Can your business afford second-rate communication skills?

Use powerful NLP techniques to take your skills to the next level

Communication lies at the heart of every business. It’s an essential ingredient for success that any business cannot afford to ignore. Whatever your role you’ll benefit from learning more about yourself and how to interact with others more effectively. Using NLP techniques is a great way to achieve this.

NLP, or Neuro Linguistic Programming to give it its full name, is a powerful form of applied psychology. Some say it’s like having a user manual for the brain. Or an attitude, a methodology that leaves behind it a trail of techniques. Others describe it as modeling excellence. The founders, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, modelled excellence. They found by copying certain aspects of the behaviour of people like Fritz Perls of Gestalt Therapy fame and Virginia Satir, the founder of Family Therapy, they could achieve similar results. What they discovered was that our subjective experience of the world has structure, and that how we think about something affects how we experience it. NLP techniques can be applied in a wide range of business situations to increase levels of success and ultimately enhance the bottom line.

In essence NLP helps people become more effective at communicating with others. People who work in any area of a business benefit from improved communication including Finance, Sales, Operations or Management. Meetings are more effective, teams work together cohesively, the right people are recruited and more business is won through a highly skilled sales team.

The key to getting on with people lies in being able to build rapport with them. Rapport skills help us to build good relationships with people we come into contact with on a day-to-day basis. When a child falls over we instinctively crouch down, our voice tone changes and we aim to enter their world to comfort them. This natural process is called matching in NLP. By observing others closely and flexing your body language and voice volume, tone and pitch to match theirs you’re more likely to make a positive connection with them. We do this unconsciously when we’re with people we like. It’s a fast-track way to kick-start new, and improve existing, relationships. Matching representational systems deepens rapport too. Take these three sentences: I see what you mean (visual), I hear what you say (auditory), and I get your point (kinaesthetic). If someone uses a lot of visual language it makes sense to use the same types of words in return. In essence the more the other person feels like you are like them the deeper the rapport will be. People gravitate towards those who seem familiar.

People who manage a team appreciate the importance of taking account of the needs of various stakeholders such as staff, clients, suppliers, partners and shareholders. In the hectic world of business misunderstandings sometimes occur and, if left unresolved they can cause tension, wasted time and loss of productivity. Perceptual Positions is a great NLP technique for gaining insight into other people’s ‘maps’ of the world. By moving from one perspective to another you make more information available to you about a given situation. We’re often so immersed in first position that it’s easy to forget how our behaviour affects others. Stepping into second position allows us to see ourselves from another person’s perspective. In third position we can stand back and learn without letting emotions get in the way.

While NLP’s Perceptual Positions technique provides good preparation for handling challenging relationships, the meta model is an ideal tool to help you gain real understanding of any issue. It provides a way of accessing the real meaning or deep structure of what people say through active listening and questions. If we’re equipped to handle difficult situations quickly we can minimise the impact these have on business results.

Those who study and practise NLP recognise the importance of well-formed outcomes, influential communication and congruence. While these are crucial leadership skills effective leaders also have values to guide their behaviour. Values act like a compass on our journey to achieving the outcome we have set our sights on. Good leaders know what makes their people tick and by communicating and getting buy-in to the company’s values they create unity and alignment. Like a Cox with a crew of rowers the leader takes responsibility for the team’s safety and they not only direct and control activity, but also coach and motivate their team.

We’ve barely scratched the surface of the number of ways NLP can substantially improve communication and relationships in business. And, we’ll leave you with one thought – people buy people. It is your people that will make your company thrive and prosper and the most far-sighted companies are prepared to invest to be among the best.

Amanda Vickers, Director of Speak First