A NEW SYSTEMATIC FOCUS ON STRUCTURE

In the last Meta Reflection, I described the whole new schedule and format that we now have in how we will be presenting the Meta-Coach Training System this year. But that’s now all, we also have a new and more profound way of teaching structure.

The campaign slogan that took George Bush, Sr. to the Whitehouse was, “It’s the economy, Stupid!” Playing off of that, in Neuro-Sematnics, we say, “It’s the structure, stupid!” This phrase highlights the most critical and profound factor in human experience—structure. This was the insight of the founders (Bandler and Grinder) and grandfathers (Bateson, Korzybski, Miller, Gallenter, Pribriam, Chomsky) and original therapist communicators (Perls, Satir, Erickson) of NLP. This was the insight that I discovered when I first found NLP which captivated me from the first.

The phrase, “It’s the structure, stupid!” captures attention that the power of NLP and Neuro- Semantics lies in identifying the leverage points of effectiveness, excellence, and change. When you know the structure of an experience, you know the form or process above and beyond the content. Then you can more efficiently and quickly replicate that form of expertise.

The Structure of a Well-Formed Outcome In NLP training, the first day always begins with the Well-Formed Outcome pattern. Traditionally in NLP this means identifying approximately ten criteria as factors that enable you to make your goal formed in a clear and precise way.

Years ago when I first began researching Coaching and modeling some highly skilled coaches, I observed Michelle Duval use the Well-Formed Outcome pattern in a Neuro-Semantic way that captured the spirit of that pattern in a very special way. What she did with that pattern and how she used it, in fact, enabled her to create a full coaching practice in six-months with a three- months waiting list. So, of course, we taught the structure of that process to every Meta-Coach thereafter.

In the last 18-months I’ve been revisiting that pattern and its relationship in co-creating with a client a KPI (key performance indicator). In revisiting the pattern, my focus has been on the syntax and order of the well-formed distinctions, identifying which to do first, then second, etc.

And now, out of that, we have an even more powerful process for getting a KPI. In fact, combining this with the Matrix and the Self-Actualization Quadrants models, we now have a Matrix KPI that synergizes meaning and performance.

That was a mouth-full; did you get all of that? First there is the Matrix that defines and refines the KPI. Using the Matrix model, we distinguish the criteria of well-formedness so that we can see the energy of setting a goal in terms of state, meaning, intention and then self, powers, others, and time. And we do this to do two things—create an inspiring goal that’s meaningful, compelling, and exciting that we can then actualize in specific behaviors. That puts the goal in Quadrant IV as the synergy of meaning and performance.

This gives the client a highly focused outcome of great specificity and the process itself of creating a well-formed outcome enables a client to move a good bit closer to his or her goal. It also fulfills one of the chief benefits of coaching—enabling a person to develop clarity about what he or she really wants. This aspect of coaching offers great value because knowing what you want—what you really want, isn’t an easy thing to achieve.

So Meta-Coaching begins (and is sometimes completed) by coaching clarity— precise, crystal clarity about what you, as a client, want. And we do that with a set of precision questions that now facilitates a client to explore meaningful outcomes that will be actualized in performance. Using Matrix questions and Self-Actualization Quadrant questions we enable a client’s capacity to cerate a goal inspiring enough to invest time and energy into and precise enough so that a client can embody the goal, innovate it into life, and then check it off as successfully “completed.”

If NLP introduced to the world a powerfully profound in the Well-Formed Outcome Pattern (see User’s Manual of the Brain, Volume I), and if Michelle Duval used it in a Neuro-Semantic way to invent a process for contracting for coaching, then the new Self-Actualizing Matrix KPI pattern revolutionizes it one more time giving Meta-Coaches a new edge in getting to the heart of the matter and setting up a process for measuring and innovating change. And that’s yet one more thing that’s new in Meta-Coaching this year.

Would you like to know, or better, to receive a copy of the list of the Self-Actualizing Matrix KPI pattern? Great! Then meet me and the other Meta-Coach Trainers at one of the following this year: