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First of all I want to acknowledge your article and the questions that you pose. I also acknowledge the frustration that you might be feeling. When we try to measure NLP with piecharts and graphs it is a bit like trying to use a drawing pin to nail jelly to the ceiling. NLP is an experiential process. It is a concept that draws on our unconscious minds and that relies on us learning with our muscles, our minds and our hearts. My husband whose training was as an engineer says that NLP is less like a pie chart and more like the Mona Lisa. He searches for black and white answers only to find that the questions, rather than lead to answers lead to more questions. And that is hard to explain - that the answer, if there is one with NLP, is not so much finding the answer but in uncovering more questions. However it is in the quality of the questions that we ask that we influence the way that we live our lives.

Dispelling the myth of 'what is NLP?'

Garry I would like to take some specific points that you raise. You say that predicates (words that communicate preferences in the senses that we use in thinking e.g. I see what you mean, that rings bells for me, had a gut feeling ......) are NLP. They are not, although you would not be alone in thinking that they are, as they are often presented under this banner. NLP is the process of modelling the structure of subjective experience. What on earth does that mean I hear you (the reader) ask. Well what it means is that with NLP we assume (presuppose) that there is a structure to the way that we do what we do. This structure consists of patterns of thoughts and behaviours that make up strategies. So on this basis we can assume that we each have our own unique strategies for how we make decisions, how we learn, how we build relationships, how we negotiate, how we get up in the morning, how we get ourselves stressed. Whatever we do, we have a strategy for how we do it. Most of the elements and usually the key pieces of our strategies are outside of our conscious awareness. So if I admire something that you do - for example the way in which you build instant rapport with complete strangers - and if I were to ask you how you do that, the chances are that what you tell me would be useless to me because far from being what you actually do you would just tell me what you think you do. The application of NLP to business is to model what we perceive to be excellence in any context - for example top presenters, successful salespeople in specific contexts, in order to reproduce the results that they get, either for ourselves or to give back to them (to get greater consistency in their results) or to train others. Since the term NLP was developed by John Grinder and Richard Bandler there have been thousands and thousands of modelling projects. These modelling projects uncovered patterns of thinking, patterns in language and patterns in behaviour that make the difference in the context of the study. Amongst the earliest discoveries were predicates and eye accessing cues. They are examples of the output of NLP - they are not NLP. NLP is about finding out for yourself what works and what can work for you by modelling other people or yourself in situations where they or you are getting the results that you want to reproduce.

When the answer is another question

You are right to be skeptical (I agree with John Grinder) - that is the way to approach NLP. Richard Bandler even suggests that in embarking on the workshop that they describe in their original book 'Frogs into Princes' that you treat everything that they say as a lie. They do not want to give answers - they want to give questions, and more than that in their work with NLP they want to give us the ability to find our own questions.

If we give a man a fish we feed him for a day. If we teach a man how to fish we feed him for life.

You, Garry, have the questioning skills that are more life giving I believe than those people who find a management model and believe that it is the panacea for all ills. However I am aware that when I give those kinds of answers to my husband they cause more frustration rather than less. So what can I say to you and to the readers of this article?

NLP is a state of enquiry, a state of curiosity, a state of not accepting what has gone before, so that we continually reinvent ourselves, our beliefs, our skills and the results that we achieve. NLP is a journey towards self-realisation through continuous learning.

Assessing in the context of the whole system

I would like to pick up on another specific point however and that is the point of the value of predicates. As I mentioned, predicates are a discovery, an output of NLP and are not NLP in and of itself. However (and I am going to do what you quote Michael Mallows as saying people do to sell NLP) if my goal is to build rapport with someone whether that is in a social or a work context I have found in my twelve years of researching and working with these principles that to speak the same language does have the effect of communicating that you are listening to the other person and of creating a climate of rapport. However these elements cannot be taken in isolation. If as a visitor to this planet I were to walk down a street and see a severed finger on the pavement I might not appreciate its value. It might be handy for shoving in my ear to obliterate sound but a piece of cotton wool would work much better. I could of course tie some string round it to remind me to do something later that day but I could just note down what it is that I want to remember on a piece of paper. My point is that a finger is indispensable in the context of the whole body.

This is the point that Gregory Bateson makes with his model of Neurological Levels.

What he is showing us is that we need to consider the whole; that behaviour, for example does not exist in isolation of our beliefs or our skills. Indeed what he does show is that our behaviour is determined by our beliefs and ultimately our purpose. And that whatever we believe will determine what we experience. Basically whatever you believe, you are right!

Forgive me Garry (I had better stop too much use of your name for fear of sounding like a Readers Digest promotional campaign) but I could not resist a bit of cynicism myself on reading the assertions made by one of your sources - Dr Heap. I quote from him and you

"The present author is satisfied that the assertions of NLP writers concerning the representational systems have been objectively and fairly investigated and found to be lacking. These assertions are stated in unequivocal terms by the originators of NLP and it is clear from their writings that phenomena such as representational systems predicate preferences and eye-movement patterns are claimed to be potent psychological processes, easily and convincingly demonstrable etc........Therefore in view of the absence of any objective evidence provided by the original proponents of the PRS Hypotheses, and the failure of subsequent empirical investigations to adequately support it, it may well be appropriate not to conclude that there is not, and never has been, any substance to the conjecture that people represent their world internally in a preferred mode which may be inferred from their choice of predicates and from their eye movements."

I was amused that someone who writes without any use of predicates (well I detected one) would ever consider their value. A light sprinkling of predicates might have made his writing a little more palatable?

A lover's eyes will gaze upon an eagle blind;
A lover's ears will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd:
Love's feeling is more soft and sensible
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails:
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste.

The use of predicates is questionable? Tell that to Shakespeare. (or indeed pick up any best selling book and note the density of the predicates. And sales depend on rapport). I know, I know I am being cynical too. And I have found a great deal of value in exploring your comments and your article. You have challenged my thinking and I value that highly. For me that is what this is all about. I too was shocked when during one of my talks with an audience of people mostly of NLP practitioner status, a non -NLPer criticised some of the NLP principles and was greeted with an undercurrent of hisses. I'm with you on this one. They are indeed missing the point and to me they don't deserve to have been given practitioner certificates. I certainly would not have issued them with one. Then maybe I didn't deserve one either or you?

And what do I believe? Well I believe that we can significantly increase our choices in life to achieve what we want in a way that is of benefit to others. For me NLP has been a major tool in my kitbag that has enabled me to do this. It is not the only tool but it is one that has served me well. I do fall into that category of passionate evangelists (but I don't treat NLP as the panacea for all). And I wonder what would have to be true for you and the researchers that you quote to include those passionate evangelists with their success stories in the research data? What is it that means that you rate the pie charts higher than the success stories. Maybe the pie charts are your kind of predicate. So what if I were to offer you a pie chart based on twelve years of working with hundreds of different companies that showed that the percentage of companies that were able to give examples of how training in NLP had improved the quality of their business and where they were able to demonstrate it - also cut costs, downtime and improve the bottom line?

It was also Gregory Bateson who said that 'it is difference that is the difference that makes the difference'. So for me one of the answers that I have realised over time is that we all have our own views - the evangelists, the pie chart proponents, the cynics, the advocates - it is in accepting all that we recognise the richness in this diverse world in which we live. I believe that this acceptance of difference is as key to business today as it has ever been but not just to business, to relationships and to life.

I like your story Garry and if I were to give any advice at all I would say "I'm with the voice in the sky - let go of the branch!"

In response to your story, here's one for you:

One day a traveller was walking along a road on his journey from one village to another. As he walked he noticed a monk tilling the ground in the fields beside the road. The monk said 'Good day ' to the traveller and the traveller nodded to the monk. The traveller then turned to the monk and said, 'Excuse me, do you mind if I ask you a question?'

'Not at all,' replied the monk.

'I am travelling from the village in the mountains to the village in the valley and I was wondering if you knew what it is like in the village in the valley?'

'Tell me,' said the monk. 'What was your experience of the village in the mountains?'

'Dreadful,' replied the traveller. 'To be honest I am glad to be away from there. I found the people most unwelcoming. When I first arrived I was greeted coldly, I was never made to feel a part of the village no matter how hard I tried. The villagers keep very much to themselves, they don't take kindly to strangers. So tell me, what can I expect in the village in the valley?'

'I'm sorry to tell you,' said the monk, 'but I think your experience will be much the same there.' The traveller hung his head despondently and walked on.

A few months later another traveller was journeying down the same road and he also came upon the monk. 'Good day, ' said the traveller.

'Good day,' said the monk.

'How are you?' asked the traveller.

'I'm well,' replied the monk. 'Where are you going?'

'I'm going to the village in the valley,' replied the traveller. 'Do you know what it is like?'

'I do,' replied the monk. 'But first, tell me - where have you come from?'

'I've come from the village in the mountains'

'And how was that?

'It was a wonderful experience. I would have stayed if I could but I am committed to travelling on. I felt as though I were a member of the family in the village. The elders gave me much advice, the children laughed and joked with me and the people generally were kind and generous. I am sad to have left there. It will always hold special memories for me. And what of the village in the valley?' he asked again.

'I think you will find it much the same,' replied the monk. 'Good day to you.'

'Good day and thank you,' replied the traveller, smiled and journeyed on.

If you want to challenge these views or give feedback I welcome them through the ASK SUE KNIGHT section on my website. You will find a previous interaction between Garry and myself in this very section.