Does NLP Story-telling Beat Life-Rules and Principles?

NLP trained or not, there is always something to learn everyday if we pay attention.

The other day I stumbled accidentally against one article which purports to investigate how stories and narratives influence human behavior.

Here is the beginning of the quote in that article:

“Stories exert a powerful influence on human thoughts and behavior. They consolidate memory, shape emotions, cue heuristics [a commonsense rule (or set of rules) intended to increase the probability of solving some problem] and biases in judgment, influence in-group/out-group distinctions, and may affect the fundamental contents of personal identity. It comes as no surprise that these influences make stories highly relevant to vexing security challenges … Therefore, understanding the role stories play in a security context is a matter of great import and some urgency.” [Italicized explanation mine]

Given that we teach Metaphors (which are nothing else but stories devised and created for a certain purpose and a certain intended result) in our NLP Practitioner Training, it surprises me that not many people realize the utmost importance of story-telling.

Do not go over this lightly. If there are major studies in generalizing stories to influence human behavior (and this means large groups folks), there is a lot of power and importance.

Think of it. We all tell stories to each other. We tell stories at home, to our life partners and children, at work, and during our leisure times. Everybody likes to tell stories. But what is not immediately obvious is how much stories can influence our Internal Representations, and therefore our response (thus human behavior) and more importantly even forming memories and general rules we all use to search for and interpret information.

As an NLP Coach (or an NLP Trainer while you teach your trainings) you should be acutely aware of this, because your clients or students, when coming to see you, will have their set of rules by which they interpret the information they receive from you.

Although the article goes on to ask even more thought provoking questions:

“How can we take stories and make them quantitatively analyzable in a rigorous, transparent and repeatable fashion? What analytic approaches or tools best establish a framework for the scientific study of the psychological and neurobiological impact of stories on people?”

And this presupposes a universal or generalized use of stories in a formal understanding, the main point here which interests us directly is the fact that we the NLP Coaches and trainers can at least formulate (based on the techniques of using metaphors in coaching) stories to solve or at least change the gravity of a client’s problem.

What is presupposed by these few lines? That stories can be created to change the Internal Representations inside an individual, in a systematized, repeatable fashion, therefore change that individual’s behavior, internal state and even his external experience. That would be pretty much everything about that individual. What else? That stories can also have a major impact not only psychological but also neurobiological. This is big news.

Again, if we needed any outside validation that what we learn in NLP Practitioner, this is one of the articles confirming this fact.

Remember Milton Erickson?

As one of models in NLP, Dr. Erickson used stories all the time, stories so purposefully designed that many times his clients wondered if they really are doing a Hypnotherapy session. Every NLP Practitioner or NLP Master Practitioner should be thoroughly familiar with creating and telling metaphors.

Once you understand the formula for creating metaphors you can begin the develop metaphors for certain purposes. Then try them with your clients. See what’s happening. Did you get the results you thought you would get? If not, nothing is lost. People tell stories all the time just for the heck of it. Go back to your formula, and tweak it here and there until you’re satisfied. Then try it again. And again. Use Complex Equivalents.

How Is This Done?

For those of you who are new to NLP and have not taken yet and NLP Practitioner, here are the major points of metaphor construction. Following these simple guidelines can help you at least begin to think about what stories are you telling, to whom and for what purpose.

1. Displacing the referential index from the client to a character in a story,

2. Pacing the client’s problem by establishing behaviors and events between the characters in the story that are similar to those in the client’s situation,

3. Accessing resources for the client within the context of the story, and

4. Finishing the story such that a sequence of events occurs in which the characters in the story resolve the conflict and achieve the desired outcome.

This is easily achieved by the lateral chunking / lateral thinking formula. Chunk up one level, ask yourself what other examples of these are there, adn come up with an answer at the same logical level but lateral compared to the initial starting point.

Here is a Metaphor for you today. It’s an old and too well-known story. Nevertheless, it is full of meaning. Make of it what you wish.

Once upon a time there was a boy with a very impatient and uncompromising character. That made every one of his friends not want to play with him anymore. Saddened by the fact that he lost almost all his friends, and scared that he did not have anybody to play with his great computer games on the net, he went to his father for advice.

His father told him that he can help, but the boy has to promise that he will do what he is told to at 100%, otherwise it will not work. The boy promised even before knowing what he will be asked to do.

His father gave him a bag full of nails and told him to hammer one nail in the garden fence every time he lost his patience and/or had an argument with someone. The first day the boy hammered 37 nails in the garden fence.

The task being so onerous (it took time away from being on Facebook with his new found friends and plus every day he could not find the hammer which in turn made him lose his patience even more) the boy learned to slowly control his impatience, and that “give and get” rule could also be fun. The number of nails hammered in the fence got lower every day. The boy discovered that it is easier to stop being impatient than to hammer nails in the fence.

At last, the day came when the boy did not hammer any nail in the garden fence. Happy and content he went to his father and told him that he did not need to hammer any nail. My son, look at that fence, his father said. What are we going to do with all these nails? Take them out, one nail for every day you succeed in being conscious of your behavior and you’re not losing your patience. Many days passed by, but finally the boy told his father that he took all the nails out from the fence.

My son, said his father, you behaved really well and i am very proud of you, but look how many holes you left in the fence. It will never be the same.

Happy metaphor creation everybody…

Sources:
www.Geekosystem.com