Frames - Giving Things Meaning

"In the long run you hit only what you aim at. Therefore, though you should fail immediately, you had better aim at something high." - Henry David Thoreau

Framing in NLP refers to the way we put things into different contexts to give them different meanings; what we make important at that moment.

Here are five useful ways of framing events. Some have been implicit in other aspects of NLP, and it is worth making them explicit here.

OUTCOME FRAME

This is evaluating in terms of outcomes. Firstly, know your own outcome, and make sure it is well-formed. Is it positive? Is it under your control? Is it specific enough and the right size? What is the evidence? Do you have the resources to carry it out? How does it fit with your other outcomes?

Secondly, you may need to elicit outcomes from any other people involved, to help them get clear what they want, so you can all move forward. Thirdly, there is dovetailing outcomes. Once you have your outcome any other person's outcome, you can see how they fit together. You may need to negotiate over any differences between them.

Lastly, by keeping outcomes in mind, you can notice if you are moving towards them. If you are not, you need to do something different.

The outcome frame is an extremely useful pair of spectacles with which to view your actions. In business, if executives do not have a clear view of their outcome, they have no firm basis for decisions and no way of judging and action is useful or not.

ECOLOGY FRAME

Again this has been dealt with explicitly with outcomes and implicitly in this newsletter, the website and other areas of NLP training. How do my actions fit into the wider systems of family, friends, professional interests? Is it expressive of my overall integrity as a human being? And doesn't respect the integrity of the other people involved?

Congruence is the way our unconscious mind lets us know about ecology, and is a prerequisite of acting with wisdom.

EVIDENCE FRAME

This concentrates on clear and specific details. In particular, how will you know when you have attained your outcome? What will you see, hear and feel? This forms part of the outcome frame, and is sometimes useful to apply on its own, especially to criteria.

AS IF FRAME

This frame is a way of creative problem-solving by pretending that something has happened in order to explore possibilities. Start with the words, "if this happened..." or, "let's suppose that..." There are many ways this can be useful.

For example, if a key person is missing from a meeting, you can ask, "if X were here, what would she do?" If someone knows X well the answers they come up with can be very helpful. (Always check back with X later if important decisions are to be made).

Another way of using the idea is to project yourself six months or a year into a successful future, and then looking back, ask yourself, "What were the steps that we took then, that led us to this state now?" From this perspective, you can often discover important information that you can't see easily in the present, because you're too close to it.

Another way is to take the worst case that could happen. What would you do if the worst happened? What options and plans do you have? "As if" can be used to explore the worst case as a specific example of a more general and very useful process known as "Downside Planning." (this is a well known process insurance companies used to make a great deal of money).

BACKTRACK FRAME

This frame is simple. You recapitulate the information you have up to that point using the other person's key words and tonalities in the backtrack. This is what makes it different to a summary, which often systematically distorts the other person's words.

Backtrack is useful to open a discussion, to update new people in a group, and to check agreement and understanding of the participants in the meeting. It helps build rapport and is invaluable anytime you get lost; it clarifies the way forward.

Many messages seem to come to agreement, but the participants go away with totally different ideas about what was agreed. Backtrack can keep you on course towards the desired outcome.

As you can see from these five examples, the tools and strategies available via NLP can assist you to become a Master of communications.

Master yourself; Master your world. The Best is yet to come!

David Martin.
Answer Concepts, S.A.
answerconcepts@msn.com