Neuro–Linguistic Programming: Volume I. The Study of the Structure of Subjective Experience - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Robert Dilts (IV: UTILIZATION) #6

IV: UTILIZATION

A poet, it is said, was once strolling through the forest toward dusk when suddenly there appeared before him an apparition of the greatest of all poets, Virgil. Virgil told the awed poet that fate had smiled upon him and that he had been elected to be shown the secrets of Heaven and Hell. By magic Virgil transported himself and the poet, who was still dazed by the suddenness of this experience, to the ancient and mythical river which surrounded the underworld. They got into a boat and Virgil instructed the poet to row them across the river to Hell. When they arrived the poet was somewhat surprised to find the terrain much like that of the forest they had just left and not made of fire and brimstone nor infested with winged demons and slimy fire breathing creatures as he had expected.

Virgil took the poets hand and led him down a path. Soon the poet could smell, as they approached a barrier of rocks and shrubs, the scent of the finely cooked stew. Mingled with the smells, however, were the eerie sounds of wailing and the gnashing of teeth. As they rounded the rocks they came upon an unusual sight. There was a large clearing in which were situated a number of huge round tables. In the middle of each table was an enormous bowl of the stew the poet had smelled and around each table were scores of emaciated and obviously hungry people. Each person held a spoon which they were using in an attempt to eat the stew. Because the table was so large, however, and the spoons had to be made so long in order to reach the bowl in the middle, the handles of the spoons were twice as long as the arms of the people using them. This made it impossible for any of the hungry people to put food in their mouths. There was much fighting and cursing

as each person tried desperately to get even a dribble of the stew.

The poet was so moved by the terrible sight that he finally hid his eyes and begged Virgil to take him away. In a moment they were back on the boat and Virgil instructed the poet which way to row to get to heaven. When they arrived the poet was again surprised to find that the scene did not fit his expectations. This land was almost exactly like the one they had just left. There were no great pearl gates nor bands of singing angels. Again Virgil led the poet down a path where the smell of food eminated from behind a barrier of rocks and shrubs. This time, however, they heard song and laughter as they approached. When they rounded the barrier the poet was much surprised to find a set–up identical to the one they had just left; large tables surrounded by people with oversized spoons and a large bowl of stew in the center of each table. The one essential difference between this group of people and the one they had just left, however, was that the people in this group were using their spoons to feed each other.

Although there are a number of morals that may be drawn from this parable, it is essentially an example of how one group of people were able to turn what was an environmental variable for another group of people into a decision variable. It demonstrates that what is important in achieving an outcome is not so much what resources are available but how those resources are utilized. It is the process of how resources may be utilized that will be examined in this chapter.

4. Utilization

Utilization may usefully be described as the process of applying an existing strategy, one that you have elicited, for the purpose of assisting a client (individual, family, group or organization) in achieving some desired outcome, or in securing some outcome for yourself. Using this process, the NLP practitioner assists clients by running new content through the formal representational sequence of an existing strategy by packaging or repackaging the client's experience in terms of the existing structure of that strategy. One of the major difficulties that people of all backgrounds and disciplines have in transforming the portions of experience with which they are confronted from the class of environmental variables to the class of decision variables, is that they have no explicit way of applying strategies and resources that they have used to successfully complete this transformation in past contexts, to the ongoing situations with which they are confronted. The process of utilization provides an explicit operation for making this transformation.

4.1 Form vs. Content.

The power and usefulness of strategies lies in the the fact that they are descriptions of the purely formal operations of our behavior and are not tied to any particular experiential content. As we mentioned earlier, the same strategy people use to motivate themselves to get out of bed in the morning may be utilized to motivate them to work more efficiently, to learn something new, to go jogging, to sign an agreement or even to buy a car. Our strategies provide the frameworks within which we incorporate and interpret the content of our sensory experience.

The behavioral significance of any particular experience we encounter — that is, whether it becomes a resource or an obstacle, a decision variable or an environmental variable — is totally dependent on how we utilize it within the strategies and operations we have available to us; we can choose to transform our obstacles into resources, as in the case of the waterfalls or the bread mold mentioned in the introduction. A particular content fact, is of no use to us unless we can process it through a strategy to achieve some outcome. Having the part we need to fix our car is useless to us if we don't know what to do with it.

Any past or future experience can serve either as a block or a resource, depending on how you make use of it through your strategies. Whether learning or coping comes to you with ease or with difficulty, or is rapid or laborious for you, is determined by the formal frameworks provided by your strategies.

By paying attention to context and by packaging experience in terms of the most appropriate and resourceful strategies for each situation, anyone can greatly expand their repertoire of choices and behaviors.

4.2 Pacing Strategies.

Our primary means of utilizing a strategy is through packaging and presenting the content of the situation or task in question in such way as to pace the steps and sequence of an appropriate strategy that we've elicited from a client. The process of pacing, first introduced in Patterns I, has been an extremely important part of all of the work we have done.

Pacing is the process of feeding back to a client, through your own behavior, the behaviors and strategies that you have observed in them — that is, by going to their model of the world. You will have successfully paced a person's strategy when you have packaged the information which you are working with (whether it is mathematical formulas, how to work camera equipment, making fiscal policy, information about some product you want to market, a personal problem the individual has, etc.) such that the form of your presentation matches, step for step, the sequence of representations the person cycles through in that strategy.

For example, consider the following strategy for decision making:

This is a fairly simple decision strategy. The initial gathering of information involves looking at the possibilities (V). This information is then discussed or described verbally through internal dialogue, or the individual recalls verbal information (Aⁱ_d) concerning what s/he sees. This is then tested (against other remembered dialogues) and the results are represented through a kinesthetic (Kⁱ) response — through the person's feelings about what s/he hears or says inside his or her head. If the feelings are congruent with the words (that is, if they are definitely positive or negative) the individual will decide either for or against acting on the experience that has been proposed. If the feelings indicate an incongruence about the action the individual will operate by looking again at the situation, or perhaps by looking for alternatives (V), and the strategy will repeat itself. Note that we leave oft" the superscript of the V component of the decision making strategy — if the possibility(s) or alternative(s) to be decided among can be displayed easily externally (e.g. deciding three types of carpets — all available inside the store), then the superscript will be V^e. If the possibility(s) or alternative(s) is difficult to display externally, the formulation would be Vⁱ.

If you are involved in a decision making process with this person, or if an outcome you desire depends on a decision made by this person, and you have elicited this as his strategy, you will want to utilize it by sequencing and organizing the information that you are presenting to be decided upon so that it matches the form of this strategy step for step. That is, you will first want the individual to see clearly or get a good picture of what you are talking about (rather than go into a long verbal explanation or description, or have him get a feeling for what you are talking about). You will then want to direct him, and give him time, to internally talk about what he sees. Finally you will want to make sure that he checks out his feelings about these verbal thoughts.

For instance, you might pace the strategy with your verbal communication in the following way: "I think you should really take a good look at this, so you can see how it will fit into the whole picture (V). I'm sure you'll find that it will answer the questions we've all been asking (Aⁱ_d) ourselves, and you'll really be able to say, "Yes, this is the one!" You'll feel (Kⁱ),as I do, that this is the most solid and grounded choice available."

At the same time that you are presenting this verbal pace you can strengthen the effect in a powerful manner by pacing non–verbally. First, as you verbally present each of the steps of the strategy you use your hands to direct the person into the appropriate accessing posture. For example, as you say, "… really take a good look… . you can see …" you capture his visual attention by movements of your hand and then move your hand up and to your right. This will cause the person to look up and to his left (assuming you are facing one another), thereby placing the person in the appropriate accessing posture to, indeed, allow him to . . take a good look… ." At the point where you say, "… questions we've all been asking …", you would move your hand down and to your right, thereby directing the person's eyes down and to his left. Such supporting non–verbal maneuvers greatly add to the effectiveness of pacing communications.

By packaging information this way you will be making your communications maximally congruent with the other person's model of the world and behavioral strategies. Mirroring a person's thinking processes with your communication will often, in fact, make the outcome that you are proposing through your communication irresistable to the individual. A person can't not respond to his or her own strategies.

The following are a couple of exercises that we often have people in our seminars practice as a means to learn how to utilize strategies. Try them out for yourself and notice what kind of responses you get so that you may begin to sharpen your ability to identify strategies and use them effectively.

EXERCISE A:

Step 1. Elicit a creative strategy from someone by finding out what his internal processes were at some time when he was being very creative. Through questioning and observation determine the sequence of representational systems applied by that individual that lead to the creative outcome.

Step 2. Have the individual identify some area or incident in his life or current experiences in which he becomes stuck or blocked, or in which he would like to have more choices of behavior.

Step 3. Utilize the creative strategy you have elicited as a resource for the situation by having him reprocess the experiences, either experientially on the spot or through imagination and memory, in terms of his creativity strategy. Direct him through his creativity strategy by having him reconsider the situation through the representational sequence that he runs through when he is creative. In doing so the person will automatically generate, or create, a number of new possible choices.

For instance, suppose the person you are working with is a business executive who has a creativity strategy that goes:

In this strategy the person would begin by looking externally at the significant components in the situation (V^e). He would then begin to talk to himself about the object or components (Aⁱ_d); how

they operate together; asking what kind of resources may be required for the situation; perhaps describing some incident from his personal history that was similar to the situation he is facing now. As he talks he gets a feeling about each of the verbalizations (Kⁱ) which indicates to him whether the direction of the thought is appropriate or not to the situation in question. If the feeling is negative, executive will operate by looking back out at the situation, talking about it and feeling out each of his verbalizations. If the feeling is positive, he will repeat the internal dialogue that felt good (Aⁱ_d) and begin to construct internal visual images (or "flash" on new possibilities) that detail the progression of the new behavior (V^c).

Let's say this executive is frequently getting stuck or blocked in communicating or coping with an associate that he spends a lot of time with. He often finds himself irritated with this associate to the point that it interferes with his work, and he would like to have more choices in dealing with it.

(Note that as the executive accesses the blocked experience, he is also accessing the strategy that makes him stuck and keeps him stuck. By paying close attention you will notice that the strategy sequence the person goes through when he gets stuck is very different from his creative strategy and will be missing some of the steps that serve as resources in the creative strategy. The stuck strategy, for example, may occur because the associate of the person you are working with says something in a tonality (A^e_t) that initiates negative internal kinesthetic (Kⁱ_-) sensations (i.e., irritation). The irritation triggers a series of criticisms of the associate inside the head of the executive, through internal dialogue (Aⁱ_d ). He then, however, has a polarity response to his own internal dialogue, and tells himself that he should be trying to work together with this associate and not blaming (Aⁱ_d ). This makes him feel as though he is failing because he has gotten irritated (Kⁱ_-), and so on. This strategy would be shown:

As we can see, this strategy is obviously very different from the creative strategy and is obviously missing the person's visual resources.)

If you were to utilize the person's creative strategy as a resource in this instance you would first have him go back to a situation in which he experienced the difficulty (either physically or through imagination). Rather than allow him to get caught up in the feelings of irritation, direct him to look at his associate so that he can see him clearly (V^e). When he has focused on the person, direct him to begin to talk about the situation to himself — what kind of expression is on his associate's face; what he is doing; what are some possible alternatives are for changing the situation (Aⁱ_d). Have the person choose whichever proposal feels the best (Kⁱ) and then have him look to see if he can find a way to implement that change (V^c). If he draws a blank, have him take another look at the situation outside of himself.

It is extremely helpful to direct the person to the appropriate accessing cues as you lead him through the strategy to make sure that he will be accessing the appropriate representational system. Your major task will be to keep him from getting hooked into the old strategy by accessing the same old triggers.

EXERCISE B

STEP 1. Elicit a motivation strategy from someone.

STEP 2. Identify some simple and relatively inoffensive behavior that the individual is not motivated to do. This could be something like standing on his head, driving around the block, lifting up a chair, taking the garbage out, etc.

STEP 3. Have the person reconsider the behavior in a sequence that paces his motivation strategy. That is, direct the person's processing of the behavior so that it matches his strategy for motivation.

For instance, let's say you have elicited a motivation strategy that takes the form of the following sequence:

Here the individual looks at the situation in question (V^e) and then makes a constructed image of carrying out the proposed behavior. (V^c). He then gets a positive feeling about what he sees (Kⁱ₊) and hears a ringing or humming in his head (Aⁱ_c). As soon as he hears the ringing he gets up and executes the behavior. If your task was to motivate this person to stand on his head you might direct him to first look for a place where there is enough room to stand on his head (V^c). Then ask him to imagine himself walking over and standing on his head (V^c) and to imagine feeling really good (Kⁱ₊) about doing it. When he can really experience the good feelings that he could get by standing on his head, ask him to hear that hum begin to come up (Aⁱ_c).

What will be important for the successful completion of these exercises is that you (a) make sure all of the steps occur in the appropriate order and (b) make sure the appropriate kind of representation is in each step. If you left out the visual constructed step or put it after the internal auditory tonal (A;) step, you would not get the outcome of motivation in the above exercise. Further, if the constructed visual image were a polarity response —if, for instance, the person constructed an image of walking out the door instead of standing on his head — or if he just constructed an image of a purple cow, he would not get the outcome of motivation. If, however, you are careful with your elicitation and your pacing procedures you will end up with the outcome designated by the strategy. An individual cannot not respond to his own internal processes.

4.21 Identifying and Utilizing Decision Points.

The elicitation of a successful and appropriate outcome from a strategy will depend on your ability to help people satisfy specific tests that they have incorporated to organize and process aspects of their experience. Every strategy will have at least one step that functions as a decision point or choice point. The decision point in the strategy is the step where the individual decides to a) exit from the strategy, b) operate to change representational value in the strategy, c) go on to the next step in the strategy or d) switch strategies if the one being employed is ineffectual. The purpose of all the information gathering and operations that we perform is to allow us to satisfy the tests or decision points in our strategies.

Consider the following diagram of the decision making strategy discussed earlier in this section.

Here, the individual makes a decision by looking at possibilities, describing them to himself and then deriving internal feelings on the basis of those descriptions. The internal feelings constitute the decision point in the strategy. If the feelings are congruently positive (+), the person decides in favor of that particular verbal representation; if the feelings are congruently negative ( —), the individual decides against it. If the feelings are ambivalent or incongruent (?), the individual operates by looking back at the options and by describing them again.

Depending, then, on the outcome you are working toward, you will want to emphasize different kinds of content representations at this step. If it is appropriate for the individual to decide in favor, you will emphasize a positive kinesthetic representation ( + ). If it would be useful for the individual to decide against, you will emphasize negative kinesthetic sensations ( —). If you want many alternatives to be considered, then be sure to stress ambiguity in feelings (?).

Decision points, then, are steps in the strategy where different values of the representational system involved in that step (kinesthetic, visual, auditory or olfactory) will trigger different directions in the unfolding strategy sequence. What happens in the representational system at a decision point will have a great impact on the eventual outcome of the strategy.

The creative strategy and the motivation strategy that we used for examples in EXERCISES A and B contained two other examples of internal kinesthetic decision points. In the creative strategy:

the internal feelings about the previous verbalizations either trigger an operation in which the subsequent verbalizations are transformed into constructed images, or trigger an operation in which the individual loops back to the beginning of the strategy and looks at the situation again.

In the example of the motivation strategy:

the internal feelings either initiate the auditory tonal representation and exit to the behavior, or they do not. If the feelings do not initiate the internal tone, no motivation occurs.

Not all decision points, of course, are internal kinesthetic representations. Consider the following learning strategy:

In this strategy, V^e and A^r are both decision points. The outcome of this strategy is for an individual to learn or incorporate some behavioral patterns. The person starts off by performing some physical movement or activity (K^e). Then, depending on what the external visual feedback (V^e ) is for that action the person will choose between two subroutines. Within one of these subroutines, some remembered auditory experience will also serve as a decision point where one of two other substrategies will be selected.

Notice also that the V^r or A ^e representations that appear at the end of two of the subroutines are also decision points that will either trigger an operation in which the strategy loops back on itself again, or moves on to exit.

Another example of a decision point would be the situation below:

Here the decision point is shown as a comparison of steps from two different processings of the same content, with conflicting results, Aⁱ_- and Kⁱ₊ (they feel that they should do one thing, but something tells them to do another). In this situation, most likely, the representational system with the highest signal magnitude will determine what sequence of behavior is to follow.

Your ability to identify and elicit the appropriate representation at the decision point in a strategy will directly determine your success at utilization. In fact, your success at being able to access appropriate decisions at the choice points in a strategy will accurately reflect how well you have paced the individual. Because you are dealing with internal processes it is evident that the more closely you pace the person's strategy the more likely you are to get the representation (and thus the outcome) desired at the decision point.

Successful pacing is irresistible. During our workshops and seminars when we call for a volunteer from the audience to demonstrate a motivation strategy, often several others in the group who happen to share the volunteer's motivation strategy will begin to perform the outcome behavior when we've finished pacing the subject. Or, observers in the audience find that they must consciously restrain themselves from carrying out the behavior because they have become so strongly motivated.

4.22 Rapport

The process of pacing, whether unconscious or deliberate, is undoubtedly at the root of many of the experiences that we label "rapport," "trust," "influence," "persuasion" and so forth. When you pace someone —by communicating from the context of their model of the world — you become synchronized with their own internal processes. It is, in one sense, an explicit means to "second guess" people or to "read their minds," because you know how they will respond to your communications. This kind of synchrony can serve to reduce greatly resistance between you and the people with whom you are communicating. The strongest form of synchrony is the continuous presentation of your communication in sequences which perfectly parallel the unconscious processes of the person you are communicating with — such communication approaches the much desired goal of irresistability.

The phenomena of rapport, trust and influence derive from our ability to observe, understand and use the strategies of those with whom we communicate. Anyone involved in working directly with others (whether parents, businessmen, educators, lawyers, therapists, scientists, government officials, etc.) will know intuitively that a large portion of your successful interactions depend on your ability to establish and maintain rapport. In fact, much of your preliminary encounters with associates each day probably centers around the initial establishment of a certain level of rapport. A knowledge of strategies and the process of pacing will greatly streamline this process for you.

In our other works we describe how the process of pacing can be extended to all aspects of communication. Matching your voice tonality and tempo, vocabulary, posture, gestures, breathing rate and other behaviors to those of the person with whom you are communicating can rapidly and effectively establish rapport with most people (although in particular cases successful pacing can require that you assume a role that is expected of you, one in which your behavior is very different from that of the person with whom you are interacting — doctor/nurse, teacher/student, parent/child, etc.) See Structure of Magic II, Patterns I and II and Changing With Families for further discussion and exercises involving these types of pacing.

Rapport, like many other aspects of neurolinguistic programming, is quite subtle but extremely powerful in its implications and effects. Rapport of some kind is essential to any type of communication. Once you believe rapport has been established through pacing, you should continually test it to make sure you are staying appropriately attuned. The best way to do that is by attempting to "lead" the person. Once you have paced the person you are communicating with and believe you have established a secure rapport, violate your pace and change your behavior — that is, attempt to lead the person you have been pacing into a different behavior. If sufficient rapport and trust have been built up you can make this transition smoothly and easily. If the person doesn't follow you, return to pacing him until you have established the necessary rapport. If the person follows your lead, it will be important that you return to pacing him periodically to keep up rapport. Your leading may be as subtle as a shift in breathing rate, eye gaze, tonality or body posture. Make certain that it is sufficiently overt that you are sure you can observe the change.

The phenomenon of leading has, of course, other important implications as well. We have discussed these at length in Patterns I and II and in The Structure of Magic II.

4.23 Flexibility in Pacing Strategies

As you begin to explore your own strategies and those of clients and acquaintances, you will discover, as you pace and utilize the various steps and decision points, that some steps will be flexible and easy to pace while others will require much greater attention to the details of the contents of the representation. Some decision criteria will require generalization of the content of the representation while others will involve complex discrimination between the content details.

Many of the difficulties people experience with their strategies result from inappropriate or ineffective tests, or decision criteria. Some people are overly flexible or general and unable to discriminate, which can lead to leaving out or failing to gather important information. Others overly discriminate, often with result of missing important information which becomes lost in a sea of irrelevant "facts" (see the Design Section of this book for a more detailed discussion).

Your ability to pace successfully, then, may involve more or less attention to content detail as you are pacing or utilizing a particular strategy. As a general rule you will find that the more you can control the details of the content of the representations that occur in the strategy, the more you can control the details of the content of the outcome of the strategy — provided that you have successfully paced the sequence of representational systems in the strategy. For instance, in the sample motivation strategy in EXERCISE B:

If you want the individual to stand on his head, you will want to make sure that a constructed visual image is made of the act at step V^c. If the image is of something else you won't get your desired outcome. If you want him to stand on his head in the bathtub, as opposed to on the lawn outside, you should also detail that in the constructed image. If you want him to wiggle his toes while he is standing on his head, you should detail that, and so forth.

If, on the other hand, you want the individual to be motivated to carry out a more general task, like studying effectively for a test or watching his diet, you will want to be less specific with the details of the image.

In fact, bear in mind that, in many cases, trying to control the content details will interfere with your pacing of the person. Often the details you attempt to provide may be incongruent with those already being generated by the person with whom you are communicating. As with all of the other procedures we present in this book, the rule of modeling elegance applies here. That is, concern yourself with the details of the content of the strategy only as much as is required to get the outcome that you are after.

Another important area of flexibility in the pacing or utilization of strategies is that of substituting internally generated representations, within a representational system, for those that are typically generated from external sources, and vice versa. Because internally and externally generated experiences within the same representational system share the same neural pathways, you can often substitute one for the other as you are pacing or utilizing a strategy. Sometimes this capacity for substitution is a natural property of the strategy, at other times it will be new for that strategy. The same substitution can also be made, of course, for constructed versus remembered experiences. There will be times, however, when this substitution cannot be made because of the structure of the strategy.

What is important for the outcome of the strategy, of course, is the information carried by the representation.

Many of you readers can make internal images that you can see almost as vividly as you can see the words on this page. Others may be unaware of internal imagery unless you are in an altered state of consciousness, but in your normal state you can remember voices extremely clearly.

For some people, such as schizophrenics, the substitution between internal & external experience is all too easily made. For others, the inability to make these substitutions can be very limiting.

The ability to cross–substitute internally generated experience for externally generated experience, and constructed or imagined experience for remembered experience, is a valuable tool for the neurolinguistic programmer and a very valuable resource for your clients. Often when we are attempting to access or elicit experiences and representations from people, to be used as resources, they will respond something like, "I forget," "I don't know," or "I've never had that experience." In such cases we simply say, "Imagine what it would be like if you could (or did)." When a person's imagination or fantasies provide the same information as the actual experience, there is essentially no difference in the significance of the representations.

4.3 Anchoring — Accessing and Reaccessing Representations.

When it is important to control the content of a representational system, as when you are working with a decision point, you will need a way to assure easy access and reaccess to the particular representation associated with that decision point. This is accomplished in neurolinguistic programming through a procedure we call anchoring.

Most of you readers have had the experience, in communicating with a client, friend or associate, of reaching a certain level of rapport and understanding that was a very positive resource to both of you. Later on, however, the flow of the conversation, discussion or negotiation changes. The interaction becomes more tense, strained or difficult, and you wish you had a way of reaccessing the positive experiences that you shared before. Anchoring is a process that allows you to do this.

An anchor is, in essence, any representation (internally or externally generated) which triggers another representation, 4–tuple or series of representations or 4–tuples (i.e., a strategy). A

basic assumption behind anchoring is that all experiences are representated as gestalts of sensory information—4–tuples. Whenever any portion of a particular experience or 4–tuple is reintroduced, other portions of that experience will be reproduced to some degree. Any portion of a particular experience, then, may be used as an anchor to access another portion of that experience.

Anchoring is in many ways simply the user–oriented version of the "stimulus–response" concept in behavioristic models. There are, however, some major differences between the two. These include: (1) Anchors do not need to be conditioned over long periods of time in order to become established. That kind of conditioning undoubtedly will contribute to the establishment of the anchor, but it is often the initial experience that establishes the anchor most firmly. Anchors, then, promote the use of single trial learning. (2) The association between the anchor and the response need not be directly reinforced by any immediate outcome resulting from the association in order to be established. That is, anchors, or associations, will become established without direct rewards or reinforcement for the association. Reinforcement, like conditioning, will contribute to the establishment of an anchor, but it is not required. (3) Internal experience (i.e., cognitive behavior) is considered to be as significant, behaviorally, as the overt measurable responses. In other words, NLP asserts that an internal dialogue, picture or feeling constitutes as much of a response as the salivation of Pavlov's dog.

Establishing an anchor requires the setting up of a synesthesia pattern. "Synesthesia," as you recall, is the correlation between representations in two different sensory systems that have become associated in time and space. As we have pointed out before, a stimulus, or representation is only "meaningful" in terms of the response it elicits in a particular individual.

Natural language is probably one of the most common, yet sophisticated, anchoring systems available to us. The written words "dog," "warmth" and "love" are all visual anchors for internal representations from the reader's past sensory experience. To make sense out of the visual symbol "dog" you have to access past experience (sights, sounds, feelings and smells) of a particular class of mammals, in the form of the 4–tuple. We can show this relationship in the following way:

T his shows that the letters "dog" anchor a particular set of representations. By changing the form of the stimulus, or by adding to it, however, we can also change the representations that are anchored. If we wrote "wet dog," or "spotted dog," for example, different representations would be anchored. Some anchors, depending on the type of anchor and the state of the individual, will not elicit representations in all sensory systems. Phrases like "look at that," "this will send shivers up your spine" or "his voice was so gravelly," each appeal to different representational systems and will anchor representations in those particular systems to a greater degree than the others.

Patterns II contains a good deal of background information on anchoring and our language systems. We suggest that you review the first few sections of the book to sharpen your understanding of the process of anchoring.

Anchors, of course, may become established through any of our sensory modalities. Facial expressions (V), gestures (V), voice tonality and tempo (A_t), touches (K) and odors and tastes (O) can all be anchors for other representations. Internal sights, sounds, smells and feelings will also be anchors for other experiences. A strategy is a string of representations in which each representation is anchored to the one preceding it.

4.31 Anchoring In Action

The following transcript of a typical anchoring demonstration at an NLP workshop conducted by one of the authors ("A") will illustrate the process and uses of anchoring. The volunteer will be represented as "S".

TRANSCRIPT

A: I'd like to do a demonstration of anchoring now. Would someone be willing to come and be a subject? Someone who hasn't had any experience with anchoring before? (A woman from the audience volunteers.) Your name is … ?

S: Jan.

A: Thank you, Jan. Would you sit here please … I'd like to show a couple of other things with this demonstration as well as anchoring. One of them is how to use your sensory experience to gather information and get feedback. I'm going to whisper into Jan's ear and simply ask her to think of a couple of different experiences. Then I'll anchor them. As she thinks of them, you're going to notice both subtle and perhaps dramatic changes in Jan's ongoing behavior. So I want you to tune your sensory apparatus now to watch and listen to any changes you may observe in Jan's facial expressions, breathing rate, muscle tonus, skin color, body posture and eye movements… . Okay? (Whispers in left ear.)

S: (Smiles. Eyes shift up and slightly to the right. Face flushes slightly. Breathing slightly shallow and even.) Uh-Huh … (Tonality high pitched and somewhat melodic.)

A: (Gently squeezes S's left shoulder.) Okay … good… . Now did everyone see all of the changes in Jan's face … (Agreement from the audience.) Where did her eyes go?

Man: I didn't see.

A. (turns to Jan) Jan where did your eyes go when you were thinking of that experience?

S: Huh? … Ah (eyes up) … I don't remember…

A: (Laughs) Thank you Jan, you did that so well … did everyone see that? … In order to make sense of what I'm asking she had to reaccess some of that experience and her eyes went to the same place… . How about her breathing … Where was she breathing from?

Man: I couldn't really tell. I thought it was in the chest.

A: Yes, that's correct … Did everyone hear the shift in her tonality? (Agreement from the audience.) Even though you don't know anything about the verbal content of the experience Jan was just thinking of, you have a lot of information about what might have been going on. … I want to try another one now. (Walks over to the right side of the subject and whispers in her right ear.)

S: (Eyes shift down and to the left. Face drops. Lips tightens. Clenches teeth. Sighs slightly. Skin pales. Touches face with right hand.) … Mmmhmm … (Tonality low and breathy. Volume quiet.)

A: (Squeezes S's right shoulder.) … Okay, fine … Now you can all see and hear that this is probably a very different experience from the other one, right? (Agreement from the audience.)

A: Her eyes went down and to the left this time, and her breathing changed radically … What about her tonality?

Woman: A lot lower.

A: … Skin color?

Man: Paler.

A: That's right … As we were doing this, I was attempting to anchor her two experiences kinesthetically. So I want you to pay attention as I test these two anchors … (Turns to S) Now what do you experience when I do this? (Squeezes left shoulder.)

S: (Looks back and forth from her shoulder to A's face, as if confused.) Huh? … Ummmm … Well I feel your hand on my shoulder.

A: (Laughs) Okay (Removes hand) … Is there anyone here who thinks I've succeeded in anchoring that first experience? (No response.)

A: No … That's right … What would have happened if I had anchored it successfully?

Man: She would have thought of the experience again.

A: Right … And you would have been able to see and hear the same changes in her behavior that took place before. You need to use your sensory apparatus to check and make sure anchors are solid … So … what do I do now? … A lot of people might say, "Damn, anchoring doesn't work," or … (Laughter) … "Gee, I must have done something wrong" … but the best thing that I know to do when you test and find you haven't gotten the desired response yet is to operate again … Observe … (Whispers in S's left ear.)

S: (Smiles. Face flushes. Eyes shift up. Breathing eases.) Uh-huh … (Tonality high pitched and melodic.)

A: (Squeezes S's left shoulder.) Look familiar? (Laughter.) (Agreement from audience.)

A: And then … (Walks over to right side of S and whispers in her right ear.)

S: (Lips tighten. Color pales. Eyes shift down and to the left. Sighs) … Mmmmm … (Tonality low and breathy.)

A: (Squeezes S's right shoulder) … You should all be able to recognize that one. … As you could see, I simply repeated the process again. Now, what I'm going to do is test the anchors again … (Walks over to S's left side and squeezes her left shoulder.)

S: (Smiles. Face flushes slightly. Eyes shift up. Breathing shallows.)

A: What's happening?

S: I started to think of that experience. (Tonality high pitched.)

A: And now … (Walks over to S's right side and squeezes her right shoulder.)

S: (Eyes shift down and left. Lips tighten. Skin pales. Sighs.)

A: What's going on now?

S: I'm thinking of the other one. (Voice lower and slower tempo.)

A: Okay, it seems like the anchors are working now. But I'm going to test them a couple more times to make sure … (Squeezes S's left shoulder.) S: (Smiles. Eyes up. Etc.)

A: [To audience] This, by the way, will help reinforce the anchors. (Squeezes S's right shoulder.)

S: (Lips tighten. Eyes shift down and left, etc.)

A: Okay. (Squeezes S's left shoulder.)

S: (Smiles. Eyes up, etc.)

A: (Squeezes S's right shoulder.)

S: (Lips tighten. Eyes down and left, etc.)

A: [To S] What is your experience of all this?

S: It's amazing … it's like … the feelings just happen automatically when you touch me.

A: Okay, good … Now, would everyone agree that I've got these two experiences anchored to the touch? (Agreement from audience.)

A: All I really did was to use culturally established verbal anchors —that is, the words that I whispered — to elicit a response— which I checked and stored through my sensory experience. Then I established another anchor in a different system: kinesthetic as opposed to auditory…. The anchors didn't take at first, so I repeated the process until they did … We are, of course, doing all this on an overt and conscious level, because this is a demonstration; but it works just as well, often even more effectively, when the person doesn't know what's going on. You just keep pairing the anchor with the response … you'll be surprised how fast peoples' unconscious minds catch on… . Now … I want to show you how anchors can be established through other representational systems as well. Notice what happens when I do this. (Shifts tonality slightly higher, steps up in front of S and starts to reach for her left shoulder.) S: (Smiles, eyes up, etc.)

A: You'll notice that I never made actual contact with Jan, and yet my guess is that I anchored that first experience … [To Jan] Is that right?

S: (Smiles) Yes.

A: And now let's try this one (Lowers voice and slows tempo. Reaches for right shoulder.)

S: (Eyes down and left. Lips tighten, etc.)

A: As you can see, that one's anchored visually too. I never made contact, but she can see which one I'm indicating … In fact I'll bet I can anchor them just by doing this. (Raises pitch of voice and points to left shoulder.)

S: (Smiles. Eyes up. etc.)

A: You see, just like magic … (Laughter) … and now … (Shifts voice pitch lower and points to right shoulder). S: (Eyes down and left, lips tighten, etc.)

A: How about this (Looks at left shoulder)

S: (Smiles, eyes up, etc.)

A: And … (looks at right shoulder)

S: (Eyes down left, lips tighten, etc.)

A: I've got the experiences anchored kinesthetically and visually … and I've got another anchor. Does any one know what it is? (Raises pitch of voice.)

S: (Smiles. Looks up. etc.)

A: [To S] That's right. Your unconscious mind knows, at least … What if I start talking like this? (Lowers voice and slows tempo.)

S: (Eyes down and left. Lips tighten, etc.) I experience the other one.

A: You can anchor with the tone, pitch and tempo of your voice as well as verbally … Non–verbal anchoring can be extremely profound. Think about it for a minute … We anchor things all of the time with our tonal shifts, facial expressions, and gestures. A change in facial expression or a sigh can change the whole course of a conversation or negotiation. In fact probably more often than not the verbal portions of our communication are the least important or significant aspect of the interaction. It's how we say what we are saying and what we are doing while we say it that gives most of the meaning to the communication… . Are there any questions about anchors before I go on to demonstrate how to use them?

Man: Yes … How long does an anchor last?

A: I guess the easiest way to answer that is to say that an anchor lasts as long as it lasts … Some may only last a couple of days, others will last years … even a lifetime. Think of language. Many words will serve as anchors all of our lives …

A person I hadn't seen for about four years called me up and wanted me to help him with this problem. Now I had an anchor for trance that I'd set up with him years before, so when he came over I had him sit down, and I fired off the anchor and – boom – he was gone just like that …

The two major things that determine how long an anchor will last are, one, how unique the stimulus you use for an anchor is and, two, how well you make the association between the anchor and the experience. For instance, people get touched on their shoulders all the time, so the anchors I've set up with Jan aren't that unique and may not last long. If I had grabbed her left earlobe, the association might be more unique and therefore more longlasting. A squeeze on the shoulder will anchor up other representations that have occurred previously when she's been touched there.

One of the reasons that language is such a powerful anchoring system is that sounds we make with our voices have subtle but distinct differences. We all know that homonyms, words that sound alike, are not direct anchors. Words like 'see', 'sea' and 'C\ or 'know' and 'no', are ambiguous – that is, they anchor up more than one representation. Kinesthetic and visual anchors do the same thing. Touching someone on the shoulder or the knee can anchor more than one representation because touches there occur so often.

Another thing to keep in mind concerning uniqueness is context. If I say "I sailed the sea," there is much less ambiguity about what kind of representation I'm referring to because I'm putting the anchor "sea" into a context. The same thing works with other anchors. For example, as long as she is sitting in front of this group of people and sitting in this room and I raise my voice like this (raises pitch of voice) and I use this facial expression (smiles) and reach over and touch Jan on the left shoulder so she can see me, I may always get the response that's been anchored today. If I meet Jan on the street three weeks from now and just start talking in a higher pitched voice, I may not get the full response, because there are a whole bunch of other anchors provided by the change in context. That may change, however, if I also squeeze her shoulder and use this facial expression .. . Then I've fired off anchors in all three of her major representational systems.

It's always best to make sure you've got your anchors established in all representational systems, by the way. It really cleans up your work … We call that "redundancy" in NLP. Because you've got your anchor or your communications coded in all representational systems, it increases your chance of success.

Making sure that the association between your anchor and your response is "clean" is also very important. This has to do with congruency. For instance, if I am trying to anchor a certain experience in someone and all the time we're going through the process, the person has this voice in the back of their mind that's saying, "What's this guy doing?" or "This isn't going to work," then I'm going to be anchoring that voice, too. And it will be no wonder if my anchoring doesn't work the way I want it to. That's why it's so important to use your sensory channels for feedback, so that you can make sure that the person is completely and congruently experiencing the 4–tuple that you want to anchor.

Timing is also really important. If you want to make a clean, solid association, you'll want to establish the anchor at a time when the person is really experiencing or reexperiencing the state you want to utilize. Essentially, you will want to anchor when the experience or memory is at its peak or highest intensity. This will make sure that you've got only the experience that you want … Any other questions? (No response.)

A: Okay … Now I'd like to demonstrate one way to use anchoring … Once I've got an experience anchored then I can always use that anchor to bring the experience into the ongoing situation as a resource. That is, I can bring that experience to bear on what's going on right now. I've got a way now to be able to access it as a resource for just about any situation I want … For example, Jan, what do you experience when I do this … (Squeezes left shoulder and right shoulder at the same time.)

S: (Eyes shift up then down left. Breathing shallows. Eyes shift back up then down and to the right. Scrunches left side of face slightly, sighs slightly, looks back up and then down and left and starts to shake her head slightly back and forth) … I … well … I'm sort of confused … It's like I'm trying to take that one (Indicates left shoulder) and put it together with this one, but I … it's very intense …

A: Jan had begun the process of what we call "integrating 4–tuples." By firing off the two anchors at the same time, or "collapsing" the anchors as we say in NLP, I actually forced the two different representations, or 4–tuples, into the same time time and space, neurologically. This forces the creation of a new 4–tuple that is a combination or integration of the two that are going together. In this way you add resources to the problem state… . My guess is, judging from Jan's response to what I just did, that in this case the resources from the experience anchored over here (gestures to left shoulder) were not enough to help Jan resolve what was going on over there (Gestures to right shoulder). That's not at all surprising since they were just two experiences that I picked out, and the resources weren't tailored for the problematic state … and I'll show you how to do that in a minute …

What I wanted to demonstrate by collapsing these two anchors is the impact it can have. Could everyone tell there was something going on? … It was obvious to me through her changes in breathing, the asymmetry of her face, all of those eye movements, and so on, that Jan was doing a lot of internal processing. Most of it was probably going on at the unconscious level. Consciously, Jan experienced "confusion," which is very common when you are integrating experiences, by the way. She knew the two experiences were going together in some way … but at the end she shook her head, giving me the indication that she needed more resources to make a satisfactory integration … Now Jan, you would like to have more choices about that

experience (Gestures toward right shoulder) wouldn't you?

S: Oh yes. It's really frustrating.

A: [To Audience] Up until now none of you have known anything verbally about this experience (Gestures to right shoulder) but I'll bet most of you could guess that it was frustrating for Jan. (Agreement from the audience.)

A: In order for me to help Jan get more choices about this situation I don't even need to know anything verbally about the situation, as long as I have access to sensory experience. In NLP we call working in this way – that is, without content — "secret therapy." A lot of times people are shy, nervous or resistant about giving out the details of a problem, or they literally can't put the details into words, or they don't even consciously know them. Because we work with form in neurolinguistic programming, we can get around all that because in most situations we're not concerned with the content details … Now I'll continue working in this way with Jan to show you how it can be done. So what I want to do, to make the demonstration a little easier to follow, is to give this frustrating experience some innocuous, non–referring name … like some color, for instance … What color would you like to name this experience, Jan?

S: Umm … Yellow.

A: Okay, when Jan 'yellows' (Squeezes right shoulder) then, her breathing, facial expression, skin color and so on change to what she is doing right now … 'Yellow,' of course, is another verbal anchor for this experience. I've just now paired it with the other anchors we have established for it. Jan, what color would you like to call your resources?

S: Blue.

A: 'Blue.' All right, we'll call your resources 'blue'… Now I'd like to show you how to find, at the formal level, the resources Jan needs to get more choices about 'yellowing.' The first thing I want to do is find out what state of consciousness she's in when she's 'yellow'. And the way I'm going to do this is to simply ask her which representational systems she has access to in this state … I already have some information about which representational systems she's using. What is it?

Woman: Her accessing cues?

A: Yes, very good. When Jan is 'yellowing' her eyes are down and left which is … ?

Man: Internal dialogue.

A: Right,… internal dialogue … good. There is something else. You'll remember that she sighs slightly —breathing from the abdomen — and that she mentioned something about feelings. So I can also bet that there are some kinesthetics involved … But let's check this out with Jan …Jan, what I want you to do is to put yourself back into an actual situation when you were 'yellow.' And I'm going to ask you some questions about it, okay?

S: Okay.

A: When you're 'yellow' how easy is it for you to see what's going on around you externally?

S: Ah … (Looks up and left) not very … I could see things if I wanted to, I guess, but I don't look at things very much while it's going on.

A: (Squeezes S's right shoulder) Okay … How about internally? Do you use your mind's eye, or make pictures in your head when you are 'yellow'?

S: Ah … (Looks up and left, then down and right) … No.

A: (Squeezes S's right shoulder) All right … How well can you hear what's going around you externally when you are 'yellow'. Do you hear what other people are saying and what their tones of voice are like?

S: (Looks down and left then up) … Uhmm …

A: (Laughs) You won't find it up there … it's over here (Guides S's eyes straight and to the left) … [To audience] One of the things I'm doing is watching Jan's accessing cues to make sure that she's accessing and checking out the appropriate representational system, so I can be sure her response is congruent and valid. A lot of times people make pictures, hear voices or get feelings that are out of consciousness for them. So you have to check it out with their less conscious nonverbal forms of communication … You have probably also noticed that I've been reanchoring her as she gives each response. This helps to reinforce the anchor … Come up with an answer yet, Jan?

S: Well … I can hear some things when I listen for them … but in general not very much.

A: (Squeezes S's right shoulder) OK … How about inside your head? Is there a lot of noise going in there when you are 'yellow'? Do you talk to yourself a lot?

S: (Eyes move down and left. Starts nodding her head) … Oh yes … a lot of it .. . I'm saying all kinds of things.

A: (Squeezes S's right shoulder) Aha … Okay, let's move to kinesthetics. Do you have much external tactile body awareness? Like temperature, texture, pressure and so on?

S: (Eyes up and then down and right) Mmmm, no … not at all. That's interesting.

A: (Squeezes S's right shoulder) … How about internal feelings?

S: (Eyes down left and then down right) Oh yes, a lot of those (Voice very low. Begins to tense up. S grips left hand very tightly). I get so frustrated … I… (Lips tighten, clenches jaw.)

A: (Squeezes S's right shoulder) All right … come back … no need to access that too much … How about smells or tastes? Are you aware of any of those?

S: UhUh … none.

A: (Squeezes S's shoulder) … Any internal, remembered smells or tastes?

S: (Eyes down and left) No.

A: (Squeezes S's right shoulder) … OK … [To audience] Now I've got an explicit description of Jan's state of consciousness that we're calling 'yellow'. I'll map it out visually on the blackboard so you can all see what's going on … (Writes the following on the blackboard.)

'YELLOW'

V^e—?

V¹—0

A^e — ?

Aⁱ— X

K^e— O

Kⁱ— X

O — O

A: "X's" mean full access to the representational system. 'O's' mean no access, or negligible access to the representational system. And question marks mean partial or questionable access … What this diagram indicates to me is that Jan is losing access to a lot of potential resources when she's yellow because all of these systems drop out — notably her visual system but also practically all systems involved in gathering information from external sources. Her internal dialogue and internal feelings override all of the other representational systems …

The reason that we have five senses is because they are all resources and each one can pick up information that isn't available to our other senses. We can hear things that we can't see or feel; we can see things that we can't feel, hear or smell; we can smell things that we can't hear or see; we can feel things that we can't see, hear or smell; and so forth … There are many situations that you can't see your way out of, a lot of situations you won't be able to talk, listen or shout your way out of, other situations you can't feel your way out of and so on.

If you want to be able to deal effectively with a situation you need access to all of your representational systems … Losing access to sensory resources is probably the primary block to problem solving … What I want to do is help Jan get access to those resources in her problem state by anchoring a state in which she naturalistically has access to the representational systems that she's missing when she 'yellows' … It's unfortunate, but what generally happens when people come up against a problem or a frustrating or negative situation is that the negative feelings or their internal dialogue or whatever begin to anchor up other negative situations or 4–tuples associated with the bad experience, rather than going right for the resources. They begin to spiral, or loop, in the bad experience, and that keeps them from getting to their resources … [To Jan] So, what I'd like you to do now, Jan, is to think of a time when you had your full potential and resources as a person. A time when you had full contact with the world around you as well as access to internal creativity and confidence. A time when you were able to handle anything that came up.

S: (Eyes down and right then up, straight left and up and right. Straightens posture from slumping position to erect, with shoulders back. Breaths smoothly and easily from whole chest. Smiles a broad smile. Color comes to her face.) Uh-huh … (Tonality strong and resonant.)

A: (Squeezes left shoulder) Now that's what I call 'blue'… (laughter) … In this state, Jan, that we're going to call 'blue', are you able to see clearly what is going on around you?

S: (Smiles, eyes defocus, nods) Oh yes, very clearly.

A: (Squeezes S's left shoulder) I thought so. How about inside your head, can you make clear pictures in there?

S: (Eyes up and right). Yes … But I don't do it all of the time … only when I need to think about something or piece something together.

A: (Squeezes S's left shoulder). OK, good … How well can you hear what's going on outside of you when you're 'blue'?

S: (Eyes level, shift straight across back and forth.) Oh, fine (nods her head) … I'm really aware of what people are saying to me.

A: (Squeezes S's left shoulder) … Now many of you may have noticed that I'm using the same anchor that I used for the other resource, that wasn't effective when we collapsed the anchors before. What I'm doing is what we call "stacking" anchors in NLP. That is, I'm making this anchor an anchor for more than one resource. I'm really building up the resources on this side by collapsing two positive experiences together … You can, of course, stack as many positive anchors as you need in one place … You can also anchor the same experiences in as many places or through as many systems as you need … In fact, Jan, I'd like you to help me out with this as we go on. And what I would like you to do, as you access the information I'm requesting of you, is to squeeze your left hand into a fist only as tight as you are able to access the state and the information fully and completely. So, the more you are squeezing your hand, the more you are accessing the resources. Okay?

S: Squeeze my hand like this? (Squeezes left hand into a fist.)

A: Yes … that'll be fine. But remember, only as intensely as you access the experience … Now I just have a couple more questions … Do you have any internal dialogue when you're 'bluing'?

S: (Eyes down and left) … Umm, Yes … but it's real different than when I'm 'yellow' … It comments more on what's going on around me when I'm 'blue', rather than trying to tell me what to do all the time like it does when I'm yellow … And it's going a lot less of the time. (As S talks she squeezes her fist tighter.)

A: (Squeezes S's shoulder) … Very good … How about external body awareness. Are you aware of how your body feels?

S: (Eyes down and right. Breathing shifts to abdomen.) Yes … I'm generally very relaxed … not tense … and my body feels very centered. (Squeezes her fist.)

A: (Squeezes S's left shoulder.) … All right. Are you aware of internal feelings when you 'blue'?

S: (Eyes remaining down and right, smiles.) Oh yes … I feel really confident and excited. (Squeezes fist.)

A: (Squeezes S's left shoulder.) Where in your body do you feel this?

S: Right in here. (Indicates midline area.)

A: (Squeezes S's shoulder.) Okay, do you smell anything, or taste anything?

S: (Eyes straight right, down left then up.) … Ahh … no, I don't think so.

A: (Squeezes S's left shoulder.) Okay … how about internally. Are you remembering any smells or tastes?

S: Not that I am aware of… (Squeezes fist.)

A: (Squeezes S's left shoulder.) … Fine. (To audience) As you've noticed, this 'blue' is a very different state than the 'yellow'.

(Agreement from audience).

A: Let's look at some of the differences. (Writes on blackboard.)

A: 'Blue' has a lot of resources that tend to get screened out in 'yellow' … (S laughs) … What?

S: I've been trying out my anchor (Squeezes fist)… I like this one.

A: (Laughs.) Well good … Now we can give you a chance to use it … I'd like to offer you a context in which to make use of that anchor. You have a particular situation or state that we have called 'yellow' that you'd like to have more choices about. Your present experience of 'yellow' is a very valuable resource for you because it lets you know that you need to 'blue'. And what I'd like you to do right now is to go back to the last time you experienced 'yellow' and put yourself back into that situation until you see, hear and feel what you were experiencing then. (Squeezes right shoulder.) I want you to imagine how it would have been different if you had been able to bring some 'blue' into that circumstance. (Squeezes left shoulder.) And as you do this I'd like you to squeeze your fist together as much as you need to be able to make whatever changes you need to.

S: (Squeezes her fist. Adjusts posture to sit upright. Takes a deep breath. Eyes shift from down left to up left to down right and then up right. Skin flushes slightly. Smiles and begins to nod her head up and down) … Oh yes … It's a lot clearer now … (Eyes return to straight ahead position but remain defocused)… . (S's eyes become damp) … That's very powerful.

A: Satisfied?

S: Oh yes … (Nods) … I keep flashing (eyes move up & left) on more and more things that I can do.

A: Good. I'm satisfied that she hit all representational systems. I was watching for her cues. How about everybody else? Does your sensory experience check out? (Agreement from the audience.)

A: Every good engineer, of course, will make a set of blueprints before he initiates a project. What we have done here by reprogramming Jan's experience of yellow is a form, a simple form, of behavioral engineering. So what I'd like to do now is have Jan make a detailed blueprint for herself of how her experience will change the next time she encounters yellow. How her specific actions will be different. This is called "future pacing" in NLP … Now if you have lots of time and you aren't doing covert work, you can go over specifics with your client. This can be done through discussion, role playing, guided fantasy … any number of ways are available to you. I'm just going to have Jan fill in the details on her own through her own imagination, using my sensory experience of her nonverbal behavior to make sure, at the formal level, that all of the pieces are there. Remember that, because your internal representations share the same neurology as those that come from external sources, this kind of blueprinting can be as profound as the real thing … Jan, can you think of a time in the near future when you might come up against 'yellow' again?

S: (Lips tightening, nodding.) Oh yes … Really soon in fact.

A: Okay … what I'd like you to do is to imagine, in as much detail as possible, (Squeezes S's right shoulder) what those circumstances might be … and how you will be able to behave differently (Squeezes left shoulder) in this upcoming situation … Squeeze your fist as much as you need to.

S: (Takes a deep breath, squeezes fist) adjusts posture. Eyes shift from down left to up left, to down right, to up right. Smiles and nods.) Umm Hmmm … Yes.

A: Good … Now do you think you can do this on your own— repeat this process whenever you need to and use your resource anchor?

S: (Smiles and nods.) Yes.

A: Great … By the way some of you may have noticed that I did something a little bit tricky when I established Jan's resource anchor. How many of you noticed that when Jan was talking about her frustrating feelings during 'yellow' that she squeezed her left hand into a fist? (Audience agreement.)

A: By incorporating this naturally occurring gesture as a resource anchor, I built in a powerful backup anchor as well. So if for some reason Jan's future pacing isn't successful, and she begins to loop in the 'yellow' again, at some point she'll probably begin to clench her fist naturally and unconsciously. But since it has now become programmed as an anchor for resources it will automatically begin the process of accessing resources … Are there any questions before we move on?

Woman: Yes … What happens to the anchors now?

A: That's a good question … When you collapse two anchors, they, and the experiences they elicit, essentially become anchors for one another. They are "integrated." So Jan will still know what experience I'm referring to when I lower my voice (Lowers voice) and touch her on the right shoulder. But the 4–tuple has changed … Just what does happen, Jan, when I do this? (Squeezes her right shoulder.)

S: (Eyes shift down and left, to down and right to up and right.) Well … I think of the yellow experience, but I also think of how it's different now … It's a lot more comfortable now. I don't have to feel bad about it anymore.

A: A metaphor that I like to use to explain the process, that is probably actually the physical basis for integration, is the response of single brain cells to stimuli presented simultaneously. Let me map this out visually first so it'll be a little easier to follow … (Draws on blackboard):

A: A group of neurologists were studying the responses of single brain cells to external stimuli, using micro–electrodes and found something like I've shown here. When they presented stimulus "A" they recorded a certain firing pattern in that cell. Let's say the pattern looked like wave (1) that I've drawn on the board. Stimulus "A" could be a tone, a light flash, a touch, etc… . One way to think about it is that stimulus "A" anchored waveshape (1) … When the experimenters presented a different stimulus, "B", they got firing pattern (2) from the same cell … So this cell had different responses to different stimuli, or anchors. Then what they did was to present the two stimuli simultaneously. When they did this, they got firing pattern (3), a combination of the two previous firing patterns (1) and (2). And what is interesting is that thereafter, when they presented either stimulus "A" or "B" again by themselves they got the third pattern (3) … That's my understanding of what happens to the anchors after you've collapsed them …

This doesn't mean that Jan won't ever be frustrated again. She will always be able to access that state independently if she wants to by tuning her physical state & her accessing cues, and by anchoring it somewhere else. We could probably even anchor it in the same place again if we changed the context … Collapsing the anchors won't take away Jan's ability to be frustrated it simply gives her another choice. Frustration's an important resource. The ability to be upset and angry is just as important as the ability to be happy or confident. Each of them gives us important information about what's going on. It's what we do with that information that will ultimately make it positive or negative for us … By the way, Jan, you can go back to your place now. (S returns to her seat.) Now this is the same pattern — putting together resources with a problem state that we use, with some alterations, in helping students get through "blocks", or helping people with phobias, or helping athletes get over slumps or deal with being psyched out. We use it to help business executives solve both personal and company problems. It's a very simple but powerful pattern — adding resources to a problematic state … In some cases where a specific outcome is desired we will make the blueprint for the desired state first, and anchor it of course, so we can use it as a way of choosing the appropriate resources to access … This simple anchoring process can increase your ability to do things and help other people do things, no matter what it is that you do …

As we mentioned at the beginning of the transcript, this is an example of only one use of the process of anchoring. We will be covering a number of other uses throughout the remainder of this book — especially in the Installation Section.

Anchors and accessing cues will be your major tools in the utilization of strategies. They will provide a systematic means of being able to trigger the appropriate representations at the appropriate slot in the strategy. Before you go on to the rest of the book, we invite you to think about experiences that you have had in which you have been anchored: certain tones of voice, words, facial expressions, touches and so on, that trigger powerful or subtle experiences in you. Also consider ways in which you have, perhaps unknowingly, anchored experiences in other people: when you've said something or done something that elicited a response in another person that you didn't expect. Perhaps you've had an experience in which someone showed great warmth toward you because you looked or sounded like a close relative or friend of his, and this anchored feelings of closeness in them. Or perhaps you have developed a special saying, facial expression or gesture that you can always use to get a smile or chuckle out of someone you know.

The words "Mary had a little …" are probably an anchor for the word "lamb" for many of you — as well as an anchor for the melody that accompanies the lyrics.

Before proceeding further, practice the following simple anchoring exercises to help you begin to get some conscious skill in using them:

EXERCISE A — Establishing An Anchor for Yourself.

This exercise is designed to give you a personal feel for the process of anchoring and to help you distinguish between various states of consciousness in yourself. This is essentially an exercise in biofeedback — where the feedback comes from your own sensory channels.

PARTI— The "Uptime" Anchor.

Step 1. Find a place, either indoors or outdoors, where you can sit or walk around for a while and enjoy the world around you.

Step 2. As you observe your surroundings, practice focusing and tuning your awareness of your external environment to each of your representational systems:

a) seeing things — using both panoramic and detailed viewing of the various objects, colors and movements in your environment.

b) feeling the temperature of the air, the textures, shapes and hardness of the objects around you, and the feelings of your skin and muscles as you sit or move through the environment.

c) listening for the differences in the tones and location origins of the various sounds around you — and for the changes in your breathing and the pitch and tempo of any voices near you.

d) smelling the air and the objects around you — noticing which smells are sharper, which are more subtle — and, if you wish, take note of any changes in the taste in your mouth.

As you access each of these systems, you may screen out your other channels by closing your eyes and plugging your ears and nose in various combinations. Be sure to access each system as completely as possible without any internal dialogue, internal pictures or feelings.

Step 3. With your right hand grab hold of your left wrist. As you judge that you are able to access each system in succession, squeeze your wrist — only as tightly as you are able to completely access the sensory channel you are using. The more you can see, hear, feel and smell clearly the experiences around you, the tighter you squeeze your wrist.

Step 4. Begin to tune into all representational systems simultaneously so that you attention is completely focused outside of you through all of your channels. Squeeze your wrist only as tightly as you are able to do this successfully.

Step 5. Keep repeating the process until all you have to do is reach over and squeeze your wrist and your attention automatically begins to turn outside of you to your external environment, without any conscious effort.

PART II — The "Downtime" Anchor.

Step 1. Find a place where you can sit or lie down and be completely alone with yourself.

Step 2. Turn your attention inward and practice accessing each of your representational systems internally:

a) Listen to any internal voices, dialogues, tunes or sounds in your head. Practice making up tunes and conversations as well as remembering things that you've already heard.

b) Look through your mind's eye at scenes and details of objects and events that you've made up and that you've actually seen before.

c) Get in touch with internal feelings. Pay attention to the similarities and differences between emotional and visceral body sensations and memories of things that you've felt with your hands and skin. Make up things to feel in fantasy.

d) Smell and taste, in your imagination, things and places that you remember and fantasize.

Again, access each system as completely and separately as you can. You may want to try a simple task, like imagining yourself getting up from your place and opening a door, utilizing each system by itself, in succession. That is, first limit yourself to only fantasizing the action visually; then go back and just talk yourself through it, or do it by sound; then go through just the feelings of the action and so on.

Most of you will probably notice, with this exercise and with Part I, that you are able to access particular representational systems with varying degrees of ease — it may be easier for you to get in touch with feelings than to tune in to internal dialogue or to make internal pictures; or vice versa. You can feel free to use this as feedback for which systems you need to develop or enrich, or practice with.

Step 3. Fold your hands. As you judge that you are able to access each representational system as completely as you can, squeeze your hands together — only as tightly as you are able to completely access that system.

Step 4. Begin to access all systems internally at the same time (you may put all of your senses to work on a single experience, or tune each system to a different experience — seeing one thing, talking to yourself about something else, feeling something new, and smelling something that doesn't have anything to do with the others). Squeeze your hands together only as tightly as you are able to do this successfully.

Step 5. Keep repeating the process until all you have to do is sit down and clasp your hands together tightly and your focus of attention automatically turns inward without any conscious effort.

As you do this exercise, pay attention to the cues and distinctions that allow you to access and discriminate between the representational systems you are accessing and the states you are creating. These anchors will be very valuable to you as they will give you quick access to full sensory experiences externally oriented for gathering information (that is, "uptime"); and internally oriented for extended processing of information ("downtime").

You may also wish to establish anchors for yourself in this way for other states or experiences such as relaxation, creativity, motivation, etc. The pattern of this process is that embodied by all biofeedback: A certain state picked and identified. As the individual accesses that state he is given feedback for it by way of a particular stimulus — thehe tightness of the grip in this case (K^e); it is done through tones (A^e), or by intensity or color of light or the position of an arm on a dial (V^e) in other biofeedback processes. After a while the feedback stimulus and the target state become associated (the stimulus becomes an anchor for the state) so that the mere presentation of the feedback stimulus anchors and contributes to to the development of the target state.

You may wish to experiment with internal anchors as well. For instance, if you wish to be able to access a state of relaxation easily you can begin by imaging a color vividly in your mind's eye. Begin to allow your body to relax as much as possible, lowering your breathing and relaxing any tense muscles. As you reach the state you desire, watch the color change to a color that most exemplifies that state for you (from orange to blue for example). You may also wish to allow the color to change configuration (watch it drip down into your stomach as it changes color). Keep practicing until you are able to access the state of relaxation by simply imagining the color. Then, when you notice you are tense or anxious, and you wish to have a choice about the condition, all you need to do is simply close your eyes momentarily, take a deep breath and imagine the color, and it will access the desired state.

Many forms of meditation involve auditory anchors like mantras and chanting to access downtime states or relaxation. The words or sounds are repeated as the individual enters the state. Later, repeating the sounds will readily anchor up the designated state.

Incidentally, if you ever want to reprogram or "get rid of any anchors you have established, all you need to do is collapse the anchor with some other anchor or experience. For example, you could squeeze your wrist at the same time you fire off some other anchor or when you are experiencing some other state. Remember, though, that when you fire off the anchor you wish to reprogram it will influence your ongoing experience, so that when you are reprogramming yourself be sure to pick anchors, states and/or experiences that are of equal intensity and strength to the one you are changing.

If you wish to strengthen an anchor be sure you pick a stimulus that you can keep fairly autonomous and that won't be accidently fired off and integrated with others.

EXERCISE B — Collapsing Anchors With Someone Else.

This exercise will help you to get a feel for consciously using anchoring with someone else.

Step 1. Sit down with someone you can be comfortable with and ask him to tell you about a time when he was particularly resourceful, creative and confident.

Step 2. As the individual remembers and recounts this experience, reach out and kinesthetically anchor it by placing your left hand on his right knee. Use your sensory abilities as feedback to be sure that you are only touching the person's knee when he is accessing the experience he is describing.

Step 3. (Optional). Get a full 4–tuple for the experience by taking the person through each of his sensory systems, focusing both internally and externally, and checking which are operating during the state. For example:

How do you feel inside when you are in this state? (Kⁱ)

Do you have any external body awareness? (K^e)

Where and how fast are you breathing when you are in this state? (K^c)

Do you have any internal dialogue? (Aⁱ_d)

How well do you hear what's happening around you? (A^e)

What does your own voice sound like when you are in this state? (A^e_t)

Can you see clearly what is going on around you? (V^e)

Do you see anything in your head? (Vⁱ)

How well can you smell in this state? (O^e)

Are you remembering any smells or tastes? (Oⁱ)

Use your sensory experience to make sure that they are checking each of these systems, and calibrate to make sure all accessing is of the same intensity. As they access each portion of the experience anchor each one on the left knee. You will then have anchored the entire 4–tuple. We can notate this in the following way:

∮₁→ e,i₁ , V^e,i₁ , K^e,i₁ , O^e,i₁>

This shows that anchor number one, "∮₁", elicits state number one.

Step 4. Continue to test and reinforce the anchor until you are satisfied that it has been solidly established. It is not necessary that the individual know consciously what you are doing for the anchor to be effective. Nor will the person's awareness of what you are doing interfere with the process, unless it is keeping him from accessing the information you want. It will be up to you to decide whether to tell the person what you are doing or not. (You may also wish to have the person establish a self controlled anchor as a resource.)

Step 5. Next, ask the individual if there is some situation or task in which he typically find himself inefficient or blocked. As the individual discusses the situation, anchor it by reaching out with your right hand and placing it on the person's left knee. Again, use your sensory experience to make sure you are anchoring at the appropriate times.

Step 6. (Optional) Repeat the process of getting a full 4–tuple representation of this second state, anchoring each aspect of the 4–tuple as you observe it come up. You will then have an anchor for the problematic state:

∮₂→ e,i₂ , V^e,i₂ , K^e,i₂ , O^e,i₂>

Step 7. Keep testing and reinforcing the anchor until you are satisfied that it has been solidly established.

Step 8. Reach out with both hands and touch off both anchors simultaneously. This will force the two patterns of behavior (as represented by the 4–tuples) into the same time and space neurologically such that a third 4–tuple (or sometimes a set of 4–tuples) will be formed that integrates the other two. The resource experience will be combined with the inefficient experience in such a way that the individual will typically spontaneously generate new choices of behavior in the situation that has formerly been a problem.

We can notate the process of integration as:

∮₁+∮₂→ e,i_(1*2) , V^e,i_(1*2) , K^e,i_(1*2) , O^e,i_(1*2)>

This shows that at the simultaneous firing of the two anchors, the 4–tuples combine to make a third. The star function, "*", represents a function of combination of the sensory parameters of the two states. The manner in which this combination takes place will, of course, not be simply additive but will depend on the strength and content of the representations, and the neurological attributes of the individual.

This exercise involves the use of tactile anchors. We suggest that you also go back through the exercise with a different person (or with the same person, using different subjects) and repeat the process using visual, auditory and olfactory anchors. You can generate these anchors through your own behavior, with gestures and tonal and tempo changes, and also use other available stimuli.

For example, you may use almond and vanilla extract as olfactory anchors. For a visual anchor you may instruct an individual to fold a piece of paper in half and on one side have the person draw a picture representing himself in a problematic state. The kinds of questions listed earlier would be asked to elicit a full representation that would become anchored to the drawing. Then have the individual turn the half–page over and draw a picture representing a resourceful state, and again elicit a full representation. Finally, have the individual open the paper so that both sides are showing simultaneously. This will visually accomplish the same result as the simultaneous firing of the two kinesthetic anchors.

The same process may also be undertaken by having the individual choose two songs or pieces of music that are representative of the two states in question, by eliciting a full representation as the song is being played, and then playing both of the songs simultaneously.

EXERCISE C— Creating Experience Through Anchoring:

In the same way that 4–tuples may be integrated by anchoring them together, various representations from completely different 4–tuples may be anchored together to create a new 4–tuple. Because internally generated experience utilizes the same neural pathways as externally generated or "actual" experiences, creating new 4–tuples in this way can be as powerful and effective as if the individual had "really" had the experience.

In this process the external sensory parameters of one 4–tuple (identifying the external context of the experience) are generally tied with internally generated representations (making up the individual's internal response) of another 4–tuple.

Step 1. Sit down with an individual and ask him if there is any situation in his life that he recurrently finds himself in that he isn't comfortable but would like to have the choice of enjoying.

Step 2. As he describes the situation reach out and touch his left knee only when he describes the external aspects of the situation. Ask questions about the external context of the situation — what the situation looks, sounds, feels and smells like externally — and anchor them. We will call this situation "1". This process can be notated as:

i,e₁ , V^i,e₁ , K^i,e₁ , O^i,e₁> → ∮₁e₁ , V^e₁ , K^e₁ , O^e₁>

Step 3. Ask the individual to describe something that they enjoy. Anchor only those representations that are indicative of the individual's internal response by placing your hand on their right knee. Ask questions concerning internal dialogues, images, feelings, tones and smells and anchor each respectively. We can show this visually as:

i,e₂ , V^i,e₂ , K^i,e₂ , O^i,e₂> → ∮₂i₂ , Vⁱ₂ , Kⁱ₂ , Oⁱ₂>

Step 4. Simultaneously touch off the anchor for the external representations of the context which is typically unenjoyable and the anchor for the internal response to the situation that is enjoyable. This serves to pair the representations such that the external representations can trigger the enjoyable internal representations. If the individual has recreated the external circumstances closely enough, then when he or she returns to that environment it should also serve to trigger the enjoyable response. This can be shown as:

∮₁+∮₂→ e₁, Aⁱ₂ , V^e₁ , Vⁱ₂ , K^e₁ , Kⁱ₂ , O^e_1,Oⁱ₂>

As an added measure, you may ask the individual to imagine what the experience would be like if he were able to enjoy himself in that situation as you "fire off" the anchors in unison. You may also ask the individual to think of some time in the future when he will encounter this situation and, as you hold both of the anchors, ask him to describe how his experience will change in this instance. This kind of process is called a "future pace", and helps to insure that the response becomes wired to the appropriate stimuli.

NOTE: It is obvious that some of those representations that we have superscripted "e" in our representations of the 4–tuples will actually be internally generated memories at the point in time that you are eliciting them, rather than external events in the individual's ongoing environment. We have used the superscript "e" to establish the difference between what was generated internally and externally in the context or state in question, as that is very important information. Any possible mix–ups may be avoided, of course, by having the individual reproduce the effect of the experience in the ongoing context before you anchor it. For instance, you can ask, "Can you see me as clearly as you saw that other person in the situation you are talking about?"

4.32 Anchoring and Utilization.

Anchoring and accessing cues (you can think of accessing cues, incidentally, as self–established anchors), as we have said, are a means to elicit the appropriate representation or representational system at the appropriate position in the strategy. They offer an often surprisingly powerful means to influence the outcomes of strategies. If, for example, you would like someone to decide in favor of something you can ask him if he has ever made a decision that he was very sure of and that generated positive results for him. As he accesses the experience, ask him how he knew to decide in favor of the proposition (what you are asking for here is what value in the representational system is required for a positive response at the decision point in the strategy). As the person accesses the representation (it may be "Well, I said to myself…", or "I got this flash …", or "It felt right…") anchor it in whatever means is most appropriate for the situation. Later, as you are pacing the person through his decision strategy, fire off the anchor when you get to the decision point in his strategy. This will exert a great deal of influence toward a positive outcome from the strategy. Sometimes, if you get a good anchor, you can simply elicit the appropriate decision value in the person and get the outcome without the having to go through the rest of the strategy.

You can accomplish the same thing through instructions, like, " … as you continue to see that image, take a deep breath and think of a time you felt really good …" Or you can do it indirectly by presenting the content in question and then switching the subject to something that the person enjoys, so that the content you are discussing becomes associated with positive experiences.

Most classical conditioning involves the establishment or overriding of the choice value at the decision point in an animal's or a person's strategy, through external sources. This is an example of using anchoring to influence a strategy. Let's consider a Pavlov's dog example. Let's say our dog has been conditioned to push a lever for food pellets at the sound of a bell. We will hypothesize a strategy that goes:

A^e→Kⁱ→V^e→Vⁱ→K^e→Exit

In this strategy the animal hears the bell (A^e) which anchors the internal kinesthetic sensations of hunger (Kⁱ). This in turn anchors up the next step in the strategy which involves looking at the lever (V^e). The dog then sees internally a replay of itself pushing the lever and receiving food (Vⁱ), and this initiates the action of doing it (K^e). If an experimenter wanted to decondition this program or recondition it to avoidance, he would typically use some negative kinesthetic stimulus like an electric shock. The shock would be administered as the animal is carrying out the strategy so that it overrides the ongoing step in the strategy — let's say as

it is approaching the lever. It continues getting shocked until it assumes some other behavior. Putting in the negative anchor (the shock) will eventually reprogram the strategy so that looking at the lever may access an internal kinesthetic representation of the shock (Kⁱ) instead of the image of pushing the lever. The representation of the shock initiates the new behavior that has been anchored to it. Eventually the strategy may become streamlined to the point that the bell itself anchors the new behavior, without the other steps in the strategy. We will go into the programming and reprogramming of new strategies in the installation section of this book. In this section we are primarily concerned with the utilization of already existing strategies and experiences.

Anchoring during utilization will generally involve establishing triggers for previously occurring motivation, creativity and learning states. At the end of this section we will present a number of content examples of how strategies may be utilized in a variety of different fields, including education, business, therapy and law.

4.33 Covert Anchoring and Pacing.

Because consciousness is a limited phenomenon, there will be times when you are pacing and anchoring an individual or group overtly, within their conscious awareness, and times when you are doing it covertly, outside their span of awareness (and sometimes your own).

In overt utilization the programmer paces by making sure the client is consciously experiencing each step that he and the programmer are going through. The programmer makes them aware of the steps in their strategy and shows them how to utilize the representational sequences to achieve new behaviors.

Covert utilization involves pacing and anchoring which are performed completely or partly outside of the client's conscious attention. This type of situation tends to occur the most often naturally during utilization because it is difficult (and often a hindrance) for an individual to be consciously aware of all of the steps in their strategies — particularly if these steps have reached the level of an unconscious TOTE. Covert pacing and anchoring often lead to the most effective results because the strategy is allowed to remain an unconscious TOTE, where it is able to function more readily and swiftly without conscious interference.

Most covert work will usually take place through the client's least conscious representational system(s). That is, through the sensory channels that the person is least aware of.

Covert anchoring is something that many people have to practice to be comfortable with. Beginners often experience themselves as being "manipulative" when they first start anchoring covertly. This results in breaking their rapport with the client (the client picks up on the programmer's discomfort) and reduces the effectiveness of their work.

A good example of covert anchoring that you may wish to practice can be drawn from a demonstration that we occasionally present in our workshops. In the demonstration a subject is asked to recall a number of instances in which he has forgotten something. For instance, we may ask the following series of questions:

Can you think of a time you forgot someone's name? What was that experience like?

Can you think of what it's like to have something important right on the tip of your tongue but not be able to get it out?

What is it like when you know that you know something but just can't remember what it is?

As we observe the subject's facial expression, skin color, breathing, and tonal and tempo changes as their 4–tuples for "forgetting" come up, one of us will anchor each of them with a clearing of the throat (an A^e anchor to which most people pay no conscious attention). Eventually, the subject is asked to remember something that should be readily available to him — such as his telephone number, his mother's first name, or to repeat what they just finished saying. As soon as the question is asked, however, one of us will clear his throat, triggering the strategy for forgetting. The subject will often experience an unusual and convincing amount of difficulty in the recall task. If one of us keeps clearing his throat, the individual may be unable to recall the information for extended periods of time.

In one workshop one of the authors noticed that a participant had a primarily auditory recall strategy. She was asked to recall a song that she was particularly fond of, which she did easily and readily. The author anchored the song with a finger gesture (subtly moving the finger as if directing an orchestra). Because the woman was tuning in to her internal auditory system her external visual experience was outside her awareness. The woman was then asked what her home address was. She quickly supplied the answer. Immediately after she finished saying her address she was asked to repeat it. This time, however, the author fired off the anchor for the song. For a full thirty seconds the woman could not answer the question — until the music stopped. She was very confused at what caused the difficulty, even though she knew it had something to do with the song. The process was repeated several times for other simple tasks, such as remembering her phone number, children's names, etc., until she was finally made aware of the visual anchor.

Demonstrations like these often bring up the question of the negative aspects of manipulation: an important issue. We, of course, urge you to use your full discretion in using and applying the information we are providing in this book. We want to remind you, however, that these utilizations are influence tactics and do not magically "make" people do things — especially things that they don't want to do. As Milton H. Erickson, M.D., (one of the persons from whom this model was derived) said, "If I could make people do things that they didn't want to do, there would be a lot more well people in this world today."

We suggest you keep in mind that the events and procedures we are describing here are constantly occurring all the time in our everyday lives. Most people just aren't aware of them. An excellent example of this can be seen in a film about Carl Rogers, a man who epitomizes non–manipulative, client–centered therapy. In one portion of the film Rogers is "feeding back" to the client a statement that she made of a conflict she was having (we will refer to the two aspects of the conflict as X and Y). Paraphrased, the interaction goes something like this:

Rogers: I understand you have this choice X (gestures with left hand) … and you have this choice Y (gestures with right hand) … Now I don't know which one (gestures with left hand) you will choose, but I'm sure it will be the one (gestures with left hand) that is best for you… .

The client, not surprisingly, decided to go for choice X (anchored by the gesture with the left hand). Certainly, though, Rogers had no conscious intention of influencing the client's decision in that way. Perhaps at an unconscious level he chose which way would have been best for himself, a choice revealed by his hand gestures. Both Rogers and the client were so tuned to the auditory external (and probably kinesthetic internal) portions of the ongoing communication that neither of them were conscious of the subtle gestures picked up through the external visual system.

It is not possible to prevent these kinds of subtle anchors, nor would it be useful as the more powerful channels of communication are those nonverbal channels which lie outside of awareness. If you consciously attempt to avoid anchoring with your hand gestures and words, you may begin to anchor instead with your breathing, tonality or facial expression at the unconscious level. If you pay attention to these variables in an attempt to stop them, you will lose track of others that will communicate your unconscious decisions. It is better that these subtleties be brought out in the open than to remain hidden in such a way that people become victims of their own (and others') unconscious processes. You cannot not influence someone.

4.34 Requisite Variety

In cybernetics there is a principle known as the law of requisite variety. This law states that in any connected interactive system, the element that has the widest range of variability in behavior will be, ultimately, the controlling element.[23] No matter what field you are in, you will probably have come to the realization that the top people in that field are those who have the most variety in their behavior, those who have choices of behavior that their colleagues don't have. Any time you limit yourself with regard to some choice of behavior, you are working against yourself and letting others get the competitive edge. The objective of NLP is to provide the human species with more behavioral choices. We believe that the more choices and possibilities the members of our species become aware of and make available to themselves, the more we will advance as a whole.

The greater your ability to respond to any situation in a variety of ways, the more effective you will be at utilization and at getting the outcomes you want.

4.4 Ideas and Examples: Areas of Application for Strategy Utilization

In the following subsections we will show how the material discussed thus far in this book may be applied to different fields to expand the possibilities for their growth and development. Obviously the examples we have selected represent particular options for utilization that could be expanded upon or reorganized in a variety of ways. By applying your own strategy for creativity when you go back through this book to review and outline procedures useful in your field, you will obtain a unique pattern specifically oriented for your own purposes of strategy utilization.

4.41 Education

The field of education is an obvious place to start, as the establishment of synesthesia patterns, strategies and anchors is precisely what the process of learning is about, not only in the classroom but in interactions among teachers themselves, between teachers and parents, teachers, administrators and school board members, district school officials and personnel in each state office of education, and so on, up to and including interactions with the Department of Health, Education and Welfare at the federal level. Learning is a lifelong process, and although we will concentrate on classroom learning in this subsection, you can easily apply your imagination to the enormously positive potential inherent in using NLP in exchanging and enhancing teaching strategies, troubleshooting personnel problems, settling salary negotiations, harmonizing with parents and parent organizations and so forth.

For teachers, one important application of strategy utilization is to pace students' learning strategies in the classroom. By identifying the steps through which a student naturally incorporates new information and behavior, and by presenting the material to be taught in that form, teachers can greatly facilitate the learning process. Through adapting information to the representational systems with which a student is most adept, a teacher utilizes the student's natural skills and resources most effectively, whether at the kindergarten or college level.

For example, an electrical engineer in one of our workshops, who primarily used internal kinesthetics in his strategies, described how learning to read electrical schematics was at first very difficult and boring for him. He had a hard time making sense out of the mass of lines and symbols he saw in his textbook. He couldn't "connect" with them and found circuits extremely difficult to interpret until one day he began to imagine what it would feel like to be an electron floating through the circuit he saw diagrammed in front of him. He would imagine his various reactions and changes in behavior as he came in contact with the various components in the circuit, symbolized by visual characters on the schematic. The diagrams immediately began to make more sense to him and even became fun to figure out and to design. Each schematic presented him with a new odyssey. It was so enjoyable, in fact, that he remained with electronics and went on to become an engineer — all because he found a way to utilize his strategy effectively in the learning process.

In our experience, "good" teachers use the process of pacing intuitively. Teaching is much more difficult if you have to constantly fight your students' models of the world to "reach" them.

A remarkably astute understanding of strategies was shown by a teacher in one of our workshops who had taught special education classes for several years. In her algebra class for slow and handicapped students, a large and muscular black student was having a very rough time working any of the problems on the board or on paper. (Remember that the athletic muscular — or mesomorphic — body type is indicative of a person with primarily tactile kinesthetic (K^e) strategies.) Another member of the class was blind — so all of the material presented in the class was also available in braille and raised surface diagrams. As a project, the teacher had the "slow" black student learn to read braille (K§). Not so surprisingly the student's ability to pick up algebra using the braille and raised surface material was many times more rapid than when he attempted to do it visually. The braille paced his natural abilities and strategies with his tactile system (we have often suggested the use of braille and raised surfaces for sighted but kinesthetically oriented persons when we have consulted for special education groups).

Generally, kinesthetically oriented students have a difficult time in the classroom. Feelings, especially those from external sources, don't lend themselves well to what we call "academic" subject areas. One of the classic stereotypes in education is that of the athlete who has a difficult time in the visual and auditory world of

lectures, blackboards and books; and likewise the thin, tense "A" student who has difficulty in the kinesthetic world of athletics. Written tests and the classroom environment are visually and auditorily oriented. In our experience many young people who have been labeled "slow," "handicapped" or "disabled" in this context are far from "stupid" — they simply have different strategies for learning that are not utilized by present techniques of education.

In most cases K^e individuals end up in manual or mechanical occupations like construction, farming or gardening, athletics, assembly line work, auto repair and other jobs where they can utilize their kinesthetic skills.

The teacher mentioned in the preceding example also pointed out that many of her students (most of whom were black) had elaborate "tapping" systems for doing arithmetical operations like addition and multiplication, in which they would perform and keep track of their calculations by tapping their fingers on their thighs or desks (A^e_t→K^e), a process resembling the use of the abacus. When the students were forced to do problems without tapping in this way they were unable to get the correct answers.

It has been our experience that one distinguishing characteristic of black culture is an orientation toward auditory external (A^e) and kinesthetic external strategies and attributes. This would account for many of the difficulties experienced by Blacks in educational institutions established and controlled by white western cultures.

People with efficient auditory strategies often have difficulty writing. In fact many of you readers may notice that your writing style and strategy are very different from the way you talk. Both involve externalizing internal experience in a digital form, but speaking and listening are different from writing and looking. One method that we often suggest to people who get blocked easily while writing is to dictate their work first, or to tape record discussions with friends. This can help overcome any inertia that they have toward writing in that they can always begin the process of writing by transcribing the recorded material. In essence they would be employing a strategy that goes from A^e to V^e. The inverse of this strategy for people who have difficulty speaking is, of course, to write or take notes on their material before they present it orally.

In many contexts it will be difficult to pace the strategies of each individual — especially in large group situations where time is limited. When addressing groups it is important to gear your presentation to include the three major representational systems. Make sure you can present your ideas through each representational system, so that people can hear it, see it and get a feel for it. Being able to communicate your material through each of these different systems is what we referred to as "redundancy" earlier. It greatly decreases chances of miscommunication as well as assuring that you are presenting the material in a representational form that will pace, at some point, everyone in your audience. Lectures and discussions (A^e), demonstrations, diagrams, written outlines and other visual aids (V^e), and experiential exercises and examples that involve audience participation (K^e), tend to make the most well rounded presentational format. Using anecdotes, questions, examples and directive vocabulary (involving sensory specific predicates) that require an individual to access internal experiences in all of his systems will help to insure that you reach all of the members of your class or audience.

Organizing students into various study groups of different orientations, groups that pace different learning strategies, can accelerate group learning processes. One group with an emphasis on discussion, another using experiential exercises, and another concentrating on observation, would be one way of doing this on a general scale.

4.411 Anchoring and Reinforcement in Education.

Anchoring is important in the learning process. The establishment of bad anchors and negative feedback loops is one of the major problems within institutionalized education. For many students tests become anchors for stress or anxiety, and if these are not utilized positively in recall or creativity strategies, then chances are they will inhibit test performance. Because many people are unable to access their resource strategies in this context tests are not a meaningful indicator of how much they have learned. Teachers who use group relaxation exercises before tests or who establish a group resource anchor that can be fired off at the beginning of the test find that test scores improve for many students.

By pairing learning situations with positive 4–tuples (by incorporating jokes and anecdotes, for instance) teachers can strategically program learning to be a positive experience.

In the example given earlier in this section, the teacher who had her slow student learn braille bypassed any negative anchors that he may have associated with learning algebra visually. For some learners simply sitting in a classroom or looking at a blackboard is an automatic negative anchor. We have known people with excellent strategies for mathematics who, when presented with a "word problem" as opposed to an equation, don't access their most effective strategy, because they process problems in word form with a different strategy.

A person in one of our workshops had taken beginning French a total of five times over a number of years, failing the tests each time. He was not a poor student and did well in his other classes. He kept taking French because he needed a foreign language to graduate, and he figured that surely, because he had taken it so many times before, he would eventually pass the class. Besides, his ability to use it outside the classroom kept improving, and certainly this was an indicator that he was learning. Utilizing the process of transderivational search, we discovered that at the beginning of each of his tests, when he was handed the test sheet, an extremely negative 4–tuple would be anchored up, a memory of his first French teacher, whom he despised. This would, of course, short circuit his strategies for recall. As he grew anxious at the thought of failing the test again, the two negative experiences would form a two point loop, each anchoring the other. The effect snowballed such that he could not adequately complete the test. Because this had happened at every test, it also became a self–fulfilling prophecy. Every time he studied for or took a French test an internal dialogue would be triggered that said something like, "Oh no, what if I fail this test … I probably will". Because this kind of dialogue and his negative feelings were solidly anchored to the test context he was continually blocked from accessing his usually effective resource strategy.

His condition was resolved by integrating the negative 4–tuple and the dialogue with other resource experiences, and by giving him a well conditioned anchor for relaxation and for eliciting his recall strategy.

4.412 Polarity Strategies and Negative Motivation Strategies in Learning.

Negative kinesthetic experiences are not always a block to learning or to accessing resources. Many people access their resources only when the situation makes them grow stressful or anxious. Some become motivated by harsh auditory commands and hard looks. There are students who put off an assignment until they say to themselves, "I'll never be able to do this on time now," to which they immediately have a polarity response and do the assignment easily and well.

People who operate best under pressure may have a difficult time operating where there is no pressure (or "challenge"), because the situation does not access the representations that trigger their most effective resource strategies.

These strategies are not limited, of course, to people in the context of education but occur in many other contexts and tasks. Very often people who have negative motivation or polarity strategies have a high tension level and may end up with stress related physical ailments common in this culture. We will discuss these strategies and how to deal with them in more detail in the Design Section of this book.

4.413 Feedback

It will be important for anyone involved in the process of teaching to tune their sensory channels to pick up feedback from students. Non–verbal cues like head nods, breathing changes and other systematic minor body movements will indicate which people are following the presentation and when. Observing eye movements, tonal shifts and other easily available accessing cues will let you know which systems and strategies students are using.

The typical written test is only one way of getting feedback for how much students are picking up (though probably the most common). It is also, as we have shown previously, limited in both the kind and reliability of the feedback it gives. For example, it reveals nothing about the strategy a student is employing (excepting, in some cases, to an NLP trained teacher, depending on the type of written test). Many students who take foreign language courses are able to pass written exams with A's or B's but learn little of the spoken language. One important task of education is for students to learn to achieve the designated outcomes of learning assignments. Too often what happens is that written test performance becomes the primary measuring process and outcome of the educational institution.

Setting up tests that provide useful, accurate feedback is crucial to the educational process. To do this educators must decide what kind of outcome to test for. One of the initial distinctions in outcomes to make is whether (1) you have a specific set of contents you must teach — that is, do you have to teach X number of people N amount of information or (2) you want to teach learning skills specifically targeted for the subject matter of your courses. In the first case you will want to pace and utilize your students' existing learning strategies and feed in the content you want to teach. In the second case you will want to install in your students the strategy most appropriate for the task or behavior in question. There is a wise saying which states that "If you give a man fish you have fed him for a day, but if you teach him how to fish you have fed him for the rest of his life." NLP provides the technology with which to make this generative how process explicit.

The distinction we are making is that between Learning I and Learning II (learning to learn). In his essay "The Logical Categories of Learning and Communication," Gregory Bateson discusses and defines the differences between types of learning:

"Zero learning is characterized by a specificity of response, which— right or wrong — is not subject to correction.

Learning I is change in specificity of response by correction of errors of choice within a set of alternatives.

Learning II is change in the process of Learning I, e.g., a corrective change in the set of alternatives from which choice is made, or it is a change in how the sequence of experience is punctuated."

The example Bateson gives of the two processes at work is the following:

"… you can reinforce a rat (positively or negatively) when he investigates a particular strange object, and he will appropriately learn to approach it or avoid it. But the very purpose of the exploration is to get information about which objects should be approached or avoided. The discovery that a given object is dangerous is therefore a success in the business of getting information. The success will not discourage the rat from future exploration of strange objects."

Finding out which objects to avoid is the content of the process at the level of Learning I. It is essentially the procedure of establishing anchors and making connections appropriate to the achievement of an outcome. In this case an animal or person "learns" when a stimulus anchors a particular behavioral response or program (going when the light turns green, or learning multiplication tables, for example).

The strategy for discovery (the process of exploration) employed by the rat comes from a different level of learning. Learning II is establishing or changing the strategy by which you are gathering information and establishing the anchors and connections through which you achieve outcomes. This kind of learning would involve changes in representational systems and sequences. The rat, for instance, may explore visually, by looking at objects; olfactorily, by sniffing at them; auditorily, by listening to them; or kinesthetically by touching them with its nose. The rat may also sequence these modes of exploration. It may be to the rat's benefit, in some situations, to look at and sniff an object before touching it with its nose. How the rat establishes these patterns takes place through a different process from that of Learning I.

A chemistry professor may be "good" at chemistry, in terms of knowing the formulas, when and how to apply them and what will result, but may have had a difficult time learning it when he was in school. In other words, he knows the content very well (successful Learning I) but has a poor strategy for learning to learn it (Learning II). This person may, of course, have had very effective strategies for motivation and tenacity, but if your outcome is to teach people to learn chemistry easily and efficiently you will not want to install this professor's strategy for learning. Instead you would want to elicit and install the strategy of someone who is able to pick up and be creative with the content of chemistry very quickly and smoothly (like presumably Linus Pauling, for instance), or design one that is more suited to that outcome.

Most educators, as we pointed out earlier, are unaware of strategies and either don't teach them at all or else they unconsciously reinforce for their own strategies, which may not be the best suited for the material they are working with. An elementary school teacher may have a great strategy for dealing with children, but a poor spelling or reading strategy.

It will be very important, then, when you design tests to gather feedback from students to make this distinction in what to test for. The process of designing, installing and testing new strategies will be covered in the remaining two sections of this book.

4.42 Business and Organizational Development.

There are many aspects of business and organizational interactions that we could consider, and we will single out specific areas as we go through this section. But there will be general applications of NLP elicitation and utilization procedures for this field that hold for all situations in which communication between human beings is involved, which we can generalize across all of these aspects.

The most important resources of any business are the people that make it run. Being able to organize and deal with people effectively is the principal task of almost every executive, supervisor, manager and administrator, no matter what kind of business is involved. There are four essential steps in doing this successfully:

A. Rapport

Establishing rapport with the individuals you work with will pay off by greatly cutting down unnecessary resistance to the job you are trying to get done. Your approach with each individual will powerfully influence the course of the interaction. By pacing the person's strategies and other behavior, picking up his vocabulary, mirroring and feeding back his voice tonality and tempo, facial expressions, posture and gestures, it will be possible for you to establish a rapid and worthwhile rapport.

Investing the necessary time to establish positive anchors and resource anchors at the beginning of a communication interchange can profitably assist in speeding up progress toward the desired net outcome of the interaction.

B. Information Gathering

Knowing what information you need and how to get it will greatly assist you in getting things accomplished rapidly and successfully. Grounding this information as much as possible in specific sensory based language (that is, so that it is in terms of things that everybody can explicitly see, hear, feel and smell) will be well worth the effort in streamlining any plan, procedure, negotiation or operation. By using the meta–model, paying attention to nonverbal cues, organizing your information gathering tactics in terms of the three–point process and putting emphasis on form and process, you will quickly pinpoint what changes are required to eliminate costly or time–consuming problems as you discover what strategies are required to open profitable and dynamic new possibilities of action. The minimal information to be gathered for any decision making, problem solving, change or transition process to be properly engineered would consist of:

What do you want? (Desired/outcome state.)

What is happening now? (Present state.)

What stops you from getting what you want? (Problem state.)

What do you need in order to get what you want? (Resources.)

How would you know if you were moving adequately toward your goal? (Feedback.)

Have you ever got it before? What did you do then? (Resources.)

These are purely process questions. You will want to get other evaluative (meta) information at some point as well (i.e. a cost benefit analysis), such as: What will it cost? What is it worth? Do I (we) have the resources?

Pacing, described in the step on rapport, is a quick and efficient way of gathering information. Pacing gives you rapid access to information about the model of the world and the strategies of those you are working with. By simply feeding back an individual's behavior you will actually begin to pick up naturally many of the details of their strategies and operations.

C. Delivery/Presentation

By packaging the delivery and presentation of your ideas and suggestions in a way that is consistent and congruent with the strategies and models of the people you are dealing with, you will make those ideas maximally acceptable to them. In presenting several alternatives you may choose to package only the alternative you identify as most beneficial to you and your client in the form which matches their unconscious strategies. By so doing, you exert a powerful influence on the decision. In either case these tools achieve their effectiveness by using information about the patterns of personal organization which lie outside the conscious appreciation of the person being addressed.

D. Feedback

It is always necessary to get feedback on how your communications are affecting the individual or group you are dealing with. One of the basic presuppositions of NLP is that the response you get from the person or group you are communicating with is the meaning of your communication, regardless of what you intend the meaning to be. That is, people may not interpret your communication in the way you intended; but it is up to you to observe what response your communication is eliciting from them and to respond appropriately — i.e., to vary your behavior until your intended meaning is conveyed to the other party. Feedback lets you know when and to what degree what you are doing is working; when to continue what you are doing and when to change your behavior. Your ability to make refined sensory distinctions will be an invaluable and time saving resource for you with this process.

4.421 NLP in Sales

In the area of effective sales work, we begin with the assumption that sales personnel are trained to qualify their customers. By qualifying their customers or clients, we mean that the sales representative is committed to offering their company's product or service only to clients who would actually benefit from such a product or service. To fail to match the product or service to each unique customer is to run the risk of buyer's remorse. Most new business is the result of word of mouth referrals by satisfied customers.

The tools we offer here are powerful enough to sell without qualifying clients. Thus the step of qualifying customers becomes even more important as a safeguard for both the customer/client and the business involved.

Let's consider an example of how NLP principles could be applied in the area of sales. Let us suppose that a salesperson from Superior Electronics (SP in the following dialogue) has previously laid the groundwork for a sales meeting with the purchasing agent (PA) for ZX Computer Corporation by thoroughly researching what kinds of computers ZX sells, how well they are performing and selling and by leaving a sample power semiconductor with ZX's Engineering Division to be tested and "qualified." That is, SP has accomplished his information gathering and knows his product meets ZX's performance specifications before he walks into the meeting.

SP: Good morning, Mr. Edwards. I'm George Smith with Superior Electronics.

PA: Oh yes, I remember talking to you on the phone. (After handshake, sits, leans back in chair, crosses left leg over right, points to chair beside his desk.)

SP: (Sits, mirrors PA's voice tonality and portions of his posture unobtrusively.) Mr. Kurtz in your Engineering Division tells me your ZX–12 personal computers are really moving along in sales.

PA: (Smiling.) We've picked up a big chunk of the market in the past two years. We're certainly pleased with the customer response the ZX–12 is getting.

SP: (Pacing PA's tonality and posture more strongly.) Are you satisfied with its power supply performance?

PA: Oh yes … We've used a lot of Solitar products in getting off the ground, but … (Looks down and right) we're interested in staying in contact with what's available in terms of quality and price.

SP: Your feeling is that you'd be interested in system components that would add to the sales momentum you've established for the ZX–12?

PA: Yes … That's right.

SP: (Tests establishment of rapport by shifting to slightly new posture. PA follows, indicating that rapport has been established. SP then begins to gather information about PA's buying strategy.) Do you think you made a good decision buying your initial components from Solitar?

PA: Yes … considering our marketing options at the time.

SP: What made you decide to buy from Solitar?

PA: (Eyes move up and left.) Well … as I said … Solitar looked good to us from our perspective at the time. We knew we could be comfortable with their overall price package and still get a foot in the market door with a moderately priced personal computer.

SP: Solitar components looked like they would fit the bill when you were just starting out with the ZX–12… . PA: That's right … Of course, that was before we'd established the marketing advantage we have now.. .. (Eyes move down and left, then shift to down and right.)

SP: (Picking up on kinesthetic accessing cue.) How did you feel about that?

PA: (Eyes remaining down and right.) Oh, I felt it was obviously the best move for the company at the time … so I approved that buying decision. (SP covertly anchors the decision point visually by lifting his eyebrow and making a hand gesture. SP now postulates that PA's buying strategy goes V^e→V^c→Aⁱ_d→Kⁱ→EXIT. That is, PA will look at SP's sales package proposal, construct an image of how SP's power semiconductors would fit into the ZX–12's competitive market situation, talk to himself about it, then get an internal feeling from his internal dialogue. SP then tests this postulate by asking about another buying experience.)

SP: The housing units that make the ZX–12 look so good — those are made by Zuniga aren't they?

PA: (Smiles.) Yes, they are. Our engineers designed them, and Zuniga manufactures them to our specifications. Zuniga's a good outfit.

SP: (Returns the smile.) They sure are. How did you decide to go with Zuniga?

PA: Well … (Smiles and shakes head) … as soon as we saw samples of the housing units they were making for Tricon portable TVs, I pictured how impressive the ZX–12 would look wrapped up in a package like that, and I just said to myself, "Zuniga's the right outfit to bring that off for us …" and I felt so strongly about that feature that I could hardly wait to get our engineering people working on design specs! (PA's eyes begin up and right, shift down and left, then down and right — confirmingng SP's postulate of PA's buying strategy. SP again anchors the decision point by lifting an eyebrow and making the same hand gesture as before.)

SP: (Opening his briefcase to begin his own presentation.) I'm sure that we can offer you an excellent price/quality package on power semiconductors for the ZX–12 power supply unit. (Lays out display material on PA's desk.) As you can see, these semiconductors outperform Solitar's. You might imagine how this component will lower your warranty repair and replacement costs and give you that extra edge on customer confidence, and you can say to yourself that the package is just right for ZX because … (lists features and benefits). It's a good solid feeling to know that with a more reliable power supply unit, using our semiconductors, you can push the ZX–12 marketing strategy to really build on what you've already accomplished. (As SP speaks, he paces the tonality and gestures that PA used while describing his strategy earlier and fires off anchors for the decision point by raising his eyebrow and gesturing with his hand.)

The salesperson has paced the buying strategy elicited from the customer in casual conversation. By packaging his presentation so that it paces the customer's natural decision making processes, it is much easier for the salesman to communicate the value of whatever product or service he is marketing. Because the presentation matches, step for step, the sequence that the customer naturally uses to gather, process and act on his experience, it is much more likely to fit the customer's needs, wants and expectations. Equally as important, it is much less likely to bring up objections or resistance. For those customers who have polarity steps in their strategy, though, objections will be an extremely important part of the pace. Salespersons should intuitively recognize this kind of strategy — where it is important that you actually try to discourage the customer from buying in order to make them want to buy. Some customers will also want to play devil's advocate and raise a number of objections before they are willing to buy.

If you make sure the person goes through each step and satisfies all of the tests within his strategy or TOTE for buying, the product will approach irresistability to the customer, regardless of what that product is.

This same procedure, of course, could be employed equally well by a sales executive attempting to convince the five members of the board of directors to buy a training package, organizational development package, or sales package, etc. The sales executive would want to gather information like "Have you bought a program like this before?" "Were you satisfied with it?" If not, "Did you think you were going to be?" "How did you make that decision?" As the group responds to these questions you will be able to gather information about how they make a decision as a group (in order to answer the questions they will make a decision about how they make decisions) and about how they make decisions individually. It is very helpful, when possible, to question each member of a group individually as well as observing the group function as a whole, because your presentation to each one is going to be different. Once you have identified the strategies of each person you mark out the portions of your overall presentation to him nonverbally through eye contact or by pacing his individual tonality, etc. (The amount of information you can gather on the strategies of the individuals and the group will depend on the amount of time you can spend and the degree of rapport you have with the group members.)

Consider the example of a woman sales executive, (S), who, by asking a few short questions and by observing the predicates and eye movements of the group members as they respond, determines that of the group of five (A,B,C,D and E) A and B have a decision point in their strategy that is primarily based on visual information; C has a decision point primarily based on auditory digital information; and D and E have decision points primarily based on internal kinesthetic information. S could structure her presentation as follows:

S: (Begins by marking out A and B by looking back and forth at them as she speaks, and by assuming the somewhat tense and nasal tonal qualities of A, and by gesturing unobtrusively toward each of them with her hands and fingers as she speaks.) I think that if you really look closely at the situation we've been discussing you will see that there is a clear need for this program … (S continues talking, using primarily visual predicates and descriptions, and also brings out visual aids and diagrams) … (S then changes her tonality to match the even tempoed and controlled voice of C, and shifts her eye contact to C) And I think it's very important to listen to what other people in this organization are saying. One of the first things that I had to ask myself was, "What does this situation have to say about where we are going as an organization?" … And I suddenly remembered what the president had once said about… (S continues talking, recoding what she has just essentially communicated to A & B substituting auditory predicates and examples.) … (S then begins to make eye contact with D and E and lowers her voice to match that of E) It's a great feeling to know that you've got a practical and solid program design (looks at D) and that you're able to stay in touch and flow with the feelings of the majority of your employees … (S continues, recoding what she has already said to A,B & C, substituting kinesthetic predicates and expressions.)

What she does, then, in this relatively simple and generalized example, is to present the same content recoded into the language of each of the three major representational systems. She marks out and directs the appropriate coding to the person with that strategy and paces each person she addresses, even though at the same time she is maintaining the structure of a group presentation. S will use any feedback she receives to direct and amplify the strength of her presentation. If E (whose decision point was discerned as kinesthetically oriented) should begin to look up and left consistently and begin to shake his head slightly as S is speaking to him with kinesthetic predicates, she would know that she had lost rapport and would immediately begin to switch her presentation to pace him.

If she'd had time to elicit the full decision strategy from each of the group members her task would be slightly more complex, as she would, for maximum impact, want to pace the entire representational sequence that each member cycled through during their decision processes.

Those readers familiar with group decision making will recognize that such complexity would rarely be required. Rather the more typical group will have developed (unconsciously) some group level strategy where the various functions are distributed among its members. For example, one group member will be extremely active in questioning the factual basis of the presentation, while another will make comparisons with alternative products or services. Frequently, the group will have the decision point function assigned to a single group member. When that member's tests are satisfied, the group has decided. The individual who has sharpened his sensory acuity will recognize the signals and package for the sequence specified by the group strategy with special attention to the individual decision strategy of the member who serves as decision point and exit.

One of the major obstacles to success for many salespeople is the lack of what we have called requisite variety — that is, the ability to vary their behavior in response to feedback from different kinds of customers. Many salespeople present only one particular form of packaging that will pace some percentage of the population but will be ineffectual with the rest. They rely on volume coverage rather than repackaging their communications to pace each individual appropriately. High pressure tactics will pay off with some people but not with others. Any particular existing sales technique will work — but only for a limited percentage of the market population. One effective use of NLP for sales would be to determine which of the existing techniques, that work well, paces which class of representational strategies. The salespersons may then adjust their behavior to access the most effective approach for each buyer's strategy so that statistically they will succeed with a larger percentage of customers. Hence, any particular technique will continue to succeed where it has been succeeding, but you will know exactly which kind of people to expand with. After a period of time, since there will not be that many different categories of buying strategies, the salesperson will know the moment someone walks in the door which category he falls into and which tactic to use.

4.422 Implications of NLP for Advertising.

Advertising agencies and personnel have utilized the pacing of strategies since advertising began (although they probably never thought of it that way). Consider the following example of an advertisement, paraphrased almost word for word from a popular magazine:

"When I shop I like to ask a lot of questions. That way I can feel sure that I've seen all of the options, and am really making the best choice. Product X has the best quality I've seen …"

The strategy of the person making this statement is obviously

The strategy is essentially one for information gathering in which the person asks questions, and is shown samples of the product, which are then evaluated kinesthetically with respect to the sample size required for the person's decision strategy. This ad would, of course, pace to some degree anyone who shared a similar strategy. The ad also contained a photograph of the person allegedly making the statement — dressed in stylishly modern clothes. Such a picture might also serve to pace the image a person has of themselves, or an image they aspire to achieve.

A statement which would pace a different shopping strategy might go something like:

"I don't like to feel pressured when I'm shopping. When I see someone really coming on with all that phony show, I just keep telling myself, "Who needs it?" and get out of there as fast as possible. The people at company X have never tried to put on any glitter. It's a good feeling to see people that really care. I can say from the bottom of my heart, "They know how to treat their customers …"

This statement would pace a strategy that went:

In this strategy the person derives feelings from what they see and then makes a verbal evaluation which leads directly to the outcome.

One effective approach in advertising, since there are different buying strategies, is to discover the most general or pervasive classes of strategies and create an advertisement pacing each one.

Most successful advertising involves all of the representational systems in the 4–tuple, generally placing an emphasis on one or two—depending upon the nature of the product. The essential desired outcome of any product advertising is to establish overt and/or covert anchors linking the product to positive 4–tuples and to the motivation and buying strategies of consumers, such that anchors will be triggered when prospective buyers enter a context in which that product is sold. For this reason it is important to include visual or auditory cues in the advertisement that will also be present in the buying environment. Audience participation in the advertisement (the involvement of the viewer/listener), such as showing what the observer will see through his or her own eyes, or hear on the scene, establish effective anchors associated with the product and its market environment.

Another important step often left out of advertising is that of telling the customer what to do to buy the product — giving him explicit directions about where to go and how to buy.

Tailoring your vocabulary to the culturally established dialect or idioms of the target population of your advertisement is another very effective and often amusing means of pacing that may be employed by sales and advertising personnel. One of the authors, for example, was recently consulting for a floral brokerage. The primary marketing targets of this company were florists, whose very job demands sensory refinements (olfactory) not common in the general population. One of the recommendations made to them, as a means to help their sales department branch out to new areas, was to mix in an assortment of floral idioms and terms, and olfactory predicates, into their advertising and sales arrangements. This would provide an enjoyable way to pace customers, to keep rapport from wilting and to insure healthy growth. It would also provide a fresh, fertile and satisfying environment for the creativity of sales personnel to blossom and even help morale to grow. A sample list of floral terms easily transplanted into everyday speech could include:

smell, process, wilt, moist, assortment, mix, bloom, shrivel, light, fertile, sort, blossom, rot, petal, fresh, transplant, arrange, fade, root, firm, grow, stem, fragrant, arrangement, texture, budding, branch, bouquet, nip in the bud

Specialized vocabularies like this, that provide overlap into everyday speech, are available in most businesses and fields and can provide extremely useful and powerful advantages in communication.

4.423 Recruiting and Selection.

Neurolinguistic programming is a valuable and practical asset to those involved in the recruiting, selection or training of personnel. It should be obvious intuitively that the strategies that make a good sales executive will be different from those which make a good personnel manager or engineer. For anyone involved in the recruiting or selection process there are basically two choices available:

1) If you already have within your organization a person who is naturally skilled at the job you are recruiting for (that is, if the person already has the necessary strategies) and you want find someone else to recapitulate this person's behavior, elicit the strategies of the person who is naturally good at the job and record them. Once you have recorded the person's strategies for decision making, motivation, learning, creativity, etc., conduct a series of interviews in which you elicit the natural strategies of the applicants. You will want to choose, of course, the applicant whose natural strategies most closely match those of the employee you have chosen to model.

2) After you have elicited and recorded the strategies of the person who is naturally skilled at the job you are recruiting for, you can choose to install those strategies in an existing employee or applicant (installation will be discussed in detail in the last section of this book).

You can also recruit an individual with three out of four of the necessary strategies and then install the fourth. Depending on the nature of the task, and your available time, you may find it more profitable to opt for one or the other of these choices. If the task is not highly technical and doesn't involve a great number of sophisticated strategies, it will be easier to recruit people. If the task is technical and sophisticated, there will be less likelihood that you will find someone who already has the necessary strategies, and it will be easier to install the strategies in someone who most closely approximates the job requirements.

If you don't already have a highly qualified person in your organization who can be modeled for your selection process, you can always locate someone who is skilled in another company or organization and model their strategies. Rather than trying to "steal" or "buy" that employee, you can take him out to lunch or engage him in a social setting to covertly elicit their strategies and record them for later installation in somebody else.

You may choose to implement career development or employee development programs designed to develop representational systems or strategies in existing employees. We have successfully implemented several human resource development packages designed around this simple principle. Such programs help to encourage and fortify natural abilities in employees and to develop those who are deficient.

4.43 Medical and Health Professions.

Many studies in recent years have shown that a suprisingly high percentage of modern illnesses have stress related causes. A significant percentage of heart and circulatory problems, ulcers, arthritis, migrane headaches, eye problems and other physical symptoms have been shown to be directly related to stress, a natural outcome of many people's existing strategies. Stress can be very functional (it is not inherently "bad") as a motivator and as a test mechanism.

For us "mind" (neurological processes) and "body" (the machinery governed by these neurological processes) are an interconnected part of the same biological system. Strategies are not merely cognitive activities within our representational systems. Our representational systems interface with other neural systems such that the neurological outcomes of our strategies affect our motor responses, respiration, autonomic control of glandular secretions, body chemistry, heart and blood pressure, metabolism and even the immunity system. The neural activity in one part of our biological system can't not have some effect on the rest of the system.

Neurolinguistic programming is a powerful resource for preventive medicine and in the treatment of psychosomatic illness. Psychosomatic illnesses are, by definition, not "all in the mind," but are the result of real interactions between biological systems.

By changing the way people guide and organize their behavior neurologically, through their strategies, (which involves changes in accessing cues and outcomes) people reorganize themselves physiologically. In our therapeutic work we have encountered instances, time and again, in which people we have been working with have had physical symptoms improve, clear up or go into remission when they have changed an old strategy, installed a new one, or utilized a forgotten resource strategy. Symptoms have ranged from minor colds, coughs, infections and warts to arthritis, nearsightedness, tumors and cancer.

Psychological attitude has long been recognized in the medical and health professions as a contributor to the ease and speed with which someone is able to recover. With NLP we are dealing with processes more encompassing and profound than simply attitude. Using NLP we have helped people to interrupt strategies that were contributing to the ailment and to design and implement strategies used to control and regulate major aspects of their physiological ailments. We have found (not surprisingly) that people who have similar strategies are prone to similar illnesses, and that one can predict the kinds of sicknesses a person with a certain set of strategies is most likely to get.

One effective tactic is to find an individual who has been able to recover easily and rapidly from a particular illness and model his strategies (for motivation, self feedback, etc.) Then teach these strategies or install them in others with the same sickness. In our workshops we sometimes conduct an exercise in which people who have completely recovered from former chronic ailments such as allergies or poor eyesight are paired up with individuals confronted with the same problem the others used to have. The task for the person who would like to get over his allergies, headaches, nearsightedness, etc., is to elicit the strategy that his partner has used. Once this is accomplished, it is his partner's task to help him install the strategy he have just elicited. (Installation procedures will be discussed fully in the final chapter of this book.) We have had many startling successes with this exercise.

We are in no way, of course, trying to discourage people from seeking proper medical assistance for physical ailments. What we are trying to communicate is that surgery, medication and other forms of chemotherapy, treat physiology directly and may fail to utilize fully the potential effectiveness of self regulation or control, or other avenues of symptom treatment. The cause for many physical symptoms can be traced to behavioral patterns and can be alleviated through alterations in behavior. The advent of biofeedback has produced abundant evidence that people can control autonomic physiological processes to a much greater degree than was believed possible a few years ago. There are many areas where culturally and institutionally accepted limitations can be successfully and usefully challenged. The primary goal of NLP is, as we stated in the introduction, to continue the evolutionary process of challenging limitations and to move more and more parameters of our experience from environmental variables (those outside our control) to decision variables (those within our personal control). When given the choice we would always opt for the avenue of treatment emphasizing internal personal control over those involving external factors outside of our control.

Innumerable accounts of the placebo effect seem to indicate that there are classes of symptoms and pathological processes that people may be able to cure on their own, without the use of active drugs.

Certainly, much can be done behaviorally to prevent illness. The development and installation of strategies that encourage finer discriminations in, and a larger vocabulary for, proprioceptive feedback (this will come through Kⁱ, and synesthetically through internal representations in the other systems) can assist in gaining more direct access to forms of self examination and regulation.

Pacing motivation and learning strategies can be used effectively to encourage and promote good health habits. In fact, health professionals could utilize the same tactics described in the advertising section of this book to promote health care plans and preventive programs.

4.431 Informed Consent and Bedside Manner.

As with any profession, there will be a division of labor in the medical field with respect to strategies — that is, some strategies will be more suited to certain tasks than to others. There will be a difference between a strategy for diagnosis and one for surgery. A good diagnostician may have a strategy designed for gathering information concerning symptoms from the patient, and then internally checking through lists of symptoms and textbook pages until he begins to find similarities or patterns between the recorded symptoms of other patients and the one he is confronted with. Such a person may do well as a medical school professor but poorly as a general practitioner because his strategies for establishing rapid rapport with individuals on a one–to–one basis are underdeveloped.

The ability to discern strategies and establish rapport can be critically important for many of a physician's duties like prescribing treatments to the patient and for informed consent, where the doctor must tell the patient the risks of his or her operation or treatment. The strategies of an individual patient will determine how you should package the information to be communicated to him. Some people, if you tell them there is a greater than 50% chance of death or serious impairment, will become depressed, apathetic or fatalistic (their strategy tends to carry out the weaker part of a statistic). Such persons may incorporate the statistics as self–fulfilling. For patients who have a polarity strategy, however, it may be useful to tell them they could die, to stimulate them to flip polarities to access the resources they need to recover from or change their condition.

Some patients will suddenly adopt symptoms if you describe them in too much detail or with too much emphasis.

If a heart patient uses stress (Kⁱ_-) as a motivator, he will also build up stress as a means to motivate themself to relax and exercise more! (This is the "hurry up and relax … or else" syndrome.)

It is important, then, for the physician to establish rapport with patients and gather information about patients' strategies before presenting them with consequential information. It is always a good idea to elicit and anchor a resource strategy with the patient. The strategy may then be reaccessed and utilized in situations that may be difficult or important.

4.44 Law

One of the primary tasks of an attorney is representation. The attorney's ability to gather information and establish rapport with clients, witnesses and judges will determine to a large degree his professional success. If a lawyer needs to present a brief or a case to a judge for a decision, for example, it will be extremely useful to know that judge's decision making strategy. By packaging your presentation so that it paces the judge's strategy, it will be easier for him to appreciate the value of your argument. The same principle applies, of course, to juries.

Because of their training in the use of language, we have found most lawyers and judges to be remarkably (though unconsciously) explicit in describing their internal processes through their speech. One of the authors was recently a plaintiff at a small claims trial. As the author waited for his case to be called, he listened to the judge and identified his decision making strategy. Every time the judge decided a case he would give an account of how he came to the decision, describing the form of his internal processes each time. For example, the judge might say, "Well, Mr. X, as I look over these records I see that this is not your first time in this courtroom, and I have to ask myself "How much longer will this go on? … How many more times?" I really feel that it's my responsibility to make sure that this doesn't happen again." This indicates a decision strategy of:

When it came time for the author to present his case, he packaged his presentation to pace this strategy. A skeletal paraphrasing of this presentation might go — "Your Honor, as you look over the case in front of you, you will clearly see that the defendant did not complete the work he contracted to do … And you'll have to ask yourself, 'Given the available information about the amount of work completed and the agreement made by the defendant, what is the best course of action?' … And I'm sure you will feel, as I do, that this matter should be decided in my favor."

After hearing the arguments the judge favored the author but questioned the amount of the claim presented (the author was asking for a full return of what he had paid the defendant even though the defendant had completed half of the work). The author again presented his argument in a way that paced the judge's strategy. The appeal was to the following effect: "Your Honor, I had to look at the amount of work the defendant did in perspective with the amount of time, difficulty and delay it cost me personally … and I had to ask myself, 'Is it fair to ask for compensation for all of the extra trouble I've been put through?' And I felt that the claim I was making was a reasonable compensation for all of the tension and frustration I had to go through."

The judge agreed and decided the case in the author's favor— for the full amount of the claim. Note that even though the author used himself as the referential index in this last argument — he talked about his own internal processes rather than directing the judge as he did earlier — it still served to pace the judge. The judge had to access the same sequence of representational systems to make sense of what the author was saying.

The arguments in this last example were paraphrased simply, and most of the content details were left out so that the form of what was being done would be more obvious. Most of the content involved in this kind of utilization will be provided by the situation, and, of course, should be fed back into the appropriate slots. Content considerations like picking up and pacing the appropriate legal terms and vocabulary, and relevant precedents, will also be extremely helpful, but as we have pointed out many times, the packaging is more influential than the content.

The same tactics used by the salesperson for a multi–person presentation, described earlier in this chapter, can be utilized by an attorney making a presentation to a jury. Information about the strategies of each individual jury member may be gathered through questioning during jury selection and by observing their eye movements and other accessing cues as they respond during trial proceedings. Then, by using analogue (nonverbal) markings, minimal cues and embedded commands (see Patterns I and II), direct your presentation at individual members of the jury and pace their strategies. In some cases you can be as direct as walking up to a jury member and talking directly to him.

If you want to convince them of a particular point, package your communication to match their belief strategies. If you want to influence their decision, utilize their decision making strategies. If you know their strategies well enough, you will know what conclusion they will arrive at, given the available information, so that you can predict and to some degree control what will happen when they are no longer in your presence. You will be able to predict how people of various strategies will interact with one another. And by observing accessing cues and other minimal cues (slight unconscious head shakes or nods, sighs, breathing changes, etc.) you will get feedback for how individual members are responding to your presentation and that of your opposition. You may know that person 1 responded positively to verbalization "X", and will probably be arguing in its favor; person 2 got feeling "Y" from the verbalization and will probably be leaning in a different direction and so on.

It will make your utilization a lot less complicated if you are able to select jury members who all share the same strategy — preferably your own. (Background, sex, political beliefs, and other content differences should be secondary to strategies as selection criteria.) If the opposing attorney shares your strategy, however, it may be better to select a jury of different strategies and rely on your own flexibility in pacing. It may also be to your benefit to hang a jury. In such a case you would want to select jury members of widely varying or opposing strategies. It would be possible to accomplish this by selecting part of the jury to have strategies which pace that of the prosecuting attorney, and the other part to have strategies pacing those of the defense attorney.

Covert anchoring and nonverbal communication can be extremely effective in courtroom situations. Courtrooms are a unique environment for communications because conscious attention is placed overwhelmingly on the digital (verbal) content of the communication (for instance, only the verbal portions of a trial are recorded and later considered). This leaves most of the nonverbal interchanges to take place covertly. Although a great deal of nonverbal intimidation and rapport building occurs in courtrooms, it is generally consciously ignored as significant to the final decision making process. Intimidation or rapport can be strengthened by covertly establishing negative or positive anchors. For example, one of the authors once accompanied a friend to a hearing (a jury was not involved) to observe the proceedings. During a few relaxed moments before the official proceedings had begun, the judge knocked over some objects on his desk accidentally. The court recorder made a witty remark about the judge's "heavy handedness" which immediately set the judge back at ease and even induced genuine laughter from him. The author seized the opportunity to establish a covert anchor for the positive experience by clearing his throat in a unique but innocuous manner that was loud enough to be within the audible range of the judge. A number of other cases were called before that of the author's friend, which gave the author time to reinforce the positive anchor by reproducing the unique clearing of the throat anytime the judge exhibited a noticeable positive response during the proceedings. When the author's friend's case was called the author cleared his throat a number of times as his friend was being initially questioned and inspected by the judge, and frequently during the court proceedings (although not so frequently as to seem out of the ordinary). A quick rapport was established between the judge and the author's friend which lasted throughout the proceedings, which were eventually settled in favor of the author's friend.

Simple tactics like this could be (and are) used just as easily, and more effectively, by the attorneys participating in trials.

Most capable attorneys, of course, will do the majority of their work by settlement out of court, which is generally much more efficient and economical than going to trial. The same rapport building, information gathering and influence tactics may be applied in out–of–court negotiations as well (other techniques, procedures and skills for negotiation will be presented in later portions of this book). If you can elicit the motivation, convincer, decision making, and buying strategies of your client, your opponent and your opponent's attorney, you can utilize each of their strategies to bring about the most rapid and satisfying solution to the negotiation. For instance, if you could elicit the buying and decision making strategy of your opponent's attorney, you could influence him to accept a plea bargaining or a settlement as being more efficient than going to court.

Analogue marking and covert anchoring will be extremely useful tools in such processes.

4.45 Implications for Psychotherapy

We have already described in this chapter a number of ways in which strategies and anchoring could be applied therapeutically. The essential basis of therapy and change is the three–point process—(1) eliciting and applying personal resources to a (2) present or problematic state to assist the client in (3) achieving a desired state. In the transcript on anchoring presented in this chapter we showed how this could be done by integrating, (through collapsing anchors), the client's stored representations of his or her problem state and some relevant resources. Resources consist of reference structures for success from the client's personal history or new 4–tuples created internally by the client.

Problems and resources are defined and identified in relation to the client's abilities to access representational systems and gather, process and respond to information gathered through the sensory channels. The more access a client has to the information provided by all of his representational systems, the more resources he will have. This kind of flexibility will contribute greatly to the adaptability of the individual. The individual's ability to gather and discriminate information about his environment and access the appropriate strategy with which to respond in that environment will be his other major resource. This involves the sequencing of one's behavior in the form of strategies.

Problems occur when an individual gets caught up in one representational system or a strategy that loops, and when he is kept from observing and responding to important cues in the environment. Problems also occur when an individual accesses a strategy or response that is inappropriate for the context.

The therapeutic procedures of neurolinguistic programming are outcome oriented — that is, the client's behavior is engineered to achieve specific outcomes. The essential therapeutic procedure presented thus far in this book is the elicitation and utilization of an appropriate resource strategy of the client's through anchoring and pacing. The programmer, as therapist, would require the same skills for achieving therapeutic outcomes as he would for getting outcomes in any of the other fields discussed so far. Specifically the programmer should be practiced and capable in each of the following:

1. Building Rapport — You will have established rapport with your client when you have elicited in him the kind of behavior that is generally labeled "trust," "responsiveness," etc. Rapport, as we have pointed out, is essential to the success of any communication, interaction or relationship. You will know when you have achieved rapport when you can smoothly and easily lead the client into new experiences. The programmer builds rapport by being sensitive to and by pacing the client's strategies and macro– and micro–behavior such as vocabulary, tonality, tempo, posture, breathing rates, facial expressions and so on. Quickly establishing anchors for resources and positive experiences will contribute to the building of rapport. Therapeutically, rapport serves to help eliminate resistance and speed up the process of change.

Programmers should be warned, however, especially those in the field of therapy, that you should not always pace all aspects of your clients' behaviors. It can be physically and mentally maladaptive to pace the behavior of many individuals. In most cases you will want to pace the client only enough to establish the rapport necessary to be able to work to achieve his desired outcomes.

2. Information Gathering — Through questioning and the observation of accessing cues and other minimal cues the therapist will gather information about the client's strategies and sensory abilities, to be used in the three–point process. The therapist will want to find out what natural resources the client already has available, which resources and strategies are missing and which are needed. Some clients may need a strategies to motivate themselves to change old behaviors, establish new patterns of behavior or to access resources that they already have. Others will need to learn new strategies and behaviors to be utilized in their present situation. Still others may need to employ the process of creativity or to make consequential decisions to clear up crippling incongruencies in their behavior. Many times, a number of these processes are involved. To make this determination the therapist will need to gather from the client the following information about the present state, desired state and resources of the client:

a) Desired Outcome — What do you want or need for yourself? How would you know if you got it?

b) Present or Problem state — What is happening now? What is causing you problems? What is stopping you from getting what you want?

c) Resources — What do you need (what would have to happen) in order for you to get the outcome you want? Have you ever got this outcome before? What did you do at that time?

To be relevant and utilizable to the programmer the answers to these questions need to be in terms of sensory based reference structures from the client's model of the world (although the client need not have a conscious appreciation of such answers), and the sensory observations the programmer makes of the client's behavior and strategies. "Sensory based" means specific and non–interpretive. For instance, for someone to say that he wants to be "happy" is not a sufficient answer to define a desired outcome. You need to have definite images, sounds, feelings and smells for what specific changes will be made in their behavior and their environment for them to have that kinesthetic experience. As we have said before, we highly recommend that you study the meta–model (in Structure of Magic I) to acquire skill at eliciting this type of answer.

3. Therapeutic Procedure and Delivery: Repackaging and representing the client's problem in a form that matches an appropriate resource strategy that he presently has available is the primary therapeutic procedure discussed thus far. Utilizing a resource strategy in this way serves to add in abilities that have not yet been brought to bear on the client's problem state. Anchoring is another way to accomplish this.

In the coming chapters of this book, methods for the therapeutic design and installation of new resource strategies will be covered in detail.

4. Operating Off of Feedback: The only way you have of knowing whether what you are doing is working is by the feedback you get from your client. Only a small part of this feedback will be the conscious verbal reports of your client. The majority of it will be changes in the client's ongoing accessing cues and minimal cues, which will all be rooted in your immediate sensory experience.

No technique will magically and automatically bring about change. There are many, many conditions brought to bear on the process and results of a therapeutic interaction. It will be an absolute necessity for you to continually check your work at each step of the way. We have said before that the meaning of your communication is the response that you elicit, regardless of what you actually intend. You should never presuppose your behavior will always have the same effect. An anchor that you have established in one context may be inoperative in a different context. Constantly use your sensory awareness to test the outcomes of your communication in your client. If you find that what you are doing is not working, try something else. If you have proved to yourself that it won't work, why repeat it? There will always be another resource you can elicit, or another strategy to try. If you find that you are running into resistances, interference or incongruence, re–establish rapport and gather more information. (For other methods of dealing with interference phenomena, see the Installation Section of this book.)

We can represent the behavior of the client and programmer, involved in a successful interaction, as two TOTEs:

This shows that the programmer is continually testing the client's present state against the desired outcome and operating to access more resources in the client until the present state and desired state are finally one and the same (that is, until the client has exhibited the desired outcome). The programmer's tests are based on sensory information gathered and stored through all of his/her representational systems.

2) Client's TOTE:

The client must also have a way to test his own progress so that he may continue or initiate the process if necessary at some point when the programmer is not around. Also the client may need to access and utilize information concerning his present state and desired state (perhaps at the unconscious level), information that is not necessary for the programmer to know. All that the programmer needs to know is the result of the test. The client's representation of his present and desired states will consist of 4–tuples and strategies that compose the two states. The client operates to access personal resources until the desired outcome is reached.

One interesting phenomenon we have noticed about many therapists who have participated in our seminars is that, though they have a good TOTE for therapy and can help other people to access resources, they have difficulty accessing resources in themselves when it comes to dealing with their own problems. This is because most of the strategies they have developed for accessing and utilizing resources are triggered by their external auditory and visual experience of their clients' states (a valid strategy for working with other people). Their experience of their own problems, however, is primarily in terms of internal kinesthetic, auditory and visual representations, and fails to trigger their programs and strategies for accessing resources. We humorously refer to this as phenomenon as "therapist's syndrome." When confronted with their own internal experience therapists often have no ready resource programs with which to deal with them. This leads to other negative kinesthetic experiences like "guilt" and "frustration" because the therapist thinks if he can't even handle his own problems, how can he reasonably presume to be assisting someone else?

A good example of how NLP utilization procedures may be used therapeutically is provided by the following account of how one of the authors assisted a therapist in overcoming such a situation during one of his workshops. Outside the therapeutic context of her office when she was working with her clients, this particular therapist would have a strong phobic response to any mention of blood or gore, or in response to any threatening gesture or tonality regardless of whether the gesture was feigned or an actual threat. The response was so strong that she would actually keel over forward, holding her face in her hands. This response had been accidentally elicited a number of times by the other participants in the workshop as they went through exercises, and it was greatly interfering with her ability to participate and learn in the context of the workshop. Because of the severity of the problem the author decided to work with her in a demonstration during the workshop.

The author began by first eliciting a resource strategy — specifically, the strategy that she used to work with her clients. It was a fine strategy for therapeutic work which included two basic subroutines. When a client would come in the therapist would first carefully observe him visually and auditorily (V^e +A^e). As she observed, she would begin to pace him posturally, gesturally, and with her breathing (K^e). As she did so, she would begin to get internal feelings about the client and would have the experience of somehow stepping into the client's body (Kⁱ). If the feelings she got from this were too negative or too intense, she would access an operation that involved a dissociation from her feelings by refocusing her attention completely on external visual and auditory experience (V^c→A^e). She would then ask herself or talk to herself about what could be done with this client (Aⁱ_d) and begin to remember images of what she had done with previous clients (V^r). When the image reached a certain degree of clarity she would implement physically with the client (K^e) what she had seen. She would then test the result of her actions through her external sensory channels and repeat the process of pacing as a test to find if the intense kinesthetic feelings had begun to subside. If they hadn't she would repeat this subroutine. If the feelings had lessened enough she would begin a second operation which involved a continued pacing of the client's posture, gestures and breathing (K ^e) and would start to operate on the feelings she got from them (K¹). These feelings would access constructed images of possible interventions she could make (V^c) which she would immediately implement (K^e). She would then return again to the beginning of the strategy and test the results of her intervention by observing the client's response through her external sensory channels. In her estimation, this operation was much more creative than the other. Represented in its entirety, we could show this strategy as:

The author noted that as the therapist discussed this strategy her posture was erect and her shoulders were thrown back. Her head was tilted slightly upward and she breathed evenly from her chest.

The strategy in operation during her phobic response was a simple but powerful Vⁱ_-→Kⁱ synesthesia. The external triggers would access a rapid internal visual image which would immediately anchor a strong kinesthetic reaction. In this state the posture of the therapist was slumped forward, head to her knees, eyes closed and watery with her hands covering her face. The elicitation procedures uncovered that the image was one of herself as a child, where she had been consistently and severely mistreated and beaten by her parents.

The following is a transcript of how the author ("A") utilized the therapist's ("T") resource strategy to help her overcome the phobic response. The transcript begins after the author has re–elicited the phobic response so that he may work with it. He has previously established a resource anchor with the therapist (self–initiated) in which the tighter she squeezes his wrist the more she can access a particularly positive reference experience.

TRANSCRIPT

(T is leaning forward with her head on her knees — A interrupts the ongoing strategy by having her change posture and other accessing cues.)

A: Now if you want to get over this thing it will be important that you follow all of my instructions … I want you to sit up straight … okay? … (helps T into upright position) … now open your eyes and look at me until you can see me clearly … come outside so that you are no longer hooked into all of that internal stuff … look at me.

T: (Sobbing slightly) I'm trying … (starts to slump over again).

A: Stay sitting up straight (holds her in upright position) … Squeeze my wrist.

T: I'm trying to … it's hard . .. my body keeps wanting to go back down there …

A: I know, but it's important that you stay up straight … now I want you to breath up here in your chest … Just concentrate on that for a while.

T: (Begins to breathe regularly and finally gets control over her posture.)

A: That's right … keep squeezing my wrist … Does it help?

T: Uh-huh. (Sobbing has stopped.)

A: Okay, now tilt your head back … and I want you to look up there for a minute and see, and I only want you to see it, … see that image that you see right before you get that reaction.

T: (Begins to close eyes, wrinkle face and slump over.)

A: Squeeze my wrist now … open your eyes and look up there… Do you see it?

T: (Voice beginning to break) Yes …

A: Now I want you to look at that image carefully … and I want you to imagine that this little girl has just come into your office … Can you still see her?

T: (Tonality steadying, posture becoming more upright) Yes.

A: Can you hear her voice?

T: (Beginning to close her eyes and cry) … She's calling for help.

A: Now keep your eyes open and look up there at her … keep breathing … (wiggles his wrist until T begins to squeeze it) … Now I want you to imagine putting your body into her position and to feel her feelings … (K^e→Kⁱ)

T: Ohhh … (Closes her eyes and slumps over).

A: Okay, that's enough, come back here with me … Sit up … Open your eyes and look at me … Squeeze my wrist … (Waits until T has recovered — then begins to utilize T's operation involving dissociation from the client)… . Now this time I want you to just look at the child and listen to the tonal qualities of her voice … Continue squeezing my wrist as much as you need to … As you continue to look at her I want you to ask yourself (Aⁱ_d) what you could do to help her … Can you see (Vⁱ) anything to do to help her?

T: What I can do? (Holding back tears.)

A: Yes … What can you do to help her … What would you do if she were a client of yours? (Directs T's eyes up and left.)

T: (Looking down and left, then up and left) … Well … (long pause) I could go over and hold her.

A: Okay, good … I want you to imagine the body sensations of going over and taking that child in your arms and holding her … (K^e) Can you do that?

T: (Eyes shift down and right, face flattens) … Uh-huh …

A: Now look at the child … (V^e) How is she responding? T: (Voice hesitant as if somewhat surprised) … She feels better

A: Is she saying anything? (A ^e)

T: Umm … No … She wants to be inside herself… so she can heal.

A: If you were to mirror her body posture now, would you be willing to take on her feelings … (K^e 'K')

T: (Stares down and right, defocuses) … No … She still has so much pain … (Begins to cry again and slump forward.)

A: Sit back up … (helps her into upright position) … Look at me … that's right … Squeeze my wrist … Come back … and just look at the girl again … (V^e) and ask yourself what else you can do … (Aⁱ_d) (T's eye move down and to the left) … That's right… Now can you see anything else that you can do to help this child? (Vⁱ)

T: (Eyes flick up and left) I can reassure her … and tell her to breath … she isn't breathing very much … and I can just hold her … that's what she says that she wants the most … and I can tell her that it's okay to look at me

A: Fine … Now imagine the feelings of what it would be like if you were actually doing that … (K^e)

T: (Eye position changes a number of times and eventually ends up down and right) Uh-huh … Okay …

A: Look at the child … how does she respond? (V^e)

T: She's relaxing a lot … She isn't crying anymore … (T's eyes have moved back up and to the left.)

A: As you look at her, I want you to tell me whether or not … if you were to mirror her body … whether or not you'd be willing to take on her feelings yet? (K^e→Kⁱ)

T: (Looks up and left, then down and right, then back up and left) Uramm … Uh-huh …

A: Okay … Great … Now I want you to begin to mirror her (K^e).

T: Okay … (Adjusts her posture by drawing her arms and legs together, and tilting her head down and to the right.)

A: Now I want you to step inside her for a moment so that you know how she … feels (Kⁱ) … and after you've done that … I want you to see (V^c) if there's anything else you can do to help that child with those feelings.

T: (Looks up and right and readjusts her posture to an upright position) I can take her out of the place that she is … I can take her somewhere new …

A: Can you see where yet?

T: (Eyes shift back and forth from up right to up left position) … Yes …

A: Imagine the feelings of taking her there … and look at her and listen to her to see how she is responding.

T: (Eyes move from up and right to down and right to up and left) … Good … (begins to smile and nod her head)

A: Now I want you to step inside her again (K^e→Kⁱ) and see (V^c) what else she might need to do.

T: (Looking down and right and then up and left) She needs to open her eyes and look around and see all of the beautiful things around her …

A: Imagine yourself having her do that … (K^e) How does she respond?

T: (Eyes scan back and forth from up left to up right, smiles and takes a deep breath) She loves it… it's like she's in a new world

A: Does she need anything else?

T: No, she's happy there.

A: Okay … Now I want to leave her there for a moment… and I want you to come back here with me so that I can ask you a question …

T: Okay … (Looks at A)

A: From now on when you see those gestures that have scared you or hear those words that cause that reaction … What can you do?

T: (Pauses) Ummm … I can open my eyes and look around?

A: (Smiles) That's right … That's the only way you're going to be able to tell if you're in real physical danger … And what are you going to do if one of those things happens and you're not in danger (Makes a threatening gesture at T by clenching his fist and scowling.)

T: (Face pales and flattens. Hesitates momentarily, then color returns.) …I. ..I. ..I did it (laughs) … I didn't go away

A: That's right … (smiles) … you can laugh and feel good … and anytime you need to you can always look up there and see that little girl with her eyes wide open . .. observing carefully everything around her …

The author went on to help T devise tests for being able to tell when she was in truly dangerous situations, and to design operations for dealing with those situations. He also tested her responses to the formerly problematic words. All were satisfactory.

In this example of utilization the author simply directed the therapist, step by step, through her own strategy for effective therapy, substituting internal representations for those that were normally external. The therapist essentially did therapy on her own internal representations, transforming them from anchors for a powerful negative kinesthetic state into an anchor for resources (opening her eyes and looking around).

The therapist completed the remainder of the workshop without interference, and, in fact, after this reference experience, was able to incorporate the material extremely rapidly. Within a few weeks after this workshop, her work with her clients had improved so dramatically that her client load had tripled as a result of client referrals. So marked was the increase in her client turnover rate that it created somewhat of a furor with the other therapists in her agency who had no idea about what was going on or what had occurred. She eventually left the agency, and has conducted a successful private practice ever since.

V. DESIGN

We all know what "design" means — or at least we pretend we do. In order to achieve a certain outcome that can't be immediately produced or that hasn't been done before, we devise a plan or design a strategy to accomplish that particular outcome — such as starting a new business, inventing a better mousetrap or bringing surface samples back from Mars. Strategy design is most effective when all appropriate sensory channels are used to survey available resources, including all relevant environmental variables and decision variables, and to decide how to utilize them effectively in generating the desired outcome.

Consider, for example, a simple topological problem. The outcome objective is to connect the nine dots below using only four straight lines without lifting your pen or pencil from the paper. Give it a try if you want to — look at it, check your feelings and talk to yourself about it.

If you were successful, congratulations. Very few people are able to complete this design problem successfully because they assume one or more decision variables are in the domain of environmental variables. (See the next page for the solution.)

In our experience we have found that maximum effectiveness in design is achieved by making the fewest possible assumptions about contextual constraints — those features of a particular behavioral environment that only seem to be environmental variables— and by making creative and efficient use of available resources.

The most frequent assumption with this problem is that one's pen or pencil must not be moved away from the pattern of dots, in which case five straight lines are required to connect all dots. A second and less frequent assumption is that pen or pencil lines must not cross. The solution is:

5. Design

Sometimes the organization or individual with whom the programmer is working will have no strategy immediately available; for a particular outcome or, possibly, no strategy at all for securing the desired outcome. Others may have strategies, which, although achieving the outcome, are very cumbersome and inefficient. Still others have developed strategies which achieved an outcome that was important and adaptive in one context in the organization's or individual's personal history, but which have been generalized to contexts in which the outcome is no longer appropriate. In this case, the strategy very often becomes streamlined and efficient but the outcome becomes maladaptive. Since the strategy is so streamlined that it is entirely unconscious, the individual or organization loses some of the requisite capability to discriminate in the test phase and, since everything happens so quickly, there is little room for flexibility. The person or organization becomes ineffectual.

In each of these instances the programmer may be called upon to help design a new strategy for the individual or organization in question. Some cases require a design for more appropriate tests; others – need more effective and efficient operation designs. In cases where there is no existing strategy whatsoever, the programmer will have to design from scratch an entirely new sequence of representations.

5.1 Streamlining

Streamlining is required for strategies that are cumbersome or inefficient in achieving the desired outcome. For example, we have noticed that people who were good at reading aloud when they were children, or who are still good at sight reading, have a difficult time with speed reading. This is because they have developed a strategy that includes an auditory digital step in their processing of the written word; that is, they have a verbal translation phase in their reading strategy. Very fast readers do not have this step — the visual symbols making up the word directly access internal representations without the auditory digital step.

Words, as we have pointed out, are anchors for 4–tuples of experience and only have meaning for us in terms of the experiences they elicit. Persons with an auditory digital step in their reading strategies must say the words to themselves before they will have any meaning (before they access the relevant stored experience). The strategy goes:

The speed reader's strategy goes directly from seeing the written word to accessing the internal 4–tuple:

For most people who subvocalize or verbalize the word internally, the synesthesia pattern becomes so strong that they actually can't understand written language just by looking at it — they must say it to themselves (transform it to auditory digital) before it makes any sense; otherwise it may as well be in a foreign language.

Although the strategy involving the verbalization step is a fine strategy for the outcome of sight reading aloud, (which is generally reinforced in grammar school), it is inefficient for reading quickly. It is possible to see whole sentences and paragraphs at once, but internal verbalizing requires pronouncing words in sequence, one at a time, and the information gathered by such a procedure is redundant since it contains the same digital information already present in the written material. For the outcome of rapid reading the sight reader's strategy would need to be streamlined by pulling out the unnecessary Aⁱ_d step. This will generally involve the rehearsal and development of a synesthesia pattern working directly from V^e_d .

Speed reading courses generally have you rehearse the speed with you gather the visual information, but do not work directly with the strategy. Of the people we've talked to who have taken speed reading courses, those who already have the V^e→

synesthesia pattern as an existing natural resource benefit the most from the training. Readers who have a strong V^e→Aⁱ_d, synesthesia pattern learn to look at the words faster but become very frustrated at their high loss of comprehension, until they've stuck with the process long enough to reprogram the strategy themselves. The effectiveness of speed reading courses is tied to their tendency to force the reader to establish a V^e_d synesthesia pattern, because the reader doesn't have time to say the words internally. For the highly auditory reader, however, this essentially involves relearning the language which can be very difficult. The process is much easier when the individual rehearses the new strategy at the same time he or she is learning the mechanics of speed reading. In the Installation Section of this book we will provide methods you can use to assist with the installation and development of various synesthesia patterns.

Another possible method of streamlining, depending on the kind of strategy you are dealing with, is to have the individual simply practice the component parts of the strategy more and more until they become chunked as an unconscious TOTE. It is also possible to switch the modifiers between the steps in the strategy so that it works more efficiently (i.e., switching a polarity response to a congruent response).

5.2 Redesigning Maladaptive Strategies and Outcomes.

In cases where strategies produce outcomes maladaptive for the contexts in which they occur, the programmer will modify the strategy or design a new one such that a more appropriate outcome is reached.

Phobias are interesting examples of such cases. A phobic response is an outcome of a strategy that was most likely adaptive for the individual at the establishment of the behavioral pattern. The negative kinesthetic response and withdrawal were probably important for the survival of the individual at some time because of other elements in the situation. And even though the quick phobic response will always insure survival, it becomes problematic in contexts where it is unnecessary or unwanted. More appropriate responses, such as uptime and alertness, are more efficient at insuring adaptive outcomes.

Certain phobic responses are established when a very negative outcome, a result of the specific circumstances of an experience, becomes anchored to a certain situation or behavior that is then generalized to later situations or behaviors. Whenever the person is in a similar situation the negative experience is accessed, although there is no actual danger of a reoccurrence of the negative outcome.

One of the authors once worked with a woman who had a phobia of balloons. Using the elicitation procedures described earlier in this book, the author uncovered the following sequence of of representations: The person, a woman in her mid–twenties, would see a balloon externally (V^e); this would trigger a rapid unconscious visual image (V^r) of a scene that occurred when she was a child at a birthday party where a balloon had burst in her face; this would anchor up strong negative visceral feelings (Kⁱ_-) and she would attempt to get away (K ^e) from the balloon she was seeing externally.

Her strategy, then, went: V^e→Vⁱ→Kⁱ_-→K^e.

The remembered visual image of the scene from the past and the negative feelings led to an outcome which, though it may have been appropriate at the party when she was a child, was no longer useful. It was evident to the author that, in order for her to have a more effective strategy, the woman needed a more appropriate and effective test with which to assess her present environment when in the presence of balloons. This would involve the design of a more accurate external visual check.

In place of the visual image of the scene from the past, the author installed, through anchoring and rehearsal (see the next chapter for installation procedures) an internal voice that said, "Look and see if it is going to pop." From this Aⁱ_d step she would then look again externally at the balloon in her immediate environment and the surrounding context to see if there was any chance that the balloon might pop (V^e). If there was, the voice would tell her to step back (K^e) a safe distance (as opposed to running away as she had done earlier) so that it would not pop in her face. If she wasn't sure, the voice would tell her to take one step back and look again more carefully. If she could see there was no chance of the balloon popping, the voice would tell her that it was okay to relax and feel comfortable (Kⁱ).

This strategy contains a new test (V^e), a new set of operations and a new decision point (Aⁱ_d):

After rehearsing and testing the strategy a few times in the presence of the author, the woman was able to completely banish her former phobia of balloons.

5.21 Designing Context Markers and Decision Points.

In some cases, where an older existing outcome and accompanying strategy have become inappropriate for a majority of circumstances, they may still remain effective for some contexts (even though these contexts may be extremely rare). The programmer will then want to leave the individual with the choice of accessing the old strategy as well as the new one. In these cases the programmer will want to install a test or decision point in which some representation serves as a context marker to indicate in which situations which strategy is appropriate. If such a measure is not taken, interference may occur as a result of ambiguities or overlap between the two contexts, which will tend to access both strategies at the same time. The person may not know which strategy to apply and may become immobilized by responding to both strategies simultaneously. Something tells him to do one thing but another looks or feels as if it would be more appropriate.

The representation that serves as a marker may take on any content. It could be a certain threshold of tonality, a particular word or class of words, a positive or negative kinesthetic sensation, or some visual image or distinction picked up in the environment. The purpose of the cue is, as shown below, to differentiate which context is appropriate for which strategy:

As a simple example of this, let's say you are working with a manager who has a strategy, when she sees one of her personnel making a mistake, of telling him (A^e) that that isn't the way the job should be done, after which she shows him how to do it properly (V^e). You design a new strategy which involves her pacing the employee posturally first, then explaining to the employee how she feels about the way the job should be done (Kⁱ→A^e_d), and finally walking him through what she feels to be the appropriate behavior for the task (K^e). The old strategy is still appropriate, of course, for employees whose strategies are more visually oriented. The new strategy will be more effective with kinesthetically oriented personnel. The decision point, then, should involve a test that allows the manager to discriminate between individuals to determine which strategy would be more effective. A quick decision such as this can be readily based on a momentary observation of the body type, voice tonality, predicates and available accessing cues of the employee (V^e/A^e). The strategy that the manager chooses, then, is based on her observations of the employee.

Another example of this involves a situation similar to the phobia example presented earlier. A woman in her mid–thirties with whom one of the authors was working was having many problems with the man she lived with and was experiencing a lot of pain because she had a strong negative emotional response every time he raised his voice at her, even slightly. She would become overwhelmed by feelings of fear and would want to leave the room even though her partner was not at all angry or threatening. She didn't want or understand this response, and didn't know what to do about it.

Upon eliciting her strategy, the author discovered the following sequence for the woman's strategy: She would hear the rising volume of her partner's tonality (A^e_i) and access the sound of her father's voice (Aⁱ_t), which was in many ways similar to that of her partner. This anchor would then access an image of her father (V^r), who had beaten her severely as a child, approaching her with an angry facial expression. This would then reaccess all the feelings of fear and hopelessness that she had experienced as a child.

The author designed and installed a new strategy in which, as soon as she heard the volume of her partner's voice approaching that of her father, she would immediately look at him and compare the look on his face to the remembered threatening look of her father (V^e/V^r). If the two matched, then she could legitimately feel in danger and access her old response. If the two did not match (which was, of course, almost always the case) then she was to ask her partner to lower his voice (A^e_d) so it would be easier for her to communicate with him. If she wasn't sure, she was to walk across the room until she could look at him and feel that there was a safe distance between them (K^e→V^e→Kⁱ), and ask him to lower his voice (A^e_d). A certain pairing between tonality and facial expression, then, was used as a context marker or decision criterion to choose which operation or strategy to access. Another way to think about this is that certain combinations of tonality and facial expression are programmed as anchors for different responses. We can show the newly designed strategy as follows:

5.3 Artificial Design.

The purpose of artificial design is to create a strategy that will secure the designated outcome or outcomes in the most efficient and effective manner when there is no appropriate strategy immediately available. This requires that the strategy contain all of the necessary tests and operations needed to sequence the behavior and gather the information and feedback involved in obtaining the desired outcome.

One useful method of designing effective strategies is to find a person, group or organization (depending on which you are dealing with) that already has the ability to achieve the outcome you desire to attain, and to use their strategy as a model for your design task. If you want to be able to do well in physics, find someone who already has that ability and use his strategy as a model from which to design your own. If you want to be able to get outcomes in the fields of therapy, management or law, find the people who are already able to do this and use their strategies as a model.[24] This way you will be assured that the strategy you are designing will be effective.

This method of design has many implications for the field of education. We have pointed out before that many teachers don't actually have a good strategy for the subject they are teaching. A creative writing teacher, for instance, may have a good strategy for reading and criticizing literature, but not for generating it. By finding the the strategies of a number of people who are good creative writers, the teacher could improve the quality of his course, beginning each term by teaching and installing, during the first few days of the class, the effective creative writing strategies. Once she has done this, the teacher would then proceed with the content of the course. This will increase the effectiveness of students' writing abilities. The same procedure will work for all subjects — if the strategy for incorporating and handling the material is taught first, the learning of the content will be more easily and effectively accomplished.

When consulting for educational institutions we have often organized a series of study groups for students set up in the following way. Students are covertly divided up on the basis of their ability to achieve outcomes in the particular subject in question, into fast, medium and slow students. Each study group is composed of two students from each division (two fast, two medium, and two slow). After we teach them about representational systems, pacing and accessing cues, the students elicit and swap strategies with one another for a number of subjects. Invariably, students who are slow in one task have a better strategy for some other task, and each of the students is able to offer a resource to the group. Because each benefits from the others a support network with mutual rapport tends to be built. The process of eliciting and swapping strategies is also fun. And this kind of grouping will keep students, especially of grammar school age, from being labeled and reinforced as "slow" or "stupid." In many of the places where we have set up such a program there have been dramatic improvements in the performances of the "slow" students within a matter of days.

One should be careful, of course, when designing strategies through modeling, that you don't get stuck or stagnated with one particular model for doing things. Challenging the old limitations and models and creating new ones is the basic means for improvement available to us as a species. The neurolinguistic programming model itself is continually changing, transforming and improving itself.

In designing strategies there will be some cases where any new sequence of representations you design will be more effective than the existing one. You may even wish to experiment by changing around various sequences for a particular strategy just to find out how the outcome will be affected.

When you are trying to tailor a specific strategy for a specific task and for a specific client it will be important, in addition to taking into account which kinds of discriminations in which representational systems are required for the task, to take into account the natural abilities of the client to access, gather information, and make discriminations in the various represntational systems. The design of your strategy will have to take into consideration which resources are missing and which are present in your client's existing repertoire of strategies and abilities. Some individuals, for instance, may have very limited abilities for accessing and making discriminations in one of their representational systems, and the programmer may have to first help the individual develop the representational system so that it is useful, before he can design it into a strategy. Such training may sometimes consume a considerable amount of time and energy, and the programmer may want to make a "cost–benefit" analysis as to whether it will be more beneficial to develop a particular representational system or synesthesia pattern to fit the requirements of a strategy, or to redesign the strategy to fit the existing resources of the individual.

Some people have strong and inflexible synesthesia patterns that divert or interfere with a designed strategy sequence. An individual, for example, who has a highly developed visual–to–kinesthetic synesthesia pattern may have a very difficult time performing that operation in reverse — that is, going from feelings to images. In such cases much time may have to be spent interrupting the inflexible synesthesia pattern and rehearsing and developing the new one(s).

The time spent on developing representational systems and flexibility in synesthesia patterns, however, is generally well worth the trouble. Teaching somebody to access and gather information through an underdeveloped representational system can bring about dramatic changes.

One of the authors was once working with a person who had been diagnosed and institutionalized as a paranoid schizophrenic. The author quickly noticed that the person had one essential strategy for decision making, motivation, remembering, etc. This strategy was to take any of the experiences in his other representational systems and transform them into internal kinesthetic sensations. Although this was limiting in itself, it was complicated by the fact that the person was only able to make three basic distinctions in his kinesthetic experience — "anger", a kind of neutral calmness and a kind of "fear/paranoia". All of the person's ongoing experience was interpreted and boiled down into one of these three categories, with a primary emphasis on "fear/paranoia," of course. As therapy, the person was simply taught to make more and more distinctions in his kinesthetic experience and to practice different synesthesia patterns. As his ability to discriminate feelings improved, his repertoire of behavior increased rapidly (much to the surprise of the hospital staff) because it was no longer always channeled through the previous kinesthetic bottleneck of three feelings. As the person's feelings and choices of behavior expanded so did his ability to get along with the staff, and he was eventually discharged from the hospital.

People who are depressive often share a strategy similar to that of the person described above; only the content of their feelings is different. All of their strategies end up in negative Kⁱ which tends to create a self–fulfilling and reinforcing belief system, or strategy, that everything is negative. They can always validate this belief by tacking on a negative Kⁱ to any particular ongoing experience. Therapists often have a difficult time helping depressives because it is hard to access resources for them. If you try to persuade them to think of a time they felt good, they may be able to remember the experience but end up feeling worse because they are unable to feel that way now. They may feel that they were once able to be happy but that it's all gone now. Typically, they will have a polarity response to any positive experience you attempt to access as a resource.

Their problem is not, of course, that they really don't have resources — everyone has experiences that can serve as resources, no matter what his personal history has been like. Nor is their problem the inability to access resources — anyone who can see, hear or feel can do that. The root of the trouble is in their strategy for responding to the given context — the therapeutic context, for instance when asked to make a decision about whether they have pleasant memories, or whether they have the ability to recall such memories. Some depressives will have a polarity response to qualitative (interpretive/judgemental) words but not to sensory specific description. For instance, if you ask them if they ever had a good, positive or happy experience, they will have a polarity response. If, on the other hand, you ask them if they can think of a time when they could see clearly, were breathing fully and regularly in their stomach, etc., no such polarity response occurs.

If you find that a person you are working with has a strong polarity response you can always utilize it by "playing polarity" with them. You can say, "You know … I don't think there's any hope at all for you .. . you have absolutely no resources or positive abilities that I can tell… You're a hopeless case . .." If the person has a polarity strategy, they will have to have a polarity response to this statement, too and come up with resources.

Another way to deal with these cases, of course, is to bypass the person's existing strategy by designing and installing a completely new strategy. You will generally want to do this covertly so the person will not have a chance to process the new strategy through their old strategy before it has been installed. You may also need to interrupt their existing strategy in order to install the new one (for information on how to do this see the Installation Section of this book).

Once one of the authors was working with a depressed person and encountered a strategy such that whenever the man tested his internal feelings – and found that they were positive, a voice would trigger in his head and say, "This can't last … I always end up feeling bad again eventually … so I might as well start feeling bad now …" The author redesigned the content of the strategy so the test and the verbalization were reversed, and installed it in place of the other strategy. With the new strategy, every time the person found himself feeling bad, he would say to himself, "This can't last … I'll end up feeling good again eventually … so I might as well start now …"

5.31 Well–Formedness Conditions for Artificial Design.

As we have stated, the goal of artificial design in strategy work is to create the strategies that will most efficiently and effectively secure a particular outcome. This requires that the programmer discover: 1) what kind of information (for both input and feedback purposes) needs to be gathered, and in which representational systems, in order to achieve the outcome; 2) what kind of tests, distinctions, generalizations and associations need to be made in the processing of that information; 3) what specific operations and outputs need to be elicited by the individual or organization in order to achieve the outcome; and 4) what is the most efficient and effective sequence in which all of these tests and operations should take place. When you are tailoring your design to a specific client, it will be necessary to find out which abilities and resources are already present within the client's repertoire of behavior, which are missing and which are needed. We have developed a set of four general well–formedness conditions for design to help you find what is present, missing or needed in your client's existing strategies, and which, if the conditions are met, will insure that the strategies you design will be efficient and effective:

1. THE STRATEGY MUST HAVE AN EXPLICIT REPRESENTATION OF THE DESIGNATED OUTCOME. If the strategy does not identify and get the specified outcome then it is useless.

The test phase of the TOTE, as discussed in Chapter II, requires that the organism compare a representation of where they are now with where they desire to be. For this an explicit representation of the outcome is essential. How many of you readers when you've tried to help someone make a decision or implement some new behavior, have asked questions like, "What do you want out of this interaction?" or "How will you know if you've (changed, made a good decision, etc.)?" or "Where are you trying to go with all of this?" and received answers like, "Well, I'd be happier," "I'd just feel differently," "Things would be better," or "Things wouldn't be the way they are now." None of these responses provide enough information from which to build an adequate strategy. It is no wonder that such persons have been unable to achieve their "goals."

When somebody simply says, "I would feel different," he has represented his desired outcome only in the kinesthetic channel and may not have any idea how things would look, sound or smell when change has taken place. Such a person doesn't have any way of devising operations utilizing these sensory modalities.

Choosing the sensory systems with which to represent the desired outcome is a crucial step in the design of any strategy. Sometimes a person may overspecify his outcome. A person, for instance, may construct a visual image of how he thinks his friends and family and associates should look and act in order for that individual to have secured his outcome. If the individual begins to carry out operations to make his friends, family and associates look and act that way, everybody involved may experience a great deal of discomfort and frustration — a so–called disappointment strategy. In some cases you will want to leave some aspects of the outcome unspecified until you have gathered more information. There are some aspects of particular outcomes that sometimes cannot or should not be decided ahead of time. In instances where this is the case, however, an explicit operation to get feedback and to gather information from which to build or modify a representation of the outcome should be included in the strategy. Implicit in this well–formedness condition, of course, is the requirement that the strategy secure the desired outcome it has represented.

2. ALL THREE MAJOR PRIMARY REPRESENTATIONAL SYSTEMS (V, A and K) MUST BE INVOLVED IN THE STRATEGY SEQUENCE. Each of our representational systems is capable of gathering and processing information that is not available to the others. We can perceive and organize things visually that we cannot do kinesthetically or auditorily. We can sense and process things kinesthetically that we cannot do visually and auditorily and so on. This condition will insure that the resources of each system and therefore of the organism are at least potentially available.

3. AFTER "N" MANY STEPS, MAKE SURE ONE OF THE MODIFIERS IS EXTERNAL. This means that after so many steps in the strategy the individual should tune one of his/her representational systems to the external environment. This is to insure that the person or organization is getting feedback from their external context so they will be able to detect what effect the progression of the strategy is having and so they will not become caught up in their own internal experience. "N" will be determined by the kind of task being performed. If it is important to the carrying out of a task (such as basketball or therapy) that you gear your responses on the basis of actions taking place in your external environment, then put in an external check often. If the task requires more internal processing (like writing down an incident from memory or solving a complicated math problem) your external checks can take place less often. If you are not certain how many external checks are required for a task, a good rule of thumb is is, "When in doubt, put one in."

An alternative way of satisfying this requirement, especially in the context of tasks which require extensive internal processing, is the use of "counters." For example, suppose you are attempting to make a decision among several alternatives and your strategy involves a three point loop

for each alternative. Specifically, you look at each alternative (Vⁱ), comment to yourself about it (Aⁱ_d\t) and check to determine how you feel about it (Kⁱ). Your strategy allows you to cycle around the loop to edit the pictures (Vⁱ) based on the comments (Aⁱ_d\t) and feelings (Kⁱ) you have in response to them in order to arrive at the best visual representation of that particular alternative. The danger here is that you could become trapped in the editing and stay in the loop too long. This well–formedness condition is designed to protect against such an occurrence. The condition of including an external check would require interrupting the internal processing each cycle around the loop to determine, for example, how much time has passed. Equally effective and more natural would be the maneuver of introducing a counter on the loop. There are two easy ways of accomplishing this: (1) In the Vⁱ step, you introduce a visual representation of a counter — that is, the first time through the numeral "1" is affixed visually to the starting image; each time the loop returns to that step (Vⁱ) the visual counter is incremented by 1, so that consecutive cycles are visually noted 1, 2, 3 … etc. Using this approach, the decision maker would determine, prior to beginning the process, the number of edits to allow for each alternative. When that numeral appears, the strategy kicks in the next alternative and resets the visual counter back to 1. (2) Introduce a K which is outside the loop

The Kⁱ is timed — that is, the decision maker determines prior to beginning the decision making how long to allow for constructing and editing each alternative. Kⁱ is set for that length of time. When that time period (kept kinesthetically) has elapsed the Kⁱ outside the loop switches the decision maker into the next alternative to be considered.

4. THERE SHOULD BE NO TWO POINT LOOPS IN THE STRATEGY. A two point loop is a loop in the strategy where the individual cycles or spirals between two representational systems, the usual result being that the loop doesn't exit. The loop is kept from exiting due to an inadequate test or because the operate phase (which only involves one representation system) is too minimal to make any significant change in the value of the representation being tested for. Loops that do not exit can be established in strings of representations that display more than two points, of course, and these should be avoided as well. But the majority of spiraling cases occur in loops of only two points because they do not generally access enough information or behavior to form an effective TOTE. An example of a two point loop would be if, during some strategy, an individual triggers an internal voice that criticizes him in a high pitched, blaming tonality. The blaming voice, in turn, triggers negative visceral feelings. The voice then blames the individual for feeling bad, and this causes the person to feel even worse. The voice then becomes further agitated and blaming, and the loop spirals between auditory and kinesthetic:

The same sort of interaction can happen among people in a family, group or organization as well. Notice that a change in any of the modifiers in a particular representational step qualifies as a new distinction. A change from auditory internal (Aⁱ) to auditory external (A^e) would have kept this sequence from becoming a two point loop. A change from tonal to digital, from remembered to constructed or from a polarity response to a meta response would each qualify as a legitimate difference in representational quality.

As an illustration of these four well–formedness conditions, consider the following example of a decision making strategy which violates all of the well–formedness conditions. One of the authors was working with a woman who was experiencing a great many unnecessary problems in her life because of her inability to make decisions. The author elicited her decision making strategy and found that it essentially consisted of one two point loop. Whenever it was necessary for her to make a decision she would begin by proposing one of the possibilities to herself verbally. She would then get a feeling about what it would be like to be doing that particular activity. As soon as she got that feeling, however, she would have an auditory polarity response in which a voice would tell her that she should do something else which the voice would then specify. Just as she would get a feeling for doing the second alternative proposed by the voice, the voice would cut in again and tell her she should be doing something else. She would wind up bouncing back and forth among the various options available to her but would never be able to choose any of them because of the polarity loop, until some external experience would finally force her into choosing one of the alternatives. If there was no external intervention, however, she would sometimes spend days at a time literally immobilized, either lying in bed or sitting around her house.

Obviously the strategy did not contain all of the representational systems, nor did it achieve the outcome of successful decision making. It contained no external checks and represents a classic example of the two point loop:

The author designed a new strategy for the woman that contained two visual steps. She was to begin the strategy by looking externally at a clock and at other conditions in her external environment (V^e). She was next to tell herself how much time she had to make her decision (Aⁱ_d); this was based on what kind of decision was to be made but was not to exceed an hour unless there were unusual conditions. She was then to make an explicit internal image of the clock in her mind's eye, showing what time it would be at the completion of her decision (Vⁱ)- After getting a feeling for the amount of time she had (Kⁱ), she would check the clock to see how much time had elapsed (V^e) and propose her first option to herself verbally (Aⁱ_d ). The following step was to make an image of what would be involved in the task and outcome (Vⁱ ). After she could see these details she would get a feeling for what it would be like to carry out that option (Kⁱ). Then she was to check the clock again (V^e) to assess her progress in relation to the time limit, and propose possibility number two to herself verbally (Aⁱ_d ), picture (Vⁱ) what was involved and check out how she felt about what she saw (Kⁱ). She was to check the clock again (V^e) and repeat this operation until she saw that time had run out, at which point she was to tell herself (Aⁱ_d) that time had run out and that she would now make her decision. She was to look at all the images she had made of the various possibilities (Vⁱ) and begin to carry out the one that felt the best to her (Kⁱ). This new strategy proceeded in the following manner:

The strategy was installed and tested on the spot by having the woman utilize it to make an important decision that she had been putting off for weeks.

5.311 OUTCOME SEQUITUR.

In many cases where a person is looping in a strategy between a number of possible alternatives, as in the instance just cited, or when a person is having motivational problems, we will design into his strategy a representation we call the "outcome sequitur." The term means that which follows the outcome — what happens after the outcome has been achieved.

For instance, rather than simply designing and installing a strategy for a student to achieve the outcome of writing a term paper, we might also include a representation of what his experience would be like after the paper is finished as part of the outcome. Similarly, instead of having an alcoholic concentrate on the outcome of stopping his drinking habit, we would have him consider what he would be doing if he weren't drinking — as part of his outcome. This type of maneuver can often automatically positively reframe the person's experience of the specific task he is trying to accomplish by putting it into perspective with a larger train of events.

Considering the implications or outcomes of a particular outcome you are attempting to secure also has important ecological value especially if you are involved in working with businesses, organizations, families or in political situations where every outcome will propagate a series of responses from others involved in the system. The ability or inability to achieve an outcome may be based on secondary gains or contextual conditions that are not uncovered until the outcome sequitur is explored. These ecological considerations will be covered in more detail in the next section of this book.

5.312 RULES OF THUMB IN DESIGN

The purpose of design is to maximize efficiency and ease in achieving a particular outcome. There are other considerations that, although they are not well–formedness conditions, you should keep in mind while designing strategies: 1) When possible, choose the strategy that has the fewest steps — this is the modeling elegance rule again; don't complicate the strategy if you don't need to. 2) Having a choice is, in general, better than not having a choice — this goes back to the law of requisite variety mentioned earlier; variability in behavior is essential to adaptation. This also refers to the point we made earlier that the old strategies you are redesigning may still be useful in some contexts. When working with NLP you should never have to "get rid" of anything, only contextualize maladaptive behavior and design and install effective strategies. 3) When possible, opt for positive motivation when designing strategies. This is essentially an ecological consideration. Many individuals, and some institutions and organizations, have strategies that utilize negative motivation for achieving outcomes. Some people, for instance, have motivation or decision strategies that have tests that require a certain level of stress to be reached before the person will operate to access resources. The strategy keeps looping until enough stress is built up to anchor in a resource strategy. Others use punishment systems and aversive conditioning methods as motivators. And, although these methods are sometimes quite efficient and effective in securing outcomes in the short run, ecologically, because of the physiological effects of prolonged stress, pain, anger, and other negative visceral representations, they will often end up being detrimental to the health of the person or system. Also, we have found that negative anchors have a propensity to extinguish if not reinforced. Positive anchors, on the other hand, build in their own reinforcement.

5.313 Meta–Outcomes.

The topics of negative motivation and requisite variety are only two of a number important ecological considerations that occur in strategy design. One of the most important questions to ask yourself when designing a strategy or choosing an outcome is, "Will it violate personal or organizational ecology?" Make sure that the strategy you design does not go directly against any other strategies that the client has. Sometimes there will be important reasons why an individual or organization hasn't achieved some particular outcome or developed a particular strategy.

Any given specific outcome or task is framed within the context of a higher order outcome, an organizing principle or "meta–outcome" for the system (ie., the individual or organization). A meta–outcome is one that organizes the behavior of the system in terms of general goals like the preservation and survival, growth and evolution, protection, betterment, adaptation, etc. of the system. To be ecological, any other outcome or strategy must contribute to these basic outcomes. Most naturally occurring strategies and outcomes are geared for achieving the adaptive meta–outcomes, but it will be important to test to make sure those that are artificially designed are congruent with these meta–outcomes. Gregory Bateson in Steps to an Ecology of Mind discusses some of the dangers of what can happen if outcome oriented behavior is not kept ecological. (See his article, "Conscious Purpose versus Nature" pp. 426–439)

One should take note, that, as with the case of the phobic response discussed earlier in this section, some strategies and outcomes which contributed to one of these meta–outcomes at one point in time and/or in a particular context may actually be counterproductive to the achievement of that outcome in other circumstances, and it will important to include specific context markers in your design.

Often, establishing the meta–outcome first will help you in the choice and design of specific outcomes and strategies.

5.32 Applying Artificial Design in a Group Situation.

Designing a strategy for a group or organization draws from the same basic principles as individual strategy design. The purpose is to accomplish an outcome in the most effective manner possible. In an individual's strategy, the elements that you sequence to perform tests and operations are the representational systems — in an organization the elements that you sequence to perform the various tests and operations are the people. As in a strategy for an individual, a strategy for an organization will be composed of the following parts: 1) gathering and inputting information, 2) processing that information by making tests, associations, generalizations and discriminations, 3) operating and outputting in response to the outcome of this processing, and 4) gathering feedback on the effects of the operations and outputs. We can diagram these visually in the following way:

An organization is in essence a TOTE in which people are the elements that perform the test 8c operate functions instead of representational systems. In designing a strategy for an organization you will need to take the same things into account that you do when designing a strategy for an individual:

a) What is the desired outcome of the strategy? DESIRED STATE

b) How will you know if you have achieved it? FEEDBACK

c) What specific elements and functions are required to achieve the outcome? REQUIRED RESOURCES (division of labor)

d) Which of these are already available in the organization you are working with and which are missing? PRESENT STATE (Cost–benefit analysis: Should you try to obtain the missing resources, or design the strategy with what you already have?)

e) How do you sequence and schedule your elements and functions to achieve the outcome in the most elegant and efficient way possible?

Let us demonstrate how neurolinguistic programming principles and strategy technology may be used to engineer an effective group strategy by means of an example showing its application to team building, decision making and brainstorming procedures. The example is drawn from our consultation work with businesses and organizations.

Suppose you are consulting for a group of five executives involved in a decision making process (for instance, let's say they are based in New York and are trying to decide whether to expand to Pennsylvania and to initiate several specific new programs). The executives are having a difficult time, however. Each has a strategy that operate in such a way that his or her behavior tends to negate that of one or more of the others. They are out of rapport and end up mostly arguing with one another. The conflict is delaying and distracting them from achieving their outcome. Using NLP principles you would set about organizing the situation in the following way:

1. The programmer establishes him/herself in meta–position— having no committments other than insisting on a high quality outcome, independent of the content of that decision.

2. The programmer elicits and states as explicitly as possible (skill with the Meta–Model will help greatly here) the desired outcome (O₁) of this particular session. In this example O₁ is to decide whether the program for expansion into the state of Pennsylvania is sound.

3. The programmer then frames this outcome by putting it into the context of the corporate or meta–outcomes (O_m). Meta–outcomes in this example might include:

a) to increase company revenues.

b) to provide a high quality product and service to customers in Pennsylvania which increases

the absolute size of the industry market.

their company's relative share of the market.

4. The programmer and the executives are then to specify (for feedback purposes) what specific elements will constitute an adequate O₁. This will be the outcome sequitur of the particular meeting they are involved in. The information gathering process should also include a consideration of the outcome sequitur (the results of achieving the desired state they are deciding upon) for O₁. For example, O₁ is achieved when the program has been reviewed by all group members and either:

a) a decision has been made that the entire program is sound and its implementation is the next step, or

b) a decision has been reached that the overall program is sound and some portion(s) of the program

(a) requires further information.

(b) the information required is identified — sources for the information are identified — the cost of securing such information is adequately offset by the expected value of such information (cost–benefit analysis).

c) (3) O₁ is judged unsound and Om has again been validated. Assignments to develop alternatives to O₁ in achieving O_m are made (including feedback to arrange a next meeting at which O₂ , O₃ ,……O_n will be presented as ways of achieving O_m ).

It will be very helpful in all procedures if all information relevant to the decision making process is available or translatable into all representation systems (verbally, pictorially on graphs and flip charts, and in a way that is relatable to feelings).

5. The programmer should then assess the present state capabilities of each of the participants in the decision making process. Specifically, the programmer should identify what strategy is functioning for the task he is trying to accomplish. This can be accomplished:

a) from the observations the programmer has made of their interactions before he began his interventions.

b) by eliciting an appropriate strategy from the individual's personal history (e.g., "Think of a time that you were able to make a good decision that involved a number of complex issues"). Let's say that the programmer has chosen option (1) and observed the interactions of the executives as they initially attempted to make the decision. From his observations he has been able to determine the following: Each circle represents one of the people involved in the process. Each is inputting the external visual and auditory signals of the others. The strategy sequence nearest them indicates the strategy that has been observed in them by the programmer. PERSON A has been able to take the visual and auditory input (V^e /A^e) from the others and see at least fifteen new possibilities (V^c) that he feels (Kⁱ) would increase the revenue of the corporation, and has described these images to the others (A^e_d). PERSON B, when he has gotten person A's auditory output, has had a polarity response to it and accessed remembered images (V^r) of situations similar to those that A is proposing where something has gone wrong. He finds fault with all of A's proposals and has strong negative feelings (Kⁱ_-) about what he sees as a possible disaster. He expresses these feelings to A in a hostile tone of voice (A^e_t) which has precipitated a number of arguments between he and A. PERSON C feels that an expansion is necessary (Kⁱ) but does not have any clear ideas on what specifically needs to be done, but she keeps telling herself (Aⁱ_d) that she'll know it when she hears it. PERSON D, through remembering a number of ideas she's heard and picked up, (A^r), is able to modify the faults that that B has found in A's proposals so that it looks (V^e) as though they may work. PERSON E has been able to figure out how to possibly implement some of both A's ideas and D's revisions by asking himself if it could be done (Aⁱ_d), beginning to sense himself going through the motions (Kⁱ) and then remembering ways similar things were done in the past (V^r). From the information he has gathered the programmer can determine that A's strategy tends to be specialized for creativity but is not always practical. B has an effective critical strategy good for testing ideas for possible faults but tends to lack the creativity needed to operate to modify ideas to make them workable. C's strategy is without a visual component and is not particularly useful in terms of creativity. She will make a decision on the basis of her feelings. D has a good strategy for modifying input and making it more practical. D also possesses some creativity. E has a good strategy for implementation but lacks the ability to be creative or to modify.

6. The programmer's task now is to sequence the interactions of these five people into the most effective order for obtaining the outcome. He may choose to either:

a) spend time developing and designing more effective and versatile strategies for each of the participants, installing them as added resources, or

b) sequence the existing strategies in the most useful order given the existing outcomes of the strategies. This would involve organizing the interaction so that the output of one individual's strategy flowed easily and usefully as input to the strategy of another — to set up a system in which each of their strategies is maximally utilized for what it does well.

Let's say, for the purpose of this example, that the programmer chooses option (2). He has already made a determination of the special abilities and deficiencies of the strategies the persons involved. The task now is to

(a) Number each participant and schedule them to present their ideas for a specified time (e.g. five minutes). Each is to take the output of the one that has come before them and to process it through his or her strategy. Each must let the others talk without interruption.

The trick, of course, will be to find the the sequence that best fits the natural resources of the participants. You may, for example, want to design your sequence such that A starts with his creativity strategy. Then you schedule B to critique A's suggestions. Then you schedule D to modify the faults that B found and make A's proposals useful again. Then you schedule E to figure out ways to implement the modified proposals. And finally you schedule C to feel everything out and decide if the proposals and implementation procedures are appropriate.

You are assigning them to do what they have done before anyway. Their problem has been, however, that their sequencing was somewhat random and, because of conflicts, nothing was ever really allowed to develop. They did not have a framework structured to take full advantage of their abilities. By scheduling them you reframe the situation so that B is no longer "insulting" A by finding fault, but carrying out a necessary function. Each person's strategy is framed as a resource (which indeed it is) and each is respected for his or her skill. Person A generates ideas specifically so that B may test them and find where they need to be modified and made even better. The time becomes maximally utilized and each time block is used for one function at a time. One major difficulty with many group decision making processes is that the people jump from considering and defining present state to desired state to problem state to resources, and often the content gets jumbled. One important function of scheduling is that when you are considering a desired state you stick with desired state until it has been specified in detail. These details may later be modified on the basis of other information — but the process of initially defining it is not interrupted.

(b) The programmer must also control for adverse nonverbal or interpersonal interactions, whether they are intentional on the part of the participants or not. Sometimes one member of the group will use a certain tonality, for instance, that triggers negative feelings in another, even though the person using the tonality is merely excited and does not mean to intimidate. If the programmer observes such a response s/he can take steps to neutralize that tonal anchor and repeat what she or he has just said over again.

By making such an intervention, the programmer can assist the executives into each contributing their strategy as a part of a larger decision making strategy, so that the overall decision they make together is better then any could have made alone.

VI. INSTALLATION

As we approach the final section of this book, we are approaching the end of what may be viewed as the second act in a three-act play. Some appropriate portion of your life experience prior to reading this book is act one, in which the main characters are introduced, the plot is established, and the tempo and pitch of the action have risen to create exactly the right degree of anticipation for act two. "Live" theater, for over 2,500 years, has provided one of the most powerful and exciting forms of entertainment available to the human species. The sensory encounter with living people— surrounding us in the audience as well as on stage — allows us to experience a range and variety of synesthesia patterns that we've learned to appreciate and value in the context of that altered state of consciousness commonly called "vicarious" experience.

In the second act of our play — this book — the characters and their interactions are revealed to a depth and extent not available to us on the level of act one, generating new levels of meaning to the dialogue, gestures and facial expressions of the characters and setting the stage for the launching of the most powerful act in the drama . . . act three. Under the impact of the insights, dialogues and outcomes of act two, the action in the third act takes a quantum jump to a new dimension of experience, leading the protagonist to the denouement of your choice — a meta-choice if you wish.

For weeks prior to the first public performance of a stage play, the actors and actresses of the cast rehearse their lines before the watchful eyes and ears of the director, who may insist on certain body movements, gestures, facial expressions, tones of voice, rate and volume of dialogue delivery and so forth to generate maximum effect in the eventual presentation before a "paying" audience. The function of a director, in part, is to recognize, elicit and utilize the talent resources of each member of the cast to maximize his or her performance. A discriminating theater-goer decides to attend a play as much on the basis of who the director is as well as the cast and author.

During rehearsal members of the cast anchor their on-stage entrances, exits, movements and dialogue lines to particular cues —words or actions immediately preceding their own "parts"— until each scene and act flow as smoothly as the ongoing life experience it represents and emphasizes. The purpose of all preliminary work is to embed, to disguise, to render magically invisible in the flow of the performance another and more fundamental set of cues: a sequence of culturally rooted visual and auditory stimuli that evoke appropriate combinations of audience 4-tuples. By controlling the sequence, tempo, timing, variation and magnitude of audience internal kinesthetics during a stage play, the actors and actresses play their audience much as a musician plays an instrument. If it is done well, both the audience and the cast thoroughly enjoy their shared experience.

Whether art imitates life or life imitates art, effective installation is like the preparatory work that is integral to a successful performance. The NLP practitioner, like the director of the play, insures that all cues are appropriately anchored and that each member of the cast has rehearsed until his performance is exactly tuned to achieve the desired outcome — only in this case you will write the script for your own third act.

6. Well-formedness conditions for the installation.

There are two basic ways to install a strategy sequence that you have designed: (1) through anchoring and inserting the steps of the strategy and (2) through having the client rehearse (a form of self anchoring) the strategy sequence. Although these two methods will be treated separately as we initially present them, they are best utilized in conjunction with one another — firing off the anchors you have established as you "walk" the person through the strategy-The goal of installation is to make the strategy you have designed function as naturally and automatically as the existing strategy you are replacing. Each step in the strategy must automatically trigger the next. There are two major well-formedness conditions for installation that you will be testing for to insure that you have done effective work:

1. The entire strategy sequence must be available to the client as an intact unit — so that each step is automatically tied to the next.

2. The strategy sequence must be tied to the appropriate context —so that it is wired (anchored) to some stimulus (context marker) within the context that will initiate the strategy when that stimulus is introduced. This is to insure that the strategy will initiate itself at the appropriate time.

To install a strategy effectively you will have to interrupt or break the existing strategy at the appropriate place so that the new one may be inserted. Generally this is just a matter of timing, so that you begin the new strategy at the place in the existing sequence where the old strategy would have gone into operation. Sometimes, however, you will have to purposefully interrupt the existing strategy (if the synesthesia patterns are too ingrained or the strategy operates too quickly) before the new one can be effectively installed.

As you install the strategy you will also want to test its ecological fit. (This can be done by finding the outcome sequitur). If you try to install a strategy that is somehow inappropriate or maladaptive for the client you will encounter interference phenomena such as resistance to the strategy or "sabotage" of the installation process.

6.1 Installation Through Anchoring.

In the Utilization Section of this book we discussed how anchors could be used to establish and elicit either full 4-tuple representations of an experience, or could be used to selectively access one particular portion of a 4-tuple. The use of anchors in strategy installation involves the anchoring of a selective sequence of individual representations over time. Just as anchors may be used to access either one or more parts or the whole of a 4-tuple, in the utilization of strategies, so may they be used to access either parts or the whole of a particular strategy sequence for installation purposes. An entire strategy sequence may be anchored with a single anchor, or the programmer may selectively anchor single steps or subroutines (synesthesia patterns).

A major difference, however, between the use of anchoring in utilization procedures and the use of anchoring in installation is that, in utilization, you want to use anchoring for controlling the content of particular strategy steps. In installation you want to control the strategy step itself. What you will want to anchor for installation purposes, then, is not any particular content, but rather the act of using the particular representational system required for the step. You will want to establish your anchors so that they gain access to the use of a particular representational system, or established sequence of representational systems.

As we discuss the various methods of utilizing anchors in installation procedures we will be using the symbol, "∮" to represent an anchor. This symbol means that an anchor has been established for whatever bracketed representational system or sequence follows it. ∮ [Vⁱ] indicates that an anchor has been established that initiates access to internal activity of the visual representational system. It will be assumed that the anchor indicated by the symbol is unspecified with respect to which representational system it has been established through, unless this is specified by a superscript, if ∮ ^Ke would indicate a tactile kinesthetic anchor (such as a touch or squeeze), ∮ ^Aed would indicate a verbal anchor (a word), ∮ ^Vc would indicate an anchor in the form of a constructed visual image and so on.

6.11 Anchoring An Entire Strategy Sequence.

If your strategy design calls for the use of a particular strategy sequence or subroutine already available in some form in the client's existing repertoire of strategies, it is possible to anchor that entire existing sequence with one anchor, so that it may be inserted as an entire unit into the new sequence you are designing. It may also be inserted into some situation where it was not available previously as a resource — so that it becomes wired to the contextual stimuli that make up the situation and allows for another possible choice of behavior within that context. It is installed as a resource into situations where the client desires a choice of outcomes.

In such cases the strategy is generally taken from a context in which it occurs naturally and is installed in a context in which it does not occur or has not previously occurred. In performing this operation it is important to be sure that you separate the strategy sequence itself from the trigger that has formerly initiated the strategy sequence within the context you are extracting it from. We can show this process visually in the following way:

Step 1 shows that some external visual stimulus in Context A naturally initiates the strategy sequence Aⁱ_d . .. . K^e . This sequence is anchored in its entirety by the anchor.

In step 2 the strategy unit is anchored into Context B where, formerly, some external auditory stimulus had initiated a

loop. This allows the individual the choice of accessing the strategy from Context A in Context B so that it may serve as a resource.

In our seminars we often demonstrate this process by anchoring an individual's entire motivation strategy. The individual is asked to think of a time when he motivated himself to do something he did not particularly want to do. The steps in this strategy are then elicited through questioning and observation, and each step is anchored with the same kinesthetic anchor on one of the individual's knees. Some behavior is then suggested or proposed that the individual does not particularly care to do (for example, to walk across the room and lift a chair over his head, or to pick up a pencil that has been thrown on the floor). The individual is questioned a number of times to establish that he really does not want to complete the behavior. The motivation strategy is then triggered by "firing" off the anchor. When the strategy has been well anchored, the individual will automatically reaccess the strategy sequence for motivation, applying it to the ongoing context. In many cases the individual will spontaneously begin to perform the task that, seconds before, he had not been motivated to do. If the anchor is released before the individual has completed the behavior he will often stop in mid-reach, remaining immobile until the anchor is replaced.

Subroutines may be extracted from larger strategies and sequenced in the same fashion:

In the preceding diagram, two existing synesthesia patterns that occur in different contexts have been anchored together to form a new strategy. One strategy segment has been tacked to the end of another, through anchoring, to form a new sequence. In one synesthesia sequence (Vⁱ- Kⁱ) the individual derives visceral feelings from internal images. The other (Aⁱ_d - K^e) is one in which the individual initiates physical action through internal dialogue. Since synesthesia patterns tend to automatically carry through their own processes once initiated, the important part of this installation procedure is to tie the person's internal dialogue into his feelings.

This method of anchoring may also be used to streamline an inappropriately long strategy by anchoring the last few steps, or the last operation, to some earlier step in the sequence. In this way a number of middle steps can be bypassed, or potentially crippling loops can be short circuited, as shown in the diagram below.

An example of how to employ such a procedure is demonstrated in a case in which one of the authors was working with a man who had a long, cumbersome and inefficient decision making strategy. This individual would spend hours or even days in deliberation, putting off decisions for so long that he would invariably end up passing by key opportunities, which would cause him to feel bad. As a consequence he would become deeply agitated and angry with himself for having wasted so much time. The author redesigned his decision strategy such that the individual would take into consideration the possibilities of missing key opportunities and wasting time (this becomes a representation of the outcome sequitur for the outcome of not making a decision on time) at a much earlier point in his strategy. This helped provide a motivation for the individual to speed up the strategy process by considering the possible outcomes of over deliberation, and served as a resource to provide a time check in the decision process. The inclusion of this test for negative feelings served as a decision point in the strategy at an earlier stage.

This strategy was installed by asking the person what it was like at the end of his strategy when he began to realize how much time he had wasted and how he may have possibly missed important opportunities. As the man responded, the sequence of representational systems was anchored kinesthetically ( ∮ ^Ke) with a squeeze on his knee. The individual was then asked to tell the author about a decision that he would soon be required to make, or a decision that he was deliberating on at present. The individual responded by telling the author about some decision he had been trying to make without getting anywhere. As he began to relate some of the details, the author reached over and squeezed his knee. The man stopped in mid-sentence. And, by observing his accessing cues, the author could tell he began to go through the anchored subroutine. Within moments the individual had come up with at least five things, that would bear upon the decision, that he needed to do. The author then repeated the process with a number of other current decisions the person needed to make, squeezing the individual's knee during the first few decisions they discussed, and witholding the anchor for the last three, as a test to make sure the new strategy was now installed. The installation of the new strategy was so successful that the individual is now the owner of the company that, at that time, had employed him as a secretary.

6.12 Anchoring Individual And Unrelated Strategy Steps.

Individual representational steps may be pulled out of totally unrelated strategy sequences, anchored and then reanchored together in sequence to form a new strategy. For instance, a certain form of internal dialogue may be taken from one naturally occurring strategy, the ability to see clearly externally from another and some internal kinesthetic check or test from yet another. These three representational functions may then be anchored together in a variety of orders and sequences to generate new outcomes and experiences for the individual. The programmer may, for instance, anchor first the ability to see clearly externally, then the internal dialogue, thirdly the positive kinesthetic feelings, and finally the ability to see clearly is anchored again so that the individual may exit again to external experience to gather feedback as more input.

The anchors used to trigger the appropriate strategy step may be kinesthetic (as with touches on various places on the individual's body) or in another representational system such as internal or external visual cues. Words, of course, are anchors (see discussion of language as secondary experience in Patterns II), and have the advantage of being culturally standardized to some degree. The programmer, then, may sequence representations using verbal anchors (this can be more generally recognized as "giving instructions").

The effectiveness of your anchoring can be increased by pairing and combining more than one anchor for the particular strategy step. Anchors in different representational systems may be paired to increase their effect as you install the strategy sequence.

Consider the following transcript of one of the authors installing a learning strategy in a participant at one of his workshops. The strategy he has designed and is installing is the one described in the preceding example:

TRANSCRIPT

AUTHOR: Now to begin the installation process, I want to get some good reference structures for you for the kinds of operations we're going to be putting together. First, I'd like you to think of a time when you could see very clearly (author raises his voice slightly to establish a tonal as well as digital auditory anchor— ∮ ^Ae) what was going on in your immediate environment . . . Can you think of a time?

SUBJECT: Ahh . . . (breathing shallows and moves into his chest, eyes flick up and left) . . . Ahh, yes ... I have one.∮

A: (Squeezes S's forearm— ∮₁^Ke) Good . . . Now what I want you to do is look at what is going on now around you . . . and keep looking until you can see very clearly (raises tonality— ∮ ^Ae_t,d) squeezes S's forearm— ∮₁^Ke) the people, motions, colors and any other details you can notice . . . (Pause while S carries out task — A continues squeezing S's forearm). Fine . . . (releases anchor) . . . Has there ever been a time when you were able to comment explicitly to yourself (slows voice tempo— ∮₂^Ae) about something that was going on around you?

S: Umm . . . (looks up and left).

A: (Laughs) You won't find it up there.

S: Huh?

A: Never mind.

S: Oh . . . Okay . . . Ummm ... a time when I was talking to myself about what was going on around me . . . (eyes move down and left).

A: (Laughs, reaches down and squeezes knee— ∮₂^Ke) You were doing it just now.

S: I was? . . . Oh . . . (Laughs) . . . Well, I thought of another time too.

A: Okay ... Good . .. What is that like.... can you comment explicitly to yourself (slows voice tempo— ∮₂^Aet,d) on what I'm doing right now? (A makes a series of gestures and movements with one hand, squeezes S's knee with the other— ∮₂^Ke) . . . All right . . . (releases anchor) . . . Now . . . has there ever been a time when you were thinking about something and you had to get in touch with your feelings and check it out (deepens tonality— ∮₃^Aet,d) for yourself?

S: Mmmm . . . (eyes move down and right) . . UhHuh . . . Sort of . . .

A: (Beginning to squeeze S's shoulder) . . . Exaggerate it then . . . get in touch with those feelings and keep checking it out (deepens tonality— ∮₃^Aet,d, squeezes S's shoulder— ∮₃^Ke) until you are really sure.

S: (Eyes and head down and right) . . Yeh . . . (nods) . . . Okay . . . (breath shifts to stomach.)

A: (Releases anchor) Wonderful. . . . Very good . . . Now I'd like to try something out. . . You've been wanting to learn accessing cues haven't you?

S: (Nods vigorously) Oh yes.

A: All right . . . Do you know the generalizations pretty well? Do you know what the eye movements mean?

S: Sort of . . . (shakes his head "no" unconsciously).

A: (Laughs) Your unconscious mind doesn't seem to think so.

S: What?

A: You were just now shaking your head "no."

S: Oh ... (smiles) ... You're right... I guess I was shaking it "no."

A: Well let's start there, then . . . (draws an eye movement chart on the blackboard) . . . Now ... I want you to look at this chart so that you can see very clearly (A raises his tonality— ∮₁^Ae, and squeezes S's forearm— ∮₁^Ke) each of the eye positions and what they indicate . . . and as you look from position to position I want you to comment explicitly to yourself (releases S's forearm and squeezes S's knee— ∮ ₂^Ke, slows tempo of voice when giving the instruction— ∮ ₂^Ae) about where each position is and what it means . . . and as you do this I want you to then get in touch with your feelings and check out (A releases S's knee and squeezes S's shoulder— ∮ ₃^Ke, deepens voice tonality— ∮ ₃^Ae) how good of a handle you have on identifying each of these positions . . . and keep looking very clearly (raises voice tone— ∮₁ ^Ae, releases shoulder and squeezes forearm— ∮₁^Ke) at each position . . . commenting explicitly to yourself (releases forearm and squeezes knee— ∮₂^Ke, slows voice tempo— ∮ ₂^Ae) about what each position means . . . and keep getting in touch with your feelings and checking it out (releases knee and squeezes shoulder— ∮₃^Ke, deepens tonality— ∮ ₃^Ae) until you feel that you've got a grasp of the meanings of the eye skating patterns .. . and when you do I want you to signal me by lifting this finger (indicates right forefinger) ... (A sequences the kinesthetic anchors once more without the accompanying visual anchors and then stops all anchoring of S to test to make sure the strategy will continue itself.)

S: (S studies the blackboard for about five minutes and then his forefinger begins to raise.)

A: Okay . . . Good . . . Now here's the next step ... I want you to look at me . . . and I'm going to move my eyes around to a number of different positions . . . and I want you to watch me so that you can see very clearly (raises voice pitch— ∮₁ ^Ae does not apply kinesthetic anchors) each position that I move my eyes to ... and as you see them I want you to comment explicitly to yourself (slows voice tempo— ∮₂^Ae) about which positions I'm accessing . . . and get in touch with your feeling and check out (deepens tonality- ∮ ₃^Ae) how good your grasp of them is . . . until you feel that you can not only see each position and know what it means but so you can see a whole sequence . . . and when you feel that you can do that I want you to allow your right hand to raise . . . (Note: A only anchors S through the strategy sequence once to test to make sure the strategy will access and perpetuate itself.)

S: (Watches A's eye movements for a few minutes and then raises his hand) . . . Okay . . .

A: Good . . . How is it working?

S: Fantastic . . . I've never felt so confident about any of this before.

A: Great . . . Now I'd like to test the effectiveness of your new learning strategy by running through a bunch of eye movement sequences and then have you tell me which sequence I just did . . . Okay . . . Begin . . .

S is able to follow each of the sequences the author presents. The strategy is then tested again by having S observe two other people from group interact until he is able to recount to the author the eye movement sequences of both people. He then gives S an anchor to access the strategy that S can initiate himself — that of S reaching over and squeezing his own forearm.

We can diagram the process of extracting and sequencing unrelated strategy steps in the following way:

6.2 Rehearsal

Rehearsal is a more operant method of conditioning or installing a strategy (as opposed to "anchoring" which more closely parallels classical or Pavlovian methods of conditioning). In the rehearsal process the individual practices or rehearses each representational step in the strategy until it becomes available as a spontaneous intact program. This process essentially involves the development of self-established anchors for strategy sequences.

6.21 Rehearsing Strategy Steps.

The most basic method of rehearsal would be that in which the programmer instructs the client in practicing making the transition through each step in the strategy as the programmer plugs in a number of different contents. This, of course, was a large part of what took place in the transcript.

Many times it won't take more than a few minutes of rehearsal to install a new strategy. Once one of the authors conducting an out-of-town workshop and was staying at the home of the workshop sponsor. While spending a quiet evening at the sponsor's home the author observed the sponsor's wife sitting with her second grade daughter and holding up flash cards with words and sentences on them for the girl to read and then spell. The daughter was obviously doing very poorly and consistently mixed up the orders of the words as she read and spelled. Taking an interest, the author asked the mother how her daughter was doing in school. Not surprisingly, the mother shook her head and admitted that her daughter was doing poorly, especially in reading. The daughter was constantly mixing up and reversing the orders of words, a condition that a specialist had diagnosed as dyslexic.

Reading, and especially spelling, from flash cards will generally require that the individual hold an internal visual image in the mind's eye. The author postulated that if the child had an underdeveloped visual system, it might account for the trouble. Judging by the child's body type, tonality and accessing cues, she should have been fully capable of making internal visual images. The author tested the girl's visual abilities by asking her to make and describe a series of images, which she could do readily. He then tested her reading and spelling strategies by flashing a card and asking her to read it and spell it. After looking at the card, the child's eyes immediately moved down and to the left, then, remaining down, over to the right, and back to the left, as she stumbled with the words — unable to achieve the outcome. It was immediately obvious to the author that it was the child's strategy for reading and spelling — an internal auditory and kinesthetic loop

—that was causing her so much trouble.

The author asked the child if she would like to play a flashcard game with him. This game was to be fun and she would not have to "try" to read or spell anything. She readily agreed. The author proceeded to show the child a flash card. As the author held the card and pointed to each letter in succession from left to right (V^e), the child was to pronounce each letter and sound each word out (A^e_d ). Then she was to look back at the entire word and pronounce it (V^e → A^e) out loud, and, then looking down and right and using her feelings (Kⁱ), tell whether the sounds she made were a real word. If it didn't feel right, she was to look back at the entire string of letters and pronounce them again a different way, and feel that out. She would continue until she felt good about the pronunciation and the word. Every time she pronounced and read the word correctly the author would smile, say "Good" in an encouraging tonality and squeeze her wrist. The fun of the flashcard game came, however, when the author put the flashcard down, for he would then direct her to move her eyes up and left and keep looking up there until she could see the card he had just put down. She could imagine the letters any color she wanted and was especially invited to try her favorite color. When she could see the series of letters clearly she was then to read them off to the author —not "spell" the word, just read the letters off as she saw them. She was even allowed to see the author's finger moving from left to right if she got stuck. (This was her favorite part of the game.) After she had read them off she was to look back at the words in her mind's eye, change the color again if she wanted to, sound out the letters, look back at the whole sequence, pronounce the word and then move her head down and right to feel if she was correct. Again, at each successful completion of the step, she was given positive reinforcement tonally and with a smile; and the kinesthetic anchor on her wrist was reinforced.

A special surprise soon emerged into the game. After a few trials, if the child got stuck, the author could make the internal image or pronunciation appear in her head simply by squeezing her wrist. Eventually, the child herself could make any difficult word-picture or pronunciation appear by squeezing her own wrist.

Another positive aspect of the game was the surprise that was vocally and congruently expressed by the child's mother, who had never heard her read or spell so well. In the half hour spent with the author, playing the somewhat mysterious flashcard game, the child successfully made it through more fiashcards than they had previously been able to get through in days — and the child was eager to do more of them, as she had gotten quite good at it. In fact, the little girl at one point exclaimed, "This is a lot easier than what I do with Mommy!" Additionally, even though she would occasionally leave a word or letter out, the child did not once reverse a word or letter during the entire game. (It should be noted that the author stopped pointing to the letters after the first few cards he held up, for the child was soon able to imagine it there as she read.)

Let us review, for a moment, some of the important aspects of this example. (1) The "game" was set up such that the emphasis was on form rather than content, on what to do and when — where to put her head and eyes, when to use feelings and pictures. The processes being rehearsed were framed so that they were more like learning a dance than like spelling. If she began to get stuck she was not corrected for being "wrong" but was simply told where to put her head or eyes. (2) Because the strategy being rehearsed was different from her typical strategy it was truly not "spelling" or "reading" in the sense she knew them. Simply reading the letters from her internal image was very different than "trying" to spell. (3) Her old strategy for reading, which had gone

was not well suited for the task. The new strategy,

provided much more efficient tests and operations tor the task and outcome of sight reading. (4) Her existing strategy for spelling had been even less appropriate — a simple loop. Again, the newly designed and installed

strategy,

Emphasizing the "game" aspect of strategy rehearsal can be greatly beneficial to your installation procedures. Playing a game is generally thought of as easier than changing your way of thinking, which is serious business.

We have a used a strategy similar to this one to help people who want to learn to draw. The outcome of the strategy is that you don't end up having to "draw" anything, but rather you trace it. The strategy, simple and easy, begins as the client either looks at the object he wants to draw or imagines a scene he would like to draw until he can close his eyes and still see it clearly. He is then to open his eyes and look at the drawing paper until he can imagine the picture right on the paper. Then taking his pen, pencil or brush, he is to simply "trace" the image he sees there.

6.22 Rehearsing Accessing Cues.

Another method of rehearsal (used extensively in the case of the "dyslexic" child) is the rehearsal of specific accessing cues. Since accessing cues are the primary method we use for naturally accessing our representational systems, this is an extremely effective installation method. This particular method also has an advantage in that accessing cues can be rehearsed and installed as a sequence without the client having to be conscious of representational content — the person's full conscious attention can be directed to the details of where to put his head and eyes, where and how fast to breathe, how to posture his body, etc. For this reason the rehearsing of only accessing cues, for strategy installation, can serve as a very powerful covert tactic. The individual simply rehearses the appropriate sequence of accessing cues which will lead automatically to the representational systems required for the strategy. The programmer tunes only the client's body — but still elicits the desired representational sequence. When the individual has learned the sequence to the point that it is automatic, the eye movements, postures, gestures, breathing rates and other behaviors that he has learned will automatically access the designed sequence of representational systems.

A client who has had no experience with NLP, will have no conscious understanding of what is occurring but may be very surprised and pleased when he finds that his behavior begins to change radically.

One way to keep this process even more covert (or when one is in situations where it is not appropriate to verbally instruct someone through the various accessing cues) is to lead the eyes of the subject to the appropriate accessing positions with hand gestures, or by leading them to the appropriate positions with one's own eye movements.

6.23 Rehearsing Synesthesia Patterns.

Rehearsing synesthesia patterns is another powerful method of installing sequences of representational system activity that is independent of specific content. For many people, certain synesthesia patterns will be unfamiliar and underdeveloped, and they may experience difficulty in making the transition from one certain type of representational system to another. Practicing synesthesia patterns, independent of specific content, will increase the ease of access and the the "representational vocabulary" (the discriminative capabilities) of particular individuals with underdeveloped systems.

If the programmer wanted to install a strategy that followed the sequence Aⁱ_d→K^e →Aⁱ_t →Vⁱ, he would instruct the client, starting with any particular portion of an internal dialogue, to generate seven tactile body sensations or movements. The instructions might go: "As you listen carefully to those words in your head, pay attention to what body sensations come from them. When you have identified one set of feelings, listen to the words again and allow another feeling to emerge from the words. Keep doing this until you have come up with seven different feelings. " The client is then instructed to pick the feeling that is most appropriate to the words being pronounced internally, and from that feeling he is to generate seven sounds that are not words. For example: "Get in touch with that feeling and allow it to turn into a sound." Have him repeat the process until he has generated seven sounds. Next, have him choose the sound most appropriate to the feelings it was derived from and instruct him to generate seven internal visual images from that sound.

Visually, we can represent this process in the following manner:

The synesthesia process may be greatly facilitated by teaching the individual to overlap accessing cues. For example, taking a deep breath in the abdominal area while looking up and to the left would help to produce a V→K overlap (or fuzzy function). Looking down and right, defocusing one's eyes and breathing high and shallow in the chest will facilitate K→V overlap. Looking up and right and touching one's face or chin would promote V^c →Aⁱ_d synesthesia.

Have the individual repeat the process until the transitions become smooth and easy.

Within the process of installing any particular strategy, of course, the programmer will want to use combinations of both anchoring and rehearsal techniques. Some steps will be more appropriately anchored in, while others should be rehearsed to help make the transitions smoother. For instance, the programmer may want to have the individual rehearse a synesthesia pattern that is difficult for him, but then choose to anchor the next step on to the synesthesia. The programmer will most often want to establish anchors for each step and fire them off as the individual rehearses.

6.3 Interrupting Strategies.

Installing a new strategy requires that you make it as available in context as an existing one. As we said at the beginning of the chapter, this can generally be accomplished with ease through timing — firing of the anchor(s) you have established for the new sequence at the appropriate time in the existing sequence — or by conditioning the new sequence via repeated rehearsal. If the new strategy you have designed is sufficiently adaptive it should reinforce and perpetuate itself naturally.

Sometimes, however, the existing strategy will have a particularly well-beaten path and will be unusually ingrained. If the outcome of the strategy interferes with what you are attempting to accomplish and is producing behaviors that are counterproductive to the achievement of the meta-outcomes of the client (such as the depressive strategies we discussed in the design chapter), it will be to the client's benefit for you to interrupt the existing strategy.

There are three basic ways to interrupt a strategy: (1) through overload, (2) by diversion and (3) by "spinning out" the strategy.

6.31 Interruption By Overload.

Overloading occurs when more information is being poured into a strategy or strategy step than it can handle. Overloading happens naturally in many everyday experiences — for example, when a person in a noisy place "can't hear himself think," or when a person feels so good (or bad) that he doesn't know what to do or say (this is often called "being overcome by emotion"). Other natural interruptions are situations like being overwhelmed by beauty or practically "knocked out" by some smell or fragrance.

The behavioral result of overloading, as with any of the interruption phenomena, is that person's strategy is stopped from completing its cycle. When a strategy is interrupted completely, the individual is left without a next step in behavior (in a sort of behavioral "limbo," or what is sometimes known as "somnambulistic trance" —see Patterns II) and is prone to jump for whatever next step is offered to him by the situation. That is, they display a strong tendency to respond to whatever anchor for response is provided by the situation. This is a phenomenon that you can easily take advantage of to install a strategy, if you time your anchors right.

Occasionally you may want to interrupt an existing strategy simply to stop its ongoing negative outcomes. As one of the authors was preparing to leave his house to board a plane for a week long trip, the phone rang. When the author answered it, an extremely worried and frantic voice came through the receiver, pleading with him to help a deeply depressed relative who was on the verge of suicide. It was impossible for the author to postpone his trip to work with the phone caller's relative, so he quickly told her to bring the suicidal relative to the airport and gate he would be departing from. He would see what he could do. They arrived just as he was preparing to board the plane. Left without time to attempt anything then, the author simply reached out, grabbed the relative's wrist, and squeezing it as hard as he could, made an extremely animated and contorted face and yelled at the top of his lungs, "Everything that you do this week has to come through this channel." He then released her wrist and boarded the plane. The rationale was that the simultaneous multi-sensory overload was sure to interrupt any ongoing strategy. Upon returning the following week and working finally with the depressive relative, the author was told how she had remained around the house all week, entertaining no thoughts of suicide. All she could remember experiencing, in fact, was a sustained visual image in her mind's eye of the face the author had made at the airport.

6.32 Interruption by Diversion.

A strategy is diverted when a particular input shifts the representational sequence away from the ongoing strategy. A person who is lost in thought, for instance, will be interrupted when some noise or movement draws his attention to his external environment. The stimulus does not overload the person's strategy; it instead overrides the ongoing sequence, drawing the person's behavior to some other locus. Often, after such an interruption, the person who was formerly lost in thought may have a difficult time reaccessing the strategy he was in and may even forget what he was thinking about. Diverting someone's attention so that it breaks his concentration or stops him from completing some particular behavior, has been employed as an effective interruption technique throughout the ages.

Stopping or blocking a person's accessing cues is an extremely direct and powerful way of interrupting his ongoing strategy. Strategies may be interrupted and diverted by waving or moving your hands in front of someone's face and knocking away their eye position cues. Having a depressed client sit up straight, hold his head up high, take a full breath in the chest, throw his shoulders back, open his eyes wide and smile, is one of the most rapid and effective ways of drawing a depressive out of a negative state. The typical depressive posture probably does more to elicit and perpetuate the depressed state than any other element. The posture is generally slumped and hunched over, eyes and head oriented downward to produce full kinesthetic access — it's no wonder that he isn't able to see or talk himself out of his problems. As we pointed out earlier, there tends to be an inverse relationship between the internal and external focusing of the same representational system — the more you are talking to yourself in your head, the less you can hear what's going on around you, and so on. For the depressed, then, who spend most of their time focused on internal kinesthetics, tactile awareness, especially through physical exercise and sports, will be an extremely effective diversion. To interrupt someone who is depressed, have him do something, no matter how meaningless the activity may seem.

A therapist once told the authors about an emergency call she received from a person who was very depressed and contemplating suicide. At the time of the call, however, the therapist was involved in a critical intervention with another client, one she could not abandon. Out of desperation, the therapist in a firm and congruent voice told the caller that she was to go out immediately, take a bicycle ride for at least 20 minutes and was to call the therapist again when she returned. The therapist's reasoning was that this would keep the person occupied so that she wouldn't harm herself, until the therapist had finished with the other client and could turn her full attention toward helping the caller. Much to the therapist's surprise, when the potential suicide called back, the crisis had passed. The bike ride, the caller said, had been just what she needed to break the depression. Prior to the ride she hadn't been out of her house for days because she'd been feeling bad. She said that she now realized how that had only contributed to her negative state. She still needed to work on a number of problems she faced, but the bike ride had averted a crisis.

6.33 Interruption By "Spinning Out" a Strategy.

A strategy will "spin out" when the end of the strategy becomes anchored to its beginning in such a way that the strategy keeps feeding back into itself (like the proverbial snake swallowing its own tail). Because it can't exit, the strategy is forced to continue looping. Most strategies have a kind of test, a meta-test you might call it, such that if the strategy operations are ineffectual after a certain period of time, the program will exit into a completely new strategy — thus, the "spin out."

The following is an illustration of how a belief strategy may be spun out:

A: How do you know that you can't get X outcome?

B: My experience tells me that I can't.

A: How do you know that your experience tells you that?

B: Because I've tried before and failed.

A: How do you know that you've failed?

B: I remember it.

A: How do you know that you remember it?

B: Because I can see it.

A: How do you know that you can see it?

The pattern here is obvious — whatever output is received from the strategy is fed back through the strategy again. This continues until eventually the strategy essentially runs through itself.

One of the authors was once working with a young man who was having motivational difficulties in his business. He kept finding himself taking on much more than he could possibly handle. Upon eliciting his motivation strategy the author found that it was such that if the young man was asked if he could perform some task or favor by a client, friend or associate he would immediately attempt to construct an image of himself doing what they had asked of him. If he could see himself doing it he would then think that he should do it and would begin to carry out the task requested of him, even if it interfered with other things he was currently involved in. The author tested the strategy by asking the young man if he would run up and down some nearby stairs for the rest of the afternoon. The young man replied that he could only see himself running up and down the stairs for a half an hour at the most, but actually began to get out of his chair to begin the task for that half an hour. The author then asked the young man if he could visualize himself not doing something that he could visualize himself doing. A rapid and profound trance state ensued as the man's strategy began to spin out. The author took advantage of this state to install some more effective tests and operations into the young man's motivation strategy.

Another way to spin a strategy out is to establish one anchor for the beginning of the strategy and another for the end of the strategy; then, collapse the anchors so the beginning and the end become tied together. A man who came to a workshop put on by one of the authors, claimed he'd been trying to go into a hypnotic trance for over 25 years and had never succeeded. He firmly believed it was impossible for him to enter a trance state even though he had been desperately wanting to for all those years. His belief strategy was spun out as a demonstration by anchoring the beginning to the end through collapsing two anchors established for those steps. The man's initial reaction was confusion and some agitation, but within an hour he had (and most importantly was convinced that he had) the first trance experience of his life.

Each of these techniques for interruption is designed to stop the progress of an ongoing strategy so that an intervention may be made by the programmer. The same techniques can be used to stop someone's strategy if the outcomes of that strategy are annoying to you or are being used to your detriment. The subtle "knocking away" or diversion of a person's accessing cues with hand gestures or head gestures, can be used to interrupt a person's strategy if it is important or necessary for you to get the upper hand in a situation, or to gracefully force a shift in the flow or direction of the communication. (Subtle clicking noises made with your mouth tend to be a very effective covert means of causing a change in someone's internal pictures — eye movements can also be covertly directed by indicating, with your own eye movements, which position should be accessed next.)

6.4 Interference Phenomena.

Interference phenomena, commonly called "resistance," "blocks:" "sabotage, " "dissention, " "objections, " and so on, form probably the most frequently encountered obstacles to anyone dealing with human behavior to achieve outcomes. The businessperson, manager educator, therapist, lawyer, politician, etc., must deal with these phenomena, whether manifest as inefficiency, learning disability, incongruence, hesitation, personal problems or conflict.

In the neurolinguistic programming model such experiences as objections, incongruence, and resistance are utilized as valuable tests for the effectiveness of the installation of a strategy. Rather than rejecting interference phenomena as "sabotage," we use them to check on the strategy in operation (whether it is preexisting or newly designed and installed). Interference to the operation of a strategy generally occurs (I) when some other resource (in the form of a representation or a sequence change) is still required for the successful securing of the outcome, or (2) when the strategy is not effective for all contexts in question.

Objections do not mean the programmer has failed in designing a good strategy, but are rather accepted as natural feedback, and utilized to modify the strategy in order to make it more effective. Interference is the result of naturally occurring tests for personal ecology.

If you have elicited or designed and installed a strategy and the strategy does not secure the intended outcome when you attempt to utilize it there are a number of things to check: (Each of these checks should be made, of course, after you have tested to make sure you have not broken rapport.)

1) Calibration of the strategy: Are each of the representational systems involved and are their corresponding accessing cues clearly delineated and at the appropriate order of magnitude?— That is, make sure none of the representations are too weak to work properly. Make sure the designated representational system for each step in the sequence has the highest signal value for the ongoing 4-tuple at that point in time. If, when you anchor, the individual has an internal dialogue that says "This won't work," firing anchor will retrigger this internal dialogue. It is important to maintain the representational integrity of each strategy step (this is the "chain-is-no-stronger-than-its-weakest-link" aspect of strategies). If the representational systems in question are lacking in amplitude, work on fine tuning the strategy steps by having the individual exaggerate or practice the appropriate accessing cues and by consciously focusing on the designated representational systems.

2) Make sure the transitions between the steps in the strategy are smooth enough that they do not interrupt the flow of the sequence. If the individual does have difficulty with some of the transitions, have them rehearse the synesthesia patterns until they become more adept.

3) Congruency Check:

a) Clearing personal history: Make sure the individual is congruent about achieving the desired outcome. Compare the specific outcome against the meta outcomes of the individual, or organization, to make sure that it is compatible and ecological. Many times an individual will, at earlier times in his personal history, develop negative anchors for some outcome that later on he desires to attain. Other times, reaching a particular outcome will lead to the possibility of accessing other experiences and outcomes that the individual is not yet prepared to accept or face. In this case the programmer will need to either (1) modify the outcome so that it does not present any threats to the personal ecology of the individual, (2) integrate the negative 4-tuple from the past with the one that desires the outcome in the present context (by anchoring them sequentially and then collapsing the anchors) so that it no longer presents any interference, or (3) access and add in other resources from the individual's personal history that will allow him to handle or avoid any problematic residual effects of the outcome. (See Patterns II and The Structure of Magic II for more material on congruency.)

b) Make sure none of the steps anchor multiple responses. Are all of the steps specific enough that they do not generalize and anchor more than one strategy that is vying for prime control? If this occurs, check the context markers (or design and install one) at the decision point, the operate-or-exit point of the strategy (see design).

4) Make sure all steps are in the appropriate order and that no representational system important for the task has been left out. a) If the strategy has been designed, check it against the well-formedness conditions, and/or access additional resources from the client's personal history, b) If the strategy was elicited, go back over the elicitation procedure to make sure no steps have been mistakenly left out or added in.

6.41 Reframing

Reframing is one of the most fundamental technique/concepts of NLP and is the most effective tool for dealing with interference. The process of reframing changes how some representation, or, indeed, any part of a system, fits into that system as it functions in varying contexts. In doing so it transforms what previously have seemed to be blocks to the operation of the system into resources. The essential goal of reframing is to create a framework in which all parts of the system become aligned toward achieving the same meta-outcomes (ie., the survival, protection, growth, etc., of the system) by accepting and acknowledging all aspects of the system (positive or negative) as valuable resources to the system, given the appropriate context.

The fundamental presupposition of reframing is that all behavior (strategies) is or was adaptive given the context in which and for which it was established. NLP assumes that all behavior is geared toward adaptation and only becomes maladaptive when it is generalized to contexts in which it is not appropriate, or when it is stopped from adapting to changes in the individual or in the individual's ongoing contexts. Our contention is that every human being makes the best choices available to them at any given moment, based on the contents of their personal history and their ability to generalize or to make discriminations about their sensory experience of their ongoing context. Further, we claim as we pointed out earlier that every individual has available, at any point in time, the resources needed to make the appropriate changes and choices required to adapt to any situation, if these resources can be accessed and ordered in the appropriate sequences. This process is what this book is all about.

6.411 The reframing TOTE

Reframing, considered in all its aspects, becomes a very sophisticated process, and we have decided to devote an entire future volume, Reframing, to this technique alone. For the purposes of this book we have chosen to present the basic steps of reframing as the following 2-part TOTE (see diagram of previous page):

The diagram describes a series of interactions that would pro-cede in the following order:

1. The preexisting or newly designed strategy is tested to find out if it achieves the appropriate outcome. This may be done by creating or recreating the specified contextual conditions for the strategy internally by having the individual recall specific experiences or by future pacing. This may also be accomplished by providing the appropriate conditions in the ongoing external context. The individual should be taken through each step of the strategy so the performance and efficiency of the strategy as a whole may be evaluated.

2A. If the strategy sequence is appropriate and workable the outcome will be achieved smoothly, and the strategy will exit onto some other program of behavior.

2B. If the strategy or outcome is not satisfactory or if it violates the personal ecology of the individual, a representation of incongruence or interference will emerge at some point in the execution of the strategy — either the individual will complete the steps in the strategy without securing the outcome, or the strategy will be interrupted in mid-sequence. What is important for the programmer here is to identify how the interference is represented (i.e., whether it is an internal voice, a feeling or an image). The most direct way to elicit this information is to simply ask, "What stopped you?" When you ask a question such as this, be sure to pay close attention to any following nonverbal responses, especially accessing cues. Often the individual will be unconscious of the actual representation that created the interference, but will show you by responding with the appropriate accessing cue. The programmer should also pay attention to the tonalities the individual employs as he is going through a step involving internal dialogue. Many times, for example, an individual will say to himself the appropriate words (digital portion) for the strategy step but say them in an incongruent tonality.

3. This step begins the "reframing" of the interference. The incongruence or objection is acknowledged and accepted as a valuable resource for supplying feedback needed to improve the functioning of the strategy. The interference is put to work for the programmer and the individual by determining the purpose or intent of the interference. The programmer will first want to test the client's representation of the outcome: Are there any negative 4-tuples anchored by the individual's current representation of the outcome? Sometimes the individual will fear losing the choice of some previous outcome. An example of this might be that of an individual who desires to have the ability to be more assertive in social situations, but has experienced a part of himself being "put off" at times by assertive people, and is afraid that by becoming assertive, he might lose the ability to be "nice." The outcome looks good but doesn't feel right. These kind of objections may be easily discovered by eliciting the outcome sequitur.

Another thing to test for is whether the outcome is directly contradictory to a meta-outcome, or another outcome of priority from another strategy or part of the individual, causing an internal conflict. In other cases the outcome may lead to experiences the individual is not yet ready for.

Each of the phenomena described thus far applies to groups and organizations as well as to individuals. In the case of larger order systems, the representations, strategies and parts of the system are characterized by the people, departments, subsystems, etc., that make up the operating units of the total system in question. The interference or objections will be represented in the behavior of individuals or other subdivisions rather than through representational systems. The kinds of conflicts over outcomes listed previously will be found within an organization in the same way they can be found within an individual.

4. If the outcome is unsatisfactory to some part of the individual or organization, the programmer should help the individual/organization operate to modify the outcome, or, rather, the representation of the outcome, so that the intent of the interference is satisfied. Depending on the nature of the outcome and of the objection, the programmer may choose one of five possible operations:

(1) Meta-model the client's representation of the outcome to make the representational details of the experience more explicit. Meta-modeling ambiguous outcomes, such as "assertiveness," mentioned in the example given previously, will make them more specific and attainable in terms of the client's sensory experience and will decrease the possibility of multiple responses to ambiguous stimuli. In some cases this will clearly separate the client's new desired outcome from other experiences in the client's personal history (negative or frustrating instances, for example). In other cases it will make the association between the client's desired outcome, and other more resourceful experiences in the client's personal history, more apparent.

(2) Simply ask the individual if he can modify his representation of the outcome in such a way that the intent of the interference will be incorporated. For example, you may ask, "What would it (the outcome) be like if you could be assertive and still be nice?"

(3) Integrate any negative 4-tuples that were accessed as interference by collapsing them together with the positive 4-tuples accessed by the outcome.

(4) Provide a framework in which all parts or aspects of the system (interference included) are working toward the same goal by generalizing the outcome and/or the intent of the outcome to a meta-outcome, until it is general enough that all parts can agree on it. This would involve generalized outcomes such as "survival," "protection," "growth," "making sure all parts get their needs met," etc. This provides a context such that objections and interference no longer function destructively or as "sabotage," but, since all parts are working toward the same outcome, they will be constructive contributions.

(5) Work on establishing, reestablishing or refining the context markers (decision points) around the outcome to allow the client to determine more specifically which outcome will be most appropriate, when, where and in which situations. This will dispel conflicts between outcomes vying for prime control.

5. When the individual/organization has modified the representation of the outcome to incorporate the changes required by the interference, the client and the programmer will need to work together to modify or redesign the strategy to insure that it achieves the new outcome. (Note: Sometimes the outcome will not require modification — the interference will have appeared because the strategy design was incomplete or faulty. In such cases, where the outcome remains the same, the client and programmer will be able to exit through the outcome test phase directly to the strategy test.) In this phase of the reframing, the strategy sequence in question is tested to find out if it will be satisfactory for the modified outcome. Check the strategy against the well-formedness conditions, and make sure it is calibrated and sequenced appropriately (that is, so the individual is able to congruently access the designated representational system to the appropriate degree and in the appropriate order). Also check to make sure that the appropriate context markers and decision points are included.

6. If the strategy sequence needs more work, the client and the programmer operate to modify or redesign the strategy so that the new outcome is achieved. This is done by accessing resources for the individual in terms of:

a) Accessing appropriate reference structures and representations from the client's personal history (or imagination) to be sequenced in with the other steps in the strategy.

b) Accessing the individual's creative strategy, so that the client may apply it to come up with new alternatives.

c) The programmer may simply ask the individual something like, "What do you need to do in order to insure that you can be nice and still be assertive?"

d) Have the client model someone else in order to get the choices he wants. For example, ask him "Do you know any one else who can achieve the outcome you want? What does he do in this situation?"

e) Rehearse or reanchor more completely the old steps in the strategy.

The final and most important part of the reframing, is to use the interference itself as an important part of the modified strategy. This is done by having the interfering representation serve as a context marker to assure that the client knows when, where and how to apply the modified strategy. That is, the interference is itself turned into a decision point within the strategy, so that it actually becomes an important step in the strategy rather than being interference to the strategy.

6.412 Reframing TOTE

The following transcript is an example of how this TOTE may be applied step-by-step to an actual installation process. In the transcript, a woman has come to one of the authors to work on a weight problem. The woman, in her mid-thirties at the time, was approximately 30-40 pounds overweight. She had tried a number of weight loss plans without success.

AUTHOR: Do you find that you overeat regularly? ... Or does it happen in spurts?

(The author begins by gathering information about the client's present state — testing to find out if it is a generalized response or one that is contextually based.)

CLIENT: Oh, its pretty consistent. I'll finish dinner and know that I've had enough . . . but then I'll see something left over (eyes move up and left, then shift down and right) ... or see some dessert (eyes move up and left) that looks so good .. . (eyes down and right) and the next thing I know I'll be eating it.

(C identifies the response as a general one, and initially indicates that her motivation strategy for over-eating is a rapid synesthesia pattern that cycles from the sight of food directly to the act of eating it: V^e→K^e.)

A: How do you "know" that you've had enough to eat?

(A gathers information about C's test for when she has eaten enough.)

C: (Eyes move down and left) I tell myself that I've eaten plenty ... I shouldn't be eating any more ... I keep a close watch over what I eat, you know . . . But it just doesn't seem to make any difference.

(C indicates an internal auditory cue that derives from external visual sources. V^e→Aⁱ_d. Notice that C's strategy for "knowing" when she's had enough does not include a kinesthetic component at all (a component that plays a major role in her motivation strategy to eat).)

A: Have you ever tried to stop yourself from overeating?

(A gathers more information about C's present strategies.)

C: Oh sure ... I keep telling myself that I shouldn't be eating any more (eyes down and left) ... But it doesn't seem to do any good . . . (eyes down and right) the impulse is too strong by then.

(C's motivation strategy for not eating appears to consist primarily of internal dialogue. (The other two representational systems are involved in her motivation strategy to eat— since there is no overlap between the strategies, it is no wonder that they may both be in operation at the same time without interfering with one another). Because C's eating strategy is wired directly to her actions (K^e) and her auditory motivation is evidently not, her motivation to eat will always pre-empt her motivation not to. Also, C's motivation strategy not to eat is not triggered until after she has already begun the behavior—this essentially means that she actually has to access her motivation strategy for eating and begin the process of eating before she can even access her motivation strategy for not eating!)

A: Has there ever been a time when you were able to control your eating?

(A begins to elicit resources.)

C: Oh yes . . . (eyes up & left) in fact when I was in high school and college I used to compete in beauty contests ... I used to have quite a figure . . .

(C accesses an appropriate reference structure.)

A: How were you able to control your weight then?

(A attempts to elicit the former effective strategy, to be utilized as a resource in the present context.)

C: Well... it wasn't me controlling it mostly .. . my mother was a very controlling sort of woman ... (eyes move down left and then shift over to the right) . . . She pretty much was in control of what I ate and how much . . . (eyes shift back and forth between down left and down right) . . . She told me what to do and when . . . (eyes flick up and left) I didn't have very much confidence in myself. . .

(C relates that her primary motivation for keeping her weight down had come from external sources — specifically, her mother (who, judging by C's accessing cues, was probably the source of C's current internal dialogue about eating).)

A: You didn't have to rely much on your own resources?

C: No ... I didn't have much choice in what was going on with my life (eyes back and forth between down left and down right) ... it really wasn't a very happy time in my life . . .

In response to the results of his inquiries, the author decides to abandon his search for applicable resources from C's personal history (since her relevant reference structures all appear to be associated with negative 4-tuples) and decides to opt for artificial design. Given the information he has gathered, it is evident that some specific conditions the strategy will have to meet will be (1) that C's motivation strategy for controlling her weight will need to include all representational systems, and (2) that the weight control strategy will have to be initiated before C has hooked into her motivation strategy for overeating. (3) C's test for knowing when she's had enough to eat operates only from external feedback (V^e) and does not involve any internal check (this, as we mentioned above, is probably a result of the programming done by C's mother). The result is that the test, though probably accurate, initiates no internal intervention (it is missing the operate phase). The author, then, must be sure to design such an operation into the strategy. (4) C has no representation of the desired state in the strategy, and, thus no means for obtaining feedback.

C's problem strategy was basically a polarity loop that cycled between the impulse to eat and an internal dialogue telling her not to:

The new strategy designed by the author, separated into sections to aid the reader in following its structure, was sequenced as follows:

(1) C begins, of course, with the act of eating.

(2) This will trigger her naturally occurring strategy to assess, by watching what she eats, when she's had enough. It is at this point that the author chose to install the new strategy sequence, as it is just before the problem loop starts. In addition to the feedback that she has eaten enough, (an internal step is established later in the strategy) the author added another verbalization to the internal dialogue that went, "I've had plenty to eat and if I stop eating now I'll be able to get skinnier." (This verbalization was rehearsed a number of times in conjunction with C's existing response.)

(3) This verbalization was to anchor a step in which C made a constructed image of herself the way she would like to look (V^c). This image was, in turn, to access the experience of how good it would feel to have accomplished the outcome that she had desired so long (Kⁱ).

(4) As soon as she was able to get this feeling she was to immediately get up from the table (K^e) and go look at herself in a mirror. (She was given special instruction, if she did not have one already, to get a full length mirror and hang it in the kitchen, if possible, or in a room close by.) This step had an added advantage in that it forced an interruption of her external visual contact with food. After she looked at herself closely, she was to close her eyes, take a deep breath and check out her feelings, and test if she had had enough to eat. This was to verify (or contradict) the earlier communication from her internal dialogue. This step was sequenced after she had interrupted her external visual contact with the food on the table to make sure that the feelings were uninfluenced by her V^e →Kⁱ synesthesia pattern.

(5) C was then to comment on those feelings to herself, describing explicitly the feelings she experienced (note how this changes the role of her internal dialogue in her eating strategy — it is now describing the feelings as opposed to having a polarity response to them). After she had described the feelings, she was to ask herself if she wanted to eat more or to put everything away. In making this decision she was to compare the image of her desired state to what she observed of her present state (V^e/V^c) and allow a feeling to emerge to help her decide which it was to be.

(6) If she truly felt that she should have more to eat (which the author guessed would rarely be the case) she was to respect the decision of her feelings and eat, but first she was to construct a specific image of what else, and how much of it, she was to eat. If she didn't feel the need to eat, she was to imagine as if looking through her own eyes, in as much detail as possible, putting each of the items left on the table away, and then leaving the kitchen to do something else. As she imagined these scenes she was also to include the representation of feeling good, as she did the specific actions, about having accomplished her outcome successfully. (The use of the visual constructs was to provide a self initiated future pace that would help reprogram the problematic synesthesia pattern. The act of putting the food away or of eating only so much would be initiated by the sight of the food instead of the eating impulse. If she did go back to eat, the imagery would also help her "keep watch" over how much she was eating.

Various reference structures were accessed and anchored for each step in the strategy, and then the strategy was rehearsed. But, although C could elicit and perform each of the pieces of the strategy separately, she had an extremely difficult time getting through the whole strategy. Every time she tried, she would miss a step or something would go wrong. This, of course, does not satisfy the test step 1 of the reframing TOTE.

We pick up the transcript again just after C has made another attempt at completing the strategy. This puts the author and the client at 2B in the reframing TOTE.

C: Gee . . . I'm really sorry I keep bumbling things up ... I'm just too stupid or something I guess . . . (eyes down left, then down right).

A: Before you start feeling bad about anything I'd like to ask you a question.

C: Okay.

A: What would happen if you were able to incorporate this strategy?

(Having met with interference, the author moves to step #3 of the reframing TOTE, and tests the specific outcome sequitur of the strategy.)

C: Well ... I'd stop eating, I guess.

A: Well I hope you wouldn't stop eating, . . . that could be disastrous.

(A also tests his rapport with C by venturing a playful remark.)

C: (Laughing) Well I mean . . . I wouldn't stop eating altogether ... I'd stop over-eating . . .

(C responds positively indicating that rapport has not been broken. A continues to test the outcome in more detail. (Still step #3))

C: Ummm ... I'd be thinner ... I'd look thinner.

A: You'd look thinner.

C: Yes ... I'd look the way I want to to be able to . .. the way I did in college ... I want to look the way I did when I didn't like myself. . .

(C's last comment seems to imply a connection between the way C looked at an unhappy time in her life, and the kind of person she was. If she was indeed to not like herself again if she looked thinner, this would be in conflict with a very basic meta-outcome, that of liking oneself. In the least case, looking thinner is probably a bad anchor.)

A: Are you aware of what you just said?

C: What I said about what?

A: That you want to look like you did when you didn't like yourself.

C: Well . . . sort of . . .

A: I'm curious . . . How much have you changed since then . . . since you put on weight?

(A inquires about possible resources that A gets from her weight, a very important question. We pointed out earlier in the book that body type was a very powerful and important accessing mechanism. Heavier people tend to generally have more awareness of internal kinesthetic experience; thinner people tend to be more visual. People who change their weight at all significantly often undergo a change in their state of consciousness. A person who is losing weight becomes more conscious of the way he looks and has to deprive himself of many kinesthetic luxuries in the form of food and drink. Many people who attempt diets are not prepared for the accompanying change in state and are not willing to go along with those outcomes. They resist the change in their state, but want the physical changes. This can be a very frustrating situation if one is unaware of it.)

C: Oh I've come a long way since then . . . (eyes move down and right) . . . (voice tone deepens and tempo slows) it hasn't been easy . . . but. . . back then I couldn't even stand on my own two feet . . . I'm a lot more in control of me now ... a lot more grounded ... I really like myself as a person a lot better. . .

(C lists a number of resources that she has gained in connection with her weight, which, judging by her accessing cues and predicates, are primarily kinesthetic.)

A: Mm Hmm . . . Now if you lost weight so that you looked like you did before, do you think you'd be able to still have all of these important resources?

(A tests C's representation of her specific outcome to find if it is congruent with the meta-out-comes she has just named. #3)

C: Ummmm . . . Well (eyes move from up and right to down and right, then to down and left and back up and right) ... I guess so (voice hesitates, eyebrows furrow, eyes move to down and left).

(C expresses her incongruence.)

A: You don't sound very sure about that . . . Would you do something for me . .. would you again describe to me that image you have of yourself being this way?

(A begins to test the specific details of the desired outcome.)

C: (Looks up and right) Well ... I look very thin . . . like I did in college . . .

A: What about her face ... is it smiling? . . . Does she look grounded?

C: Well . . . (looks back and forth between up left and up right.) ... I can't really see the face . . . It's just sort of an image of a body . . . with no head. . .

A: Oh ... I see . . . she doesn't have a very good head on her shoulders, huh?

C: (Laughs) ... I guess not.

A: You know ... I have this theory about people who are overweight . . . My theory is that the reason they are heavy is because they are "weighting" for some special resources that they need ... Do you think that it would be possible for you to get thin and remain grounded and like yourself?

(A states the details of the modified specific outcome of the new strategy that he has been attempting to install. #4. He also has begun the second sub-TOTE of the reframing process — that of testing the strategy sequence to find out if it will achieve the modified outcome. #5

Note also that A takes advantage of the phonological ambiguity between "wait" and "weight" to reframe C's problem with losing weight.)

C: That would sure be nice.

A: I'm wondering if you can look up there (indicates up and right) and see an image of what you would look like if you were able to be thin and be grounded, standing on your own two feet and liking yourself?

(A begins reframing step #6, and starts modify the original strategy steps so that they will achieve the outcome as modified in steps #3 & #4.)

C: Ahhh ... (looks from up right to up left and back) . . . I. . . I'm having a hard time . . . (furrows eyebrows) . . . I'm going blank. . .

A: Okay . . . stop for a minute ... I want you to try something that I think will help you out . . . (moves C's right hand so that it is resting palm up on her right knee) ... I want you to look down here and see on this hand a picture of what you look like now . . . Can you do that?

(A begins to establish an internal visual anchor for C's present state. Note that A has C orient her head to the kinesthetic accessing position by having her look down and right at her hand. This will serve to help anchor the reference structure he is eliciting to the kinesthetic abilities and resources C has achieved through her present state.)

C: (Looks down and right at hand) . . . Uh Huh.

A: And as you continue looking at it. ... I want you to be sure that you can clearly see the details of her face, so that you can see the expression, and her posture and gestures . . . Can you see her expression?

C: Uh Huh . . . She looks very grounded and comfortable with herself. . .

(A calibrates the image to make sure it is completely visual.)

A: (Interrupting) I don't want any interpretations, now ... I want you to be able to see the color of her skin and the muscle tensions around her nose and mouth and eyes . . . You can see those can't you?

C: Sort of. . . (squints her eyes as if she is focusing) . . . It's getting clearer now.

A: Okay . . . good . . . now keep looking at all of those details and as you do I want you to begin to imagine the feelings of having stepped into her body so that you can feel all those feelings of groundedness . . . self-control . . . and self respect ... all those resources . . . and feel the problems she has too . . . like her difficulties with eating . . . and as you feel those feelings . . . imagine her describing them to you so that you can hear the sound of her voice . . . the speed with which she speaks . . . the tonal qualities . . . and as she speaks, observe her breathing patterns . . . how fast and from where in her body she is breathing . . . and any smells that she may be aware of as she breathes . . . Can you do all that?

(A elicits a full internal 4-tuple representation for C's present state, to be anchored to the constructed image of herself.)

C: Mm Hmmm . . . (eyes remain transfixed down and right, pupils defocused).

(C's behavior indicates that she has developed a light trance state.)

A: Good . . . now come back here . . . and back with me, look at me so that you can see me clearly and hear my voice . . . (waits for C to respond) ... Now I want you to look down at the other hand (moves C's left hand so that it rests on her left knee palm up) and make a picture of what you used to look like when you were thin ... in college . . . and I want you to look closely at her face, now, so that you can see her expression, and all the details of her eyes and mouth . . . Do you have that picture?

(A interrupts the state to bring C out of the 4-tuple for her present state and begins to have C create a visual anchor for her current representation of the desired thin state. Note that for this reference structure A has C look down and left (the access for internal dialogue). This is to help associate it with the internal dialogue she experiences in connection with her existing eating strategies (that has been postulated to be a residual of her mother's influence). Also note that, because the author has C orient her head to accessing cues other than visual, she has experienced some difficulty in getting the image until she overlaps the visual accessing cue of squinting onto the other accessing cue. The task he is having her do is quite complicated and in both instances she eventually develops a slight trance state (which is a general access to all internal processes —see Patterns II) in order to carry out the task.)

C: (Squinting) Sort of . . . It's hard to imagine her face.

A: Do you have any photographs of what you looked like then? . . . What do they look like?

(Accesses a reference structure to help C with the task.)

C: (Eyes move up and left then back down and left) . . . Oh . . . Okay ... I can see it now ... She doesn't look very happy.

A: Now I want you to look at her face so that you can see what specific indicators let you know that . . . and for a moment just look at her . . . (pauses while C responds) . . . And now I would like you to imagine stepping into her body so that you can feel her feelings . . . perhaps of imbalance and unhappiness . . . but her good feelings too . . . and remember what it felt like to have a thin body ... so that you can be aware of the differences . . . and listen to the sound of her voice as she tells you what it is like to be her . . . and as you listen be aware of the qualities of her breathing . . . and any smells or tastes that she may be aware of . . .

(A again calibrates C's visual experience and then proceeds to elicit a full internal 4-tuple representation of C's present (and problematic) representation of her desired state.)

C: (Eyes defocus, pupils dilate, and face flattens, indicating that she has developed another slight trance.)

A: Okay . . . now come back . .. and look at me again . .. You here?

C: (Blinking her eyes) . . . Uh Huh ... I think so.

A: Now I want you to look back down at each of your hands so that you can see those two parts of you . . . the thin one in your left hand and the fat one in your right hand . . .

C: (Looking back and forth at her hands) Okay.

A: Then what I want you do is ask the thin one what she has to say about the fat one. And listen to what she tells you.

(A continues to build on to the reference structures he has created, accessing and anchoring representations of both the positive and negative aspects of her present state from the strategy associated with her reference structure of her desired state. #6)

C: Well . . . she thinks the other one is much too fat . . . she's appalled at her eating habits. . .

A: What does she think of her resources and abilities?

C: (Voice quieting) Oh, she envies her ... she wants to be able to have her strength and control. . .

A: Now ask the fat one what she feels about the thin one.

C: (Looks over at her right hand. As she does so she unconsciously turns her left hand over and begins to rub her left knee) . . . Well . . .

A: (Laughing and turning C's left hand back to the palm up position) Don't do that . . . You'll squish her!

(A ventures a humorous remark to test rapport and keep a positive frame on the interaction.)

C: Huh? . . . Oh . . . (laughs)

A: That's better . . . Now how does that one feel about this thin one?

(A recommences the process of building up the reference structures to include representations of both the positive and negative aspects of each state. (Notice that he specifically asks the fat one how she "feels" about her counterpart, while she asked the other one — related to the internal dialogue — what she had to say about her counterpart.) #6)

C: (Looking at right hand) . . . She thinks the thin one has a lot of problems . . . she feels sorry for her in a way . . .

A: What about the thin one's resources?

C: (Looking back and forth between her hands) . . . Well she'd like to be able to have her body . . . She likes that . . . and she admires the thin one's energy . . . the thin one has quite a bit more energy to do things than the heavy one . . .

A: All right... fine ... Now, you know what I'm aware of? ... I'm aware that both of these parts of you have their own problems and their own special qualities and resources . . . And that each could use the resources of the other to help them with their problems . . . and something else ... and I'd like you to check this out... I think that you may be surprised to find that both of them, when you get right down to it, actually want the same thing . . . I'll bet that both of those parts would like to be able to have an existence in which they could be comfortable and balanced and get the full benefit of your total resources as a person ... Is that right?

(A now puts a meta-frame around the qualities of the two representations by framing their individual properties in relation to the meta-outcome of the balance and harmony of the entire person, and begins to propose an integration of the individual outcomes of the two states as a more effective way of achieving this meta-outcome.)

C: (Looking back and forth from hand to hand) . . . Oh yes. . .

(C responds positively to the proposed integration.)

A: Now I want you to ask each of those parts if it would be willing to share its resources with the other, and help the other out with its problems . . . What do they say?

(A continues to set up the integration process, again framing the qualities of the individual states in relation to the meta-outcome.)

C: (Nodding) They both say that they'd be willing to try.

(C's response is congruent)

A: Wonderful . . . Now what I want you to do is to look back and forth between those two parts and make a series of pictures . . . like separate frames of a movie . . . and see the metamorphosis or transition that takes place as each one changes to the other . . . Make about five pictures ... so that the one in the middle here (gestures to a point in between her two hands) is a complete integration of the two . . . Okay? . . . And take all the time you need to to that . . . and just nod when you're done . . .

(A chooses a method of visual integration, since he has been working with visual anchors, that involves dividing C's transformation into discrete steps of change happening in equal increments from both directions.)

C: (Keeps looking back and forth between her two hands for a period of time, and then nods.)

A: Now I want you to bring your hands together slowly ... so that one palm ends up overlapping the other . . . and as you overlap them together I want you to see all of those images merging together ... so that when you've brought your hands together they will have combined to make a sharp clear image of one that's in the middle . . . take all the time you need .

(A begins the process of collapsing the anchors, both visually and kinesthetically (by having C bring her hands together). #6)

C: (As C begins to bring her hands together her face flattens and pupils dilate, and her breathing slows and shallows. Hands begin to show slow and jerky movements common to ideomotor movements exhibited in trance states) . . . (she begins to nod when her hands have overlapped.)

A: You can see that image clearly.

(A tests to make sure the integration is taking place.)

C: (Nods.)

A: Then your last step is to draw that image into your body . . . and you can put it wherever is the most appropriate place . . . go ahead . . .

(A then completes the process of collapsing the anchors with a final kinesthetic gesture.)

C: (Draws her hands toward her stomach in the same slow, jerky fashion. As her hands touch her stomach, she begins to cry gently) ... It feels so good ... I didn't realize that I'd been in conflict with myself for so long . . .

(C's response indicates that the integration has been quite successful.)

A: (Waits until C has collected herself) ... I want to go back over that new strategy we were trying a while ago, in a few minutes . . . and I want you to substitute the new image and the new feelings that you just got as your goal for what you want to accomplish . . . Okay?

(A returns to step #5 of the reframing TOTE and sequences the integrated representation of C's desired state into the new eating strategy.)

C: (Smiling and nodding) You bet.

A: But before we go back to that ... I want to take care of one other thing . . . You know what it feels like to be grounded and balanced . . . right?

(As an added measure A also redesigns C's kinesthetic test for her present state by including a test for "groundedness" in it, with accompanying operations (that don't involve eating) for achieving that particular outcome. (He cycles again, then, to step #6.))

C: (Nodding) Yes . . . (glances down & right).

A: Do you know what it feels like if you're getting ungrounded or unbalanced?

C: (Looks down and right) . . . Ummmm . . . (starts nodding) yes . . .

A: I want to change something else in your new strategy . . . when you're looking at yourself in the mirror and checking out your feelings ... I want you to make sure you're not getting ungrounded ... Do you know how to do that?

(A sequences the new test and operations for "groundedness" into the decision point in the new eating strategy— #5.)

C: (Eyes down and right) Uh Huh ... I think I can do that.

A: Now I'm aware that your major way of grounding yourself in the past has been through eating ... so I want to work out a couple of ways in which you'll be able to ground yourself without eating if you begin to find that you're becoming ungrounded as you start to lose weight . . . like making that picture of yourself as a balanced person ... or closing your eyes and taking a deep breath ... or things like that . . . Okay?

C: Sure . . . let's get started. . .

The author went on to help C include operations for grounding herself, which were incorporated into the strategy at the decision point. The author, having modified the strategy to include the changes in C's representation of her desired state, and adding in the grounding operations at the decision point, then returned to step 1 of the reframing TOTE and tested the new strategy modifications by rehearsing C through the steps and future pacing her for that evenings meal, C's ability to access and sequence the steps had dramatically improved, and the installation process was completed rapidly and smoothly. A week later C called up the author with the happy news that she had already lost eight pounds. To date the client continues to maintain her weight and her sense of groundness.

6.5 Installation and Interference in Groups and Organizations.

The installation or start-up of new behavioral sequences in groups and organizations, as with a single individual, takes place through rehearsal, schedules, and the establishment of the appropriate cues, or anchors. In working with an organization, however, the duties of the programmer are somewhat expanded in that, in conjunction to dealing with the sequencing of organizational functions and operations, the programmer will also be dealing with the internal functions and strategies of the individuals that make up the organization. The behavior of each individual (a system within himself) makes up the elements of the larger system, or meta-system. The operating principles of the larger system will be isomorphic to those involved in the strategies of the single individual. Every organization or family, for instance, will have a present state, desired state, and a sequence of tests and operations which take them from the present state to the desired state. These sequences of tests and operations are performed by people (or machines) that each have their own individual present states, desired states, tests and operations (see Design section 5.32). Each person will serve as a specific resource to the operation of the organization as a whole, and each person will have a specific set of resources that contribute to his own individual operation.

One difference in working with the operations of an organization as opposed to the strategies of an individual, is that "hierarchy" in operations in organizations tends to be more obvious. Since our first discussion of strategies and TOTEs, of course, we have talked about hierarchy in the various subroutines of a particular strategy — where the outputs or results of one part of the whole sequence or system are the inputs to one of higher order. The decision point in a strategy, for instance, is a good example of a hierarchical division of labor. The decision point assesses the output of its subroutine(s) and must then indicate whether the job must be done over again or whether the strategy is ready to proceed to the next stage (it supervises the operation of the strategy). It also dictates the work load of the various strategies within the individual's repertoire of possibilities, choosing which one will be most appropriate for dealing with the specific situation. Hierarchically ordered positions within a group or organization operate off of the same principles as the decision points in a strategy. The programmer will treat them in essentially the same manner as decision points in a person's strategy are treated.

The process for the effective installation and implementation of new strategies, operations and routines in groups or organizations will also follow essentially the same procedures as that of the installation of a strategy in an individual:

1. Establish Meta-Outcomes: Often, when changes are made in the daily routines of work activity which employees have become habituated to, many employees find such changes upsetting or bewildering. This, in turn, can adversely effect their work performance — although the changes are later appreciated by these same employees. It helps a great deal if installations of new procedures are accompanied by a built-in reframe, in which all changes are framed and justified with respect to meta-outcomes. Modifications in employee outcomes or routines, for instance, would be framed as contributing to the achievement of meta-outcomes that are desired by all members of the work force, meta-outcomes such as: improving job satisfaction and efficiency, increasing production and return, providing variety to job conditions and routines, and so on.

In social groups, the installation of new strategies and interactions may be justified by meta-outcomes like: improved member relations, contributing to the harmony and growth of the family or group, etc.

2. Establish Specific Outcomes and Outcome Sequiturs: Explicit sensory based representations and descriptions are established for the present state and the desired state, and specific indicators should be set up for testing and feedback purposes. (See Design 5.32.)

3. Establish the Needs and Resources of Each Element of the System (each member or department of the group or organization): Find out what you have to work with. Elicit the decision making, motivation, learning, and creativity strategies of the group members. Or, depending upon the level at which you are working with the organization's operations, assess the various capacities of the departments, divisions, bureaus, etc., that make the organization function.

4. Install the new routines and operations of the members and /or departments of the organization by scheduling the activities of each member or department according to their particular capabilities.

A. Redundancy and Feedback.

When giving instructions or establishing new schedules or routines it is a good idea to make sure that the instructions and directions (or anchors) that are to organize the behavior of the members of the organization are made available in forms that will appeal to all representational systems. In other words, in order to insure that the behavior will be anchored, make sure that, to whatever extent possible, the directions for the behavioral sequences are translated and coded into each representational system; that is, the instructions will be redundant in each representational system. For example, kinesthetically, the individual can be walked through operations and given a feel for them; visually, the individual can be shown written schedules, flow charts and diagrams, or personally observe others; auditorily explicit verbal descriptions may be given of their operation, and verbal feedback and supervision may be provided as they are learning their routine. By establishing anchors for the steps and sequence of the operations in all representational systems, you will insure the maximal transmission and coding of the information.

It will also be extremely helpful to establish a feedback network between relevant personnel, group members, and any other people or elements involved in the operation, so that they can get feedback on the outcomes of their operations and so you can get feedback on the effectiveness of the operations you have installed. (How close to completion is the project? Was the product ordered? Delivered? Received? What changes or operations still need to be made to accomplish the desired state? Who will be taking on what task?) Redundancy in feedback and the type of feedback will also be very important. Operations may be slowed down and information may be lost if the appropriate feedback is not employed. Often, installing the procedure so that direct auditory and visual contact is available between members participating in the operation can streamline the feedback and operation processes.

One of the authors was once consulting for a corporation that had just installed a computer system into their operation, with which to record, store and send orders for their product. Shortly after the installation of the new system, however, the company's number of "lost orders" increased dramatically. The "lost orders" were a great mystery to everyone. The author then observed the operation of the new computer system. The computer performed three basic operations: (1) storing the name, address and order of the person or company requesting the product, (2) sending this information to the terminal of the distributor of the product, and (3) informing the computer operator of the receipt of the order at the terminal of the distributor. In order to first get the computer to take in and store the information about the purchaser, however, a specific format had to be employed to enter the information. When the format was followed and the computer took in the information it would print out the feedback: "accepted/done." Different feedback would be given for the successful completion of the other operations. What the author realized, was that, because of the ambiguity of the word "done," many of the employees who were naive about the operation of computers would enter orders and assume the computer feedback "accepted/done" meant that the order was sent and received and that the job was completed. When the situation was remedied by changing the feedback to read: "stored," "sent," and "received by_," the number of

"lost orders" declined dramatically.

Another common task facing business is the selection or training of personnel to occupy vacated positions within their organizations. The decision to recuit or train is an important one which we discussed earlier. One input which an effective manager will require in order to make that decision intelligently is a job description. The higher the quality of information regarding the actual behavior required to be effective in a job position, the higher the quality of decision that manager will be able to make regarding the recuitment/training issue. (This is isomorphic to getting a full 4-tuple representation of the desired state in individual strategy installation.) One technique designed by one of the authors to elicit high quality information about actual job requirements is given below. Provide first line supervisors with forms (see example form A on the next page) to be distributed to personnel who they supervise. These forms are to be filled out in context (i.e. the employee is to fill out the form while working in position). To insure this, the supervisor will keep as privileged information the specific times the employees are to fill in the forms. The supervisor is responsible for:

1. Providing their employees with the form and its accompanying reframe, 3 days in a row. (See procedure 1)

2. Informing employees to fill forms in at the times designated (known only to the supervisor — these times will be randomized throughout the working day) during a three day period.

3. Collecting forms and checking them for intelligibility/legibility.

The point of having employees fill out forms in context is, of course, to minimize the slippage between their actual behavior and the words they use in attempting to report it on the form. After this initial information is gathered (assuming a move refined description is appropriate), the following steps would be appropriate:

1. Have first line supervisors compile a list of the six most frequently occurring activities/tasks as reported by their employees (spot check to keep them honest).

2. Design a form whereby the activity/task is placed in context by having each employee select a specific example of each one of the six most frequent activities/tasks and describe what they had to do to get ready to do that task efficiently (typically not more than 5 minutes before starting the task) and what they had to do to insure the task was completed, followed up on (e.g., File information with whom?, Positive receipt procedures to be used?, Information routed to whom?)

Each of you when you first came to work at your present job experienced both a sense of excitement as you faced something new and a sense of uncertainty about what was expected of you— what exactly you were supposed to do. These are a normal part of fitting yourself into a new job. We, here at company X, are interested in promoting that sense of excitement while reducing the frustration which sometimes accompanies the uncertainty. We are doing this by asking you experienced employees to take a minute breather several times a day for the next few days, and jot down where you are and what specifically you are doing. By doing this, you can help us help your future co-workers and help us help you when you move into any new position. Please indicate with as few words as possible where you are and what specific activity/task you are involved in at the times when your supervisor indicates. For example:

6.51 Interference.

Interference to the installation or start-up of an operation in an organization can be treated essentially the same way as it is with an individual strategy.

If the operation does not achieve the outcome, the first thing to check is the calibration of the operation — that is, are they all doing what they are supposed to be doing? If they are not, change their behavior so that they are, making use of the meta-outcomes to reframe your intervention (as described earlier). If they are, and you are still not getting your outcome, then you can essentially follow the same TOTE sequence diagramed earlier in this chapter to test and modify the specific procedures and the outcomes of those procedures.

Another important check to make is on the rapport between the members of the organization that are interacting with one another to carry out the installed operation. How do the employees react to one another? If you find that you have rapport problems, one very effective way to resolve them is to teach the employees, managers and executives about representational systems, strategies, pacing, anchoring, and so on, and help them to develop the tools of rapport building.

If there are specific conflicts, breaks in rapport to the point of precipitating crises, you may wish to use the arbitration and negotiation strategy described below.

6.511 Arbitration and Negotiation.

The processes of arbitration and negotiation provide a good example of the application of NLP principles to the handling of interference in organizations. The steps of the procedure are a slight modification of the reframing TOTE (they are very similar, in fact, to the procedure used with the two conflicting parts of the overweight client in the transcript presented earlier in this chapter).

1. Establish the specific outcome of each individual involved in the conflict in relation to a meta-outcome that all parties agree upon.

For example, have each person make the following statement, filling in the blanks. "I specifically want the outcome of ___, for the purpose of ____.

Their purpose will be a meta-outcome. If their meta-outcomes do not at this point match one another in some way, have each of them repeat the process again, this time substituting the meta-outcome each has come up with in the last statement as the specific outcome of this statement. Keep repeating this process with the newly generated meta-outcomes until you arrive at a general goal that everyone agrees upon. Then anchor their agreement.

Establishing that all of the parties actually have the same goal immediately puts a frame around the rest of the interaction. When all parties agree that they are attempting to achieve the same outcome, their conflicts become reframed as a matter of detail to be worked out, and the rest of your task is essentially team-building.

A. It also helps to establish from the very beginning that the conflict between the negotiating parties is counter-productive to the achievement of their meta-outcomes and specific outcomes, and to have all parties agree that it should be resolved as quickly as possible.

2. Get all parties to agree again on what a successful outcome of the negotiation would be. For instance, find out what would constitute an acceptable decision. And if a successful settlement is not made, find out what further information is needed, who will get it and how the information will be gathered. (See Design 5.32.)

3. As the parties are considering the issues and making decisions about what is to be an appropriate outcome to the negotiation, observe their strategies for decision making.

4. Access reference structures for possible resources — such as, "Have you ever been able to settle a negotiation before in a way that you were satisfied with?" or "Has there ever been a time when you were able to communicate with someone really effectively and surprised yourself by setting something right that you had previously thought would never get straightened out?" Covertly anchor these experiences so that you can put them into play at the appropriate time.

5. Control the analogue communications of the parties so that they produce no adverse effects on the negotiation proceedings. We believe that most of what actually gets communicated in our verbal interactions is the result of the accompanying nonverbal or analogue cues. When we arbitrate for organizations (or work with groups — as in family therapy) we pay attention to and control the nonverbal portions of the interactions more than we do the verbal portions. In our experience, this has made a tremendous difference in the parties' responses to one another. If an individual, for example, were to raise his voice and point his finger at someone while making a point or statement, and if we noticed that the person to whom he directed his nonverbal gestures began to tense up and stop breathing (indicating a negative response), we would have the person who made the statement stop, change their analogue and repeat the exact same statement. In practically every instance this will change the other individual's response to, or understanding of, the statement.

6. Utilize the decision making and motivation strategies of each party to influence their decision making processes (especially if you are a negotiator) when you think it is appropriate or necessary, making use of any anchors that you have established.

7. Act as a translator (especially if you are an arbitrator) reinterpreting and recording what has been said into the vocabulary of the different representational systems when you find that differences in the strategies of the individual parties are getting in the way. Establishing some rapport with each party via overt or covert pacing, will also be a very effective tool.

8. As you carry out the negotiation process, start with the meta-outcome that everyone is in agreement with and move on to specifics from there, gathering information and altering each party's position until you can find the middle ground. Any time that you run into problematic disagreements return to the meta-outcome to reestablish the positive framework.