Effective Communication With NLP & The Enneagram

I was at Expo over the weekend to compete in the National Cashflow Competition, and it was quite a fruitful outing. Got to know some like minded friends and won a ticket to the National Achievers’ Congress for getting out of the rat race. 

One of the key advantages that our team had over the rest of the competition was the common focus. Even before the game started, we knew what we had to do and stuck to it. That mutual understanding gave us the luxury of more time, which translated to more throws of the dice, and that could make a huge difference between getting a good deal and just missing out.

In other words, our team had been properly “Framed Up”. Everyone was in the right frame of mind going into the competition. This framing of mindset is a technique from NLP, and using it prior to any activity or event is extremely effective, especially if you are in teaching or training, or chairing a meeting. Set your audience in the correct frame of mind by telling them the areas of focus they should adopt, or boundaries they should stay within.

A simple example would be the setting of rules before a training session. Informing the audience of the rules frames them up in terms of what their expected behaviours would be, and this sets the stage for a more rewarding session because everyone would be in the right frame of mind.

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.