Day 5

Day 5 – June 13^th 2007

As ever we began today with breathing exercises. I noticed today that I can keep up with Wyatt’s extending of the time to breathe in and out and that although I may not keep in tune I can keep up with the rising scale. The accentuation of the Doh Rah Me …. I find very restful. I’ve also noticed that my asthma has not made a repeat appearance. I keep it managed with both a preventer and reliever and over the past few days I’ve held off with the preventer and not needed the reliever. I am not sure if it’s this breathing regime or the cycling or maybe both.

After going through the question we looked at what we learned yesterday. I learned four main things:

That there is a flow to presenting.

I need to practice it.

My confidence is growing in this new way of presenting.

The grounding exercise in the energy work is useful.

 

 

At 11.10 we reconvened and had an open frame.

Questions were:

Flip charts:- As we read left to right it’s better for charts to be drawn in this direction although arrows can be very useful to direct attention. Flow is best if its top left to bottom right – as a general rule.

Presentation:- timing is important so practice first. As far as possible cite all references that you can and be aware of copyright issues.

What about a variation of the procedure:- INLPTA is intending to create a basic standard from which variations can be generated. However, what is needed first is precision and some consistency. There is a great deal of variety in NLP with is both great and a problem. I think it was here that Wyatt pointed out that both Bandler and Grinder worked “against” academic cultures to create their synthesis of NLP. As such the NLP culture has been against structure and referencing ideas. We now have to work twice as hard as we might have needed to so that we can pace, before we can led, the academic worlds. Therefore we need both a greater degree of consistency than we have at the moment, more rigour in our explanations of concepts and principles if NLP is to both survive and grow.

These are thoughts and ideas that I have had for some time now. In my own training I present a brief 90 minute presentation on the History of Western Philosophy so that students can see where ideas that make up NLP have been around for 2,000 years or so. In most of my NLP presentations I like to link the ideas to other scientific work and ideas.

 

Its’ 11.45

“Wake up! said the old Mage” – said Wyatt jumping off his chair and standing firmly in the centre of the group. His story continued.

Today’s episode was about studying the behaviour of, in this case, small creatures in order to trap them – just go with me on this. This meant observing behaviours to notice the routines and then developing the traps that both made use of the routines as well as being capable of holding the creatures. Skills were learned and developed until our hero could build the traps with ease and place them expertly so that they actually trapped these creatures. What the purpose of trapping these creatures was Wyatt skilfully ignored !

However, our hero is taught:

• To respect the expected and unexpected nature of behaviour.
• To know that we all have schedules and routines.
• That we are all hunted by someone.
• Successful hunters stay alive by breaking routine.

 

Our hero is told that he needs to find out the next secret from a unicorn. Having protested that unicorns are rare in the extreme and so find one is extremely difficult he is told that unicorns have no routine and it is that which makes them magical.

I have a note that the next session began at 11.55 which seems far too short for the above story – but who knows?

HOW?

This section is about the development of skills. Again it can prefaced with the “6 sermons” to identify student’s needs for power, achievement and affiliation.

The HOW? section is to:

1. Bring together practical use, problem solving and technique.

2. Learn mastery using systemic practice to create both sped and accuracy.

It’s important to remember that this is NOT about confusing activity for productivity.

For activities to develop skills there needs to be:

a. Practice

b. Feedback

c. Improvement

Exercise design has the following components:

What is the skill ?

• There has to be something recognisable and some kind of measure.
• There needs to be variability according to some scale.

What are the steps ?

• What is the most effective order in which to carry out the abilities ?
• In other words how do these steps build to create the desired skill ?

What are the critical abilities ?

• What are the specific capabilities needed that will make up the steps ?

What are the reference structures ?

• These provide the systemic practice.

 

When the exercise is delivered then the process as outlined above is delivered in reverse order.

 

The final question to be asked is: How will we know when someone does this skilfully ?

We ended before lunch in small groups with the process of working out how we would create a procedure for the Circle of excellence that we did on the first day. We had a bit of a confusion with defining the skills and the critical abilities but came up with:

Circle of excellence:

Skills –

• associate / dissociate

Critical Abilities –

• Visualisation
• Calibration
• Anchoring
• Rapport

We noted that the sequencing matters and that this is a process of layering. We will return to this process later and in the next module.

We then broke for lunch.

 

We returned in the afternoon with a look at our focus of attention and played with peripheral vision, how to be more aware of large groups and more grounding states.

We then moved into the Skills Development of HOW?

Wyatt reminded us, well he reminded me, of the what has been called the learning ladder:

Unconscious Incompetence	you don’t know what you don’t know and what you don’t do
Conscious Incompetence	you begin to recognise what it is that you don’t know and can’t do.
Conscious Competence	you recognise what you can do and are doing.
Unconscious Competence	you don’t know what you can do, you just do it.

 

We were reminded that people have an attention capability of 7 +/- 2 items and so we should keep within that scale, somewhere between 5 and 9 items or chunks of information. Looking at a standard distribution of abilities – the bell curve then our attention needs to be more with those people who are less skilled whilst at the same time keeping the more skilled involved.

 

If we follow the 80/20 rule in that 20% of mistakes are made 80% of the time then it’s about recognising those most common mistakes and providing the feedback early.

There will also be the meta programmes of the learners to be identified. Typically there are two types:

Options	Procedures
“Judger” Through time On time On track On purpose	“Perceiver” In time Late Lost Not sure about purpose

 

Giving instructions effectively is therefore very important. Handouts and flip charts meet most needs. Some students will need to ask questions which can be responded to there and then some others will need to be handled during a break –these need to be kept to a minimum so that as the trainer we have time.

Before going to do the exercise raise the energy of the group through voice and physiology. Use compliance anchors and allow a brief transition time before move into action.

If the task is pre-framed i.e. clarity of actions, clarity of time available, directions to stay within instructions and within the NLP boundaries that should ensure success.

Layering can be done by ensuring that skills are developed in sequence. One way to do this is create a ladder for each day and place each day next to each other to ensure that skills build upon each other.

Finally today we looked at the skills of coaching. It’s about performance skills:

1. Evaluation – What is the ideal sequence.
2. What to look for – Common mistakes and how the ideas are played out.
3. Where did it start going wrong? – Catch the first deviation and correct the most serious mistakes first.
4. Know what to do next – know your field well.
5. Communicate – Repair, visual rehearsal then incorporate.
6. Give Immediate Feedback – our unconscious mind will not connect delayed feedback.
7. Build on success.

 

Interventions – be guided by visual clues.

• Ask – “What is your intended outcome?”
• Ask – “Are you getting it?”
• If not – “Give me 3 things you can do differently.”
• “Which of these 3 is best?”
• Supply other things that might work if felt necessary.
• Have a go.
• MONITOR
• Chunk up or down as necessary.

We did a three person exercise with this and I think that I was a little too fast in intervening and more rapport with both the Practitioner and Client would have been helpful.

With our trance induction and integration this brought us to the end of this day.

Day 4

Day 4 – June 12^th 2007

We began with our breathing exercises which Wyatt stretched to a longer period in which to breathe in and out and Tom raised the stakes by taking us up the scale. Actually, what I am noticing is that although my GP says I have “lungs like a horse” I seem unable to maintain the length of breath that my colleagues can. Perhaps my asthma is the problem and I hope that this new way of breathing may well help control the spasms and my need for medication.

We then split again and went through the questions. Although one of the northern participants began by saying, “Day 4 in the NLP house……” which lightened the atmosphere somewhat and took us a few minutes to re-focus !

Now that we have split up the questions we can get through them more quickly and we can each spend a bit more time both presenting our answers and learning from the comments of others.

We also talked about learnings from yesterday which I identified for me as:

I need to slow down.

The grounding / energy exercises were very useful.

A sense of peace allows me to guide myself through the process.

After our break we reconvened and had the open frame. I don’t have a record of this but I think it was here or yesterday that I said I felt like a sponge taking everything in with no time yet to reflect and ask questions – which no doubt would come.

Questions asked today were:

Time line. Wyatt talked to us about the beginnings of timeline work and how they had responses that “took them” to lives before the birth of their client. There is a question that I have got out of the habit of asking and that is “Did you have this problem before, during or after your birth ?” Which is a permissive way of saying that everything is possible.

Values. Wyatt talked about the brain and other brains. This is about the heart having brain-like qualities and that beliefs can be held her as well. I got a bit lost during this discussion and perhaps that because I don’t actually believe some of it. Whereas our mind/body is ne system I am not sure that it helps to place thoughts, ideas and beliefs IN certain organs. It may be a useful metaphor to help learning and growth and yet I think that is all it is – a metaphor.

The danger in techniques. Wyatt agreed that our work has to be more than techniques. That depends on both our character and our values, together they make up our ecology. We touched upon the amount of “hypno-sleaze” that goes on and how we want to be more open and clear in our work, even in the areas where we are not clear.

Wyatt talked about emotions and how to describe them. He gave a definition which is similar to one that I use i.e. Physical Sensation + Meaning = Emotion. He talked about trance releasing memory and creating the emotion. Without memory there can be no emotion.

He ended this section with what for me was a bit worrying and something that I need to follow up. He said that we should not associate clients into negative emotions. I find this a problem because I wonder how clients and ourselves can have any kind of evidence procedure if we don’t have a Present State, which is often negative. Now, I understand the need to ensure that the client is resourced and helped to move to a better state and yet the initial starting point must be that negative state. Perhaps there is a difference between “state” and “emotion”. I’ll need to make sure that I follow this up later.

“Wake up! said the old Mage” – said Wyatt jumping off his chair and standing firmly in the centre of the group. His story continued.

This was a description of four states:

Winter	FIRE	Transform	Burn
Spring	WATER	Nurture	Drown
Summer	AIR	Take Form	Re-order
Autumn	EARTH	Manifest	Bury

These elements are present in all things and it is the balance in these things that makes them work. And there is a fifth element – that which effects the other four. Which I take to mean ourselves. This brings to my mind the previous statements of:

The purity of my intent – the creation of conscious effort.

The focus of my will – let go of all distractions.

The level of my awareness – seek inside and outside.

The quality of my character – wielding both power and responsibility.

 

WHAT ?

Kolb: Reflective Observation / Abstract Conceptualisation

This quadrant is about procedure and technique. Much of it is 0 level learning, so it’s either right or wrong. However, it’s also about understanding how things work allowing strategies to develop thus creating flexibility. This flexibility leads to generative learning and moving to level 2 learning – learning how to learn.

The basis of this work is understanding. So explaining becomes important. Dangers are that you can provide data overload but that relevant information creates learning because: Knowledge + Experience = Understanding.

People in this quadrant are the assimilators – take in information and connect it up. However, the knowledge needs to be:

Organised

Clear

Logical

And to this end there needs to be Reference Structures i.e. experiences that are similar to the experience being presented.

To help in this Wyatt has developed the TOTE process in to the TOTDO:

 

PS = Present state

DS = Desired State

 

The operations here are: Chunking, Sequencing, Reference Structures and an entertaining presentation. By this the digital component i.e. the meaning of the words needs to have an emotional component.

The structure is:

Problem – What is the problem to be solved ?

Context – Where, when and under what circumstances ?

Concept– What is it ?

What does it mean ?

What are the complex equivalences ?

Show the ideas, definitions and classification

Define the labels

What could this be confused with ?

Principles– This answers why it works.

General laws (as in science) – Universals.

Examine cause and effect

Explain and give some predictions

Process– How it works

Descriptions at large chunk level

Flow chart

Procedure– Answers how you do it.

Prescriptive

Detailed steps like a recipe

If I follow this will it work ?

 

When designing a presentation then reverse this process i.e. start at the Procedure level and work upwards step-by-step. Identify all the important abstract nouns, terms and names and add them into the concept page.

We then attempted to go through this process for the swish pattern with some success. Although there was some confusion at the start with Procedure and Process. The detail gets less as you go up the chain of design.

The final aspect to be covered today was the Reference Structures which is actually the last part of the What? presentation. These are the beginnings of the How? Before you actually get there. This is where the building blocks for the learning are created. Here reference is made to current of existing experience as well as setting up the fact that experience is going to be provided.

Helping to install some experiences can be the process of contrast. Talking of the extremes of experience with the goal somewhere in the middle. Questions to be answered are:

What do I do?

How do I do it?

How do I know I am doing it right or wrong?

A useful set of questions to ask oneself is:

What is this (the skill required)?

Where is this in the learning programme?

What have the students learned so far?

Given the answers to these last three questions then a programme can be developed in order to Pre-teach skills and ideas. Reference Structures can be created in stories, metaphors and exercises. For example self anchoring can be taught on the first day and then used and developed throughout the programme.

Wyatt talked about some learning patterns:

Sort by sameness / difference

Like this….. / distinctions

 

 

Then we move from Global to Detail = deduction

 

Detail to Global = induction

 

 

When we take something apart that is called analysis.

When we put things together that is called synthesis.

 

 

In this exercise we are attempting to do both – although not at the same time.

Finally, to understand any field we need to know the following:

What is the problem?

What were the previous attempts?

How is this better?

What are the limitations?

What is going to be taught?

What are the concepts?

How is this different – distinctions?

What are the theories?

What is the technique?

Are there other maps or models?

What are the principles?

What is the procedure and can we follow it?

 

 

This bought us to the trance induction and the end of day 4……..

Day 3

Day 3 – June 11th 2007

We began again at 9am with the breathing exercises. A yawn to relax the jaw, breathing from our diaphragm and singing both single notes and a scale. I do find this very relaxing and great way to focus and begin the day.

Then we broke into our groups and focussed on the questions. During the questions, this time facilitated by Tom I brought up the issue of knowing all the labels and yet not really knowing what was meant by them. Tom was at pains to say that it was the principles that matter. Knowing the material is important, so that we can know that we know it, and focus on its delivery. INLPTA is much more concerned that we understand the background, philosophy and ethics rather than just the current “buzz words”. I was very pleased to hear this as other people have said – and looking at the questions alone I feared might be the case – that all that was needed was to trot out the expected words and phrases to be certified.

We were asked to review yesterday and discuss our learnings. I identified:

The 4 – MAT structure was very helpful

 

Issues around flip charts was new

 

Use of energy was helpful

 

Story boarding was a new skill

To some extent I will add all of these new skills and perspectives to my work. Specifically using them for our own presentations later this week.

 

After a 15min break we re-convened as a large group and began with an Open Frame. A question was asked about the breathing exercises. Wyatt reminded us that our physiology is a good guide to our processing. In a visual state we tend to breathe from high in the chest whereas we are more kinaesthetic when we breathe from our lower stomach which provides us with a more grounded state.

He went on to say that we should learn to breathe from our diaphragm with no pause between breathing in and breathing out – a smooth motion will help us focus in our training. He said that 16/20 breaths a minute is considered normal in the West whereas in the East 4/6 is normal and our rate is considered stressful.

A question was asked about our presentations. We would be in groups of 4/5, we would present the WHY?, What? And What if? quadrants only. There will be discussion about the HOW? We were advised to keep it simple and observe the sequencing.

 

“Wake up! said the old Mage” – said Wyatt jumping off his chair and standing firmly in the centre of the group. His story continued.

How do we know if we are awake or asleep? We must learn to be in the Here and Now. We spend our time split between past, present and future and the present can often be a day dream anyway – a fantasy. We must be at both the edge and the centre of our experience only in this way can we calm the internal storm. How can we do this ? asks our hero.

There are four issues to consider:

The purity of my intent – the creation of conscious effort.

The focus of my will – let go of all distractions.

The level of my awareness – seek inside and outside.

The quality of my character – wielding both power and responsibility.

 

WHY?

Kolb: Concrete Experience / Reflective Observation

This is the motivating space. People want to be engaged, to be connected and become involved and share their meanings and experiences. Here we touch emotions and values. This is about relevancy – “What’s in it for me?” Here in order to capture the attention of students you have to know them. Connect with their and your internal experiences and make them manifest in the presentation.

Motivation comes from a mix of Away From and Towards – the stick and the carrot. Therefore students need to be shown the benefits of the learning: its features and the context within which it is successful and how this meets their needs and connects with their values.

We were advised to be a witness to learning by telling our own stories of how the subject under discussion has affected ourselves. AS we are our own resource we were advised to demonstrate our beliefs that:

• Learning is easy, fun and quick.
• Instil curiosity
• Believe in ourselves and that which we teach
• Work to remove barriers to learning
• Set a climate for learning
• Establish norms for the conduct of the group

We were then introduced to the “6 Sermons” – not a very good title, shades of my religious past I am afraid.

 

 

In simple terms it comes down the idea that people have three basic meta programmes when it comes to learning. It’s about power, achievement and affiliation. Wyatt gave a very intense and clear examples of this by talking about his work with a team of competition pool divers in the USA. Sports coaches are usually good examples of this as subtlety doesn’t go down well.

 

Away		Towards
Powerlessness	Control	Power
Think what it’s like to be behind in this race. Being the underdog because you couldn’t get control of yourself and you were confused – is that what you want ?		Just imagine focussing your will and getting that medal and being on that winning podium. Feel the sense of power that you get from the winning stand – isn’t that what you want ?
Failure	Tasks	Achievement
You failed. Just think of the shame of coming last, right at the end behind everyone – is that what you want ?		You know that you can beat your own best time. You can be even better than you have been so far and achieve that medal – isn’t that what you want ?
Rejection	Harmony	Affiliation
Nobody likes a loser. Losers are alone, people actively avoid them, reject them. Is that who you want to be ?		People love winners. When you win people will seek you out just to be with you – isn’t that what you want ?

 

OK, so this is summary of what was a much more elegant delivery. Everyone in an audience will have a preference for one or more of these desires. The skill is to address them all elegantly and ethically at the start of a presentation.

We then broke for lunch.

 

We began the afternoon with energy work in front of the group. A few of us at a time stood in front of the rest of the group and without talking or gesturing just made connections in whatever way that we could and we calibrated our response and that of the members of the group. We noticed how our internal monologues may have directed us to react, argue, please or run away from the rest of the group. Here we began to recognise how we focus our energy and to learn new ways of directing it to learn a new calibration.

We moved into groups of 4/5 and for 1 minute we simply stood in front of other members and then received feedback. Feedback that I received was one of solidity and trust and yet also of judgement – looking down my nose at the group. Quite a mix. It was an interesting exercise just to stand still and be noticed and looked at and yet not to have to make any specific response or to please the observers in any way.

Wyatt talked about when change does not occur:

• Chance to change – some large organisations don’t want individuals to change
• Want to change – having the motivation to make a change
• How to change – is training necessary to build new skills ?
• Able to change – are the “right” people in the right place ? Has there been pre-selection ?

Or you could try the Dirty Harry test, but that really depends on having a Magnum .44 with you – “Do you feel lucky?” – great motivation but only useful in a very, very special context.

 

So, some more detail on the “sermons” from above:

Away		Towards
Powerlessness	Control	Power
Out of control Confused Held by old outdated memories Stuck At Effect		Clear Focussed In Control Directed At Cause
Failure	Tasks	Achievement
Missed deadlines Missed appointments Mixed up goals Conflicted Inconsistent		Specific goals Successful Evidence of success Enjoyment Triumphant
Rejection	Harmony	Affiliation
Arguments Fearful Isolation Denied Dismissed		Many friends Choose real friends Clarity about relationships Ability to say “No” Security

If you don’t know about {the away} how are you going to be successful ?

If you do know about {the towards} then let’s put into action………

Having delivered these messages it’s time to say:

“Then, let’s get on to {the exercise, learning etc}.”

 

We then looked at some Basic skills:

 

Connection to the audience:

Linking the topic to the values and needs of audience members. To do this Milton Model language can be used. With this anything can be linked to anything else reflecting a Cause and Effect action. These causal linkages can be in the form of:

Direct – “(this) the sound of my voice causes you to be more relaxed (that)”

Implicit – “While you are listening to my voice you can become more relaxed”…

Simply conjunction – “You can hear my voice and become more relaxed”

These links need to be plausible rather than logical.

 

Universals help to create a sense of shared experience and belonging.

“We all have goals that we want to achieve”.

“We are all on this training to learn”,

“Now that we are all back from lunch…..”

“We all want value for money..”

“We’d all like to have a perfect memory”

“We’re all learning great things”

 

Truisms create connections to people’s real experience. Its way of pacing and leading e.g.

“We are here today wanting to know more about …..”,

“We come here to learn and that’s what we are doing.”

“That police siren could be distracting and yet…..”

“We all a bit tired here at the end of the day and so….”

 

 

We then had an exercise where we link things together. In his demonstration Tom asked for two things and got Salsa Dancing and Gordon Brown MP – which he did very well. We then had a go in small groups of three. The learning for me was to ensure that not only were the two items linked but that the linkage was made relevant to the people with me so the learning had to be explicit and stated.

 

We then looked at the elements of the WHY? Quadrant. It’s about motivation:

It begins with a mini What and goes on to set the context as learning depends on the correct context so that the meaning is clear. This allows to say what our subject is and what it isn’t and be as specific as we can.

Then we move on the identity of the audience as it is now and how it will be. Moving from, in our case, Practitioners and Master Practitioners to Trainers. This is an explicit upgrade of our identity with these new skills. “You are becoming XXX as you develop these new skills.”

Next comes the values of the audience – the Power, Affiliation, and Achievement statements. This helps to meet and disable the reasons for failure – the rationalisations, justifications and excuses.

Connect then directly to the topic and the concept of training and learning.

 

A quick diversion here into the barriers to learning:

Ethics – isn’t this just manipulation ? It’s about constructing our world view and being much more effective in a win/win situation.

Logical – this is covered in the WHAT? quadrant next.

Counter Intuitive – this is where there may be resistance as the topic doesn’t make sense. This ca labelled upfront with the invitation to have the experience and then reflect on new information and evidence.

There are many reasons that people are not motivated to learn:

1. No buy-in
2. No interest or relevancy
3. No want
4. No time – apparently 80% of our results come from 20% of our input !
5. No trust – trust is earned, it’s built so make sure that promised are delivered.
6. No money – this is the balance between cost and value.

Finally Wyatt said that actually the focus is the “singer not the song”. By this he meant that often it’s who is presenting rather than what is being presented. He gave us the situation where songs can be a hit for some artists and a flop for others. You need to know how to present even a chart topper – it won’t sell itself.

 

This led to questions about some well know popular motivational speakers and Wyatt’s role in training some of them. Here he gave his three secrets to be a charismatic motivational speaker:

1. Grossly oversimplify – ie provide the “3 steps to happiness” etc
2. Be able to lie congruently – I would guess to carry off number 1.
3. Be able to lie to yourself – I would guess, again, to carry off 2 and 1.

We didn’t spend much time here !

 

Finally:-

The procedure – WHY?

1. Get passionate with the subject
2. Get rapport with the group
3. State the topic
4. Set context
5. Link to identity
6. Connect the towards / away from
7. Relate to common beliefs of audience
8. Calibrate when there is buy in and move on

 

This bought us to the end of the day and the trance integration. Like many of my fellow participants – I felt as though I’d been on this course for days already and I went through several times in the day not really knowing what day of the week it was !!!

The cycle back home helped.

Day 2

Day 2 – June 10^th 2007

{I was hoping that I would be able to write all this up after each day. However, with the attention needed for each day and the questions to answer for the following day there wasn’t time or energy left to complete this blog. So, I’ll put together each day from my notes that I wrote each day – both the content and my thoughts as we progressed through the whole 8 days. Not ideal but better than missing out on what I am learning.}

I decided that today I would cycle to the course. I live in Chiswick and this course is happening in Gospel Oak, north London. My cycle computer told me that is 16km, just a shade under 10 miles. It was very refreshing to cycle thorough west London and Regent’s Park and it allowed me time to prepare for today.

Given that we looked at mind mapping yesterday I am going to take all my notes for the course as mind maps and get back into that process again. I used to use mind maps for client notes and now I am reminded of it I’ll take it up again.

We began with breathing exercises. Wyatt and Tom said that the secret of talking for days on end as a trainer was the skill to breathe easily. We were asked to place one hand on our stomach area and feel the diaphragm as it works its bellows like action and allows us to breath in and out, starting at a count of 7. That is seven seconds to breathe in and seven to breath out. The we moved onto singing – single notes followed by a simple scale. We were encouraged to open our mouths as wide as possible – which made me yawn and to which Tom encouraged us all to do inorder to stretch and relax our jaws.

The next session was to split into two groups and begin to go through the list of Practitioner questions that are in our manual. We began with 21 questions. At the close of yesterday Tom had suggested that we choose a group leader and split up the questions so that we do a few each. We didn’t actually get around to that so Wyatt took us through them. Like all new groups we were a bit wary of ourselves and each other – some of us knew a great deal and others were new. Some, like me have a great deal of experience but we don’t have the language and others have just been trained by Tom and so are deep in INLPTA content.

After this we were asked to form again and talk about our 5 most important learnings from yesterday, Day 1. After thinking I came up with:

Learning that:

Group dynamics are important for me.

My outcome needs to be personal and specific and its now confirmed for me.

That it’s great to be reacquainted with mind mapping

I can be more relaxed and still teach from that place.

 

A member of the group said how he had learned that it’s OK to be different.

 

We got back together at 11.30ish

“Wake up! Said the old Mage” – said Wyatt jumping off his chair and standing firmly in the centre of the group. His story continued.

This episode was about keeping up, running after the teacher though what seems to be undergrowth with no obvious paths. We must “know where we are” so that we can take the appropriate direction. How we find that direction is by asking the right question. But which question ? Our small hero, I think of him as small, is presented with four dragons each of which is tamed by asking a single type of question:

Why is it here ?

What is it doing now ?

How can it look like that ?

The fourth dragon didn’t seem to respond to any question. After being told to “Do something” lest the dragon cause more disturbance our hero stands on his head, What If ?, and the dragon, like the other three, shrinks and is tamed.

 

Then we moved to an open frame, a place to ask any questions of Tom and Wyatt:-

A question was asked about outcomes for our students. My map here gets a little vague but the issue moved into finding out relevancy for the student as well as an evidence procedure for its achievement. That as we saw yesterday we need to look at both our outcomes and evidence as well as those of our students. Added to that is the possibility that we might be asked to teach to student who have been sent and our not necessarily there of their own accord. Therefore we have to engage the student and using our rapport skills pace and lead them.

A question was asked about movement. Both Wyatt and Tom stand very still in their space and use their hands sparingly. Some hand and arm movements remind me of a Catholic priest at an altar – shades of my Altar Boy past although I am pleased to say that these days I am an Ex-catholic. We were told that Platform Skills would come in the next session. That movement must be intentional and that walking around all the time is distracting to the students.

A last question was asked about our presentations. There will be a design model we were told and that we would get feedback on our presentation style in the next module. We can choose both the topic and the content. What is most important is to understand and explain the principles behind the topics being presented.

At the moment there is no standard INLPTA Training Manual although this may be developed in the future – hence we can create our own individual programme.

At just before 12 noon this bought us to Training Design and the 4-MAT model. This is described in many places on the web so I’ll only give a summary here. 4MAT grew out of the work done by Kolb on learning styles which was then developed into a teaching philosophy.

The Kolb styles lead to the following:

Question	Thinking	Response
WHY?	Give me a reason for learning this.	Motivation
WHAT?	Give me the data / information that I need to learn this.	Expert tuition
HOW?	I need to experience this to learn about it.	Coaching
WHAT IF..?	I need to take this into the world and make it work.	Mentoring

 

In order to ensure that you meet all the needs of the learners in ones group then all four styles have to addressed in some fashion.

 

Another way to see this is:

 

 

Bernice McCarthy then developed the teaching roles as described above. We then had a fun exercise taking one minute to describe a specific activity in each of the above quadrants. I took writing and not very successfully managed to go through each quadrant. Susi Strang-Wood then invited us to take a meta position and do the quadrants in a kind of musical presentation. This was no words but vocal sounds to illustrate each of the quadrants:

Motivator –Ethel Merman “There’s no business like show business” energy

Expert – Military band or German “Um Pah”

Coach – Salsa / Jazz like sound.

Facilitator – Big Band sound.

Well that was my interpretation !

 

There is also a link in with the brain and left and right hemisphere thinking. All activities of the quadrants use both sides of the brain and so learning is enhanced:

	PERFORM	ENGAGE
R	PERFORM	CONNECT	R
L	REFINE	ATTEND	L
	PRACTICE	SHARE
R	EXTEND	IMAGE	R
L	PRACTICE	INFORM	L

 

 

It was also suggested that NLP has gone in three separate directions of “Doing”, “Thinking” and “Feeling” and that any change must generate to the other sectors:-

 

 

 

 

 

This brought us to lunch……………

 

 

We began the afternoon session with some “energy” work. Our physical energy is what will keep us going through out the training days. Our energy can be conserved and utilised efficiently by:

Stillness – our breathing will enable this and help us to conserve our energy so that we can train for long periods without running out.

Focus – keeping our attention on the programme and ourselves.

Attention – knowing where we are in the programme.

Variety – by changing the level and type of energy that we use for each topic and / or outcome we can keep ourselves resourced.

 

Susi Strang then took us thorough a series of exercise to show us how we can affect the energy levels of others simply by focussing our attention on them. This could be a single person or the whole group and similarly we can receive energy from them.

This concept could get very flaky and yet when attention is focussed and directed the recipient can notice a change. I wonder if there is an issue in that rather that “directing energy” what we actually doing is changing the balance of the existing energies around us. Do fish have any concept of the water in which they live – I guess not and yet in the same way we have no concept of the air in which we live. I would like to think that if we did understand that air is more than just what we breathe, it’s a – dare I say – matrix that we all share. In this matrix we are embedded along with all the radio waves, light waves and heaven knows what else. So the concept of affecting another person by manipulating this matrix seems less far-fetched to me. Anyway, there were responses…….

 

We then went on to Storyboarding – this is a process developed from the film industry. Scripts are sketched up until the entire film is produced in the same way that a comic book is – frames on a page showing the story; who is in the scene, what the camera will be attempting to create et c.

We were given an exercise where instead of pictures, although these were not ruled out, ideas on a topic were brainstormed out. One idea was given one piece of post-it note. All the ideas were then stuck on one free wall and on another was marked out the four quadrants from above. Each idea on a post-it note was then to be discussed and evaluated as to which quadrant it fitted best. This would show up where there might be gaps and also where there might be an imbalance ie loads in the WHY quadrant and few in the WHAT and loads in the WHAT IF. This would leave the HOW empty and a need for more attention to the WHAT quadrant.

It was suggested that this process can be used for specific tasks and topics as well as an overview for whole programmes. The benefit of the post-it note is that it could be moved around again and again until the best or most comfortable place was found for that idea.

Our group found that what worked best for us was to brainstorm as much as we could before we even contemplated the quadrants. In this way we seem to cover a great deal of material which was augmented when the quadrants were then employed. The ability to move ideas around was very helpful.

 

We then moved on to the best way to present Flip Charts. One of the, many, problems with Power-Point presentations (and indeed using Over Head projectors as was pointed out to me later) is that they are there and gone. Well presented flip charts provide anchors in a visual form. Their information remains in the view of the students over the course of the training and helps in the learning and review process. They can also provide a anchor for learning when a programme reconvenes after a break and be a comfort and support for the students.

Important points for good flip charts are:

They must be visible and legible

Contain only what you want the students to learn

Only use colours that can be seen at a distance – outline pale colours.

They must be a logical explication, clarification or explanation of the topic under discussion

 

We then went on to some useful resources such as:

Pens – Edding or Newland

Paper – 3M produce some like giant post-it notes

Static Paper from www.imusthave1.com

A Google search will also bring up many ideas.

 

We then had an integration piece to link together the whole day – a trance induction with ambient music and lead from both Tom and Wyatt. This brought us to the end of day two, although by this time I was losing track that this was Sunday. I remember that Susi had said earlier in the energy work that by the end of the 8 days we would probably feel like a month had gone by……….I can well believe it.

Day 1

Actual date: June 9th

Well, this went very well indeed. A clear and concise overview of what it is that we are going to be doing.

There are 14 participants, two trainers and one assistant – although that will probably change as we go through. Tom Mackay, Wyatt Woodsmall as the trainers and Susi Strang-Wood as the assistant.

Most of us got there on time with three people coming from Brussels. With a couple of late stragglers we got started at just before 10.00.

Wyatt began with an introduction that took us through the four problems that modern education, he says, has ignored. He learned this first from modelling a man who worked to teach people a foreign language in just five days. Later these ideas popped up all over the place.

The concepts are:

Teach for understanding – knowledge must be connected to experience

Meta-Cognition – Learning how we learn.

Pre Existing Knowledge – we need to realise and work with the fact that we come with knowledge and some is correct and some not. We need to reveal the inadequacies, misunderstandings and the partial nature of some our knowledge.

Transfer Problem – How to keep people from relapsing. We need to future pace them in our learning.

He said that if we are going to make changes then we have to change and become “Not Me”. The “Me” today is either not working or is not efficient – that’s my take on it. In fact I’d prefer to say that I want to become the real “Me” because the “Me” today is the “Not Me”. If the “Me” today was the “Me” that I want to be then I wouldn’t be on this course. However, we were asked to consider becoming the “Not Me”.

To become this “Not Me” Wyatt asked us to commit to making all the mistakes that we can in this training so that we needn’t make them when we leave………

At this point he talked about feedback – that we would be getting it from the trainers, assistants and each other. We are going to be pushed – he added. He invited us to consider:

What is the me I want to let go of ?

What is the me I want to become ?

He talked of that “Me” being free, like Richard Bandler who has the ability to be systemically outrageous, crazy even, so that he achieves his goal. We can do that as well.

There are two things that we can do if we want to:

Beat our heads against the wall – although we were cautioned that there are other and better implements with which to do that, such as sledgehammers !

Be addicted to suffering – it is optional although we will have to provide that suffering on a individual basis. Let go of it – he said.

Feedback was discussed like the proverbial thermostat. It was also described as “the product of the last performance being fed back into the system”.

What does it mean to learn ? This was described as a “change in the method and pattern of performance”. Which can be stated in the question –

How are you changing your behaviour as a result of what you have learned ?

 

With that we turned to:

Logical Levels of Learning.

Wyatt discussed the work of Russell and Whitehead and how they had “solved” the problem of paradox. Paradox, an apparent contradiction, is caused by self reference. The statement “All Cretans are liars” is fine in itself, until you are told that the speaker is in fact a Cretan – think about it……..

They “solved” it although fudge might be a better term with their “Levels of Meta Language” Later Brown came up with his “Laws of Form” which Bateson then developed in to his Levels of Learning.

The best description is as follows:

Feedback	Level	Learning
Change to learn more easily.	3	Learning how to learn. “What have you learned about how you learn ?”
“What did you learn ?” “How will your behaviour change in the future ?”	2	Learning how to learn. “What have you learned ?”
How well did it work	1	Applied Learning – utility and value
Right / Wrong	0	Rote & memorisation

 

In Learning 2 we notice the patterns in people and in information and therefore we can make use of those patterns in a reactive way.

In Learning 3 we can re-pattern the patterns in a direct active way.

We were encourage to take stock of our personal learning style. Tom came forward to suggest that in Practitioner we take the learning and make it work for us. At the Master Practitioner level we learn to us our skills with and for other people, we begin to give back, and here at the Trainer level we can contribute to the community and the body of knowledge. This is I think one of their open loops and we’ll come back to it again.

We then looked at the structure of this course:

We will do 4 presentations of between 30/45 minutes.

1^st next Saturday

2^nd the Friday of the next module

The final 4 day assessment will include

3^rd & 4^th presentations

Content exam that will be an oral exam

Demonstration

Open frame

Coaching Exercise (although I was not clear on this)

 

 

This bought us to 11.15 and a break.

 

11.30 – We resumed and looked at:

Resources for the self – here we participated in the Circle of Excellence exercise. This involved us re-visiting the requirements for anchoring good states, in this case a resourceful state for training:

A natural state is the best

Be associated in the state

Get the full intensity.

Ensure that the state is pure.

Make the anchor unique.

Make sure that the anchor is replicated.

Make sure the state is specific.

 

We talked about Resources for the Other i.e. the participants in that when we are resourced then so will our future participants / students and that this also helps us gain Rapport.

Just before lunch we participated in an exercise for Outcomes. We revisited the criteria for outcomes:

We then worked in pairs.

My outcome is about getting to the place where I can run trainings, specifically the first one in March 2008. For the first time I recorded this exercise so I’ll return to it in more detail when I have more time.

We were reminded that there are 3 types of outcome:

Mine

Theirs

The person who sent them on the course, possibly

And that without stated outcomes and an evidence procedure we could not have any measure of achievement or have any idea of where to take action.

 

LUNCH

 

We resumed at 2.00pm

Here Wyatt began with a story – full of metaphor, embedded commands, trance and future pace. It was about recognising our own difference, the desire to want to be different and the discomfort in accepting the challenge of learning and change. It continued along the lines of engaging in one form of learning, at home with family in familiar situations, and the growing to being told that we have to have another teacher. The story ended with our “hero” i.e. us, leaving home, travelling to other unfamiliar places and meeting our teacher – a strange character both loving and demanding, strict and playful, supportive and expectant. The teacher received our hero and moved off and our hero followed – the training had begun…………………

 

We then went thorough an exercise of introducing ourselves to the group. We had 60secs to give our names, Where we are from, What we do, What we most want from the training and something we are good at.

Although my time spent as a member of Business Network International gave me experience of this I don’t think I did a very good job. Too fast, too tense and too within myself.

Next we were asked to interview another participant and to introduce them and show them as an inspirational trainer. We had to question them and pick out relevant skills and experiences to show them off. This was quite good a bit easier to focus on someone else !

At the end of that exercise we were asked the question that will come back to all of us again and again –

“What did you learn ?”

 

We then made labels for ourselves and were asked to add a strap line – I choose “Motivating Martin” as alliteration very often helps. In a circle we had then to name everyone in turn before us, I was ¾ of the way round but actually managed it and the strap line really did help me.

Break

We resumed at 3.30 with a talk on feedback.

I have heard many things about trainer trainings both here and abroad and the process of feedback has been described in fairly negative terms. I was pleased that here some time was spent in framing and detailing what feedback is and what it is for.

We were told that we would both give and receive feedback. That the best feedback is short, immediate and both positive and negative. We were encouraged to provide comments of what could be done better next time or what there could be more of next time.

There is the feedback sandwich:

Something that we done well – followed by something that could be done better – followed by something else done well.

Two important things about what the feedback refers to:

It must be something over which the person has control

It must be something that can be improved.

Feedback is about the “doing”, about the performance rather than about the person. In receiving the feedback we should listen to understand and if necessary clarify.

There need be no; explanations, rationalisations, Justifications or excuses. Just say “Thank you” and move one.

Then the feedback can be sorted into what is helpful. There was more detail about research into feedback in our manual. This stated that many of the assumptions about feedback were in fact wrong.

We are looking for the smallest change for the greatest change.

 

We then looked at mind maps in some detail.

 

This was followed by an exploration of group dynamics. As far as I can recall this is the first time on a NLP training that this has been covered. I was concerned about it in 1998 (near the bottom of the page). The concepts that are old to me; forming , norming, storming and performing were well laid out as well as roles that people present;

Self orientated i.e. the Boss,

Task orientated i.e. get the job done and

Maintenance orientated i.e. it’s the relationships that matter.

We also took part in some exercises that were pure Virginia Satir – choosing partners as twos and threes, then moving into fours and fives how did it feel to be chosen or not be chosen, did the person we wanted to work with chose us ? What did that feel like if they did and if they didn’t ? Then we had a team challenge and we had to choose a leader and participants in a challenge – which the team I was in won!

That brought us to the close of the day. After having been asked what we learned we were asked where we might and might not use these skills. We were asked “How will our behaviour be different ?”

With a reminder that we will be in two groups answer a large list of review questions which are laid out in the manual along with a programme for which ones for each day. The day closed around 6.10pm

There is so much that happens in the day and not a lot of time in the evening that most of my thoughts about what we are doing and what I think I am learning will come a bit later. Evenings are spent having a life and working on tasks so that this blog is likely to be a few days behind actual events.

However, I think that I can say after this first day that I am a lot happier and comfortable about the course. Given all the stories that I have heard the course seems to have matured and be very well paced rather than the “hot house” descriptions that had been offered me.

I hope and trust that this level of presentation, structure and maturity will follow for the next 19 – I think that it will.

I am very optimistic………………..

Mentor 1

I had my first mentor session with Lisa yesterday and I’ve been thinking a lot about what we covered. I used the questions to guide my thoughts and to prompt me.

Lisa said in her work over the years with many people:

• Previous assisting and co-training is a great asset
• Knowing the content is vital
• Focus on the structure

I believe that I know the content although my knowledge of the latest up to date language and labels is probably a bit thin. I notice also that my 4-MATS below are too thin on specifics. Talking with Lisa showed me that I will need to “talk the talk” much more being much more obvious.

(This shows me the necessity of having a more agreed model of NLP which would then dictate a common syllabus. Updated every three years or so we could all keep up with an agreed body of knowledge. That’s for much later and probably another forum.)

Also, I need to be able to know and talk about how the content of NLP is reflected in the delivery of the training. We talked over a number of details of what this means and I what I took away was the need (requirement ?) for an effective trainer to be able to embed learning within the detail of various quips, anecdotes, stories and exercises – it needs to be crafted rather than just instinct – at least at first.

We talked about working with people from different models of the world. I am attending this training so that I can

• Help more people make personal change for themselves
• Provide for people the certification of Practitioner and Master Practitioner so they can enhance their existing skills and work/businesses
• Develop a four year psychotherapy training for people who want to work as professional Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapists.
• Something I’ve not yet thought of…

Others maybe there “to make big bucks” – a phrase I have heard in many NLP gatherings. So, as with my supervision training, I’ll need to be flexible – and notice how I and others achieve that.

The training is very intensive in that I’ll be under a spotlight and all my “failings”, “inconsistencies”, “knowledge gaps” and “deviations” will be noted and commented upon. Those are my words by the way. Over the training feedback will probably come from everyone and there may even be some judgements and distortions involved along the way. This will include people whose outcomes, experiences and perhaps values will differ from mine. There is so much to learn that in the moment I may regress a bit become defensive and miss out on some small but vital bit of feedback. Perhaps all I need to do is simply to accept all the feedback that I get, try out all suggestions and leave the evaluation until much later.

After all, its about my skills rather than about me.

I wonder if we will be videoed during any of our work? I hope so as I think this will provide excellent time for development, change and reinforcement later.

It seems that like the psychotherapy interview much of the training might be to do with “state control”. A few years back as part of our accreditation process we had to be interviewed about our application. (You can read about that here). I think that this is a much longer drawn out process.

Practical suggestions were:

• Take my own small clock to time presentation sessions.
• Have someone else write down feedback so that I can concentrate in the moment. (I think that I’ll ask if I can record it for later analysis.)
• Have a music stand on which to put any prompt papers. These will probably be supplied as I haven’t got one.
• Wear comfortable clothes in layers as training rooms can vary in temperature as we can in times of tension / stress.
• Stay in the leveller position during feedback and I would guess at other times.
• Buy a manual for the first NLP Practitioner and then develop it into my own style

The training is more about how to deliver NLP training via INLPTA rather than teaching much NLP. Well, it is the structure that I want although some of the 60 or so questions that I have seen involve topics that I know little about – Graves and Spiral Dynamics and such I have never been formally taught.

Still, if I knew all about it then I wouldn’t need to go on this course.

One issue that Roy, my husband, and I have talked about is the impact on me and us during this training. We have spent more time on that now; agreeing space to talk and practice as well as agreeing NLP-Free time and space !

And that’s about all I can do to prepare.

That and relax……………………

And a quick thanks to Anne and Fokkina for their feedback.

Anne – Although I have doubts about my skills I now feel having had this first mentoring session that I am a lot clearer and settled about what I need and where I am going. I am getting more excited the closer I get to starting.

Fokkina – I hope that you will be able to join us in London at some stage and do let me me know of any useful books that you have found.

 

Preparation – 1

Tomorrow is the first of my mentor sessions for the training with Lisa. We have worked together as part of the NLPtCA – I was her vice Chair when she was the Chair of the organisation and I have a good relationship with her. Also, she has the experience that I don’t have – both of having gone through this training as well as delivering the programmes, so I hope that this will be a great modelling opportunity.

I am thinking of a number of questions that I want to ask, these include:

What do you wish you had known before you began the training ?

If you were to participate in the training again how would you do it differently ?

What parts of the programme can I safely ignore and what do I need to focus on particular ?

What were the dynamics of the people involved like when you trained ?

I am sure that more questions will come to me as Lisa and I work our way through the training.

The training begins on Saturday and despite an email I’ve not had any other information from them. So what kind of information would I like ? Well, a physical letter would have been nice and some indication as to what we will cover in the first week. Then again I remember that I arrived on both my Practitioner and Master Practitioner trainings with equally little information – its all given out on the first day. So as far as I know there could be 10 or 50 of us taking part. I guess that the more people involved means that there is more opportunity to develop trainer skills – although it might also suggest that the “market place” for offering training is getting ever more crowded. I hope that Lisa will help me to develop my “Unique Selling Point(s)” !

So, to my preparations for the requested presentations. Lisa has said that presentations using the 4-MAT system works in what I interpret to be the following way. At least this is my first stab at it. I’ve not gone into details but simply outlined the basics of what I would say/present for each topic given the time frame suggested:

Time (mins)	Focus	Sub-modalities	Meta Mirror	Parts Integration	Time line
+/- 5	Why	We build maps of reality that have “physical” elements: colour, size, movement, shape, distance from us, sounds	Understanding that people have different experiences from us is vital to engaging in effective communications. Noticing our own development and modelling ourselves as well as others at different times and contexts provides more useful learning.	We are not monoliths – our language shows us that just as we divide up the world so we create divisions within us. The skill is to engage in dialogue with these aspects of yourself	Our map of reality has a physical structure and our representation of our narrative history can liberate us or hold us in stuck states.
+/- 20	What	Remember an event that was uncomfortable for you – describe your memory to a partner in as much detail as you can. Imagine changing the elements of that memory as described above – notice how each changes your response to the memory.	Remember an uncomfortable experience with a person whom you still have a relationship. Demonstrate with a participant the four places of the MM providing some leading questions to begin the process. State that this is the start of a bigger journey.	Remember a time when you could not or found it difficult to make a decision. How did you know that there was a problem. There will be a representation of that difficulty – feeling, sound or picture. Address that response “as if” it were being created by a “part” of you. Engage in a dialogue to identify its ultimate outcome and create some new positive behaviours.	Take a few minutes to think of your earliest memory. Identify where that memory is located in space – point to it. Now remember other events in your life every 10 years or so and locate them in space. Creating a thread within yourself extend one end out in front and imagine all your future goals along it and extend the other end behind you and allow all your past memories to flow out along this line. Notice how you respond to any changes in your map with this new structure.
+/- 7	How / What if	Flexibility and control. Immediate feedback between the physical (neuro) and metaphorical. Imagine being able to do this in the moment with both uncomfortable and positive experiences.	The learning and experiencing of new behaviours and taking these into the future relationships creates new ways of being.	Engaging in creative and positive dialogue generates new useful behaviours.	The ability to move from in-time to through time provides different perspectives allowing new relationships to be created and new meanings to form, thus change occurs.

I have no real idea if this is right or not but it seems as good a place as any to start.  No doubt Lisa will put me right tomorrow.

I have been reading the Structure of Magic but have only got half way though Vol 1. It is tough reading it straight through so I hope that the training will provide some guidance.

I feel as if I should be doing something more tangible this week as way of preparation -what that might be I have no real idea.

And so to bed…………..