How to transform your business performance with NLP
Posted on 4th January 2022
“As long as you believe it is impossible, you will actually never find out if it is possible or not.”
John Seymour said this in his introduction to Neuro-Linguistic Programming: The New Psychology of Personal Excellence. He was one of the first NLP Master Trainers in the UK.
NLP focuses on changing behaviour that limits performance and removing negative associations you have about your experiences. NLP techniques can help you to become more effective, improve communication and, most importantly, learn how to be a leader.
It focuses on the thought patterns, language, and strategies or programs that successful people use in all walks of life. It can be applied to relationships, mental performance, and even sport.
NLP in a business setting
NLP can help to change all aspects of your live, and in business it can help you to create a rapport on the phone or face to face using spoken and body language and listening skills. You can use it to improve communication with your employees and your customers and to improve motivation, productivity and efficiency.
How does NLP work?
NLP was first proposed in the 1970s as a powerful model of human experience and communication that can help to describe behaviour in a detailed way. It can be used to codify and synthesise linguistics, body language and the study of communications and as a tool to make lasting changes to behaviour and performance.
NLP explores how we perceive the world through our senses which allow us to see, hear, feel, taste and smell. It improves our understanding of how we use language to explain and describe our experiences and to express ourselves through words, movements and gestures. This, in turn, can reveal a lot about our mental state and thinking style.
The idea of programming suggests that, like a computer, our thoughts, feelings and actions are software programs. When we change these programs to create positive changes it’s like upgrading the software.
It can be used to create a model of excellence based on language and behaviour that will help us to develop our world experiences and perceptions. Whether you want to improve business performance, enhance your professional profile, or improve your personal relationships, it can be highly effective.
NLP techniques
NLP is often combined with other approaches. Here are some common NLP techniques.
Imagery
Sometimes called ‘mental rehearsal’, you can visualise a detailed scene where you are doing something successfully. You can tap into feelings of confidence and build on the energy you gain from positive feedback.
Modelling
Entrepreneurs and athletes consistently think about and focus on things they want to improve in their performance. They will often surround themselves with people who have achieved the success they want and will focus on modelling their behaviour. This is a way to super-charge your mentoring experiences.
Swishing
You can amplify positive results by creating a vivid picture in your imagination of something you don’t want in your life along with a more subdued image of what you want to replace it with. Then you can swap them around, bringing what you want into the foreground and pushing the image you don’t want into the background.
Mirroring
Using the principle that just 7% of your message is communicated through words, that your tone of voice contributes 38% and that your body language communicates 55% of your message, mirroring someone’s body language will help you to build instant rapport. You can also use words that reflect their speaking style.
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