NLP Training, Techniques & Products for learning NLP

Note from Tom: This is a special guest post brought to you by Don MacNaughton. Don is an expert in how to create high performance in yourself. A practitioner of NLP, Don has worked with Olympic athletes across numerous sports, international teams and executives in billion dollar businesses.

In this post Don talks about the laws of performance and how to discover the high performance champion within you. Be sure to check out the book resource he recommends a the end, if you'd like to learn more about the laws of high performance.

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The relatively modern science of sports psychology only became recognised as a science in the 1920s but its origins also date back much further in history to the ’healthy mind, healthy body’ philosophies of the ancient Greek and Chinese civilisations. Mental skills training is recognised today as playing a key role in helping competitive athletes to achieve their full potential in sport and the techniques used to enhance sporting performance are now also used to equally great effect in other areas of life.

The Laws of Performance are the result of my findings after many years of experience working with not only elite athletes but also sportspeople and businesspeople from all walks of life and at every stage in their careers. The ‘Laws’ are the guiding principles that I have found to be effective in helping those I work with to perform to their ability and create their own success in life by reconnecting with what inspires them and motivates them to keep moving forwards, onwards, and upwards as they turn their goals into their realities.

Much of what we learn through an understanding of the guiding principles is are sometimes simple principles but not always easy to execute in today’s high pressure, fast paced world! We all inherit or develop certain beliefs about ourselves as we go through life. We all think we know who we are and what we’re capable of but do we really know?

Many of our long-held beliefs are sometimes not actually based on anything real at all, they are merely our perception of what we believe to be real and yet we allow those beliefs to rule our thoughts and influence our actions. We all already posses a built-in guiding voice of intuition but the majority of us have simply lost the ability to tune in to that voice or to believe in what it tells us. By gaining an understanding of the Laws of Performance, you gain an opportunity to play the game of life at the highest level. When you connect with the things that you feel most passionate about in life, you tap into your own inspirational energy source; a powerful and motivational source of energy that drives you towards realising your full potential in whatever you choose to do.

The Champion Within

In sport, it’s now widely recognised that champions become champions from within and the key to realising a top performance is to develop mental skill alongside physical skill. Getting to the top of your game takes undeniable physical skill and ability but staying at the top requires an equal degree of mental skill. Tennis champ Andre Agassi is a great example of an athlete who had the physical skills to outplay most opponents but early in his career he lost the matches that really mattered. It was not until he developed his mental skills to match his physical skills that he was able to get back into his game and to realise his full potential. The connection between ancient world wisdom and modern world sports performance is therefore the phenomenal power of the mind. Finding your success in sport and in life is all about finding your passion. Successful people do what they love and love what they do.

To succeed…You need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you - Tony Dorsett

Top performers are inspired performers, they are all passionate about what they do. So what inspires you? Each and every one of us has within us our own source of inspiration as we are all inspired by the things we feel passionate about. To find your inspiration, you need to connect or re-connect with your passion.

Champions become champions from within: champions know who they are and they know who they want to be. They use the inspired energy of their passion to keep practicing the physical and mental skills they need to realise their ambitions and become the best they can be.

Believe in the Champion Within

We are all who we believe ourselves to be and our circumstances are simply a reflection of who we believe we are. To become a champion, you must believe that there is a champion within you. Success is a journey and not a destination so getting to the top of your game is as much to do with wanting to play as it is to do with wanting to win. Getting to the top is going to take dedicated effort and it’s always going to be easier to do something you want to do and love to do rather than something you have to do or should do. Many champions in sport use the words “driven” or “compelled” to describe their feelings and their attitude towards succeeding in sport and they almost always refer to the fact that the “buzz” they first felt through taking part in their sport has never left them. That’s the key to success right there: win or lose, the motivation to keep playing remains the same. When you believe in the champion within, you are able to maintain your positive belief in yourself and your abilities even when the going gets tough or when things are not going your way. It’s not winning every game that makes you a success, it’s learning from your losses and taking the positive lessons forwards with you.

If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning - Mahatma Ghandi

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To find out more about Don and check out his new book click on the links below:

New book: The 12 Laws of Performance with added Launch bonus is available 1^st August

Or go to www.donmacnaughton.org for Don's Blog or www.zonedinperformance.com for information on High Performance Coaching.

Note from Tom: This is a special guest post brought to you by Philip Atkinson, a veteran NLP trainer and organisational psychologist who who specialises in professional relationships at work, influence and leadership and has over 25 years experience.

In this article Philip highlights how the NLP toolset can be a very powerful toolset in enabling organisational change. Enjoy.

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NLP can work in business but has to be de-mystified from the therapeutic model to a business model. For NLP to be useful and applied it has to be sold as a business model. Take it from me, NLP albeit as powerful a set of cognitive and behavioural processes, it is not a natural bed fellow for practitioners of business change. For NLP to be valued it has to make sense to the business population.

Tom shared with me that the majority of readers of NLP Times are focused on enabling people and their organisations change for the better. And that many are ‘enablers and facilitators of change’ who work in a huge variety of organisations from big corporates to SME's, Education, Health and Social Enterprises. Perhaps this describes you. Either way just about everyone who works in or with companies today have to deal with adapting or directing change. Fortunately for those of us with an NLP background we can help be enablers for change.

Interestingly although most attempts at organisational change fail to meet their objective.

Yet the reality is in the right hands, NLP can enable successful implementation of change. Central to it's success is how it is packaged and delivered to all the various actors in the change process.

NLP De-Mystified

Although my personal belief is that NLP can be a major contribution to change in companies large and small – I am wary of how it is perceived by business. Sometimes, NLP purists fail to create a positive impact with business people perhaps because they come over too “touchy-feely”. At an NLP presentation on ‘building customer relationships’ the audience was confused. The presenters used too much NLP jargon. The local business audience left knowing about ‘eye accessing cues’ but not how NLP could build their rapport with their customers.

Wider Context of Change

NLP can be of real value, but only if it appeals to your target audience in the change triad. In any business change arena you tend to have three sets of people. The Sponsor is ultimately responsible for the change, the Change Agent (facilitator, coach, trainer) – who presents the vehicle and process for change, and the recipients, the Targets for the change have to shape, accept, own, live and implement it.

Change Working when you Bring the Triad Together

Change frequently does not work because these three groups of people don’t communicate and gel. Their respective ‘maps’ occupy different territories. The reason why things don’t work out is that the triad of folk in the ‘change arena’ have not discussed, shared and agreed desired outcomes, potential obstacles, have mutual expectations and are not committed to make that change stick. In the larger scheme of things, they have not developed a giant TOTE for the organisation.

Further, most change people do not realise that some of those people they are helping change may have their own agenda, their own resistance and are unable to see the benefits.

Pre-Loading & Developing a Preventative Culture

In any organisation large or small you will have folk who resist change more than others. If you are lucky you may have a few change champions and early adaptors who align with you straight away. Overall you will probably experience some resistance simply because we are not very good in this culture at managing organisational change. Sooner you later you will experience the resistors and the terrorists – so get them on board sooner.

90% of Change Fails

Our research indicates that 90%+ of major changes initiatives in all sectors fail. Did you know for instance, that at least 70% of Mergers & Acquisitions fail to achieve the synergies for which they were brought together? The reason being that when merging the businesses, there was too much focus on the ‘hard’ elements: strategy, structure, reporting relationships, systems and processes – to the detriment of what really makes a business work: the people and the culture.

In reality, what drives business success is leadership, engagement and team motivation. And this is what is often missing when the accountants, tech specialists and IT guys get together to create a solution. They forget about the people. Now that is where NLP can help - but not the therapeutic or counselling model! It has to be a business model that makes sense to the recipients of that change.

Case Study: Engineers as Change Makers in the USA

This big Multi National company manufactures agricultural and construction equipment. It is driven by a very strong engineering culture: Logic, data, reasoning, structure and evidence based thinking. It has some challenges. Engineers tour the world selling engineering solutions to Plant managers who often don’t want to implement the engineering solutions. The VP of Manufacturing Strategy believes in NLP and behaviour change. He also knows that it has to be sold differently to appeal to the engineers, who are really the Change Makers. Working with many functional teams and Plants worldwide we devised a process of NLP as a process change tool that worked, and was implemented in Plants from Wichita to Doncaster (England), From Toronto to Paris

Training was provided with logical strategic models based on Best Practice in change management. We then focused entirely on creating and maintaining strong relationships between the Engineer (change makers) and the Plant Managers (target audience). Once the engineers realised that the application of NLP could make them more effective, they committed to the whole process of learning and applying NLP successfully.

Case Study: Legal Firms & Professional Service Businesses

Some people believe that technical expertise is the sole route to success. But we know that success is based on building relationships with ‘win-win’ outcomes as in the Engineering example above. NLP can do that. Start with the end in mind. It has worked building businesses in many Firms with whom I have worked – but only when staff and colleagues realised that their technical analytic ability was only part of the success solution. Once NLP processes are valued learning and change commences.

The use of NLP technologies such as language patterns, motivation strategies and installing new belief systems to win the acceptance of change is achieved by ensuring that Sponsors, Change Agents and targets are all aligned. This means you work with the top team first winning their commitment to drive the change. Never dilute the change by moving too fast down the business. Stay with the Sponsors until they realise they have to lead the change process. The rest is easy.

Case Study: Environmental Charity

A very large Charity adopted our approach through a Leadership Development Programme that was cascaded down through 300 managers. Many of these managers worked in local communities with large groups of volunteers. Volunteers are not employees. To manage volunteers you have to be engaging, charismatic and demonstrate vision and leadership. Control has to be replaced by mutual respect. By working with the Charity’s top team and their direct reports we used an NLP approach without using the therapy jargon. It worked and now the organisation is functioning well and growing with over 1 million members and a positive public presence.

Summary

Sure, NLP as a business change process works but only if it is tailored to the particular context of the organisation. So whether you are a retailer with just ten staff, a small bar and restaurant chain with twenty people, a GP practise with fifty, or a community group of one hundred to a large conglomerate, NLP can be a very powerful process for implementing change. And what is important is implementation of change – not the theory and the jargon associated with the therapeutic roots.

About Philip:

Philip Atkinson is a consultant specialising in strategic, behavioural and cultural change. He is a member of various training consortia and has recently focused on creating innovative business simulations through Learning Strategies. He consults in the UK, Europe and USA, has written seven business books and published many articles. He is a speaker at conferences and runs Workshop sessions for leading companies. Philip can be contacted on +44 (0) 0131 346 1276 or 07779-799286 or philip@philipatkinson.com or visit www.philipatkinson.com

Update All Winners For This Competition Have Now Been Contacted.

Richard Bandler, the co-creator and creative genius behind NLP is coming to London on October 13th and you can be one of a small group of people who get to see him free as he talks about the "The Technology of Success and Happiness".

Tickets for the 2 and 1/2 hour event are £50.

To be in with a chance to win a free ticket simply leave a comment below describing how using NLP has changed your life or how you personally have used NLP with yourself or others. The more detailed and colourful the better.

I'll personally be reviewing the replies and will award tickets to the best 17 entries. Competition closes Friday and winners will be notified by email if you've won.

Thanks to the great folks at Alternatives for making this possible.

The event is happening on Thursday the 13th of October between 7PM and 9PM in central London. Full details here.

Richard is an incredibly gifted speaker, teacher and master of how to create change.

Enter your comment below now to be in with a chance to win.