Better Communication Skills with NLP
The meaning of your communication is the response you get. In other words, the effectiveness of your communication is determined by the response that you get from the other person and not by your intentions (however admirable these may be).
Response-ability in action
The message intended is not always the message received. It is not enough to ‘mean well’. Excellence in communicating involves taking responsibility for your impact oil others.
Which means recognising the impact that your communicating is having and varying your behavior until your message is understood.
We are responsive creatures: we cannot not respond to one another. So the question to consider is are you getting the response you want? If not, continue to adjust your communication until you do get it.
The opportunities for mis-communication
It is a common expectation that it is enough to have the right intention and to tell someone something for him or her to fully understand it. However in NLP we recognise the huge range of opportunities for miscommunication:
Our models of the world are mere approximations of reality - although most people believe that theirs is reality and that any reasonable person’ will have an identical model.
Because of the filtering and modeling processes a person’s inner model is very different from the reality it represents and it is likely to be considerably different from anyone else’s.
Relatively few people communicate with any real appreciation of the finer points of language usage - as highlighted in the NLP Meta Model - so the opportunities for misunderstanding multiply.
Even fewer people have an appreciation of the subtle and cumulative effects of non-verbal behaviour, of the anchoring phenomenon. of representational systems and how people specialise in them, of feedback loops between people. of the effects of presuppositions, of the effects of the NLP Milton Model communication patterns, of the effect of their behaviour on the internal representations of others - to name some of the factors that can influence communication.
Effective Communicating
Model of the world
Effective communicating requires constant awareness of the concept of differing models of the world - and how great this difference can be, even between two people who know each other well and have shared a long history.
The map is not the territory
Recognise that the other person is largely responding to his or her own internal map of the world rather than to the raw data of the external world.
External behaviour is the result of internal behaviour
Use sensory acuity and your ability to calibrate to minimal signals (i.e watch people using 'soft eyes') to appreciate how they are internally processing your message.
Rapport
No rapport, no communication! Rapport is essential - without it you will have little effective influence. First pace - then assess the quality of your rapport by leading.
In creating rapport you adapt your message to fit their model. This makes it more understandable for them and more likely to be acceptable.
Know what you want
Be clear about what you want to convey to them. And be clear about what will indicate that your message has been satisfactorily received i.e. what you will see and hear that will prove to you that the ideas, which you are communicating, have been received.
Flexibility
Keep varying your behaviour - be prepared to continually vary your communication until the other person receives your message. Until you get the response you want. Or until you recognise it is not working. Note: if they do not want to understand or if what you are saying is unwelcome then you are unlikely to get a favourable response
Congruency
Remember that, in addition to their conscious mind, their intuition or 'unconscious mind’ is responding to your communication - to your whole output - verbal, tonal, and physical.
If there are any contradictions (incongruities) between the verbal and the non-verbal messages you are giving them this will be recognised and their conscious mind will register the incongruence as a negative or uneasy feeling about you.
You cannot compete with their internal accessing
When a person is ‘inside’, when they are internally processing, you cannot communicate with their conscious mind.
So either wait patiently until their attention is again on the outside or do something to interrupt their internal accessing. Otherwise what you are saying will not register. Be especially alert to people who tend to access their internal dialogue or imagery while giving the outward appearance of being attentive.
The Map is not the Territory
‘When people come to us in therapy they typically come in pain, feeling themselves paralysed, experiencing no choices or freedom of action in their lives. What we have found is that the world is not too limited or that there are no choices, but that these people block themselves from seeing options and possibilities that are open to them since they are not available to them in their models of the world.’ (Structure of Magic I, Bandler & Grinder)
We each experience life differently. For example, to some people life is a source of fear or struggle while to others it is an enjoyable experience or a series of never-ending discoveries and challenges.
Our opinions differ because
1. Instead of interacting directly with the world of raw experience we usually interact with our internal map of the world.
2. This inner map of reality or set of perceptions bears only a slight resemblance to the real world.
3. Every individual on earth has a quite unique and personal map of the world.
We all have a “map” of the world
Maps provide us with our sense of direction. In order to travel from one part of a country to another we need a map or idea of where we are, where we are going and the route in between. This lets us know what to do, which means of travel to choose, what to avoid, how much time it will take, etc.
Similarly we each need a map or view or version of reality to enable us to function in our life. These individual maps are very valuable. They not only account for our individuality and our creativity, but save us from having to rediscover every day how to talk, walk, open doors, etc.
The map is not reality
We experience difficulties because we believe our map to be reality - that our map is the territory it describes - and because, instead of responding to the information coming in from the real world, we respond to our internal maps or assumptions about reality as if these were real.
In order to get along with and assist or coach people we must firstly remain aware that our personal map is not reality and, secondly, seek to understand how other people perceive the world.
Why maps are poor approximations of reality
Our maps are built from data received from the world. This data, as it arrives, is simultaneously filtered and altered - so the resulting map is, at best, a fairly poor version of reality.
Incoming data is:
A. Filtered: the vast amount of available data is systematically reduced
B. Modelled: the data is altered or modelled by the three universal modelling processes of deletion, generalisation and distortion.
The Filtering Process
Incoming data must go through a number of filtering processes of which the most important are:
1. Physical Filtering
Our nervous system is our first ‘filter’. We receive data from the world through our five senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling. But the range of sensations, which our senses can register, is limited so only a portion of the vast amount of available data is registered.
2. Awareness Capacity Filtering
Our conscious awareness is limited. It is not possible to pay conscious attention to the huge amount of incoming data, let alone to the way in which this incoming date is being actively associated with the even greater amount of data that we have already accumulated.
3. Social Filtering
Similarly we do not even pay attention to everything that is registered by our nervous system.
We generally pay most attention to the data for which we have words. If something has a word we are more likely to be aware of it than if it does not. For example, a Eskimos will recognise many more types of snow than a native of Europe because snow plays a bigger role in their lives and they therefore have many more words for subtle variations in the quality of snow.
4. Personal Filtering
This is the final filter through which data from the world must pass before being incorporated in our model of the world. What we pay attention to or ignore, and how we pay attention to it, is affected by our personality. Our personality results from how we have uniquely experienced life to date and is the totality of our sense of identity, beliefs, values, metaprogrammes, likes, dislikes, etc.
The Modelling Process
Deleting
We pay attention to some things and ignore others.
For example, in a crowded room, we can pay attention to one person’s voice while ‘deleting’ the rest of the noise. Or we can pay attention to what we like about a person while, deliberately or otherwise, ignoring what we might not approve of.
Generalising
We make a decision based on our selected experiences.
For example, at an early stage we discover that door handles when turned usually tend to open doors so we generalise that they will always do so. Or we decide, because touching a hot stove was once painful, that hot stoves are best left untouched.
Distorting
We alter how we are experiencing something.
For example, we think about a future or past event and respond physically and emotionally as if it were occurring right now. Or we ‘interpret’ the behaviour of another person and respond to that interpretation rather than to reality.
