Great customer service pays dividends

Published January 25, 2012 | By Reg

Can I have a replacement part, please

Just over a month ago I contacted the manufacturers of my cycle roof rack to say that a part had broken when I was putting the roof rack on a different vehicle. “That’s fine – could you let me have your address?” I did and was then told that a new part would be with me in the morning. And it was.

I fitted the part to my Mont Blanc cycle roof rack carrier and it worked fine once again. They are great cycle carriers and have the added advantage that, because of their nice deep slot for the front wheel, they hold the bike upright while you are attaching the supports as you put it on the roof. This makes the job very much easier.

I already knew this before I contact them. And would happily have paid for the damaged part. The fact that they didn’t ask for money, that they had a “no problem” approach to my call, and that the part was dispatched immediately merely confirmed my belief that I had bought a great product from Mont Blanc. Continue reading →

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Dealing with Difficult People (1)

Published January 23, 2012 | By Reg

Last week’s Twitter Tips

The new series of Twitter Tips began last week. The total tips for the last series, which began in February 2011, was 100 and this year we’re aiming for about twice that. The tips are posted on @pegasusnlp Monday to Friday. And each week’s 5 is followed by a blog article expanding on them which will be posted early in the following week.

Last week’s theme was “Dealing with Difficult People” so let’s look at the 5 Tips.

Labelling people

(1) Difficult People. ‘Difficult People’ categorises them & blinds us to their individuality and their complexity. Use Person with a Difficulty instead.

The labels we attach to people, in this case as “difficult”, determine our attitude towards them. So if I label somebody as difficult or awkward or unfriendly I will approach them expecting this behaviour – whether or not I receive it. And my approaching them in this way will, in turn, actually evoke the response in them that I had prepared for.

The label determines of their very personality is “difficult”. Changing the label to “person with a difficulty” change the focus from their personality to the difficulty they are having and, therefore, towards looking for solutions. Continue reading →

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The Bathroom Tap and Anger

Published January 22, 2012 | By Reg

Taps, floods, and anger

One of the analogies that I invented years ago and use extensively to explain unwelcome or ‘negative’ emotions is The Bathroom Tap.

Let’s say that you share your house with a friend, friends, or family. After your day’s work you arrive home, open the front door and discover water running down the stairs and into the hallway. The hallway is already flooded with a few inches/centimetres of water.

What do you do?

Do you rush into the kitchen, find a bucket and a mop and start furiously mopping up the hallway? That’s pretty unlikely. Because the water is still running down the stairs – because somebody has left a bathroom tap running upstairs! Continue reading →

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The Anger ‘Habit’…?

Published December 6, 2011 | By Reg

But is anger a habit?

Looking at the visitor statistics for this blog, I noticed that this year’s most visited blog article so far is ‘How we do the Anger Habit.’ In the 8 months since it was published it has been viewed just under 1800 times.

This is great and yet what I find particularly interesting is that nobody has commented on, questioned or challenged the article’s central idea – that anger is a ‘habit’ i.e. it is something that we do rather than something which happens to us.

‘It’s not may fault – that’s how I am’!

I first began introducing the idea that our emotions are really ‘habits’ in the weekly stress management courses which I began running in the mid 80’s. These were held in Dorset, in the south of the UK, and proved very popular – so much that, at one stage, I could be running four, five or even six courses per week throughout the area. Continue reading →

Tagged anger habit, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, NLP, stress management, tantrum

Sorry I’m late…

Published October 28, 2011 | By Reg

I don’t like wasting time

People who are consistently late for appointments or meetings tends to share a particular trait. They don’t like waiting around – it’s a waste of time.

In their eyes arriving 5 or 10 minutes early for an appointment wastes valuable time that could be spent on other things. So they will cram in more activities and leave setting off until the very last minute.

In their eyes that’s being efficient.

Buffer zone

In some of our NLP courses we ‘model’ or identify what’s behind how people do things. Whenever we do this on the subject of comparing the latecomers versus the ‘on time’ people one key trait surfaces: the ‘on time’ people give themselves leeway.

In planning to arrive at 2:15 PM meeting Kerry, who likes to be on time, will estimate the journey time and then some extra time as a ‘buffer zone’ to allow for contingencies such as meeting somebody on the way, being delayed at traffic lights, the train being late, and so on. Continue reading →

Tagged appointment, being late, latecomers, meetings, NLP, wasting time

The Incessant Talker

Published October 19, 2011 | By Reg

The current Pegasus NLP Newsletter is about incessant talkers – the people who talk at us – and talk and talk and talk.

Really skilled Incessant Talkers don’t just bore us, they actually affect our mood and our effectiveness – by scrambling our thinking.

I had an experience of this not so long ago whilst driving with an incessant talker as a passenger. As I began negotiating a tricky traffic situation I recognised that I couldn’t concentrate because their flow of verbage was preventing me from assessing how to handle things. Fortunately I recognised this in time and asked them to stop talking until I had got into the traffic flow. This they did – and immediately resumed their flow and continued for the rest of the journey.

Once I had recognised their style – and when to stop them from talking – it became a fascinating experience.For example:

They seemed to have no interest in whether or not I was interested in what they were saying.
They seemed to have no awareness of my need to pay additional attention to my driving at certain points.
Not once was I given a moment to consider what they had said – their ideas followed one another back to back, without so much as a second’s pause.
If I forced my way in I was allowed to comment on things, briefly – but my comments didn’t seem to have been heard.
Not once was my opinion asked for.
Their flow of chatter and topics never stopped.

From an NLP standpoint it was quite an amazing feat. And, as I listened, I tried to figure out, or model, what must be happening inside them to be able to function like that. (And, yes, I did ‘try’ to figure it out – without a lot of success).

The newsletter is the result of my subsequent thinking. It offers a few ideas on what makes them tick – and some insight into how their talking may be affecting their listeners…

Tagged hypnosis, incessant talkers, nlp modelling, scramble thinking, talkingflow of chatter

Strong Leaders Create Weak Followers

Published September 12, 2011 | By Reg

Strong leaders?

Since we began using outdoor activities in our trainings in the 90s which has repeatedly occurred in team development sessions: the tendency for a new team to produce one or more ‘strong leaders’ – and for this to result in the rest of the team becoming ‘weak followers’ or in their emotionally opting out of the activity. (It was from observing this dynamic that our ‘Strong leaders create weak followers’ theme began.)

Team dynamics in action

The ‘Low Ropes’ session is a great team development experiment which we introduce on the first afternoon of every NLP Core Skills course. It’s an opportunity to experience, from the inside, how a team forms, develops and pulls together and what gets in the way of this.

On the Low Ropes you are part of a group of 5-8 people who have to negotiate a series of non-strenuous team challenge and problem-solving activities, and, ideally, become a team in the process. To do this you have to pull together because the activities are designed so that one person cannot do them alone. Continue reading →

Tagged High Ropes, Low Ropes, NLP, outdoor activities, pegasus NLP, strong leaders create weak followers, team development, team dynamics, team leadership, teams

Petty People and poor leaders

Published September 8, 2011 | By Reg

Petty People in the workplace

The current Pegasus NLP Newsletter is about people who are nasty, spitful and gossipy. Who rule others through fear. Who cause dissention and undermine morale in organisations. And who play on the fact that the majority pf people want to be nice! Whereas they want to play ‘enemies and allies’.

We look at some of the different types of Petty People behaviours – and at their impact – and at what to do about them.

Spreading unhappiness

The article was inspired by conversations I’ve recently had with two people who are experiencing difficulty as a result of Petty People making life difficult in their respective workplaces.

And, when you consider that we can spend 1 in 5 waking hours at work – and even more time thinking about our jobs and travelling to and from them – having this environment contaminated by Petty People isn’t a trivial issue.

The role of the workplace leader

It’s an issue which raises questions about the skill and the effectiveness of many managers and team leaders.

Ultimately the role of the manager or team leader is to deliver greater productivity. It’s to enable their people to give of their best on a consistent basis, with enthusiasm and without stress. If this is not happening it raises questions about the leader’ss’ ability and/or about the manner in which the organisation functions.

How organisations empower their leaders

It takes courage to handle Petty People. More importantly it takes considerable skill to understand and to effectuvely deal with them.

Many managers and team leaders get their jobs because they are personable and good their job. Or because they have greater technical skills than their colleagues. This does not empower them to be good at motivating and leading people.

Putting people in such roles without appropriately and thoroughly training them to function as leaders is unfair to them.
It is also unfair to their teams.
It does not fulfil the organisation’s duty of care.
And it does not make good business sense.

The newsletter

If you are not a newsletter subscriber you will find the article online here:

http://www.nlp-now.co.uk/nlp_newsletter_current.htm

Tagged duty of care, good business sense, leader, manager, motivating, NLP, petty people, spreading unhappin, team leader

“Be yourself…..” ??

Published August 3, 2011 | By Reg

The Self Consciousness ‘Habit’(*)

Last week’s newsletter and blog article on Self Consciousness produced quite a few e-mails, including one from Bob (not his real name) who is in his mid-30’s, has had the self consciousness habit all of his life and finds that it’s getting in the way of his finding a life partner. He said he found the simplicity of last week’s explanation of self-consciousness enlightening and is now actively putting the tips into practice – and wondered what else he could do.

The answer?

The answer, in a nutshell, is: relax, stop trying, be yourself and others will find you more interesting and attractive.

See, that was simple, wasn’t it.

Not only that but as a strategy it works for many people. And yet… as always with advice, there are important missing pieces; pieces which distinguish between platitudes and useful directions!

For example:

The advice isn’t tailored to Bob’s personal circumstances (although there’s nothing we can do about this short of moving onto personal coaching mode)
There is no rationale for why this advice might be useful (that’s addressed to some extent below)
The advice lacks specific and practical ‘how to’ steps which Bob could choose to follow (that’s also addressed below).

This was to illustrate how so much advice, and so many positive thinking books, fail their audience i.e. they don’t deal with points 2 and 3. On the other hand the precision of NLP enables us to define step-by-step methods for doing things such as ‘be yourself’.

This week’s newsletter aims to provide some clear reasons for the advice – and some practical steps on how to do this.

Tagged advice giving, be yourself, NLP, positive thinking, precision of NLP, self consciousness

NLP and Self Consciousness

Published July 28, 2011 | By Reg

Understanding self consciousness

Self consciousness can also be labelled as shyness, introversion, OES (overwhelming embarrassment syndrome), or plain (very) old fashioned ‘inferiority complex’.

Whatever the label it’s severely uncomfortable and can be very limiting: it can limit one’s career, social connections and even the ability to meet a life partner. Most of us go through a period of painful self consciousness with the onset of adolescence. Here, in a short period of months or even weeks, we can change from a free spirited and alive youngster to a grunting, self-centred, uncommunicative and, above all, very self consciousness adolescent!

This phase is often seen as funny by those well-adjusted adults (especially stand-up comedians) who have forgotten their own struggles and can now smirk superiorly at the trials and traumas of this aspect of adolescence – but it’s not fun for those going through it. Continue reading →

Tagged nlp. neuro-linguistic programming, other consciousness, overwhelming embarrassment syndrome, self consciousness, shyness

Fooling customers damages goodwill – and the brand

Published July 20, 2011 | By Reg

The great offers that are snatched back

We come across the tricks every day – special offers that aren’t very special and massive discounts that turn out to only apply to a few items.

These tricks or scams seem to be dreamed up by sales and marketing staff who have real disdain for their would-be customers, including a belief that these customers don’t really have that many active brain cells…

It’s a shortsighted approach that ultimately (and often quite quickly) damages the brand.

This is the theme of the latest Pegasus NLP Newsletter.

Brands – robust or damaged

Published July 8, 2011 | By Reg

Yesterday’s announcement that the News of the World was to close down got me thinking of branding – and how easily a brand can become damaged.

Branding – just what is it?

What actually is a ‘brand’? Well, there’s the literal and comprehensive version and the down-to-earth NLP version.

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as the name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. Interesting, but I’m not sure many people outside of the marketing industry would be any wiser for reading that.

As usual NLP enables us to describe it in a more down-to-earth way because we look at what’s actually going on behind the term/word. So from an NLP standpoint we could say that a brand consists of the feelings people get when they think about a product or service. Continue reading →

Tagged anchoring, brand, branding, career skill, different perspectives, feelings, NLP, NLP anchors

NLP for people who like to think for themselves!