Effective Communication With NLP & The Enneagram

In my previous post on Ambiguities In Interpersonal Communication, i mentioned about how generalisation, deletion and distortion would normally occur when we are communicating, and how we can ask questions to clarify, or even help empower the other party.

One common scenario is when a person’s behaviour is being confused with his or her identity as a result of some limiting beliefs. An example of this could be, “I’m a slow learner”.

In this example, the individual views himself or herself as a slow learner because of experiences where more time was required to learn new things. Some ways to help loosen that self identity include asking questions such as:

• What did you learn that required more time than usual?
• What do you consider a fast learner?

Alternatively, you could reframe the content of the statement (Reframing is a very powerful NLP technique to help suggest new meanings to an experience or belief, and I’ll be posting stuffs about it in the future so stay tuned).

By agreeing with the person and changing the meaning of the statement, you can help redefine what was initially an identity label, into a skill, behaviour or feeling. Using the same example of “I’m a slow learner”, you could agree and reframe the content in this manner:

• I understand, there are definitely times when you feel that the rate of learning isn’t as fast as you would like. This will improve over time as you pick up new skills along the way.

Responding in this manner loosens the identity label, and imply that it is actually a feeling. It also allows the person to look at the issue from another angle, that he or she will pick up new skills with time and improve on their learning ability.

Here’s another example of confusing behaviour with identity, “I’m a shy person”

• Yes, I understand that there will be situations where you would feel shy, and it’s perfectly alright to take your time to feel comfortable in such situations.

This response also implies that it is a feeling, rather than an identity. In addition, it assumes that the person just wants to take a longer time to feel comfortable and confident.

When you are more aware of this common error due to limiting beliefs, you can help empower others when you notice that they are confusing behaviours with identity. More importantly, you can stop yourself from making the same errors.

Two of the first self improvement books i read were Follow Your Heart and Being a Happy Teen by Andrew Matthews. These two rank among my favourite books, and i still talk about them in some of my trainings.

A chapter in Being A Happy Teen talks about how important it is to always give our best in what we do. Even if we do not succeed, we still feel a sense of happiness for giving our all. When you give your best, people can feel it, and they will appreciate it.

One story i remember fondly in the book talks about how, at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, the world was brought to its feet by someone who totally personified the Olympic spirit. Eric Moussambani swam for Equatorial Guinea in the 100 meters event. The thing is, Eric has never seen an Olympic swimming pool before. He trains in a little hotel pool when there are no guests around.

During the heats, the other two competitors were disqualified for false starts, so Eric swam against the clock himself. It was the first time Eric had ever swum in a 100 meters race, and he was struggling to finish even the first lap! In the second lap, he was nearly drowning!

But Eric refused to give up, and fought with everything he could give. As he struggled his way back, the noise in the arena was deafening! With every stroke, the noise got louder. Some spectators were crying, some were praying, some could not even bear to watch. When Eric finally hit the wall, he brought the roof down!

Eric clocked a time of 1 minute 52 seconds, probably one of the slowest times in Olympic history. But did anyone care? No! He became a hero in everybody’s heart. Just by giving his best!

I’m sure many of us had such an experience before. When you were touched by the determination and courage of individuals, and couldn’t help but root for them. Of course, you might think to yourself, “But that’s the Olympics.. I’m just swimming in a small school meet”.

Well hey, do your best in a school meet, and someone will spot you and you might one day swim in the Olympics as well. Make it a point to give your best, however small scale it may be, and it’ll lead to the bigger stage.

Are you giving your best?

Very often in my trainings, i come across individuals who are not willing to give their best for various reasons. Here are some of the common ones,

“”The customers don’t deserve it” – If you think about it clearly, the customers don’t suffer because of the lack of effort. Usually the one who ends up on the losing end is the staff. A lot is at stake here. Morale, Reputation, Self Worth, Career, etc.

“I’ll put in more effort if my salary increases” – This is an interesting statement, because if I’m the boss, I’ll be looking at it the other way round. “I’ll increase your salary, when you put in more effort”.

“Nobody recognises my work, why should i work so hard?” – How do you know? You never know who is observing your work. And if you’re in customer service, you never know who your customer really is, and the potential opportunities that could be coming your way.

Of course, I’m not saying we should give our best because of secondary gains. The bottom line is, it is important to give our best because it builds up our character. Always giving our best builds up the respect for ourselves. We live our life with integrity and self worth, and results will show eventually.

The term Paradigm Shift was first introduced by Thomas Kuhn in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Today, the word paradigm is commonly used to represent a thought pattern or perception, which in turn affects our attitudes and behaviours. Paradigm Shift in this sense means to change our limiting thoughts and perceptions.

The Map Is Not The Territory - A map is simply an explanation of how an actual territory is like. It lists details such as buildings and roads, however, the map is not the actual territory, it is just a representation.

Every one of us would agree that the illustration above makes sense. Some might even add that it is common sense. Now, if we stop to think about it, many of us are actually making the mistake of treating our map as THE territory. Allow me to draw some parallels here.

The territory here refers to the actual world out there, the world that goes on without our control. The map refers to our perception of the world. Every one uses a different map, depending on culture, society, upbringing, language, experiences, etc. In a nutshell, we perceive the world according to our maps, our realities. How i perceive a given situation may not be the same as you, and vice versa. Yet, how often have we treated our reality as the only reality?

For The World To Change, I Must First Change – This statement places you in an empowering state of mind by acknowledging that you are in control of your thoughts. The moment you change your perception, the world around you changes too.

In Stephen R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, he wrote about an experience he had in a train. A man and his kids boarded the train, and while his kids were yelling and throwing things around, he just sat there doing nothing. It was clear that everyone in the train was irritated, and when he couldn’t take it anymore, Covey turned to the man and asked if he could control his kids. The man apologised and explained that he was feeling at a loss because the kids’ mother died in hospital just an hour ago.

Imagine how his perception would have changed immediately, and how that change would have led him from a feeling of irritation to one of compassion. Bringing up this story is just to reinforce the idea that what we see and think may not be what it really is. We choose what we want to perceive as our reality. Being aware of this allows us to constantly place ourselves in an empowering state of mind, and make us better communicators!

What has Effective Interpersonal Communication got to do with Personal Mastery? Well, for a start, I strongly believe that what we communicate is a reflection of ourselves. As we all know, communication is made up of verbal and non-verbal elements.

The verbal element is all about the words that come out of us, which is not too difficult as long as you have a good grasp of your language. However, being a master communicator isn’t all about the words you use. I’m sure many of us have come across people who made us feel that what they say isn’t really aligned with what they are.

That brings me to my point. Effective communication is made up of many things, the words we speak is obviously one of them. In addition, our body language, tone of voice, facial expressions, these are things which can be seen or heard on the surface.

Going deeper, our beliefs, our identity, our personality, our character all adds up to the way we communicate. And crucially, these are things that make up who we are. Things that cannot really be seen on the surface, yet constituting to a potentially greater aspect of the communication that comes out of us.

So there you go. In order to communicate effectively, we must first live effectively. This site is dedicated to sharing the strategies of effective interpersonal communication through mastery of ourselves.

I’ve trained in countries across Asia and interacted with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures, and one consistent thing i noticed is that many people don’t realise they have total control over self excellence. Very often, an individual is let down by his or her own limiting beliefs, and they wonder why they could never achieve success. Of course, success is defined differently by every one of us. Be honest with yourself, are you denying yourself greater success because of limiting beliefs?

Through my postings, I’ll be sharing skills that you can apply in work and personal life, that will enhance the way you communicate. So let us embark on our journey towards effective interpersonal communication through self excellence and mastery!