In modeling Milton Erickson the creators of NLP observed that people make minute changes from moment to moment. Those changes have meaning if you have enough Sensory Acuity. So, what is sensory acuity? Sensory acuity is the ability to observe minute changes in a persons physiology from moment to moment. Based on the changes that you observe you can begin to gain an insight into what is going on for the other person.

In NLP they normally focus on these key parts of another persons physiology:

• Skin colour (Whether it is lighter or darker)
• Skin Tonus (Whether the tone of muscles is symmetrical or not symmetrical)
• Breathing Speed (Whether breathing is faster or slower)
• Breathing Location (Whether they’re breathing from higher or lower in their chest)
• Lower Lip Size (Whether it has more lines or less lines)
• Eye Focus (Whether their eyes are more focused or defocused)
• Pupil Dilation (Whether their pupils are more dilated or undilated)

The truth is that these are just a starting point – with enough sensory acuity you can easily gain insight into a persons state through any observable changes in their body. Milton Erickson famously noticed a member of one of his audiences going into trance. Later, he was asked how he knew she was going into trance. Milton replied, “I could tell because the pulse in her ankle slowed down”. The better you get at sensory acuity, the more powerful a communicator you will become! Sensory Acuity is especially vital in a good hypnotherapist as it is your only way of effectively gauging how quickly and deeply your client is in trance .

So, what is an example of this at work? Check out this YouTube video of the infamous Derren Brown at work with three car salesmen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi2cvop3vbM

This video is a great example of how Sensory Acuity can be subtly used to gain an insight into the internal representations of another person. Notice how with the third salesman Derren is able to determine when he is telling the truth without the salesman even opening his mouth. This is because of the subtle changes in his body language that Derren can easily pickup with his well practiced sensory acuity. Through the questions he asks he is able to calibrate, using sensory acuity, when they are telling the truth. Derren then simple picks the ‘odd one out’ (i.e. the answer where the persons physiology is noticeably different) and he can safely pick that as the lie.

It is important to note that sensory acuity must be calibrated on a person by person basis. The differences noticeable in one persons physiology who is telling the truth will not necessarily be the changes another persons physiology would show for the same internal representation.

The more you practice, the easier it gets. You can practice this on ANYONE you can see!

The Feedback Sandwich is a great technique for effectively telling someone what you think of their results in a way that is easy for the receiver to hear. If have ever worked in a team of people you’ve probably seen someone doing something that isn’t quite right. Yet, depending on your personality, it is often hard to openly criticize someones work. Criticisms will often impact on morale and if you’re unlucky it can put a strain on your relationship with the other person. The Feedback Sandwich is a way of telling someone they’re doing it wrong in a gentle way that allows them to take your comments on board while staying friends.

The Feedback Sandwich Technique

So, how does it work? Essentially you structure your feedback in three parts like this:

1. Tell them something you thought they did well
2. Tell them where they could improve
3. Tell them something else you thought they did well

Simple, huh?

And to give you a few real world examples:

In an Office Environment

I really admire the hard work you’ve been putting into this project. It would make things easier for the team if you started coming into the office before lunch time. But with your great attention to detail I’m sure the client is going to be really happy with what we deliver.

In the Home Environment

It is really good to see how passionate you are about cooking and how much you enjoy it. Though when you don’t do any of the dishes though it makes it hard for me to use the kitchen. That soufflé last night tasted delightful.

On the Sports Field

Thanks for giving it 110% out there today. It would have been better if you’d managed to catch the call when it came in your direction. The training really seems to be paying off and your fitness seems to be improving.

In Summary…

This versatile technique is a great for use at any time or place that you need to gently let someone know that they could be doing something better. Embrace it and enjoy the results!

On the weekend I was sitting in a Fremantle cafe when a convertible car drove past with its radio blaring. The song I heard was Queen’s “We Are the Champions”. Hearing that song made me think… It is a small thing but what a difference that song could make to how the people in that car feel. That song is really going to build their mood up!

There are so many rituals that we all have in our days and they can so easily make us feel better about ourselves. Just from the music we have playing to the way we eat to the time we spend staying fit will all make a difference to our long-term results.

What is it that you do that, if you were to do it on a more regular basis, you know would lead to better results in your life?

For some people, like those in the convertible, it could be listening to the right music. For others it could be finding the time to regularly mediate. While it may even be spending time with inspirtational friends over coffee. What is it for you? Find what will make you more successful and make it a part of your day-to-day life.

This post has a fascinating video with Jamie Smart from Salad Ltd. It demonstrates beautifully the power that small changes in language can have over your results. Check it out:

So, what did you think? Because you’ve watched the video you’re probably wanting to know more about NLP… right? Only kidding

How could you use this in your day-to-day life to get more powerful results?

Further Reading:
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

This is an excellent NLP Pattern for public speaking. I’ve been practicing it lately and getting good results even in one-on-one situations. Essentially the Charisma Pattern is a method used by many great public speakers (i.e. Martin Luther King) to build really fast and strong rapport.

You start by speaking slowly with kinisthetic words. Then you speed your speech up a bit and start using auditory words. Finally you move fully into visual with even faster speech and visual words.

This is an example script that makes use of the Charisma Pattern for a public speaker:

Weeeelcome (Said really slowly). It feels really good that you’ve all made it today. (Speeding up a bit) Speaking to a few of you on the phone in the lead up to this event I know how excited some of you are to be here today. (And going even faster) And now to see you all here, sitting where you’re sititng, I just know that things are going to go well today.

So given that my explanation and example probably still have you scratching your head I found this video that shows it in action that is well worth watching:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLdDcFmfBLU

Think for a moment about how you approach traffic lights when you’re out in your car. Are you one of those people that puts their foot down when the light goes yellow? Or maybe you brake approaching traffic lights, despite the lights being green? Possibly you even change your route so that you don’t need to pass through any traffic lights.

How you approach traffic lights is often similar to how you approach opportunities. Are you somebody that sees a great opportunity yet approaches it slowly and cautiously? Or do you wait until the opportunity is about to pass you by until you act?

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” – Thomas Edison

Take a moment to think about how are you approaching the opportunities in your life…

How could you better approach opportunities so that you get the best results right now?

Even though NLP is quite commonly talked about now, once upon a time NLP wasn’t even around. In fact, NLP is relatively young and wasn’t really established until the 1970’s. The fundamentals that allowed for the creation of NLP though began long, long before that.

In 1943 Alfred Korzybski wrote a book called Science and Sanity that first raised the idea of Logical Levels. Korzybski said something really interesting in this book, he said that “Almost all psycological problems were the result of the inability of a person to traverse logical levels”. That’s interesting because he suggested that sometime in the future there would be a wholly processed description of the human being that would come along and actually describe the process of a human being. And that is what we call today, Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

Around 1975 Richard Bandler was a student at University of California, Santa Cruz and John Grinder was a linguistic Professor. Bandler had a specific interest in Computer Programming and Gestalt Therapy. He happened to be editing a book about Fritz Perls and as time passed Richard decided that he could actually do Gestalt Therapy (Just from listening to audio tapes in relation to editing the book) and in actual fact he was very, very good at it. As Richard began to move forward and use the things he had learnt Richard realised that he had a specific gift of modeling – being able to observe what worked and then create something out of it.

This is the foundation of NLP and where idea of NLP being a notion and a methodology comes from. It comes from that idea of actually being able to look and see what is excellent behaviour and how that excellent behaviour is produced. It starts with a simple question: How do I take that behaviour and how do I try that on myself so that I can get the same results for myself? NLP really begins as a notion and a methodology that leaves behind a trail of good techniques for achieving excellence.

To begin with the three major people that Bandler & Grinder modelled were Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir and Fritz Perls. These three people were chosen by Bandler & Grinder in the early days of NLP as they were experts in magically creating change in people by simply using the right words. And that is what NLP is about, being able to create magical change. It begins with an attitude of curiosity to know what is going on behind what is going on. When we use NLP and look at a human being we look at that human being with wonderment and we ask ourselves “How is it possible that this person in this circumstances could produce this behaviour?”. Now the second thing, which could be equally as important as curiosity, is the willingness to experiment. To begin to try new things to see if it is going to work.

As Bandler & Grinder’s notes began to stack up they released their first two books in 1975:
- The Structure of Magic I: A Book About Language and Therapy; and
- The Structure of Magic II: A Book About Communication and Change.

These books contain the basis of the Meta Model, a model of communication that works by becoming more specific and removing Generalisations, Distortions and Deletions from peoples language and thoughts. This work was primarily derived from their study of Perls and Satir.

Following these two books both Bandler & Grinder studied Milton Erickon, arguably the best hypnotherapist of our time, and from their study of Erickson they published Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, Volumes I & II. These books contained the basis of the Milton Model, a model of communication that works by becoming more vague and introducing Generalisations, Distortions and Deletions into peoples language and thoughts. Interestingly, the Milton Model is almost the complete opposite of the Meta Model – but both get reliable results.

Ultimately, the Meta Model & Milton Model serve to prove Alfred Korzybski correct – by traversing logical levels it is possible for problems to just disappear.

These models were just the tip of the iceberg though. From Bandler & Grinder’s studies of these three therapists a whole field of information was created. Beyond these models they started documenting new techniques and ideas such as anchoring, reframing, submodalities, perceptual positions, and representational systems. As the usefulness of the techniques began to gain a following more and more resources, such as books and seminars began to be produced. From the work of Bandler & Grinder in the 1970’s and the books that they have published, both together and individually, NLP now has a huge body of knowledge behind it from many, many different authors.

NLP, or Neuro-Lingustic Programming, is such a wide field of study that it can be hard to put a simple definition to. NLP is a way of thinking about ideas and people that allows you to excel in any field. Essentially the idea is that we can study people who are getting great results and reduce their behaviours down to a model, or the bare minimum required to consistently get their results. This model can then be taught and shared and this process allows others to replicate the same results in much, much less time. For this reason NLP is often called the art and science of personal excellence.

NLP is a practical skill that results from studying what makes the difference between excellence and average. Through the pursuit of excellence NLP leaves behind a trail of highly effective techniques with applications in Business, Therapy, Education and beyond. At the nitty gritty level NLP draws on general symantics, linguistics, hypnosis and gestalt therapy while taking into account ecology and family therapy. So really NLP becomes a study of ‘what works’ abd the study of how you produce results.

NLP stands for Neuro-Lingustic Programming and can be broken down into three core parts:

Neuro relates to the nervous system (the mind), through which our experience is processed via the five senses of Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, Olfactory and Gustatory (sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste). These five senses are the inputs into our nervous system and the sources that we rely upon to build our internal experience.

Lingustic relates to language and other nonverbal communication systems through which our neural representations are coded, ordered and given meaning. This includes pictures, sounds, feelings, tastes, smells and words (self talk).

Programming relates to the ability to discover and utilise the programs that we run (Both in communication with ourselves and others) that lead to our positive or negative results.

In other words, NLP is how to use the language of the mind to consistently achieve our specific and desired outcomes.