NLP Benefits Podcast - Phil Jones

The Benefits of NLP - Discussion between Michael Beale and Phil Jones, Business Consultant September 2007.

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http://www.ppimk.com/nlp-podcast/phil.mp3 

Michael: Hi Phil. Would you please introduce yourself?

Phil: I'm a management consultant and I've been doing that for about 15 - 18 years in various forms. I specialize in business strategy and performance management, particularly around the balanced score card. And a great deal of what I do is not just the hard part of strategy and performance management -- the processes, the technique and the like, but the soft part -- the thinking, the relationships, the culture, how you make strategy actually happen, and how people think about it and talk about it.

Michael: What is the typical profile of your clients?

Phil: It's usually the Chief Executive, it can be anything -- public sector, private sector; they will usually be a reasonably large corporate. They could be mid size FTSE 100, or International companies. I've worked with FTSE 350s, sole traders, family-owned businesses, city councils, NHS, all sorts of businesses. It's usually the chief executive who is saying, "I need to sort out performance and strategy. Help me sort it out."

Michael: How would you describe your experience with NLP?

Phil: I first encountered NLP probably about 8 to 10 years ago. A lady called Sue Knight appeared on a one-day training course when I was in my KPMG days. She did a session on handling difficult people and I said "Hmm, this is interesting." I happened to resign that day from KPMG, and it wasn't related! (Laughs) I have done my Practitioner and Master Practitioner, and I run an NLP practice group in Cambridge. I've actively tried to use NLP for roughly six, eight, nine years. In 1999 I did Practitioner, and 2004 and 2005 I did Master.

Michael: Following on from that, how do you actually use NLP in your work?

Phil: I don't! (Laughs) I do, but I don't tell people I do.

Michael: What do you actually do?

Phil: A lot of the elements of NLP are about modelling and increasing awareness, and understanding how communication is going on, rather than the techniques like coaching and the like. So a lot of what I am doing with NLP is helping people think differently and uncovering the elements of communication problems that they may be having. So a typical example: I'm in a management team meeting, they are talking about their strategy and perhaps one of them will put a really heavy normalization in. I'll simply say, "So when you say that, what do you mean?" using a meta model pattern.

Michael: Can you give an example of normalization?

Phil: OK. A great normalization is everyone thinks of a dog. You ask people what particular dog it is, and they'll go: Retriever, small Spaniel, puppy, Labrador... The normalisation is actually in a way a generalisation. They are using a general word for some thing, the same way consultants use a broad catch-all in coaching.

Michael: You get them to expand on something they have a "box word" for.

Phil: Correct. "Box word" is a good phrase for what they are doing. Jargon should happen between consenting adults in private. And quite often jargon appears and they haven't become consenting adults. So one use that's extremely powerful is simply: "What do you mean by strategy in this context?" Using that question, I've got 16 different uses of the word strategy. That's not strategies, that's different ways people use it.

Michael: It's around asking good questions. How else do you use NLP?

Phil: Yes, it's around asking good questions, it's also about helping people think better. I have a new way of doing client interviews. I'm looking for the length of time it takes them to answer because that tells me they're thinking and I've asked them something deep. Another good example: if I am doing future thinking I'll explicitly get them to be in the future as if they are there, and look around there, which is a classic future NLP positioning.

Michael: What do you find the advantages of that are?

Phil: For them, it gives them a much richer picture of what they are thinking about and talking about. And for them it means that they are better able to articulate it to others as well. Because much of what I am trying to do is not just get an answer, but to help them to communicate better as a management team, and come out so they, as a management team, are all saying and communicating the same thing.

Michael: OK, I understand that. If I chunk up a bit and you are looking at your use of NLP, would you say that it has helped you with your current career or it's actually enabled you to do something totally different?

Phil: It's more the former two. I have been doing consultancy and it's given it a completely different edge, and a completely different angle. It's widening. One chief executive said, "I could have employed someone to do the team dynamics separately from the strategy, but you did both. And because you did both at the same time, the context created the team dynamic problems which you were able to solve in the content of what is causing them. Whereas if someone were just tackling the team dynamics, it wouldn't have had the context of strategy and how they were working as a management team, and so they would come up with a different kind of answer.

Michael: We've talked a little about NLP. I am interested balancing NLP with other things. You say that NLP has helped you to be as successful as you are in what you do. What other disciplines or other things have helped you achieve the results that you get?

Phil: I think that's a great question because I think NLP gets stuck in its own first position, and there's a great danger in doing that. I read around NLP so things like understanding models of changes and if you look at Chris Arguelles and people like that. I have a Maths degree, so understanding the structure of language and formal languages which comes from modelling computers; I go "Yes, I know that, I did that about 30 years ago." All you are doing is sub-setting it and using it in these discussions. Philosophy comes into this, management of change, economics, just reading around business and what people are thinking about.

Michael: So what's coming over is that you draw on a wide range of things and experiences.

Phil: I think that's really important. And like I say, there is a whole cabinet that seems to think that NLP and anything within NLP started somewhere in the 60's in Southern California. Whereas in fact it was stealing a load of other things, and incorporating them as well as the modelling that NLP does.

Michael: Focusing back to NLP, what has it enabled you to do differently?

Phil: I think there are two answers. One is about modelling. NLP is explicitly about modelling. It's not the trail of techniques that are out there. And therefore, what I am able to do that I couldn't do before, is to get a sense of the model that someone is using, and try it on and understand the beliefs that drive where they come from. That's really, really important, because it forces a question like, what do I have to believe to act like that, which is quite a rich question, as opposed to "They must be an idiot to think like that" is quite a different reaction to "what do I have to believe to think like that?"

I think I was probably very, very blind to what was categorized as "emotional intelligence." There is a whole piece of this that is about heightening my awareness of what is going on around, and the usual conversation and reactions, and that has been extremely powerful. There was one of those moments on a project where I said, "Oh dear, I am missing this big time." At the review afterwards, I said "Look, I screwed up that, and I really think the answer is I start doing NLP courses. Will you fund it?" And the guy said yes, and it sounds like a good answer for me!"

Michael: So you think there's a connection between doing an NLP course and gaining emotional intelligence?

Phil: Yes, but I wouldn't put it quite so strongly. I think it's an awareness that can lead to intelligence. Just because you have the awareness, it won't necessarily lead to intelligence. I was using that as an example of where you can be intellectually smart but not necessarily communicate anything.

Michael: OK, what advice would you give to anybody who was just starting NLP?

Phil: The first thing I would say is they are already using NLP but just don't have the words for it.

Michael: Absolutely.

Phil: The second thing I would say is, go and get some training, but do not go on a fast track, because I think that's impossible. The other thing is find as many NLP teachers as you can. I hear some people who go Practitioner then Master trainer with the same person. NLP is a very wide and varied thing nowadays. There is a ton of different ways. The way Judy Delosa does it is very visceral and not at all cognitive…David Gordon is relatively cognitive…there's the language school… there are so many different ways that people are interpreting NLP. If you go with one camp, you will lose out on the other five.

The third piece is that you can get a lot from books but only probably after you've started doing courses.

Michael: I agree with that.

Phil: Do read; go back to the original books.

Michael: So that's the advice you would give someone as they are starting their training. Would you give the same or different advice for someone who has finished NLP training? Whatever "finished" means.

Phil: I'm glad you picked up on that! Let me just take that apart. There are a lot of people that come out of Practitioner going, "Wow, that was a life changing experience, I'll go and do it with someone else." And they head off the course to be a coach. I find that immensely sad. Practitioner tends to increase your awareness and teaches you some of the trail of techniques that was left by the modelling of NLP. That's cynical -- I am trying to express a relatively extreme view here.

Michael: That's fine, please continue.

Phil: Masters, if it's done properly, I think, is much more about learning the variety of methods of modelling so you can start to create your own techniques of NLP. One of the things I always ask a coach is: "OK, which model of coaching are you in?" If they look at me blankly at that point, I know they haven't thought about it. If you go to the Council of Hypno-therapists or whatever it is, the people that are accredited, there are twelve to thirteen different "camps". That's not quite the right word, but ways of doing therapy and the like. And therefore I think it's a lack of awareness of what they are dealing with. It's also a concern that they are going to get into things much deeper because they are mucking about with peoples' heads. And they may not have sorted out their own heads. So my advice is to do much more on yourself before you think of doing things on others.

Michael: I would put in a counter point. That in some ways we all coached before we came to NLP. And therefore everyone has some coaching ability.

Phil: I don't disagree with you. It's just that I am trying to make the point that just because you learn to use a hammer, it's not the only tool in the tool box.

Michael: Excellent. Before I ask you to give your contact details is there anything else you would like to say about NLP?

Phil: I would strongly emphasize reading around NLP. The first time I picked up "Finding True Magic," I went, "Oh that's what it's all about!" Gregory Bateson and his material -- there's a lot of people talking about Gregory Bateson and it's very heavy to read and difficult but it is so rich and practical.

Do join practice groups and get out there and practice. The biggest mistake I did in 1999 was not doing anything after Practitioner and just kind of leaving it, as opposed to using it on a day to day basis. I think that's really important. Because the more you can practice it, the better. It's about doing it yourself and helping you understand what you are saying and how you are dealing with things.

The only other thing is a good plug to go on an NLP conference which gives you a wide use of it.

Michael: How can people get in touch with you?

Phil: phil@excitant.co.uk  My office number is 0870-420-7978. And they can find me at Excitant Ltd. Better to drop me an email beforehand.

Michael: Thank you.

Phil: It was a pleasure Mike. Lovely to talk with you. **