sit to build as much rapport as possible, as quickly as possible...

Shall I tell you what we do at this section?

You work here, you see what happens around you, you experience your working environment every day, you have good ideas. Those things that don’t let you be really effective are bad for everyone. So now you can be creative, you can say where we need to spend money to save money, and to let you be at your best. You can relax, and let the ideas flow and I will do the writing.

In a few cases the participant knew what it was all about and so I did not give the final paragraph.

I learned the above off by heart the night before, so I could deliver it in a natural style. The embedded commands (bold) were all said with a low tone (the same as or very slightly lower than the rest) and a slight downward inflection.

The above took ~20s, so they then had just over 2 ½ minutes to come up with ideas. During that time I ad-libbed appropriate prompts, suggestions etc to help them, and gave encouragement to keep them at ease.

The logic of the script was as follows:
1 Getting them to say their name and dept both starts to build rapport and also means that they have already spoken when they start to say their ideas. This avoids the situation where the first words out of their mouths are also their first idea – which would otherwise have added a slight, but unnecessary stress. Continuing to speak is easier than starting to.
2 Getting them to agree to a sequence of statements makes them more receptive to subsequent ideas, including embedded commands which follow. This is especially true if the agreement is reinforced by action as well.
So, start by asking them to sit down – and they comply
Shall I tell what we do at this station? - they say yes
You work here – they agree
you see what happens around you – they agree
you experience your working environment every day – they agree
you have good ideas – this is both an embedded command and bolsters their confidence.
3 The low, descending tone used for the commands sounds like an instruction (as opposed to questions, which are delivered with a rising tone), and so subconsciously are accepted as such.
4 The commands are actually embedded – i.e. have non-command phrases before and after them. This accords with general NLP policy when delivering embedded commands.


To be honest, I have no idea if the above made any difference or not – after all, it was not exactly a controlled experiment. Even if, when the results are collated, I got more ideas than any of the other facilitators, it means nothing because it may simply reflect the preference of people for giving ideas on “my” topic, or the fact they gave all their good ideas at the first station, then ran out. Conversely, I intended to put them in the right frame of mind in general, not just for my topic, so I would not necessarily expect more for my topic. So it would seem difficult to obtain any meaningful metrics on the effectiveness of the technique.

However, I can say I was surprised at how many ideas people did come up with and how many were clearly generated while at the table (in many cases it was obvious these were not “prepared” ideas). Certainly, all the participants seemed to enjoy the experience. And - to put at ease the minds of those who were afraid I might be causing irreparable harm to the psyches of these poor victims by my mental machiavellianism - there seemed to be a noticeable absence of brainless zombie-robots staggering around afterwards

I also took on board the suggestions about taking note of the repeated suggestions and the importance of body language. The person who is collating the results will now specifically be counting repeats to obtain a measure of the strength of feeling on common topics.

Once again, thanks for all the ideas.

Tony

 

[CajunCenturion]

Tony, it sounds like you utilized several NLP techniques as part of a well thought out approach. You were well prepared and followed through with great execution. Nicely done.


--------------
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]

Thanks CC. Actually, it felt more like I cobbled together a fairly ad-hoc process based on a very quick bit of top-level research. But it seems to me that the process does offer promises of significant effect if studied in more depth.

My appetite is certainly whetted...

Tony

 

[BadBigBen]

Tony,

I too agree with CC, very thought out, even though you felt that this was (more or less) an ad hoc process, and very professional if you ask me...



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[SantaMufasa]

N1ghteyes,

I believe we MAI-ers would be fascinated to know what the conclusions are that you and your colleagues draw about this technique...would this be a useful technique in rapidly gathering ideas for use in Business-opportunity identification, Product design, Marketing, et cetera.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
“People may forget what you say, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

 

[N1GHTEYES]

OK, just to clarify to avoid any confusion...
The whole event was somebody else's idea. My participation was twofold:
1 I acted as the facilitator at one particular topic station,
2 I suggested we use NLP to influence the wording of the spiel

As it happened only one person in the team had any background in NLP & he saw it more as a therapeutic tool, rather than something which was useful in this circumstance. So I cobbled togetheer an ad-hoc script based on what I could glean from a quick bit of googling.

The process itself however was quite well organised. Though, it has to be said, from the number of people to whom I talked afterwards who said, "what event?", I suspect it could have been better advertised!

Santa: I'm sure it would be a very useful and effective tool for PART of one of the steps needed to come up with solutions to the kinds of issues you mentioned. What I mean by that is that we generally consider most such problems should be dealt with in 3 phases - explore the issue, generate ideas, implement an action plan. In each of the above steps (especially 1 & 2) it is very useful to use feedback, i.e. repeatedly iterate between a brainstorming phase and a considering / filtering phase. This technique sort of jumps straight into doing the brainstorming part of step 2. Used on it's own, it would leave you drowning in a sea of unconnected - possibly contradictory - ideas of varying merit all the way from terrible to OK with a few brilliant nuggets hidden in there. However, if the output is then used as the feedstock for a step 1 activity with a smaller group - i.e. a bunch of folks get round and categorise the suggestions and figure out what it is all saying about the problem at hand, this gives you a good grasp of the REAL problem which needs to be solved. This is not necessarily the problem you THOUGHT you had.

The suggestions can then be viewed in the light of the issues you have identified as key to see if any of them provide, or lead on the path to, solutions to those problems.

So, yes, I think it is a good idea for generating a whole slew of ideas, but a sensible approach to problem solving would explicitly use this as just one step of a larger process.

Gosh, I'm even more long-winded than usual this morning. Back to the grind...

Tony