“I hear alarm clock, then look at it as I turn it off. Then I lie down again and feel how comfortable bed is. Eventually an internal voice says, ‘If you stay here, you’ll go to sleep and be late.’ So I make a picture of a time when I was late for work. I then feel bad and I say to myself, ‘It will be worse next time,’ and make a bigger picture of what will happen if late again and feel worse. When the bad feeling is strong enough, I get up.” Then we notate it as follows:
Ae → Ve → Ke+i → Aid → Vi– → Ki– (loop) → Exit
Loop back
“I picture all the things that I am going to do during the day and feel good about them. The pleasant pictures then ‘pulls me out of bed.’ If have to do something unpleasant, I think about how wonderful it will be when it is done.”
Vi+/Vi+/Vi+ → Ki+ → Aid,+ → Exit
“I feel a sensation of warmth and say to myself, ‘I have to get up.’ This voice is in a calm, easy tone. As voice speeds up, it becomes more clear and distinct, and I become more alert.”
Ki+ → Aitd/Aitd/→ Exit
(Analogue increase in volume/pitch)
Many times we can redesign better tests and operations in our strategies by simply making sure that we have all of the rep system components represented.
16.24 Designing Strategies
Some strategies just don’t work very well or could work a lot better if streamlined in some way, or if we added additional resources. Many times we can redesign better tests and operations in our strategies by simply making sure that we have all of the rep system components represented.
What do you hear around you?
What does it sound like?
What do you hear inside your head?
What do you see around you? Describe the tone in your internal dialogue…
What internal pictures do you see?
How do you feel internally?
What qualities do these pictures have?
What do you smell?
What body awareness do you have tactilely or externally?
What tastes do you experience in this?
Strategizing involves sending the brain in productive directions. It describes the process of organizing representational components in certain sequences to create the desired outcome. This skill is more important than intelligence in achieving outcomes.
Strategizing involves sending the brain in productive directions. It describes the process of organizing representational components in certain sequences to create the desired outcome. This skill is more important than intelligence in achieving outcomes.
We can learn about our styles of thinking and responding by becoming aware the steps in our strategies that lie between the original stimulus and the resulting behavior. Then we will have more choices about how to respond and how to change a strategy program. In this way we will get to know the structure of our subjective experience. And this will enable us to track down what our brain does, which modality it is using, the resources it calling upon, etc. For example, response styles could include: congruent, incongruent; polarity (reversal in content; Meta (“about”); hidden (unseen); passive, aggressive; immediate and delayed.
16.24.0.117 Designing New And Better Strategies
We need to have well-formed strategies. For example: making sure that we have all the necessary tests and operations.
The strategy model enables us to actually design custom-made strategies for achieving specific outcomes. In strategy design we create desired outcomes, trouble-shoot problems, streamline cumbersome and inefficient strategies, limit strategies that we use too generally, re-contextualize others to appropriate contexts, install appropriate tests, etc. We need to have well-formed strategies. For example: making sure that we have all the necessary tests and operations.
To redesign the maladaptive strategy of someone in too much downtime, we build in more external checks. For someone fearful of public speaking, we design in a strategy step wherein they access a state of relaxation, comfort, self-humor, etc. In such design work, we build in context markers and decision points that control the neuro-linguistic processes. Design work enables us to create cues for different contexts.
When we use strategies for modeling, we find someone who already has the ability to achieve the outcome and simply identify and use that strategy as a model. If a person has a good strategy for reading and criticizing literature, but not for generating it, we don’t want to model that for creating literature.
When we tailor a strategy for a specific task and person, we must first determine the kinds of discriminations we need. Which rep system will we need for gathering information? Do we have the needed rep system? Do we need to break a synesthesia pattern or divert it so it doesn’t interfere? How much rehearsal will we need to practice with the new sequence?
16.25 A well-formed strategy involves knowing:
The kind of information (for input, feedback) that we need and in which rep system.
What kind of tests, distinctions, generalizations, associations we need to make in processing that information.
What specific operations and outputs we need to achieve the outcome.
The most efficient and effective sequence for testing and operating.
An explicit representation of the designed outcome.
Without specifically identifying an outcome when we “operate” and compare the representation of present state with desired state, the strategy will break down. This explains our need for representations of the outcome. “What do you want? How will you know if you’ve changed…?
If you have designed an ecological strategy.
“Will this violate personal or organizational ecology?” We make sure the strategy doesn’t conflict with other strategies. In so working with human subjectivity, we will want to discover what “important reasons why” a person hasn’t yet achieve an outcome. The person’s Meta-outcomes provide their behavior in terms of some general goals (preservation, survival, growth, protection, betterment, adaptation).
If you have utilized the Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic components of the rep system.
If you have utilized both an internal and an external check, using all the rep systems, this will reduce the probability of looping, for example, getting stuck with no way of exiting.
16.26 Utilizing Strategies
The meaning of an experience depends partly on our outcome within a given context. If we can use our creativity to transform obstacles into resources, we thereby expand our choices and behavioral repertoire.
One major use of strategy work is with modeling someone’s language strategies. This means that we have to unpack a sequence of thinking, deciding, or perceiving, etc., into steps using rep systems. If we then use that same sequence back to them, we will automatically be pacing them. We are thus developing such a strong rapport that they will find it difficult to resist our communication.
For example, if we notice that someone has a decision-making strategy that involves seeing then talking to themselves about it until it creates certain feelings (V → Aid → Ki → Exit) then we could use that sequence to organize our communication to them. Doing this matches their form. We ask the person to picture clearly our idea, suggest some internal talk, and some feelings that this will likely generate.
By so packaging our information so that it mirrors the individual’s thinking processes, we make our communications maximally congruent to the person’s model of the world.
We can also pace non-verbally by directing the person to the appropriate eye accessing positions. By so packaging our information so that it mirrors the individual’s thinking processes, we make our communications maximally congruent to the person’s model of the world.
If people cannot but respond to their own internal processes, then entering their world, identifying their strategies for buying, deciding, feeling motivated, feeling resourceful, acting in a pro-active way, etc., increases our effectiveness. It assists in managing, communicating, relating, understanding, etc. W
e no longer have to move through the world assuming or imposing our strategies for motivation, decision, belief, etc., on others. Once we have discovered their preferences we can fit our communication to their model. In a psychotherapy context, we will be more effective in understanding how to help the client make the changes they desire. To motivate another, we find and use the person’s motivational strategy. To communicate, we find their strategy for understanding. To manage, we find their strategy for trust. To sell, we find their strategy for decision, valuing, planning, etc.
16.27 Installation Of Strategies
We can install a strategy by anchoring, by rehearsing strategy pieces (new dialogue lines, gestures, facial expressions, etc.), by vicarious experiences (role-play), and by creating altered states and experiences. By installing we get the strategy to function naturally and automatically, as an intact unit (a chunk) so that each step automatically ties into the next.
(1) Installing through anchoring involves anchoring a representation or state and inserting the steps of the strategy as the person rehearses the strategy sequence. Anchoring helps us “walk” a person through it. When we anchor a sequence, we wire it to some contextual stimuli. Elicit the steps of the strategy through questioning and observation and then anchor each step with the same anchor. For example, we have someone access their motivation strategy. “Think of a time when you felt really motivated…” and then anchor that experience. Later, we can fire off that anchor in a new context so the person re-accesses that strategy sequence for motivation in that new context.
Synesthesia patterns automatically carry through on their own processes once initiated. For example: a person with a phobia of water can see a body of water and immediately have a phobic reaction. They see (Ve) water and feel (KI) fear. We symbolize that phobia as Ve/KI. A synesthesia has two component rep systems with the first rep system triggering immediately the second rep system. We anchor these synethesias and then tie them into other situations. This can streamline an inappropriately long strategy and thereby avoid loops.
One man had a cumbersome and inefficient decision-making strategy. He would spend days in deliberation and put off decisions until he had passed up key opportunities. Then he would feel agitated and angry with himself for wasting so much time. In redesigning the strategy, he considered “the possibility of missing opportunities and wasting time” (Ad/K–) at an earlier point. The question, “What does it feel like at the end of your strategy when you realized the value of wasted time and missed opportunities?” helped him install it. This streamlined his strategy as it provided the needed motivation to decide earlier. He used it as a resource by checking his time schedule and using his negative feelings as a decision point.
(2) Instructions create new representational steps to install a new strategy. Since words work as anchors and can anchor a new strategy, we can install a strategy by “giving instructions.”
(3) A hands-on approach to installing a strategy is to rehearse the new way of doing things. Simply ask someone to practice each representational step until they feel comfortable with it. To develop the visual system, we can practice holding up an image, making mental snapshot of it, then closing our eyes and seeing it inside, etc. Eventually we will develop the ability to create and hold an internal visual image in our mind’s eye.
(4) Game-playing rehearsal. By making a “game” of reading words in the air, this puts more emphasis on the form than on the content, or their past negative experiences. Have the person learn where to look, where to put their head and eyes, when to use feelings, when to use pictures, etc. By framing the process as a game, the rehearsal can feel more like dancing and playing than learning, spelling, or whatever. Typically this makes the learning easier and less stressful.
(5) Rehearsing synesthesia patterns offers another powerful method for installing sequences of rep systems independent of content. Certain synesthesia patterns will feel unfamiliar and underdeveloped.
A/K: As you listen to the words in your head, pay attention to any body sensations that occur. Identify one set, then listen to the words again and allow another feeling to emerge. Continue doing this until you have seven different feelings.
K/A: Pick the feeling most appropriate to the words pronounced internally and from that feeling generate seven sounds. “Get in touch with that feeling and allow it to turn into a sound.” Pick one of the sounds, and let it generate an internal visual image.
We can install via overlapping accessing cues. V-K overlap: “Look down and to the right, defocus your eyes, breathe high, and shallow, and now create picture.” Repeat this process until the transition feels smooth and easy, then anchor it.
(6) Interrupting strategies. Sometimes we have to interrupt a strategy that has a well-beaten or ingrained path. We can interrupt by overloading— by giving them more information than they can handle. A naturally occurring overload is a noisy place where we “can’t hear ourselves think.” In the same way that a person may feel so good (or bad) that they don’t know what to do or say, as when they are overcome by an emotion, so they can be “overwhelmed by beauty,” or “knocked out” by smell. Overloading interrupts their strategy, thereby preventing it from completing its cycle.
We interrupt or divert a strategy by using some input to shift the representational sequence away from the habitual sequence.
We interrupt or divert a strategy by using some input to shift the representational sequence away from the habitual sequence. When lost in thought and noise overrides sequence and draws us away. Stopping or blocking accessing cues provides a direct and powerful way of interrupting strategy (i.e. like waving hands in front of someone’s face while they attempt to visualize!). You can typically interrupt a depressive strategy by asking the person feeling depressed to sit up straight, hold their head up high, to take in a full breath, to throw their shoulders back, to open their eyes wide and to smile. The typical depressive posture and breathing pattern tends to perpetuate the feeling of depression. If they are slumped over, their head is accessing the kinesthetic, thereby preventing them from seeing or talking themselves into a better state! We may also spin out a strategy. We do this by feeding the output of the strategy back into the strategy.
A man with an obligation strategy felt that he “should” do something if he could see himself doing something. We spin his strategy out by having him see himself not doing it. In effect, by seeing himself not doing what he wants to stop doing he does the opposite and therefore “spins himself out” of the old strategy. At least, he will learn that he knows how not to do the old strategy which is a step in the right direction. Each of these techniques for interrupting strategies aims to stop the sequence in the middle, thus giving us an opportunity to redesign and install a better one.
Hall, Michael, NLP: Going Meta Into Logical Levels (1997).Seventeen years after NLP Volume I formulated the NLP Strategies Model (1980) —get the rest of the story and take the next step in the ongoing study of the structure of subjective experience by adding logical levels. An overview of ten Logical Level systems in NLP and other levels erroneously labeled “Logical Levels.” Entire chapter devoted to the models developed by three seminal scholars on logical levels: Korzybski, Bateson and Dilts.
Part 3—More On Strategies25
16.28 Strategy Elicitation
Get yourself into an uptime state.
Establish rapport.
Identify the strategy you wish to work with.
Help the person back into the experience (fully associated and congruent. Anchor the state. Speak in present time to maintain the state.)
Write down the steps you observe in proper sequence.
Notice all accessing cues to track the process of the strategy. (Maintain alertness to eye movements, auditory markings, breathing patterns, gestures, etc.).
Backtrack when necessary to get to previous steps.
Ask basic questions:
“How do you ____________?” (decide, motivate, etc.).
“How do you know
when it’s time to start?”
“What happens first?”
“And then?”
“What happens just before that?”
“How do you know what to do next?”
“How do you know you have finished?”
“Teach me to do it like you do.”
Check to see if the evolving sequence flows logically.
Make sure you elicit and not install each stage. (Use neutral predicates.)
Make sure the person answers the question you ask.
Get as much detail as you need.
Watch for loops (recurring sequences that do not make progress).
Ask for the same strategy in a different context and check for duplication of the new sequence.
16.29 Example: Eliciting Decision Strategy
16.29.0.118 Context Setting:
Re-experience a time when you made a good decision easily.
Imagine some future time or likely situation in which you need to make a strong decision. What would you do?
What takes place (what happens) when you decide something?
16.29.0.119 Test Questions:
Where did you first think about deciding?
How do you know when to decide?
What first thing lets you know to begin deciding? Warning: If you ask, “What do you see when you begin?” You may install a strategy rather than eliciting it.
What’s the first thing you must do in order to decide something?
The User's Manual for the Brain Volume I Page 41