"Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone." - Thomas Carlyle
Although the context described here will be based on business meetings, the patterns apply equally to any context where two or more people meet for a common purpose. After you read this and come back for review, think of each pattern in whatever context is appropriate to you.
NLP has a lot to offer in a business context. The greatest resource of any business is the people in. The more effective the people become, the more effective the business will be.
A business is a team of people working towards a common goal. Their success will depend mainly on how well the deal with these key points:
a) Goal Setting
b) Communicating effectively within the group and to the outside world.
c) Reading their environment accurately. Keeping customer needs and responses in mind.
d) Commitment to success: congruence.
The resourcefulness, flexibility, perceptual filters, presentation and communication skills of the individuals in the business determine how successful it is. NLP addresses the precise skills that create success in the business world.
NLP goes to the heart of the business organization by refining and developing the effectiveness of each individual member carrying out these tasks. Business meetings are one place many of these skills will come together. We start by dealing with cooperative meetings were most people will probably agree about the outcome. Meetings where there are apparently conflicting outcomes will be dealt with under negotiation.
Meetings are purposeful and the purpose of co-operative meetings is likely to be explicit. For example, meeting with colleagues once a week to exchange information, make decisions and allocate responsibility. Other examples will be planning next year's budget, a performance appraisal, or a project review.
As a participant in an important meeting, you need to be in a strong, resourceful state, and congruent about the part you have to play. Anchors can help, both before a meeting to get you in a good state, and during a meeting if things start to go awry.
Remember other people will be anchors for you, and you are an anchor to others. The room itself may be an anchor. An office is often a place full of the trappings of personal power and success of the person behind the desk. You may need all the resources you can get.
The membership and agenda of the meeting need to be settled in advance. You must be clear about your outcome. You also need an evidence procedure: how will you know if you achieve it. You need to be very clear about what you would want to see, hear and feel. If you have no outcome for the meeting, you're probably wasting your time.
The basic format for successful meetings resembles the "Elevator Seminar", discussed in an earlier newsletter:
1. Know what you want.
2. Know what others want.
3. Find ways in which you can all get it.
This seems simple and obvious, but it is often lost in the rough and tumble, and step three may be difficult, if there are widely conflicting interests.
When the meeting starts, get consensus on a shared outcome. It is important that all agree on an outcome for the meeting, some common issues to be dealt with. When you have the outcome, anchor it. The easiest way to do this is to use a key phrase, and write it up on a board or flip chart.
You will also need to agree on the evidence that will show that the outcome has been achieved. How will everyone know when they have it? Use the evidence frame.
Once again, rapport is an essential step. You will need to establish rapport with the other participants, if you do not have it already, by using non-verbal skills and matching language. Be sensitive to any incongruence in any of the participants about the shared outcome. There may be hidden agendas, and it is better to know about these at the outset, rather than later.
During the discussion, the evidence, ecology, backtrack, and As If frames may be useful. One problem that besets meetings is that they go off track. Before you know it, the time is up and the decision or outcome is not been achieved. Many a meeting has gone off at a tempting tangent and ended up in a cul-de-sac.
The outcome frame can be used to challenge the relevance of any contribution in so keep the meeting on track. Suppose a colleague makes a contribution to the discussion that does not seem to relate to the mutually agreed outcome. It may be interesting, informative and true, but not relevant.
You can say something like, "I have trouble seeing how that could bring us nearer to our outcome; can you tell us how it fits into this meeting?" You can anchor this relevancy challenge visually with a hand or head movement. The speaker must show how his contribution is relevant. If it is not, then valuable time is saved.
The contribution may be important in another context, in which case recognize it as such, and agree that it be dealt with at another time. Close and summarize each issue as it arises, fitting it into the agreed outcome or agreed to defer it to another meeting.
If someone is disrupting a meeting or leading it seriously off-track, you might say something like, "I appreciate that you feel strongly about this issue and it is clearly important to you. However, we agreed that this is not the place to discuss it. Can we meet later to settle this?" Calibrate for congruence when you make these sorts of proposals.
Calibration may tell you that X lights a cigarette when she is happy with the outcome. Y always looks down when he objects (so you ask what he would need to feel okay about the issue). Z bites his nails when unhappy. There are so many ways that you can be aware on a deeper level how the meeting is progressing and sidestep trouble before it arises.
At the close of the meeting, use the backtrack frame and get agreement on progress in the outcome. Clearly defined and get agreement on what actions are to be taken and by whom.
Sometimes there is not a full agreement, so the close is dependent on certain actions. So you may say something like, "If this happened and if X did this and if we persuade Y that this is all right, then we proceed?" This is known as a conditional close.
Anchor the agreement with keywords and future pace. What will remind the participants to do what they have agreed? Project the agreement out of the room and make sure it is connected to other independent events that can act as signals to remind the people to take the agreed action.
Research has shown that we remember things best when they occur in the first or last few minutes of the meeting. Take advantage of this and place important points at the beginning and the end of the meeting.
Meeting Format Summary
A) Before the meeting:
1. Set your outcome(s) in the evidence that will let you know that you have reached it (them).
2. Determine the membership and agenda for the meeting.
B) During the meeting:
1. Be in a resourceful state. Use resource anchors if necessary.
2. Establish rapport.
3. Get consensus on a shared outcome any evidence for it.
4. Use the relevancy challenge to keep the meeting on track.
5. If information is not available, use the As If frame.
6. Use of the backtrack frame to summarize key agreements.
7. Keep moving towards your outcome, by using the Meta Model or any other tools needed.
C) Closing the meeting:
1. Check for congruence and agreement of the other participants.
2. Summarize the actions to be taken. Use the backtrack frame to take advantage of the fact that we remember endings more easily.
3. Test agreement if necessary.
4. Use a conditional close if necessary.
5. Future pace the decisions.
Personal Mastery through NLP - Your Best is yet to come!
David Martin.
Answer Concepts, S.A.
answerconcepts@msn.com
Thursday, July 19, 2007
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