Exploring Behaviour
There are a great many applications for NLP and this article focuses on just one small aspect of NLP.
I refer below to considering the behaviour of individuals who have stepped outside socially acceptable norms and perhaps found themselves on the wrong side of the law. The article was originally written to support newly appointed volunteer mentors working within the probationary service to begin to take a wide angled view on “behaviour” in order to help “offenders” create greater choice in their behaviours and outcomes.
So how is this relevant for the average person? Well... we all make judgements about
the behaviour we notice in others and often through adopting a more curious attitude,
we can not only manage our own emotional state more effectively, but also allow others
freedom to change. The concept of exploring behaviour non-
What is NLP?
I guess a good place to start would be to provide an overview of what NLP is, since it carries such a long name – Neuro Linguistic Programming.
NLP has been described as the “Study of Subjective Experience”, encompassing (amongst other things) exploration of how we orientate ourselves, make sense of, and respond to the world around us.
The models and attitudes associated with NLP carry an ethos of “curiosity” promoting questions such as “how is it possible to be highly effective in some situations and not in others?”
NLP looks at the conscious and unconscious structure underlying our language and behaviour. Through beginning to understand how our sense of identity, core values and our beliefs can enable us or limit us, we can positively influence our behaviour.
NLP is “generative” in that a key ethos is to “add choice” empowering ourselves and others to increase behavioural flexibility and make conscious and considered decisions relating to our actions and potential implications.
Most excitingly through coaching with NLP we can help ourselves and others create more resourceful responses to life’s challenges in order to achieve positive outcomes.
Two key presuppositions (attitudes to adopt) within NLP I believe to be worth considering when relating with individuals who are seeking to adopt more personally effective and potentially more socially responsible responses are as follows...
· “People are not the sum of their behaviours”
· “Every behaviour has a positive intention”
This article explores these two NLP presuppositions and refers to adopting these attitudes in reference to a hypothetical newspaper article. It will illustrate how simply applying these two attitudes, before even beginning to look at the broader theories and models associated with NLP, you can increase behavioural flexibility in a range of situations. You might like to consider the following whilst reading it...
Questions to Consider
· How in day to day life do you make judgements about individuals based on their behaviour? (Especially consider this in relation to your nearest and dearest).
· How do the judgements you make impact on your beliefs about others?
· How do your beliefs impact on your behaviours towards others?
· How do your behaviours potentially reinforce perceived negative behaviour in others?
· How could “being curious not critical” increase the number of choices of behaviour available to you and to others?
A Scenario – “More bad news”
We can often perceive ourselves to be bombarded with “bad news” in the papers and we even on occasions allow it to impact our mood and frame our perception of the world around us. Imagine you are reading the local newspaper at breakfast and there is an article about a local youth who has multiple convictions for criminal damage. Most recently this individual smashed all the stained glass windows in the village church, stole the church collection funds and knocked over and applied graffiti to a number of grave stones in the small local cemetery. To back up the article there is a picture of a young man with a shaved head and many tattoos and piercings.
As you “tutt” into your cornflakes and take your sip of tea raising an eyebrow, your
thoughts start to wander into how rough the local community is becoming and how bad
parenting and the school system is these days, of course there are no police on the
beat and the sense of community responsibility to stamp out this behaviour is non-
People are not the sum of their behaviour –
Let’s consider a different perspective. Behaviour is simply a temporary external representation / response. In reality we can easily (and often do) confuse it with being “the person”. We forget that an individual might be making the best choice they see available to them at the time. What kind of “labels” do you think have been applied to this person? Vandal, Criminal, Offender, Delinquent Youth, Thief, Thug, etc...
We learn at a young age to label behaviour and it is not the most resourceful of
activities to adopt. Think about it... “Sarah you are a naughty girl”. Simply by
the choice of language used, we have given an “identity level label”. Whether Sarah
chooses to identify with being “a naughty girl” or not is subjective and dependent
on any number of other factors influencing her life at the time. It is possible;
however, if she is told this time and time again she could unconsciously begin to
believe it! Secondly, in addition to being an “identity level label”, a statement
such as “you are a naughty girl” is incredibly static, almost a fait-
The case in fact is that Sarah is “currently adopting one or several un-
So back to your newspaper article – you may choose to adopt an attitude of curiosity. Some questions to consider might be...
· Are they in fact “a Thug”,
· Is that all they are / have been? Could they be anything else? What else?
· What labels have they been applying to themself?
· How are the labels that currently exist in relation this person limiting their choice of behaviours?
· What labels would they like to apply to themself?
· How could new labels impact on their behaviour choices?
· And the list goes on....
These are the sort of questions an NLP coach might ask if working with this individual.
Some of the many potential benefits of holding questions such as these when relating
with individuals you perceive to have adopted “negative” or un-
· With a curious attitude, any questions you do choose to ask are likely to be outcome
focused and aimed at increasing choice moving forwards -
· It is really difficult to be “curious or intrigued” at the same time as being “angry, exasperated, frustrated or irritated”... Try it. They are very different emotional responses and therefore choosing curiosity is a great approach for managing your own state and responses to situations and individuals.
· If you choose to actively address an individual’s behaviour choice, when communicating
with them you will develop “a rapport” built on a conscious and unconscious communication
system between the two of you. Presupposing their ability to change creates a non-
Every behaviour has a positive intention –
This can be a contentious one, so I will caveat that the “positive intention” is from the perspective of the person demonstrating the behaviour. This presupposes that even behaviours which can be viewed externally as “less than resourceful” are achieving something, on some level, for the individual involved (likely to be belief or values driven).
Let’s expand this, considering it from the following angle – “people do the best they can with the resources available to them at the time”. It could therefore simply be that an individual is yet to be aware of alternative choices available to fulfil their need. If we take Sarah as our example – “being naughty” could well be the most efficient and effective way Sarah knows to get attention. If she has tested this strategy and it works (despite consequences), why change?
So back to the newspaper article – in order to be in rapport and hence instigate real change an NLP coach might find it useful to identify and recognise common ground. As the reader of the newspaper article you could do this also... consider how is the youth like you, or at the very least think about where they may have motivational drivers / values that you can empathise with.
So what might the “positive intention” behind vandalism be? What possible values could be being fulfilled for this individual? ... Well it is difficult to say since experience is, of course, subjective!
But let’s imagine you took on the role of coaching this person you have read about and judged all too easily over breakfast. What could be the result of beginning to explore the questions above with them in an “outcome focused” way? It could be that through discussion they share some core values very similar to your own, but in their case these “motivational drivers” are being fulfilled by behaviour that is outside either legal or social norms. In the case of their physical appearance, it might be that this is simply outside the norms that you personally hold as important.
But back to the behaviour... This could be providing them with...
· Independence
· Freedom of self expression / creativity
· Release of built up tension
· Status and recognition within peer group (the epitome of this being an ASBO regarded by peers as a certificate of recognition for being “the geezer” they have labelled them – again note the impact of the label in defining and limiting their behaviour choice!)
· Financial security
· Etc
It could very well be that you identify values that in themselves are not socially
unacceptable after all. Think about it -
In any context, supporting an individual to understand more about what motivates them can enable them to be more in control of their actions. Through identifying their core values you can begin to explore new and alternative behaviour choices in partnership with them to fulfil their needs.
In the context of the youth in the newspaper article an NLP coach would almost certainly be emphasising choices within legal and social parameters. Recognising which aspects of the situation require focus and which aspects are simply down to personal preference (for example an individual’s appearance).
In day to day life though we also have parameters within our relationships in reference to the behaviours we consider to be “acceptable”. Interestingly we often don’t make these parameters clear, the result being we get angry when we perceive an individual to be behaving in a way we consider to be “unacceptable”.
Am I saying that we should be accepting of all “behaviour” that is outside perceived “normal or cultural” parameters within the relationships we hold, not really... more that we should increase our tolerance levels and avoid assumptions and judgement about what we perceive a behaviour to mean. For example: He was quiet today does not equate to “he is a rude person”. She was late yesterday is not the same as “she is a disorganised person” etc.
From my individual perspective as an NLP Trainer and Coach
NLP helps focus your attention in the right place “the behaviour” rather than “labelling
the individual”. This then enables you to look beyond the surface, for the intention
behind it, therefore creating an open, non-
If you do no more with NLP than adopt these two presuppositions and a curious attitude towards the behaviour of yourself and others you will have some foundation tools for improving your communication.
”In times of change learners inherit the earth while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists!” (Erich Hoffer)
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