Teach Yourself NLP

Modelling

In this article you will learn:

• About modelling excellence in others
• How to model
• About implicit and explicit modelling
• Applications of NLP modelling

“Modelling is the pathway to excellence.” Anthony Robbins

What would it be like if you could play the guitar like Eric Clapton or golf like Tiger Woods? Imagine being able to have any skill you want – and learning it quickly and easily, without having to slog away for years or waste time by trial and error. And what would it be worth if you could discover how the top performers in your company achieve their success – then replicate it? How would it be if your best sales person, manager, negotiator etc could act as template for the rest of the team – reproducing ‘best practice’ throughout the organisation?

If that sounds like a pipe dream to you, think again. Right from the very beginning, with the studies Richard Bandler and John Grinder carried out on Perls, Satir, Erickson and others, the principle purpose of NLP has been the modelling of human excellence. And it has been demonstrated time and again that once you understand the thinking patterns and behaviours used by the most brilliant and talented in any field, you can learn to do what they can do.

Modelling has given birth to many fascinating and powerful techniques and processes, and a significant proportion of the major models, including the Meta Model and the Milton Model. These are often emphasised in books and on courses, with the result that some people mistakenly think of them as being NLP, when in fact, as John Grinder and Carmen Bostic St Clair argue passionately in Whispering in the Wind, modelling itself remains at the heart of NLP.

Understanding modelling

There is an NLP presupposition that “If one person can do something, anyone can learn to do it”. And although there are obviously exceptions – you may not have the build for a world champion weight lifter – it’s essentially true. You may also recall another presupposition: “Experience has a structure”. Put both presuppositions together and you have the rationale for modelling: once the structure that makes up the internal experience of an expert has been captured and encoded, it can be transferred to others, allowing them to achieve the same results. To be able to do this we have to break down what the person does into small enough chunks so we understand the deeper structure underlying their behaviour clearly enough to create a model which can then be explained to others.

Because modelling provides a short-cut to excellence there are many ways it can be applied. It’s not about looking for someone who’s superhuman, but it is about finding people who are skilled in a particular area – an athlete is not necessarily going to shine at mathematics or selling. There are many examples of where modelling excellence has been applied in therapeutic work, sport, selling, negotiation, relationships, leadership, education, families and organisational development.

Natural modelling

People are natural modellers. From the moment we’re born we start copying others, developing a multitude of skills and capabilities along the way. Somehow we internalise the rules of grammar and syntax simply by listening to our parents and siblings talk. In the playground and at home we watched others and imitated their behaviours. Even as adults wanting to learn a new skill such as playing a musical instrument, we look carefully at other people and do the same. NLP modelling is more purposeful and structured than natural modelling – which can be haphazard – and as a result produces accurate and reliable results.

Simple and Complex Modelling

The purpose of NLP modelling is, then, 1) to be able to do something as well as an expert and 2) to be able to teach others to do it as well.

The process by which the modelling is carried out will depend to a large degree upon what is being modelled. If it’s something simple, with a largely behavioural element, it may be possible to model it in just a short while, simply by watching and matching. You may never have thrown a ball up against a wall, let it bounce and then caught it. But if you watched someone do it for a while and then had a go yourself, it wouldn’t take long before you got the hang of it. It’s the same with simple cognitive tasks: most people find it easy to assimilate a new way of remembering names, for instance, in just a few minutes.

However, more complex behavioural and cognitive tasks, which have a greater number of steps or perhaps a linguistic component, require a different approach.

If you wanted to learn how to play badminton, for instance, most of the basic skills could be absorbed by an alert observer in less than an hour, without the need for explanation. By carefully noting the position of the shuttlecock, the angle of the racquet and the way it’s held, the stance and movement of the players etc, it would normally be possible to play a game with an acceptable degree of competence. But to play with any degree of skill would depend upon having a more sophisticated internal representation of the game.

When you’re learning how to model it’s a good idea to start with simple behaviours – otherwise you can easily feel overwhelmed, because there’s so much more to think about, including:

• Meta programs
• Representational systems and submodalities
• Language patterns
• Strategies
• Beliefs and values
• The wider system

Neurological levels and modelling

You might also find it useful to use the neurological level model as a framework when thinking about modelling.

• Environment Establish when and where the skill is demonstrated by the role model. What if any constraints are there in the context they use it? Someone may, for instance, be able to sing in a choir but struggle to hold a tune when solo. 
• Behaviour Find out what the person actually does when they’re in the specific environment you have identified. Following a behavioural demonstration ask them to recall what they did, in order to gain an even better understanding of what happens. 
• Capabilities Elicit the thinking process behind the behaviours – their cognitive strategies. How do they come to behave the way they do? The focus of most modelling is on this level. 
• Beliefs and Values Finding out why someone does what they do gives you information about what motivates them. It tells you why they believe what they do is important. 
• Identity Information about a person’s sense of self and how that affects their beliefs and values can help us to recognise what influences their thinking process and behaviours. 
• Spiritual The spiritual level is about the wider system of which the person is part. Asking questions or listening out for language that reflects this level can provide information about their relationship with this larger system including family, society, culture etc.

Implicit and explicit modelling

If you ever undertake NLP Practitioner training, you may find yourself following a fellow student around for 20 minutes, trying to walk and move like them. It’s a simple but effective way of learning the principles and methodology of modelling. This is called implicit modelling – which involves acting like your model and building intuitions about what’s going on for them. It’s similar to the apprentice/master relationship in martial arts where the simple act of being with the master allows the apprentice to absorb what the master does.

But why not simply ask the person what they’re doing and why? That may sometimes be useful, but one of the hurdles we have to overcome when modelling is that many people don’t know what makes them successful. Or they may think they know, but are wrong. Once we become accomplished at doing something, we no longer have to pay attention to how we do it. There are four stages in acquiring a skill:

• Unconscious incompetence – when we’re not even aware of what it is possible for us to do
• Conscious incompetence – when we know we don’t know how to do something
• Conscious competence – when we’re aware we’re doing something correctly
• Unconscious competence –when the skill becomes automatic and we do it without thinking about it

To create a transferable model we have to uncover a person’s unconscious competence (implicit phase), and become consciously competent and attain the result ourselves (explicit phase).

Implicit modelling, then, is an intuitive process of understanding the other person’s subjective experience by putting ourselves in their shoes. By using second position we gain insights we wouldn’t get in any other way. In contrast, explicit modelling is carried out in third position. It’s a dissociated and deductive process of working out the specific structure of the role model’s subjective experience.

It’s important to select the right person and context, otherwise what you end up with may not be what you had imagined. If, for instance, you want to lose weight and choose a role model who has always been slim, you’ll learn something useful about how this person achieves this. On the other hand, if you model someone who has been overweight and has now lost some, you’ll learn how to move from where you are now to you’re desired outcome.

Below we detail the procedure for a full modelling process. Not everyone will have the time or, frankly, the interest to go to such lengths – but it’s a benchmark that should be aspired to whenever possible. However, it’s worth bearing in mind that the aim of modelling is to create something useful rather than absolutely accurate. To that end it may sometimes be sufficient to use just part of the process, or all of it in a less rigorous way.

The process of modelling

The steps of the modelling process are as follows:

1. Identify an exemplar: someone who is excellent at the skill or behaviour to be modelled.

2. Implicit modelling phase – ‘the unconscious uptake’

Go into second position and attend to what the person does – he way they breathe, their physiology and their behaviour. Listen not only to what they say but the way they say it. Pay greater attention to micro-movements than larger gestures. Copy what the person does without judgement or assumption. Don’t try to understand what they’re doing. To model successfully requires a curious, open and intuitive frame of mind. Concentrate on the process not the content.

Next take on that way of being as if you were the person you’ve modelled. Then see if you can get the same result by being yourself. Step inside your own skin and experience it looking out through your own eyes and feel what it’s like to do it their way. Continue to do this until you achieve broadly the same results as your exemplar.

3. Explicit modelling – ‘subtraction’

Now you can discover explicitly what it is the person does that makes the difference. Your aim is to: “Clarify and define the specific cognitive and behavioural steps that are required to produce the desired results” (Dilts and DeLozier). You do this by ‘subtracting’ – systematically missing out behaviours until you discover the essential components. If you subtract something and it makes no difference to the results you achieve, it’s not a critical element. You don’t want to become the other person, you only want to take on what is necessary and sufficient. The purpose of subtraction is to make sure the model you end up with is as clear and simple as possible.

In this phase of the modelling process you’re moving between first and third position. Your aim is to work out the sequence of events. What precisely did they do? Identify the sensory specific distinctions in their strategies. Upon completion, you’ll have information from first, second and third position.

4. Now you’re ready to either use the model yourself or transfer and explain it to others. The real test of any model is that you’re able to teach someone else how to do it. Be aware that some existing competencies may be required – such as the ability to mismatch or think logically – and if they are not in place they may need to be developed before the ‘student’ can take on the model.

Values, identity and congruence

But what if the person is very different from you in terms of their values and beliefs etc? If you end up thinking and behaving like them, won’t that affect your sense of your own identity? The simple answer is no – assuming you approach your modelling project from the correct perspective. Your aim is not to become the other person; it’s to learn how to do something they can do. For you to be able to internalise that capability and continue to use it, you need to integrate it fully – so it feels like a part of you, not something that’s been bolted on. It’s essential, therefore, to adjust the values and beliefs of the exemplar to your values and beliefs, otherwise you’ll end up feeling incongruent, and what you’ve modelled won’t stick.

Indirect modelling

It won’t always be practical to spend lots of time with your chosen role model. It may not even be possible to observe them in action, because they’re extremely busy or at a distant location. But there are other ways of gathering information, such as interviewing them or reading about them. If you’re able to speak to them you can ask lots of questions to understand their beliefs, values, state, Meta Programs, strategies, submodalities, and sense of identity. Glean every piece of information available. If you meet in person you can observe their physiology, breathing etc.

Indirect modelling can also be effective where people are no longer alive, but there is informational available about how they thought, felt, behaved and acted. Robert Dilts, for instance, modelled the patterns of Jesus Christ, Leonardo Da Vinci and Albert Einstein, among others, in this way.

NLP and benchmarking

Benchmarking is a well known type of modelling commonly used in the business world. It’s a study of excellence. Companies use it to find and share best practice. The whole idea of benchmarking is to find out which individuals or companies do something in a better or more efficient way. Real benchmarking doesn’t just look at the surface structure of a process it goes deeper and explains how to bring about a change. To carry it out successfully there has to be a clear outcome and clarity over where the company is now and where it wants to be. The next stage is to identify organisations with a reputation for excellence in the area where the improvement is required. Then information is gathered to find out precisely what people do in those organisations. Best practice can then be tried out and adopted.

NLP in action

Think about skills you’d like to have and seek out those who have them. Ask if you can spend some time learning from them, either by using the Implicit Modelling approach, or simply by asking them about what they do.

If you work in a company, identify the top performers in key areas, and find out what they’re doing that puts them ahead of the pack.