DISTINGUISHING LINEAR AND SYSTEMIC THINKING

We all begin our thinking life by learning to think linearly. This comes naturally. Something happens and then something else happens and lo and behold, we connect them in our mind as a Cause-Effect structure. This gives rise to the “X causes Y” formula which then becomes an essential way that we think, reason, and feel. This actually is associative thinking because what we are doing is associating one thing with another, and we do so even when one does not actually cause the other.

“He pushed me and I fell down and scratched my knee; he hurt me.” “She stuck her tongue out at me and made me feel bad.”

Ironically, what initiates our linear thinking then messes it up. Once we get going in our cognitive development and can follow one thing to another, the associative thinking that started it all now keeps interrupting us. We may start with X and then go to Y, but then Y reminds us of N or B or D and each of these may remind us of yet another association, and so we are off and running— unable to think in a straight linear way. One associated reference “rings the bell” of a dozen other associations. While this is great for creativity, it messes up linear thinking.

NLP began and significantly contributed to psychology by taking the TOTE model of Cognitive Psychology and filled it in with the key “languages” of the mind—visual, auditory, kinesthetic, language, etc. That led to the Strategy Model, a step-by-step process of moving from one representation to another until we move through the components that lead to an experience (i.e., spelling, motivation, buying, selling, negotiating, getting up in the morning, etc.). This was a tremendous advance. It also started the formal processes of modeling. From here NLP people began searching for ways to model all kinds of experiences and expertise’s.

Then they hit a block. NLP as a field became stuck. We found out that we could model those skills and behaviors that was comprise only of micro-behaviors. If we could detect eye-accessing cues, hear representational predicates, limit a behavior in time, etc., then we could model that behavior. But long-term behaviors, behaviors that emerge in a system over time, and behaviors that result from complex layers of states— these kept eluding us— Leadership, Management, Heath and Fitness, Wealth Creation, Magnanimity, Forgiveness, Courage, and on and on. And these seem to be the very experiences that are most important to us.

The challenge here is that these go beyond linear thinking and include systemic thinking. That’s what the Meta-States Model provided. In reflecting upon one’s current state, you think-again about it which means you circle back to it. Then as you rise above it, you can entertain a different set of thoughts-and-emotions about it. As this new set of reflections applies a state to the state, we have a set of inter-related variables or elements—a system and not only that, but multiple layers of

systems. In this way, we can now specify the structure of all of the meta-level phenomena, not as a hierarchical system, but as a fluid holoarchical system.

To understand Meta-Stats is to think systemically. You have to hold in mind the primary state thoughts and emotions while simultaneously taking into account the meta-level thoughts and emotions which establish the frame for that state. In doing this, you include the primary state variables and transcend them to the higher level. And you may do this two or more levels up. The lower is embedded within the higher. The higher is governing and coalescing into the lower.

In calm fear, you transcend and include the fear into calmness (as the meta-state) so that calm is the meta-level frame for fear. It is the classification. Fear is the member of that class. In respectful anger, respect is the governing frame/ class for anger. As you meta-state or “transcend and include” anger in the category of respect, systemically respect governs the anger, managers it, and qualifies it. To realize that is to engage in the systemic thinking that is inherent in the Meta-States Model.

Linear thinking will only take you so far in understanding “the structure of experience.” Where it ends, you need systemic thinking to take you further. You need the Meta-States Model to model the dynamic structure of the experience and to discover the layers of experience.

Want more? See NLP Going Meta (2002) for how to model using meta-levels. Also, Systemic Coaching (2012).