What is NLP?

NLP can be defined as the study of excellence in human performance and its translation into practical skills that other people can use effectively. It is a powerful technology that fosters self-awareness, natural change and personal excellence. NLP was born when a linguist, John Grinder, and a mathematician Richard Bandler, asked themselves a simple yet fascinating question: What makes the difference between someone who excels at a skill and someone with basic competence? What's the difference that makes the difference?

NLP is about how we take in information through our senses (neurology), translate it into language (linguistic), and make patterns or mental models (programs) that influence our behaviour. NLP gives us choices about how we think, which inevitably make it easier to change what we think and the behaviours that follow. NLP Coaches use NLP to gain deeper insight about their clients and facilitate growth and change more easily and effectively. As we make sense of our world, interpreting our experiences (consciously or by assimilation so we create our maps of reality. We operate in the world on the basis of our maps rather than on reality itself. We begin to implicitly presuppose certain things and act accordingly. NLP provides us with a set of models of the world; they are called NLP presuppositions.

NLP Presuppositions

These may or may not be true, but they have proved extremely useful over the years and I hope they are of help to you.

	The meaning of the communication is the response it elicits.
	Choice is better than no choice.
	There are no failures in communication, only outcomes.
	People always make the best choices available to them, given their unique model of the world and of the situation.
	People have all the resources necessary to make any desired change.
	If what you are doing is not working, do something different.
	In interactions among people, the person with most flexibility and variation of behaviour can control the outcome of the interaction.
	There is a positive intention motivating every behaviour, and a context in which every behaviour has value.
	Anything can be accomplished if we break it down into small enough pieces.
	People respond to their own internal "map" of reality, not to reality itself. NLP is the art of changing these maps (not reality).
	The element in a system with the most flexibility will be the controlling element.
	People work perfectly. No one is wrong or broken; it's simply a matter of finding out how they function now, so that you can effectively change that to something more useful or desirable.
	Anyone can do anything. If one person can do something, it is possible to model it and teach it to anyone else.

NLP and Coaching

NLP presuppositions, skills, and models serve the coach in many ways. Several of the presuppositions of NLP are particularly useful in establishing the coaching frame. In reading this article, I'm sure you have noticed many of them. Everyone has the resources he or she needs. The worth of an individual is constant, while the behaviour can change. The map is not the territory. We respond to our maps, not to any "objective" reality. It is better to have choices than not to have choices. Behavioural flexibility is more useful than having limited behavioural choices. Every behaviour has a positive intent. There are no mistakes, only feedback. These presuppositions balance responsibility with no judgment, and allow the player to evaluate without being self- deprecating.

By living these presuppositions, experienced NLP practitioners naturally embody the attitudes of great coaches… Both assume that the player is capable. Both have experience exploring underlying mental frameworks that either support or inhibit growth. They are less likely to get distracted by "the story," the surface structure. They assist players in finding the deep structure of their experience, where profound change takes place.

NLP skills assist the coach in every session. Since much of coaching takes place on the phone, an NLP coach uses sensory acuity to listen to the player's voice tone and tempo. In addition, the coach knows how to listen at different levels, to the player's message and to the meta-message. The NLP coach listens for familiar language patterns that indicate a player's self-imposed limits, and he/she knows how to generate powerful questions in response to those patterns. The NLP coach can introduce the idea of multiple perspectives through skillful questioning. "What might your future self suggest?" "Is this the critic? What does the dreamer have to say?"

An understanding of NLP models enriches the abilities of a coach. I often begin coaching with outcome specification questions. Eliciting a well-formed outcome helps players define their vague dreams and set up evidence procedures. In many cases, just specifying an outcome generates movement toward it.
NLP practitioners often develop an unconscious sensitivity to the use of language that informs their intuition. Frequently, the most powerful questions in a coaching session come spontaneously from the coach's intuition.

Tristram, Claire (1996) "Wanna Be a Player? Get a Coach!" Fast Company Oct/Nov 1996 pp. 145- 50
Whitmore, John ( 1992) Coaching for Performance, Brealey Publishing, London.

Contact
For information about any type of coaching, or public speaking, call me on 0845 108 1238 or e-mail me at tranquille@o2.co.uk