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'If there is one thing that I have learned it is that if ever you experience a resourceful state - anchor the bugger'. So said one of the delegates on one of my practitioner training courses. Prior to coming on the course I don't think he often did experience a resourceful state so this was not a casual remark that he was making! But you know I think that managers in business often miss this simple principle and spend more time inadvertently anchoring unresourceful states and then wonder why their companies seem so problem centred. Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson in The One-Minute Manager had the idea when they talked of one-minute praisings and advised that we reward approximations to the desired behaviour. What this means is that if the response that you want is, say - for members of your staff to come forward with suggestions fleshed out with costings and timeframes, then encourage anything that comes near to this. So if someone comes up with an idea but not the costings or the timeframe reward the part that is being presented rather than highlighting the parts that aren't. Of course this is common sense - isn't it? How often have I heard people say 'that (NLP) is common sense? And yet how often do we consistently put that common sense into practice?

When passion is a problem

It was only yesterday that I witnessed a usually skilful and sensitive manager turn what could have been a golden opportunity to reinforce the responses that he wanted from his staff, into a problem. I blame myself - I made a number of mistakes throughout the day. I was doing an evaluation of a training programme that I have been running with this company for the past year. I had organised to talk with several groups of staff, who had all been on the training, to find out,

a) their views on how the training had made a difference for both them personally and the company and,

b) what further training they wanted to build on what we had done so far.

I tend to have a relaxed open style but that can be deceptive as I have had years of very structured behavioural training, and I draw constantly on that even if it is not visible to the observer. So I had a behavioural plan for the way in which I intended to conduct these meetings. I felt that one of the key development areas for this business for the future was role clarification, accountability and performance measurement. To illustrate the significance of what I meant by this I planned to be an example of accountability by being overtly accountable for any of the results of the training good or bad. I also planned to reinforce the act of accepting feedback by only questioning and listening to what the members of the groups told me. I wanted to get as much from them as I could in the time that I was with them. I planned not to rationalise or defend anything that they said and to promote their ownership of any future programme by encouraging all ideas. I explained to each group that I would collect their ideas and present all the feedback to the whole company once I had talked with everyone.

Managing the bigger system (or not in this case!)

The first session went well and my experience of everyone was that they were open, truthful, relaxed and constructive. I believe that the group enjoyed the process of the feedback. The next group included the Directors and developed into a much more structured session with each person speaking in turn around the table. The Director that had initiated the whole training programme was present and whenever it came to his 'turn' to speak he started to explain why the programme was important to the company. I believe that the programme is important to the company too, but the effect of his 'selling' was that the other members of the group started to close down in their comments. This director has always been very open to feedback and very willing to learn but here was a topic about which he felt passionately and he could not at first stop himself from singing its praises. I nudged him and pointed out that it was not a time to 'sell' but a time to listen. He was reinforcing (anchoring) withholding behaviours - the opposite of what I wanted to anchor in the discussion group members. After the meeting we had a review and he agreed that he could see the reasons why his behaviour was out of line. He asked if he could come to the next session and I said that I would ask the group (mistake number one - I should have stuck to my original plan). I did so but the group said that they felt that they could speak more freely if he was not present. When I told him this (and they told him too - mistake number two was allowing this) - he was visibly hurt but accepted the decision. The group was extremely open and spoke frankly about what they had and had not learned. It was a very enjoyable session. When I left the room the Director was sitting outside and said that he was coming to the next session - the final one. He did not put it as a request he put it as a fact. I could still have refused him but I took a chance (mistake number three). I gave him a quick briefing (mistake number four), explaining that I wanted him to be a state of acceptance and curiosity of what the group said, and we went into the room. Well 'his' state of curiosity and acceptance consisted of him looking out of the window, doodling and saying nothing until about half way through the session. At this point he asked if he could say something and I didn't say no (mistake number five). He wanted to explain how he felt about the programme which he is passionate about and he proceeded to do so - at length. I did not manage my emotional state well (mistake number six) and started to get irritated at what I perceived to be a waste of the time.

It's the meta-message that matters

I had wanted to anchor the act of giving open and honest feedback by total acceptance and curiosity for what anyone said. In doing this I wanted to demonstrate that it is important to accept every perception as a truth. The meta- message (the bigger message that I wanted to reinforce in each person's subconscious was that feedback was a really OK process). The behaviours, on my part (and I hoped on the part of the director), that were in line with this were any open questions (not 'why' questions as I did not want to explore the history of the points made) but especially 'testing understanding' behaviours, encouraging and rapport building. Behaviours that were out of line with this were 'telling', 'selling', 'disagreeing', 'Yes but - ing', talking about myself or recounting any incidents or getting involved in what might have been solutions to what was being said. In his passion the director began to use most of what I had classified as 'out of line' behaviours. I then began to show even more 'out of line' behaviours in my irritation. The meta - message that we were at risk of reinforcing by carrying on in this way was that 'we don't want your feedback. It is more important for you to hear what we have to say and experience a demonstration of what it means to be out of alignment with each other'! At a deeper level I am very much in alignment with this director and those who know us would recognise this but there were some new members of the company present in this meeting who did not know that nor would they have guessed it from the way that we were behaving. I've lost track of the number of mistakes that I had made up to this point. I left that meeting and the company feeling upset and angry with the way that this final session had gone.

Sorry

I slept on what had happened and wondered how I could get and give learning from it. I started to jot down some notes about what happened. This article emerged from the notes and a couple of days have now passed since this experience. I called the director the following morning to apologise for being impatient with him and I sent him this article. After all there is always (always?) a higher level of meta-message that we can reinforce if we look for it and if we are willing to let go of pride and righteousness. Isn't there? And isn't it true that there is no failure only feedback?!