Pegasus NLP Blog
NLP for people who like to think for themselves!
Good NLP myths don’t die
Yep, it’s back yet again – the NLP Lie-Detector myth or lie. I’ve just come across a Google Alerts’ reference to this NLP lie-detector article from Alabama’s North Jefferson News.
What myth?? You know, it’s the one which says that you can tell if a person is lying by whether they look up to the right or to the left when you ask them a question.
The Myth
In essence it suggests that if you ask someone a question and their eyes move up and to their left they ‘should be’ remembering something they have already seen. And if they look up and to their right they ‘are’ creating or making up an image.
So if I ask you a question and you look up and to your right this shows me that you are making up the answer i.e. you are lying. Simple! And false.
(By the way, there’s a previous Pegasus NLP Blog article about the lie-detector myth published in February 2008.) Continue reading
For many people there is a certain satisfaction in giving others good advice on how to solve their problems or live their lives. And these people find it quite frustrating when, after carefully designing and delivering the advice, the recipient doesn’t follow it: they either ignore it completely or follow for a while and then fall back into the old ways.
The today’s issue (27 July 2010) of the Pegasus NLP Newsletter explores the issue of advice giving and why it can be so difficult to get people to change their behaviours – even when such behaviours are plainly causing them problems.
Why people don’t follow advice
The reasons why people do not follow advice can be many and varied. The advice may not be suitable for them. They may not like being talked at. Continue reading
The cost of Get it Right
In Part 1 we looked at the way the Get it Right attitude works and I suggested having a think about how it works in your own life and what it’s cost you to date.
If you’ve done this you’ll be aware of the lost opportunities resulting from it; those ‘if only’ moments when the need to Get It Right held you back or sabotaged you.
‘Get it Right’ is stressful, too
Another less-obvious effect is how stressful and tiring this attitude can be: all that thinking, the evaluating of risks, the seeking to avoid mistakes Continue reading
NLP techniques don’t work for me!
Not long ago I got an email: ‘I have been reading … (naming a well-known NLP-based self improvement book) and listening to the accompanying CD which a friend of mine has used quite successfully and recommended to me.
I am struggling with it because much of it seems to rely being able to clearly visualise some scenario and feel all the feelings associated with it. I find it very hard to visualise (hard to visualise the good stuff at least) and even harder to feel it so I am becoming rather disillusioned with the whole process – especially when the book tells me how great I will be feeling after doing some visualization, and I actually feel nothing.’ Continue reading
We’d like you to train our team
The regional manager for the multinational had taken part, as a private individual, in our NLP Core Skills course a few months earlier and (of course 
) was very impressed with it. So much so that he was now approaching us to quote for a training programme.
He wanted a 3-day Team Development training for his 40-strong team so they could learn NLP skills and experience the benefits of the High & Low Ropes Challenge course which he had experienced on NLP Core Skills.
Now a three-day training for such group, who would be flying in to the UK from mainland Europe, was an impressive request. The profit from it and the opportunity to run the programme for other regions of the multinational certainly got my attention. Continue reading
People who are ‘going to’ have a great future
The next Pegasus NLP Newsletter will be out shortly. It will be about people who have their ‘future on wheels’. The ones (unlike you or I!) who talk a great talk about the wonderful future they are going to have. But who never seem to get any nearer to it.
The ‘future on wheels’ pattern is a sort of never-never approach to life! Continue reading
Managing and Leading in tougher times
Managing and team leading in 2010 and beyond is more demanding than ever before with the challenge of raising and maintain morale and motivation in a smaller workforce in which people:
- have less job security than ever before
- are often dealing with an increased workload as a result of staff cuts
- are experiencing the stress of having to adjust to almost continuous change. Continue reading
‘I’ll try…’
It’s only a tiny word. Just 3 letters. But how a person uses the word ‘Try’ provides important clues to their beliefs and attitude.
This widely used and quite sneaky little word is generally used without much thought – almost as a figure of speech, in fact. But what lies beneath it is the attitude I don’t believe…as in ‘I don’t believe you can’ or ‘I don’t believe I can’. And like a lot of words and terms we use it so often that few of us listen to our use of it even though this is emotionally impacting ourselves and our listeners. Continue reading
There’s listening… and there’s really listening.
Normally when we’re listening to somebody we tend to pay attention to what they are actually saying. We listen to the words, the sentences, the descriptions, the story line, etc. As a result we may have feelings about them and what they are saying. Yet we are really just hearing and responding to a quite superficial level of their full message.
On the other hand some people, and especially those who have had a thorough training in NLP, will ‘hear’ more. They are also listening for what’s underneath the words, in other words what is going on inside the person doing the talking? How are they really feeling? And this level of information is picked up by paying attention to the implications of their words and phrases and tonalities.
‘I’m a good manager!’
No doubt Jack believes he is doing a good job in how he handled Mohan. In his view that’s the way to efficiently breeze through an appraisal: tick all the right boxes to keep HR happy and make sure your people know who’s in charge. (By the way, if you have not yet read the article about Jack’s appraisal it would be a good idea to do this before continuing).
That’s how we do things around here
It is more than likely that Jack has been taught this approach, or picked up the style from his own managers, or was hired for his ability to manage in this way.
It’s also quite likely that senior management has no awareness, and possibly little real interest, in how their ‘front line’ troops are being managed and led – and that, rather than ‘managing by walking about’ (MBWA) they manage by data, using reports and spreadsheets to know what is happening.
And we can make a pretty reasonable guess as to the reliability of the data on which they rely from the manner in which Jack ensured Mohan’s appraisal ticked the right boxes and in the right way. Continue reading
How not to do an appraisal
Sitting in Caffe Nero a few days ago I had the uncomfortable experience of watching and hearing a loud and brash young manager (unintentionally, I think) humiliating a soft-spoken direct report.
As appraisals go it was a pretty thorough example of how not to do it.
Rapport – what rapport?
There was no quality of rapport. The manager was clicking his pen, constantly shifting his position in his chair, bouncing his knees under the table as if to an internal fast paced rhythm, he’d start off his very loud comments by looking briefly at his victim and then continue the comments in a quite mechanical manner while gazing out the window beside their table, as if reciting a rehearsed spiel.
He (we’ll call him Jack) demonstrated no attempt to understand the other person’s (let’s call him Mohan) viewpoint and in fact showed little interest in Mohan at all. Continue reading
No… you’re wrong!
Sometimes the temptation is almost irresistible… to tell the other person just how wrong they are, that is.
I experienced it this morning and, this time at least, I did resist the temptation and decided to write this blog instead.
Pass on the word
It seemed like a good idea (it still is, actually). I’d received one of those ‘sponsor me’ messages from two people who are raising money for a village in India. The target is £600 and when I looked at their site they weren’t making much progress and had reached less than 10% of their target.
So I thought why not tell people who follow me on Twitter about the project? Which I did, pointing out that the cost of just two cappuccinos from each ‘follower’ would enable them to reach their target for the charity.
Within less than two minutes of posting the tweet I received a one-liner reply ‘Charity begins at home!!’ Continue reading
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