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NLP - A Trainer's Tale (Part 1) By Mike Collins (22 July, 2005) |
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a particular set of communications skills/techniques that have been around since the early '70s - I first came across NLP in the early 1990's in a sales environment. As far as I could see, NLP was "sold" as a useful way of getting the customer to buy something that they didn't really want! This did not sound like what I really wanted.
It also promised faster and more elegant ways of helping people learn (or unlearn - in the case of phobias), either one-to-one or in the classroom. I however, knew better! I would continue on with my hard-graft philosophy of training and learning - if you don't put in the sweat and hardship, then the learning ain't worth nothing!
In the mid-90's, a good friend of mine, whom I respected from an academic and practical point of view - told me about her experience with an NLP Practitioner. She had an issue with a member of her family, and had been to counselling for some time. The counselling approach, however, did little for her. A friend suggested she try NLP.
She recounted the experience: "I walked into his office, he asked me nothing about the details of my situation, just the context, and within 20 minutes, I walked out of there a woman free from the emotional hiccups of that particular relationship".
Now, my friends endorsement stuck in my mind and I decided to try NLP for myself - both for my own self-development as well as helping me out in the classroom.
Well, I found the books and I found a practitioner. I could just about understand the books - but found them very hard to apply (in fact, in my case, impossible). The NLP practitioner that I tried turned out to require counselling himself - and he chose me! So for my first NLP session, there I was practising my empathy and listening skills.
I didn't return.
Finally, I decided to bite the bullet and enrol in NLP practitioner training recently started in our area. Over a number of weekends through six months, I began to understand what NLP is all about. I found out that:
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It is experiential (you cannot learn it from a book). The best NLP Trainers use NLP itself as their delivery medium.
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NLP provides Trainers and Coaches (such as myself) with a range of tools - most of which can accelerate attention, learning, and behaviour change in a variety of settings.
Subsequently, I finished my Practitioner Training, went on to become a certified:
- Master Practitioner of NLP
- NLP Trainer
- NLP coach
So, you can see that I was hooked on the usefulness of the tools that NLP offered to me as a trainer!
Mike Collins
Go to part 2. I will cover the specific changes I have made to my Training /Coaching approach based on my learnings with NLP.
Also, you will find other relevant information at the following locations:
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Neuro-Linguistic Programming - My page where you can find out more about NLP.
I can also recommend the following book as relevant to this area:
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"NLP : The New Technology
of Performance" A good overall introduction
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Training With NLP
. An excellent handbook from Joseph O'Connor. Covers NLP as applied to Training and other General Communications
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Coaching With Nlp: How to Be a Master Coach
. As above - but from the coaching side.
Mike Collins is the principle of Michael J. Collins Associates offering Coaching, Training and Psychometric Services.