NLP & Coaching

"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn." - Harriet Beecher Stowe

Coaching is about change, about making changes. A coach is a magician of change, who takes the cards you have it helps you to play your hand better or sometimes to even change the rules of the game.

Changes come from dreams of something better. When we have achieved one dream, we look forward and dream again. There is always the dream beyond the dream.

It's about bringing your dreams into reality and this is what a coach does for you. Coaching engages your imagination and at the same time, is immensely practical in the real world. It deals with goals and achievements.

It links your world of dreaming with your world of reality.

A coach is not only a magician of change, but also a coach can be a freedom fighter.

There are two aspects of freedom. The first is freedom from something and the second freedom to do something. Coaches work on both types of freedom. They help clients released themselves from unsatisfying or unpleasant circumstances. Then they open up choices and possibilities.

If you're engaged in a fight for freedom, who are your enemies? What stops the changes that you want to make?

Mostly, your enemy is Habit habitual actions, habitual thinking. Habits that have dug themselves in over time and are hard to remove. All habits accomplish something of value, otherwise they would not become habits in the first place. But times change and our habits may no longer serve our purpose.

Habits are maintained in numerous ways. We arrange our surroundings to support them. Other people expect us to behave in a predictable way and so treat us in a predictable way, reinforcing our habits.

Habits are like the cruise control on your car - they are set for a certain speed in a certain direction. Then the driver does not have to pay attention. To change the speed and direction, the driver does have to pay attention. Once habits are changed, the new habit will take them in a different direction down a different road.

A coach engages the habits that are holding the client back, sometimes by guerrilla warfare, sometimes by direct assault. Coaching will change the direction of your life. It may only be one small change at a time, but small changes at up.

Think of your life is a journey down the road. You don't know where you are heading, but the scenery is pleasant. After a while you begin to see that your life is being recycled. You see that the same thing comes around again.

Then you come to a branch in the road. Actually, there have been branches all along the road, but you haven't noticed that. Or, if you have, you were comfortable on that road, so you ignored them.

However now the game is different, you have a coach to alert you to the possibilities of change. You change direction, ever so slightly. You take a new road, one that diverges just a little from your original.

The first temptation maybe to think, "Huh! Hardly worth doing." It may be true that the change is only a small one in the short term. But the longer you maintain that change, further away from your original road you will travel. After a year, you will be an entirely different country. This will be so even if you never make another change.

The larger the change in direction, the shorter time it will take to come to new scenery. However, even the slightest change will take you on a different journey if you persist. You simply need to keep on the new track, even though the old one may call you back with seductive promises of familiar comforts.

"The devil you know is better than the devil you don't know." But is there a devil at all on the new road?

What is the role of a coach in this process? A coach does three things:

1. Shows you the track you are on
2. Points out the choices and helps you take the new road
3. Helps you persist in maintaining that change

In general, life is a series of small decisions. A big change is often many little changes saved up for the right moment. Each decision we make either keeps us on the same comfortable track or takes us toward what we truly want.

Coaching helps you to decide and that decision is uniquely yours.

The Best is yet to come!

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

The Art of Negotiation - NLP Style

"There are no hopeless situations; there are only people who have grown hopeless about them." - Clare Boothe

Negotiation is communicating for the purpose of getting a joint decision, one that can be congruently agreed on by both sides. It is the process of getting what you want from others by giving to others what they want, and it takes place in any meeting or interests conflict.

Would that it were as easy to do as it is to describe. There is a balance in the dance between your integrity, values and outcomes, and those of the other participants. The dance of communication goes back and forth, some interests and values will be shared, some opposed.

In this sense, negotiation permeates everything we do. We are dealing here with the process of negotiation, rather than what you are actually negotiating over.

Negotiation often takes place about scarce resources. The key skill in negotiation is to dovetail outcomes: to fit them together so that everyone involved gets what they want (although that may not be the same as their demand at the beginning of the negotiation). The presupposition is that the best way to achieve your outcome is to make sure that everyone involved achieve theirs too.

The opposite of dovetail outcomes is regulation, or other people's wants are disregarded. There are four dragons that lie in wait for those that practice manipulation: remorse, resentment, recrimination and revenge.

When you negotiate by seeking to dovetail outcomes the other people involved become your allies, not your opponents. If the negotiation can be framed as allies solving a common problem, the problem is already partially solved. Dovetailing is finding that area of overlap.

Separate the people from the problem. It's worth remembering that most negotiations involve people with whom you have, or want, and ongoing relationship. Whether you are negotiating over a sale, salary or a holiday, if you get what you want at the other person's expense, or they think you have pulled a fast one, you will lose goodwill that may be worth much more in the long run than success in that one meeting.

You will be negotiating because you have different outcomes. You need to explore these differences, because they will point to areas where you can make trade-offs to mutual advantage. Interests that conflict at one level may be resolved if you can find ways of each party getting their outcome higher level.

This is where chunking up enables you to find and make use of alternative higher-level outcomes. The initial outcome is only one way of achieving a higher level outcome.

For example, in a negotiation over salary (initial outcome), more money is only one way of obtaining a better quality of life (higher-level outcome). There may be other ways of achieving a better quality of life, if money is not available - longer holidays, or more flexible working hours, for example. Chunking up builds bridges across points of difference.

People may want the same thing for different reasons. For example, imagine two people quarreling over a pumpkin. They both want it. However, when they explain exactly why they want it, you find that one wants the fruit to make a pie, and the other wants the rind to make a Halloween mask.

In reality, they are not fighting over the same thing at all. Many conflicts disappear when analyzed this way. This is a small example, but imagine all the different possibilities there are many apparent disagreements.

If there is a stalemate, and a person refuses to consider a particular step, you can ask the question, "what would have to happen for this not to be a problem?" or "under what circumstances would you be prepared to give way on this?"

This is a creative application of the As If frame in the answer can often break through the impasse. You're asking the person who made the plot to think away around it.

Set your limits before you start. It is confusing and self-defeating to negotiate with yourself when you need to be negotiating with someone else. You need what Roger Fisher and Williams Ury in their marvelous book on negotiation, "Getting to Yes," called BATNA, or Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement.

What will you do if despite all the efforts of both parties you cannot agree? Having a reasonable BATNA gives you more leverage in the negotiation and greater sense of security.

Focus on interests and intentions rather than behavior. It's easy to get drawn into winning points and condemning behavior, but nobody really wins in these situations.

A wise and durable agreement will take in community and ecological interests. A mutually satisfying solution will be based on a dovetailing of interests, a win/win, not a win/lose model. So what is important is the problem and not the people, the intentions not the behavior, the interests of the parties not their positions.

It's also essential to have an evidence procedure that is independent of the parties involved. If the negotiation is framed as a joint search for a solution, it will be governed by principles and not pressure. Yield only to principle, not pressure.

There are some specific ideas to keep in mind while negotiating. Do not make a counterproposal immediately after the other side has made a proposal. This is precisely the time when they are least interested in your offering. Discuss their proposal first. If you disagree, give the reasons first. Saying you disagree immediately is a good way to make the other person's deaf to your next few sentences.

All good negotiators use a lot of questions. In fact, two good negotiators will often start negotiating over the number of questions. "I've answered three of your questions, now you answer some of mine..."

Questions give you time to think and they are an alternative to disagreement. It's far better to get the other person to see the weakness in his position by asking him questions about it, rather than by telling him the weaknesses you perceive.

Good negotiators also explicitly signaled their questions. They will say something like, "May I ask you a question about that?" By doing so they focus the attention of the meeting on the answer and make it difficult for the person questioned to evade the point if he has agreed to answer the question.

It would seem that the more reason to give for your point of view, the better. Phrases like "the weight of the argument" seem to suggest it is good to pile arguments on the scales until it comes down on your side. In fact the opposite is true.

The fewer the reasons you give, the better, because a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. A weak argument dilutes a strong one, and if you are drawn into defending it, you are on poor ground.

Beware of a person who says, "Is that your only argument?" If you have a good one, say, "Yes". Do not get drawn into giving them another, necessarily weaker one. The follow-up may be, "Is that all?" If you take the bait you'll just give him ammunition. Hopefully, if the negotiation is framed as a joint search for a solution, this sort of trick will not occur.

Finally, you can use the As If frame and play the devil's advocate to test the agreement ("No, I don't really think this is going to work, it all seems too flimsy to me..."). If other people agree with you, you know that there is still work to be done. If they argue, all is well.

Negotiation can be tricky, and it can also be a lot of fun. Use the above checklists as a guide. Study, practice and adapt these prescribed strategies and make them your own.

Mastery starts with you. As I've said many times before, Master yourself and you'll Master your world.

The Best is yet to come!

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

What Are Metaprograms?

"People who say that life is not worthwhile are really saying that they themselves have no personal goals which are worthwhile. Get yourself a goal worth working for. Better still, get yourself a project. Always have something ahead of you to look forward to...to work for and hope for." - Dr. Maxwell Maltz

Metaprograms are perceptual filters that we habitually act on. There is so much information we could attend to and most gets ignored as we have at most nine chunks of conscious attention available.

Metaprograms are patterns we use to determine what information gets through. For example, think of a glass full of water. Now imagine drinking half of it. Is the glass half full or half empty?

Both, of course, it's a matter of viewpoint. Some people notice what is positive about a situation, what is actually their others notice what is missing. Both ways of looking are useful in each person will favor one view or the other.

Metaprograms are systematic and habitual, and we do not usually question them if they serve us reasonably well. The patterns may be the same across contexts, but few people are consistently habitual, so metaprograms are likely to change with a change of context. What holds our attention in a work environment may be different from what we pay attention to at home.

So metaprograms filter the world to help us create our own map. You can notice other people's metaprograms both through their language and behavior. Because metaprograms filter experience and we pass on our experience with language, certain patterns of language are typical of certain metaprograms.

Metaprogram Summary

1. Proactive – Reactive
The proactive person initiates action. The reactive person waits for others to initiate action and for things to happen. He will take time to analyze and understand first.

2. Towards – Away
The towards person stays focused on his or her own goals and is motivated by achievement. The away person focuses on problems to be avoided rather than goals to be achieved.

3. Internal – External
The internal person has internal standards and decides for him or herself. The external person takes standards from outside and needs direction and instruction to come from others.

4. Options – Procedures
Options people want choices and are good at developing alternatives. Procedures people are good at following set courses of procedures. They are not action-motivated and are good at following a fixed series of steps.

5. General – Specific
General people are most comfortable dealing with large chunks of information. They do not pay attention to details. Specific people pay attention to details and meets small chunks to make sense of a larger picture.

6. Match – Mismatch
People who match will mostly notice points of similarity in a comparison. People who mismatch will notice differences when making a comparison.

7. Convincer Patterns
Channel:
Visual: Need to see the evidence.
Hear: Need to be told.
Read: Need to read.
Do: Need to act.

Mode:
Number of Examples: Need to have the information a certain number of times before becoming convinced.
Automatic: Need only partial information.
Consistent: Need to have the information every time to be convinced and then only for that example.
Period of Time: Need to have the information remained consistent for some period of time.

Metaprograms are not another way of pigeon-holing people. The important questions are: can you be aware of your own patterns? What choices can you give others? They are useful guiding patterns. Learn to identify only one pattern at a time. Learn to use the skills one at a time and only use them if they are useful.

The tools are available to make rapid, lasting changes in your life, the choice is uniquely yours as to what you do with them.

The Best is yet to come!

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

Calibrating the State

"Many a false step is made by standing still." - Chinese Proverb

Calibration is the NLP word that means recognizing when people are in different states. This is a skill that we all have and use in our everyday lives, and one that's well worth developing and refining.

You distinguish the subtly different expressions as others experience different memories, and different states. For example, when someone remembers a frightening experience, his lips may become thinner, his skin Taylor and his breathing shallower.

Whereas when he remembers a pleasurable experience, his lips are likely to be fuller, the skin color more flushed and his breathing will be deeper, with softening of the facial muscles.

Often are calibration is so poor that we only notice someone is upset when he starts to cry. We rely too much on people telling us verbally how they feel, instead of using our eyes and ears. We don't want to calibrate from a punch on the nose to know that the person is angry; nor do we want to hallucinate all sorts of possibilities from a twitch of an eyebrow.

There's an exercise in NLP training that you may like to try with a friend. Ask your friend to think of the person he likes very much. As he does this, notice his eye position, and the angle of his head.

Also notice his breathing, is it deep or shallow, fast or slow, high or low? Notice too the difference in facial muscle tone, skin color, lip size and tone of voice.

Pay attention to the subtle signs that are normally disregarded. They are the outward expression of inner thoughts. They are those thoughts in the physical dimension.

Now, ask your friend to think of someone he dislikes. Notice the difference in these signs. Ask your friend to think of one, than the other, until you are sure you can detect the differences in his physiology.

In NLP terms, you have now calibrated these two states of mind. You know what they look like. Ask your friend to think of one of the people, but without telling you which one. You'll know which one it is by reading the physical cues you've already identified.

It will seem as if you have the ability to read minds...

This is a skill that can be refined. We have a tendency to calibrate unconsciously. For example, if you ask a loved one whether he or she would like to go out for a meal, you will know intuitively, immediately, before they open their mouth what the answer will be.

The "yes" or "no" is the very last step in the thought process. We can't help but respond with body, mind and language because of the deep connection between the three.

You may have had the experience of talking to someone in getting an intuition that he or she was lying. You have probably calibrated this unconsciously, and you got the feeling without knowing why. The more you practice calibration, the better you will become adept. Some differences between states will be slight, and some will be unmistakable.

As you practice, subtle changes will become easier to detect. The changes, no matter how small, were always there. As your senses become sharper you'll be able to detect them with greater precision.

Master yourself, master your world - the Best is yet to come!

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

Eliciting Emotions

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." - Anaïs Nin

Elicitation is the word used in NLP to describe the process of guiding someone into a particular state. This is an everyday skill under a different label; we are all greatly practiced in putting people into different moods, or bringing them out of moods.

We do it all the time by our words, tonality and gestures. However there are times we don't elicit what we want. How many times have you heard a phrase like, "What's the matter with him. All I said was..."

The simplest way to elicit an emotional state is to ask the person to remember a past time when he was experiencing that emotion. The more expressive you are, the more expressiveness you will elicit. If your voice tone, words, facial expression and body posture match the response you're asking for, you’re more likely to get it.

All of your efforts get results. If you are trying to put someone in a calm resourceful state, it's useless talking in a loud, fast tone of voice, breeding quickly and shallowly, and making lots of fidgety movements. Despite your soothing words, the other person will become more anxious.

You need to know what to say. So if you want to lead someone into a confident state, you ask him to remember a particular time when he was confident. You speak clearly, in a confident tone of voice, breathe evenly, with your head up and your posture direct. You act "confident". Remember this; if your words are not congruent with your body language and voice tone, people tend to follow the non-verbal message.

It's important also that the person remembers the experience as if inside it, not watching dissociated from the outside. Being associated in this situation will bring back the feelings more fully.

Imagine watching someone else eating your favorite fruit. Now imagine yourself eating the fruit. Which is the more tasteful experience? To elicit your own states, put yourself back in the experience as fully and as vividly as possible.

This is yet another avenue to travel in discovering where people are, before you take them where you want them to go.

The Best is yet to come!

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

Physiology & Emotional Freedom

"Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one's better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk, and to act." - Dr. Maxwell Maltz

When people are emotionally and physically low, we often say that they are in "an awful state." In the same way, we recognize that to make the most of a challenge we must be "in the right state of mind."

What is a state of mind? Quite simply it is all the thoughts, emotions and physiology that we express at the moment; the mental pictures, sounds, feelings and all the patterns of physical posture and breathing. Mind and body are completely interconnected, so our thoughts immediately influence our physiology, and vice versa.

Our state of mind changes continually and this is one of the few things about it we can rely on. When you change your state, your whole world changes too (or seems to). We are usually more conscious of our emotional state than of our physiology, posture, gesture and breathing patterns. In fact, emotions are often considered to be beyond conscious control, they are the visible tip of the iceberg.

We do not see the whole physiology and thought process that lies underneath and supports the emotions. These are the submerged nine tenths of the iceberg. To try to influence the emotions without changing state is as futile as trying to make the iceberg disappear by sawing the top off. More will simply surface, unless you spend an inordinate amount of energy holding it underwater, and this is what we often do; with drugs or willpower.

For us, the mind leads, and the body follows obedient. Thus habitual emotions can be stamped onto a person’s face and posture, because the person does not notice how the emotions mold his or her physiology.

Try this experiment. Take a moment to think of some enjoyable experience, a time when you felt really good. When you have thought of one, think yourself back into that experience. Spend a minute or two re-experiencing it as fully as you can.

As you enjoy these pleasant feelings, look around you and notice what you see and what sounds you are hearing as you re-live this memory.

Notice how you feel, and when you are ready, return to the present.

Notice the impact this has on your present state, especially your posture and your breathing.

Past experiences are not gone for ever; they can help you feel good in the present. Although the sights and sounds of the past are gone, when we mentally re-create them the actual feeling is still as real and as tangible as it was then. So regardless of what you were feeling before you read this, you have just put yourself in a more resourceful state.

Now, by contrast, think back to a slightly uncomfortable past experience. When one comes to mind, imagine yourself back in it again.

Back in that situation, what do you see?

What are you hearing?

Notice how you feel.

Do not stay with us experience for very long, return to the present and notice the effect this had on you. Become aware of how you feel after this experience compared with how you felt after the previous one. Notice also, your different posture and breathing pattern.

Now change your emotional state. Do some kind of physical activity, move your body and switch your attention from the memory you just accessed to something completely different. Look out of the window, jump up and down, run to the other side of the room and touch the wall, or bend down and touch your toes. Pay attention to the physical sensations of moving and to what you sense in the here and now.

This is known is changing state were breaking state in NLP terms, and is worth doing whenever you notice yourself feeling negative or unresourceful. Whenever you remember unpleasant memories and access unresourceful states, your entire body takes up these negative states and holds them as patterns of muscle tone, posture and breathing.

These physically stored memories can contaminate teacher experiences for minutes or hours. We all know what it is like "get out of the wrong side of the bed." People who suffer depression have unconsciously mastered the ability to maintain an unresourceful state for long periods.

Others have mastered the ability to change their emotional state at will, creating for themselves and emotional freedom that transforms the quality of their lives. They fully experience the emotional ups and downs of life. But they learn, move on, and not dwell on emotional pain unnecessarily.

As we go through life, we continually move through different emotional states, sometimes quickly, sometimes more gradually. For example, you may be feeling quite low and a friend telephones with some good news. Your spirits lighten. Or maybe it's a bright sunny day and you open your mail to find an unexpectedly large bill. Mental clouds can cover a real sun.

We can choose to influence our states, rather than simply to react to what happens on the outside. In the past few moments, you have felt good, then uncomfortable, then... however you feel now. And nothing has actually happened in the outside world. You have done this all yourself.

Your mind is your most powerful ally, how you choose to use it is uniquely up to you.

Joining me in creating a revolution for your mind, because the Best is yet to come!

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

Meetings & NLP

"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