“NLP?”, asked a longstanding colleague, “what is it and what does it have to do with your job?” I thought about his question; I thought about it deeply. Indeed, what is this NLP stuff and why should the company allocate hard earned company profit to my pursuit of it?
“Strategic influence”, I answered. “To give me maximum strategic influence so that I can achieve excellence in my job and therefore in business performance.” He looked unconvinced. I was glowing. It felt so right, so real to connect NLP to the difference that I could make to our business performance. I knew, without hesitation, that the company payback on the investment was virtually instantaneous. I knew and I know that NLP makes sense for business. Here’s why…
First, some context. NLP (Neuro linguistic programming) is the study of what makes a difference in what we think, say and do. It recognises the importance and calibration of the individual. What that means is that it helps us draw distinctions and clarifications to acknowledge that what is true for us as individuals may not be true for others – we each have our own valuable map of the world. This is relevant to why I know that NLP makes sense for business. It makes sense to me, to my understanding and experience of business. It may/may not for you – so feel free to liberally add “for you/to you” to the end of any of my sentences! And as it is about the individual…some brief context of my experience of business…
I am a senior manager in a leading international company in formulation science. I have been with the company for 20 years; starting as an accountant and moving swiftly (due to a lack of interest in pure accounting!) to the commercial side with jobs in marketing and sales in Europe and the USA. I am now in a global functional role with responsibility for driving our innovation strategy and capability.
So, what does NLP have to do with success in my role? Difference. The skills that got me to this level of ‘success’ in the company are not the same skills that will keep me there. Developing a career in my 20’s and 30’s was about direct line management; delivering products – commercial strategies – that delivered bottom line profit. Now I’m in my 40’s – my ability to deliver success is through influencing the managers now responsible for direct delivery – as well as influencing the senior managers that are my peers and superiors. How do you influence in business? (here’s a good place to add ‘according to you’!) You have credibility gained through experience and knowledge and then…and then, what? Excellent question. The ‘how’ question is at the root of NLP. It’s not a ‘why’ study – it’s a how.
So ‘how’ do I influence? Well, the current buzz word is ‘best practice’. You determine best practice and then you transfer it across businesses. ‘Maximise leverage’ is another name. ‘Best practice’ is a one of those business words that sounds cleverer than it is (like other words, such as ‘strategy’ and ‘connectivity’). Best practice is about identifying excellence in a process or activity, and transferring that knowledge to other business units. Great theory. So, I have the experience and knowledge to recognise a really good business practice. I share this with a relevant business unit that I think could do with this improvement. That achieves ‘sharing of best practice’ but the interesting bit…how do I really influence them to take this practice on for their own – how do I transfer the best practice, not just share it…with a team that aren’t direct reports; that don’t depend on me to determine their annual pay review?! My experience…with varying degrees of success. This, for me (did it for you), is the heart of NLP value. With the knowledge that I have gained through NLP, I have made different choices about how I influence other people and therefore impact on business performance. I have spent more time in understanding what lies beneath a best practice – how does a team/a person get that excellence? That’s where modelling comes in, clean questions, whole body listening, rapport. And then how can I best transfer it…by understanding the ‘receiving’ end…what’s important to them, how can this help them..and, most importantly, how can I help them ‘experience’ the best practice so that I create pull, not push.
Nice theory – real examples? The most recent example was an internal international workshop that I ran for 160 of our employees involved in the pursuit of innovation for company growth. I’ve run this event in the past – but this year, there was a difference. I had a new lens to view the event, the participants and the potential outcomes – my NLP lens. And this lens recognised the importance of ‘experience’. So I dramatically altered the format to make a full two days of experiences, not passive presentations. I also really changed my opening speech; I spoke directly from the heart with only 1 slide and I invited them to make the most of the event by being there, ‘really being there’ with all of their senses – very much an NLP invitation to be ‘in the moment’. It was electric. The energy level shot up and stayed there for the two day event. That was an exciting demonstration of how my NLP journey had injected directly into my business role and in delivering improved business results. In those two day, we generated new ideas, explored technologies and transferred best practice. I say ‘we’; actually ‘they’ did it; the delegates did it. I created and ‘held the space’ for our collective success.
Other examples of NLP beyond ‘best practice’…it is part of me, so ‘it’ comes with me in managing meetings – performance reviews, objective setting, project reviews. I notice so much more…the inner dialogue that my highly articulate boss filters through when she speaks…my very auditory direct report that just wasn’t getting my highly visual vision of our future…the metamessages shouted out by my colleague’s oft closed office door…the interesting change in language pattern in a company communication full of ‘we will..’ that suddenly interjected a ‘we won’t…’ message.
All of this was there for me to see, hear, and feel before. Through my (continuing) NLP journey…I feel like I’ve increased my personal bandwidth. And that — that is what is helping me make a difference in my role. That is what I mean by ‘strategic influencing’. Powerful stuff, this NLP…to me…for me.
