NLP AND MODELING

NLP is essentially a communication model, a model about how we use language and neurology to communicate to ourselves and create our mental maps or models by which we then navigate life. At the same time, NLP is also essentially about modeling. It arose from modeling and as a communication model, it provides tools by which we can model other experiences.

Does that make sense? Is the relationship between communication and modeling obvious to you?

It isn’t to many, so here’s an explanation of the relationship between communication and modeling. Human experiences are obviously neuro-linguistic in that our experiences occur within our neurology (nervous systems and physiology) by our linguistics. Being without instincts (Maslow) the only “instinct” that we have is to learn and by learning we then inevitably and inescapably add the content information about what things are and how to function. And when we do that, the meanings we make are the instincts we live (Hall, Self-Actualization Psychology, 2007).

So when we study the inter-disciplinary fields of neuro-linguistics and neuro-semantics (Korzybski) we see how our communications to ourselves and others construct our realities (our experiences) and in doing that we model how those experiences / realities are formed and structured. In NLP and Neuro-Semantics we do not study linguistics as such, we study neuro- linguistics— what language does to us and how it affects our mind-body system. And that’s why NLP is about “the structure of subjective experience” as noted by the subtitle of the book, NLP— Volume I.

Now when NLP began, the modeling was done with micro-behaviors— motivation or getting up in the morning, spelling, decision making, etc. And for micro-behaviors, the Strategy Model is excellent. J. Grinder’s approach has always been on such. That’s why he demands a living exemplar for the “unconscious uptake” phase of modeling. His modeling has also always been on micro-behaviors— behaviors that someone does at a certain time and place and typically kinesthetic behaviors. This is good for rock climbing, playing drums, dancing, and other physical experiences. Yet it is useless for more complex experiences like wealth creation, leadership, entrepreneurship, long-term health and fitness, etc. —anything that occurs over time and requires extensive content knowledge of a given area.

So in the history of NLP, short-term content-free modeling was a great place to begin. It was, however, a terrible place to end. Why? Because some experiences require persistence over an extended period of time in order to achieve expertise and within that experience certain content is

also required. To fail to model the content information is to miss many of the critical success factors of that very experience.

Take leadership development as an example. You cannot develop a leader in a three day workshop. The skill-sets required for the attitude, understandings, states, and relationships for an executive leader does not arise from learning five “how to” skills, nor twenty-five. Consider also wealth creation. Here is another long-term process that involves numerous stages over time and that involve numerous strategies for many different dimensions: vision, talent search, talent development, market discovery or creation, finances, relationships, etc. “Wealth” is not created by knowing one secret strategy or “silver bullet.” (See Inside-Out Wealth, 2010).

So while NLP has been very effective in modeling short-term, single-strategy experiences, it has just as spectacularly failed to model the more complex skills– which happens to be the most important skills. So when Robert Dilts began modeling “dead people” like Walt Disney, Sigmund Freud, etc. in his “Strategies of Genius” series, those in Grinder’s camp of NLP, and others, criticized him. The same criticisms came my way when I began modeling resilience, self- reflexivity, leadership, self-actualization, coaching, wealth creation, and other experiences. The criticisms were that we did not use a single exemplar or a living exemplar. The criticism was that we used meta-levels to model the higher level frames to specify various contexts (external and internal) that govern the experience.

Personally I’m fine with those criticisms because, in the end, at least I have models by which I can navigate these areas and replicate it in others. Ah, yes, the proof is in the pudding! And I can demonstrate that the models work having personally applied them to myself and to those in the Neuro-Semantic community.

This explains why traditional NLP and especially the so-called “pure” NLP of both the Bandler and Grinder camps do not have models for Community building, Collaboration, Wealth Creation, Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Resilience, etc. No wonder then that the field of NLP has struggled with or ignored these complex states. They were meta-states and their modeling models are not able to model the hidden invisible structures of frames behind them.

What is the solution for the future? I think it is obvious —we have to get back to the centrality of modeling and we have to use the meta-level models (Meta-States Model, Neuro-Logical Levels, Meta-Programs, Matrix Model, Meaning-Performance Axes, etc.) to map out the higher levels of frames.