The NoLimits Blog

Powerful Communicating with Metaphors

 

Why use Metaphors?

Have you noticed how mundane communication can be when people use the same words or phrases over and over again? In corporate organisations, the same corporate buzzwords and phrases are repetitively used and over time they lose significance and meaning. Everything becomes the same. Do you want to make your communication more significant, impactful and interesting? Metaphors are being used more and more in organisations to:

• engage listeners;
• demonstrate with passion;
• stand out from the crowd;
• give maximum meaning;
• use minimum words;
• create new meanings.

 

Embedded Metaphors

Warning: Ordinary everyday metaphors have been used so much in everyday conversation that they will go by unnoticed or worse sound like tired meaningless phrases. For example, "iron resolution" “The war for talent” or “Back to the grindstone.”

What is Metaphor?

The word metaphor has Greek origins meaning to: ‘carry something across’ or ‘transfer.’ It is a powerful and innovative way of conveying a message.

Linguist George Lakoff and philosopher Mark Johnson have worked extensively on the use of metaphor and observe:

“In all aspects of life ... we define our reality in terms of metaphors and then proceed to act on the basis of the metaphors. We draw inferences, set goals, make commitments, and execute plans, all on the basis of how we in part structure our experience, consciously and unconsciously, by means of metaphor.”

What decisions, goals and inferences do you make using your own habitual metaphors?

How do Metaphors Work?

Metaphors engage the unconscious mind allowing people to do their own transderivatoinal search (TDS) to give meaning and interpretation to what you are saying.

Metaphors create new meanings as they connect to your visual, auditory and kinaesthetic senses.

When are Metaphors Used?

They can be used all the time. More specifically they are useful when:

• Teaching a lesson or a moral.
• Conveying values.
• Creating new ideas.
• Changing meaning from problems to solutions.
• Enabling people to recognise their problems.
• Focusing attention on an important point.
• Simplifying complicated information.
• Changing behaviour.

 

What else do Metaphors do?

They enhance your credibility, integrity and reputation.  Metaphors can be used in all sorts of situations. For example coaching, presenting, one to one conversations, performance discussions, selling, negotiating, training and leading.

They make you out to be a genius!

 "The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars."  Aristotle

 

Creating your metaphor story line

1. Think of and write down the situation that has a meaning or a learning point and evokes an emotion e.g. happiness, fear, surprise, sadness, nervousness, courage etc.

 

2. Name the people who are involved in this story.

 

3. Write down 3 points when explaining what had happened.

 

4. Write down the outcome and what you learned.

 

Using the Wheel of Life to reset your priorities

Follow this process, step by step - the Wheel of Life is a great tool to establish your personal goals

Wheel of Life

“Wisdom comes from….. balance. Workaholics are very intelligent, interesting, often witty and charming people, but they lack this inner wisdom. The crises in their lives attest to this. Good judgement comes when your logical and rational thoughts and ideas are supported by a gut reaction that the decision feels right, and that you can live comfortably with the consequences of your action. Inner wisdom goes even further because the decision not only feels right, but it also fits in with your values and beliefs. Something deep inside you can answer “Yes”.” 

 

Dr Barbara Killinger, quoted in ‘First Things First’ by Steven Covey.

 

A balanced life is one where we spread our energy and effort - emotional, intellectual, imaginative, spiritual and physical – between key areas of importance.

          

A wheel has spokes to ensure its strength and balance. Unequal spokes can make the ride very bumpy, or completely break down.

Use the Wheel below to score yourself on each dimension, 1-10. Intuitively ranking how comfortable you are with your focus on each aspect. Then connect the dots to form your ‘wheel’

Is your wheel balanced?

 KEY AREAS OF LIFE

List in order of priority to you at the moment the eight areas of life (1 being the most important and the lowest scoring on your wheel.)

1.______________________________________________

 

2.______________________________________________

 

3.______________________________________________

 

4.______________________________________________

 

5.______________________________________________

 

6.______________________________________________

 

7.______________________________________________

 

8.______________________________________________

 

You may notice that the top three are the most prevalent in your mind.

On the next page, list the VALUES you have for each of these top three life areas.

For example my work values are:

-          to learn new things

-          to always face a new challenge

-          ability to have work-life balance

 

Knowing my work values has made it easier to realise my goals.

In each of your top three areas of life from the list above - take each area in turn and ask the following questions:

AREA 1

What is most important to you about the _________________________ area of life?

List at least 3 and no more than 6 values:

 

 

____________________________________

 

____________________________________

 

____________________________________

 

____________________________________

 

____________________________________

 

____________________________________

 

 

Number the values in order of importance to you, 1 being the highest.

 

Write below what SHOULD you DO to realise these values and your goals for this area:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOW delete the word SHOULD out of your language above and this is your goal!

 

AREA 2

 What is most important to you about the _________________________ area of life?

 List at least 3 and no more than 6 values:

 

 ____________________________________

 

____________________________________

 

____________________________________

 

____________________________________

 

____________________________________

 

____________________________________

 

 

Number the values in order of importance to you, 1 being the highest.

Write below what you SHOULD you DO to realise these values and your goals for this area:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOW delete the word SHOULD out of your language above and this is your goal!

In each of your top three areas of life, ask the following questions:

 AREA 3

What is most important to you about the _________________________ area of life?

List at least 3 and no more than 6 values:

 

____________________________________

 

____________________________________

 

____________________________________

 

____________________________________

 

____________________________________

 

____________________________________

 

Number the values in order of importance to you, 1 being the highest.

Write below

what SHOULD you DO to realise these values and your goals for this area:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOW delete the word SHOULD out of your language above and this is your goal!

Dumb Little Man - Tips for life

If you haven't seen it yet - sign up here for practical tips on getting through the day to day grind

http://www.dumblittleman.com/

HP Mini 1000 Webcam Problem

Just testing a bit of people power here.

Excited to get my new mini 1000. And then intensly dissapointed - the webcam is nearly useless. Images are so dark as to be almost invisible.

So if you are thinking of getting the HP mini 1000 and using the webcam is important to you, then dont! Have a look at the new asus mini note book instead.

Issue is widely reported here http://myhpmini.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=26 and seemingly ignored by HP.

There is a physical hack here which seems to work if you dont mind cutting bits out of the inside of the computer casing http://portablemonkey.com/article/fix-for-dark-webcam-hp-mini-1000/and here http://myhpmini.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=61

Happy New Year

May you have a prosperous New Year. How can you begin to invest now to focus your leaders and teams on your core business priorities, to streamline processes and costs and to be ready to ride the wave of recovery later this year and beyond?

The importance of “Soft Skills” in high performance organisations

Read more in this interview by Simon Hyett of Octopus Consulting of Martin Cropper, CEO of NoLimits.

 

Influencing the work culture is a manager’s best opportunity for creating high performance. ‘Culture’ is a 24-hours-a-day training programme that exists inside any organisation. It’s teaching and influencing all the time. And soft skills, not hard, are critical to creating and maintaining a high-performance work culture. What are organisations doing to upgrade managerial soft skills? How does it measure the success of soft skills training?

 

Q .How does your organisation fit within the leadership training of soft skills space?

 

A. NoLimits, leadership development is about personal growth for professionals, overcoming limitations in soft skills areas such as leading, communicating, influencing, coaching, building relationships to get things done and realising that our opportunities and resources are limitless.

 

We give people the confidence to use these skills and obtain the best results for themselves and the organisations they work in. Without these core soft skills we as individuals are likely to miss out on our own opportunities to be the best we can be and the best we deserve to be. Similarly organisations miss out on substantial performance gains or even risk ultimately failing to achieve what they intend to.

 

These are the pillars of culture that build engagement in companies, retain talent, enhance potential and maximize performance. Companies choose us because our team is founded on people with real world corporate experience which gives us the ability to ensure that people are equipped with the specific soft skills for their own and their organisation’s development.

 

Q.                        To what extent do you agree that “culture is a 24-hours-a-day training programme that exists inside any organisation”?

 

A. Culture exists in all organisations. Real culture it is formed by the actions of people at all levels in the company; it is not what you say it is it is what you do and this is based on your identity and values.

 

Employees usually know the real culture, leaders are judged on their values based on how they actually behave. To change a culture for the better, change can only begin at the top, with senior leaders at all levels speaking and acting congruently. The continuous learning and development opportunity that builds culture is founded on self awareness, awareness of others, honesty and trust.

 

Interventions in these areas form our own primary focus in creating real beneficial change in organisations. Interestingly a 24hour culture has been enabled by technology, these days we have seconds to get our message across, and it is vital to be congruent in that message, you are constantly assessed by others, whether in the midnight email from your PDA or the 9.00am board presentation. All of this makes soft skills even more vital in establishing the best messages.

 

Q.What are some examples of soft skills which you think are important for leaders to be able to offer in the workplace?

 

A. Communicating, presenting and relationship building are top of our list to help leaders be far more effective and have even more impact in the workplace today. A leader can have up to date technical skills, but without these three primary soft skills, will reach their ceiling or plateau in their career and offer far less to the organisation than what they are capable of. Communicating, presenting and relating to others are the core building blocks to other soft skills such as leading, negotiating, influencing, networking, coaching, empathising, listening, decision making, giving feedback, motivating others and conflict resolution.

 

Q. How does your organisation stress the importance of improving and constantly upgrade soft skills for your clients’ leaders?

 

A. One of the most important factors in promoting the constant upgrade of soft skills and creating workforce engagement is that we are growing on the job. This is a major driver in both retaining talent and building better results – these key linkages are major reason clients invest in soft skills development.

 

 

Q. Why soft skills vital to the workplace culture? Please name three primary soft skills. What do you think should be the balance between hard (technical, core) skills and soft skills?

 

A. Technical and soft skills should run in parallel and equally throughout our careers. We know the emphasis in organisations tends to be more technical skills and soft skills development can lack structure and focus. Ultimately the companies that do the best and stay in business are those with a culture that values continuous improvement in the ways in which people lead, communicate and enhance their soft skills.

 

 

Q. What are the key takeaways in your training of leaders’ soft skills and developing a soft skills culture?

 

A. Communicate and collaborate and then communicate and collaborate some more. Leaders will gain more respect, credibility and impact through enhanced awareness of self and others, overcoming limitations and increasing confidence.

 

 

Q. What one matter would you like readers to remember from this feature on the importance of soft skills training in the workplace?

 

 

A. Start early and also you are never too old to change. It’s never too late to be a great leader who leaves a great legacy.  The more senior you are as a leader, the more you need to leverage your soft skills.

 

Which great leaders after all are known for their technical skills? The ones who are always quoted as great leaders by participants in all of our leadership development programmes are the ones who have remarkable soft skills. They are remarkable as so few leaders possess these critical skills.

 

Be remarkable by investing in your soft skills.

Trainer Competencies

Training state of personal excellence.

Understands and applies the principles of adult learning.

Creates a positive learning environment, engaging the participants.

Establishes and maintains rapport with groups and individuals.

Calibrates groups and individuals.

Recognises and responds to the differences in learning styles and preferences.

Maintains congruency both internally and externally.

Understands the impact of personal appearance, physical positioning in relation to participants, the use of gestures and voice tone / projection.

Adjusts presentation, use of humour, language and group management according to the formality, expertise level and cultural background of the group.

Understands that some participants may have been mandated to attend the training and use supportive engagement strategies to get them on board.

Fluent use of metaphors, analogies, quotes and rhetorical questions, comparing and contrasting concepts.

Summarising and bridging to preserve continuity when moving from one training segment to another.

Respecting and managing time well.

Maintaining professionalism, ethics, integrity and confidentiality.

Interesting Stats

 

Long term job success depends 75% on people skills and 25% on technical knowledge.

Stanford Research Institute and Carnegie Melon, US

85% of job promotions are based on candidate’s attitude. 15% on their technical skills.

Harvard University

 

A Model for Team Development

The needs of teams and leaders in transition provide opportunities for a range of team development activities to accelerate the process of a team becoming a high performance team, driving improved outcomes for customers and better business results.

Set out below are approaches for a matrix of facilitated development activities in different scenarios.

These scenarios are:

1. New leader, internal promotion.

2. New leader, internal move.

3. New leader, external hire.

4. Team formation.

5. Team flux, more than 30% of the team is new.

Your overall objectives for any of your teams in one of these situations are to:

1. Ensure the rapid development of collaborative team and individual behaviours aligned to individual and shared values to drive a new common vision and goals where everyone is committed and aligned to the same outcomes.

2. Establish a co-operative, high performance team, enabled by ongoing openand honest communication and constructive confrontation.

3. To build better understanding of interpersonal and team dynamics and increase team spirit with clear personal agreements on the behaviours the team needs to be successful.

In preparing the approaches you need to achieve these objectives it is important for you to leverage your existing tools and processes and adapt a range of tailored approaches to deal with the key priorities that each team face.

This will ensure that each leader and team can focus on the specific needs of the team in each scenario, while building on the particular competencies and existing good practices that each of your individual leaders and teams already have.

In delivering this, each team and their leader can select from a menu of tailored approaches based on their own needs and the needs of their situation.

As a framework for identifying these specific leader and team needs we recommend the use of the Logical Levels model developed by Robert Dilts.

This model provides a structure to identify specific interventions. The model is as follows:

Team Identity: Who are you as a team and what is your purpose and vision that you can all commit to deliver?

Team Values: What are the common values the team shares and what are the individual values in the group? What does the team need to focus on to deliver their common values and how do individuals in the group leverage what is important to them individually?

Beliefs: What beliefs do the team and individuals hold about themselves, their customers, colleagues and products. Which beliefs empower and which beliefs limit?

What do the individuals and teams need to believe about themselves, their colleagues, customers and products to be even more successful?

Capabilities: What skills and capabilities does the team have to collaborate and execute. What capabilities do they need to enhance or learn in order to become an outstanding team?

Behaviours: What behaviours do the team and individuals in the team need to continue to do and build on? What new behaviours are required? What behaviours need to be stopped? What are the individua behavioural commitments required, to build trust and to be effective.

Environment: Where and when does the team deliver their purpose? What are the gaps in systems tools and processes? What is needed in the environment for people to be effective?

Against this model and for any of the given five scenarios of change, leaders and teams can determine the most appropriate ‘levels’ of the model to drive change for them.

There are specific facilitated interventions against each of these priorities that can build on where your teams are at any given time and the tools that you already have and use in these areas.

Identity and Purpose:

To build the clarity of a common vision, identifying actions and responsibilities to ensure implementation the team can learn and apply the Disney Creative Planning strategy.

The team can also work with the Logical Levels model itself to prepare a clear ‘Team Charter’ which captures their identity and purpose.

Values and Beliefs:

The team can learn and apply simple techniques to understand their own and each others values. Taken together these simple techniques are known as “Values Elicitation”. Working together in a facilitated version of this process team values are constructed.

With underlying values are established, the team can learn a technique to translate values into goals and to focus on establishing goals in a way that maximizes the chances of success, called establishing ‘Well-formed Outcomes’ – structured goals that maximize the potential for achievement.

Together with a process to understand both the empowering and disempowering beliefs that the team and individuals have and learning and applying a belief change process; the team can create clear and effective goals aligned with their values.

Capabilities and Skills:

For many team’s the area of capabilities are important can be the skills and tools to ensure effective execution.

In just one session, the team can learn and apply three key tools:

• 80/20 leadership. Focusing on the 20% of priorities that give you 80% of the benefits you need.
• Ready, fire, aim. A powerful tool to ensure rapid execution of priorities. Teams can become normalized to spend to much time in one of these areas. A team that is always getting ready, or one that just fires, or just spends time aiming. Getting the right sequence is also important.
• Accessing Personal Genius: learning to build individual capability to drive results, based on modeling the success patterns of what makes a genius.

Behaviours:

Behaviours focus on enhancing collaboration and building outstanding team performance.

The process around establishing high performance team and leadership behaviours begins with any existing company assimilation process and can easily leverage existing team and employee survey data which is specific to the team concerned.

The leaders desired outcomes can then be developed through building an increased understanding of the teams preferred styles using the Myers-Briggs Type indicator and developing individual flexibility to collaborate more effectively and take on others perspectives. We recommend the online MBTI Step II, followed by half or oneday workshops subject to team size and additional outcomes to learn and experience

the MBTI in practice.

The MBTI awareness can be extended to explore the linkages with Emotional Intelligence and understand how each type’s natural styles can help or hinder effective team work. From this we run a facilitated Continue, Start, Stop (CSS) feedback process amongst the team members, building trust and open and honest feedback in the team. 

The process builds the ability in the team for open, direct communication and constructive confrontation on a day to day basis. Individuals make personal behavioural commitments and the team develops a specific

‘behavioural contract’ for how they will work to be an even higher performing team.

The Start Stop Continue is typically a one day process for most teams. Prior to the feedback process, a telephone based team behaviours survey with key stakeholders, internal and external customers and within the team itself is an option that can provide the team with real data on how they are perceived and on their

effectiveness as a team. Typically a half day process is required with the team to develop appropriate responses and behaviours against the feedback.

The three processes of MBTI, CSS and Team effectiveness survey can be combined in a highly effective two day team offsite, or run as individual workshops.

Environment:

Existing employee client surveys provide the opportunity for facilitated review of the feedback and the development of planned interventions on an annual basis.

NoLimits offers the additional facility of ad-hoc online organisation climate surveys to provide up to the minute temperature checks on key issues for teams. These climate surveys can be consolidated and run simultaneously with team effectiveness surveys and appropriate action plans developed as part of the other team development offsite processes above.

The Power of Your Visualisation

The Power of Your Visualisation

Visualization has helped millions of people achieve goals and it can be the most powerful tool for achievement you have ever used.

It gives you the power to identify clearly what you do want and to overcome roadblocks to progress.

Visualisation is to make your path to success so real that you can almost feel it, hear it, smell it and clearly see it in your mind’s eye. 

With practice visualisation becomes easier and easier. It is a fantastic technique for evoking powerful motivational feelings and is a critical part of any goal achieving process.

The aim of the exercise is to bring to mind a vivid, clear and detailed encounter with what you want to achieve or become. Effective visualisation includes what you SEE, HEAR, FEEL (by touch and emotion) SMELL and TASTE.

Here's How:

1. Sit comfortably and let yourself relax. If you are tense, your muscles get contradictory messages.

2. Have a specific goal. Think of a time in the future when you will have achieved this goal. Think of a specific time. Decide in advance how you will be when you when have achieved this goal. Bring to mind, or visualise what your senses will be experiencing or create and see and fully experience yourself as having the thing you desire in your life.

3. Use all of your senses. Remember visualisation is not just seeing with the mind’s eye, but also touching, tasting, smelling and recalling how it feels emotionally to be this way. Where are you, who is around you, what are you seeing, saying, hearing and doing.

4. Breathe deeply and evenly, breathing in the enjoyment and experience of having achieved this thing in your life.

5. Visualise it as if you are achieving your goal right now, living what your senses are experiencing.

6. Visualise it at normal speed and when you want to focus on a specific element of the moment when you know that you have achieved, slow things down to fully savour that feeling and experience of your own success.

7. Enjoy the experience of success! This is important.

The more you practice focussing on what you want in this way, the more likely you are to succeed.

You can use this technique to improve a skill or achieve your goals. If you have written goals – make sure you spend some time each day visualising them in this way as if they were already done and mentally celebrate as if it were done!

The answer lies in the EMPOWERing question!

Trine Pedersen, Mind Coach and Trainer

Trine has lived and worked across Europe, Africa and Asia over the last 20 years. She is an internationally certified NLP (Neuro Lingustic Programming) Trainer, Coach and Master Practitioner and also an internationally certified Hypnotherapist. She is associated to www.nolimitsasia.com as a trainer and senior consultant. She has also worked as a Mind Coach for the Indonesian National Swim Team. She is a SVASTHA yoga therapist instructor and sees great benefits in developing a flexible body and mind to handle the stresses in our lives. She holds a MA in Political Science.

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE THAT IS HOLDING YOU BACK IN LIFE?
Trine offers mind coaching sessions which is suited to the particular situation of the individual. Mind coaching is for any individual who wants to work on any aspect of their life; family or career. She also offers “one to one” or small group yoga therapy sessions with a focus on the connection between body,
breath and mind.  

The answer lies in the EMPOWERing question! By Trine Pedersen
"The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live."
Joan Borysenko

Would you like to live an empowered life? Wouldn’t it be great to go from a stressed, upset or angry state to feeling confident and positive? In the following I will let you in on a secret that empowered people know.     

One of the secrets to living a more empowered life is to ask EMPOWERing questions that brings you forward in life. Simple changes of the words you habitually use could literally change your life. This is one area all happy and successful people have in common. In a critical moment, this can be the make or break question.  Consider the question: “Why do I always make a fool of myself”?  Compare it to “What can I do differently next time?” Do you notice the difference? Two questions about the same situation, and one is much more empowering than the other. Asking a “why“question frequently brings out excuses, justifications and explanations, it often confines us to the past. A classic is:”Why did you not do your homework?” Every parent knows that there will be plenty of excuses. Another question that also might be familiar to some of us is: “Why do you never listen to me”?  

EMPOWERing questions bring you forward!  They offer you solutions. One important process of our unconscious mind is to come up with answers to our own or other peoples’ questions.  The mind is wired that way. If we don’t know the answer to something, it might pop up hours or even days later. Our unconscious mind has been hard at work. We constantly ask ourselves questions, consciously and unconsciously. Those questions will immediately change our focus and subsequently what we feel, so it is very important to ask the right question. If we ask ourselves negative questions, we will get negative answers. If you ask yourself “What did I do wrong, or why does this always happen to me?” The response will be negative. The answer will focus on what you did wrong, not on what you can do to change it. If you focus on “How can I change this to the positive”, the answer will be solution oriented.

Good EMPOWERing questions could start with What or How.
 What (What did I learn from this? What sort of feedback did this give me? What am I willing to do to reach my goal of..... ? What can I do now to change this? What am I grateful for?).  How (How can I turn this around?) How can I do it differently next time? How does this help me? How can I reach my goals?) The secret is to ask yourself EMPOWERING questions which make your mind focus on the solutions to your issues. It is a great tool to bear in mind if you get stuck in a discussion at home or at work. It takes you from an un-resourceful state to an EMPOWERed state of mind. Give it a go!

Exercise: Notice the times you ask yourself or others a”Why-question”.  How could you re-phrase it to make it an EMPOWERing question

What are NLP Representational Systems?

This perspective on Representational Systems is pulled together and adapted from multiple sources.

Representational Systems

Representational systems are sometimes also known as sensory modalities. This model examines how the human mind both takes in data and then processes information.

Information can be treated as if it is processed through the senses when taken in and then internally analysed, coded and stored in ways that can be understood in terms of sensory representation.

Consider that within your mind you may ‘talk to yourself’, an internal auditory experience; visualise or dream something in pictures, an internal visual representation; we also have feelings and emotions which are considered a kinaesthetic sense.

Clearly there are five possible sensory modalities and in NLP these are known as VAKOG. (Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic, Olfactory, Gustatory).

In early studies it was observed that smell and taste are rarely used in processing information and storing and coding data, with the exception of the association of certain powerful memories, especially related to smell. For practical purposes the representation system model was reduced to three components V-A-K.

Subsequently a further distinction was made between two types of auditory processing and sensing. There is the processing and coding of information in the form of imagined sounds which is pure auditory (A) and then there is the processing of data by talking to oneself internally, known as internal dialogue or ‘ID’ (sometimes represented as A^ID). The representation system model becomes V-A-K-ID and this is referred to as the 4-tuple in NLP.

 

Preferred Representational System

Originally it was asserted that individuals preferred one representation system over another and the idea of the ‘preferred representation system’ (PRS) was developed, classifying individuals as visual, auditory or kinaesthetic thinkers. This concept was widely used in the development of educational theories in the late 1970’s on different learning styles and is still used today, the most well known theory is know as the Dunn & Dunn model, developed in 1978.

Extensive research in the 1980’s has established a more subtle distinction in the difference between the process of taking in information and of internally processing and coding information.  For internal processes, individuals have been found to use all representation systems to varying degrees and no single sense preferences are observed. The processes used are dependant on the situation and the individual’s specific mental processes or strategies in use moment to moment.

The concept of preferred representation still exists and is now related exclusively to the process of taking in data. Thus individuals are still considered to have a PRS for receiving information, however not for thinking with uses multiple representations naturally and easily.

The Complete Representation System Model

A further distinction is made in the internal representations for Visual and Auditory in that these representations can be both constructed or remembered. For example you may visually remember the picture of someone’s face in your mind and remember the sound of the words you heard them saying, thus visually remembered, V^r and auditory remembered, A^r. Equally you may build up a picture of something in your mind and imagine what something looks and sounds like that you have never seen or experienced before, thus visually constructed V^c and auditory constructed A^c.

 

Uses of the Model

An awareness of representation systems can be used in pacing and leading cues to build rapport and improve communication. This is especially important in relation to the use of preferred representation systems for taking in data.

You may hear someone say “show me the data” (visual) or, alternatively ‘tell me about it” (auditory), or even “walk me through the report” (kinaesthetic). It is important for understanding to adapt the presentation of information to match an individual’s preferred way of receiving data.

 

Representational systems are also relevant where some tasks are better performed within one representation system or another. For example, in education, spelling is often learned best by children who have unconsciously developed a strategy of visualising words rather than phonetically ‘sounding out’. When taught to visualise words, previously poor spellers can improve.

This is an example of the use of representation systems in modelling and applying different mental strategies. The way in which someone does or thinks something can be modelled as a series of external and internal representations. It is possible to elicit a person’s strategy in this way as well as then change or copy the strategy as required.

Adapted from a Wikipedia version, this example how might someone process replying to the question “Which dress do you think will look best on me?” when shown two possible dresses, one person’s strategy could be:

Step	Activity	Notation	What it is being used for.
1	Auditory external	Ae	Hear the question
2	Visual external	Ve	Look at the dress 1.
3	Visual constructed	Vc	Create a mental image of the person wearing the dress
4	Kinaesthetic internal	Ki	Get a feeling from looking at the image
5	Auditory internal dialogue	ID	Ask yourself “do I like that feeling?”
6		Ve - Vc - Ki – ID	Repeat steps 2-5, for dress 2
7	Auditory constructed	Ac	Create an answer to the question
8	Auditory remembered	Ar	Remember the verbal response to previous uses of this answer
9	Kinaesthetic internal	Ki	Remember the feeling of that response
10	Auditory internal dialogue	ID	Ask yourself “do I like that feeling?”
11	Auditory constructed	Ac	Modify the answer accordingly
12	Auditory external	Ae	Reply

 

If a given strategy for one person is effective it can be used by others, alternatively an ineffective strategy can be modified either by modifying individual steps, testing alternative approaches or, eliciting and operating other people’s strategies.

Note that the steps in a strategy occur extremely fast and often out of conscious awareness and often skilled observation and careful inquiry is required for the steps to become apparent to the person concerned.

Steve Jobs 12 Rules of Success

Found this in my documents the other day; not sure where it came from; still highly relevant at all times, especially in the current climate.....

Steve Jobs 12 Rules for Success

1. Do what you love to do. Find your true passion. Do what you love to do a make a difference! The only way to do great work is to love what you do.
   
2. Be different. Think different. "Better be a pirate than to join the navy."
3. Do your best. Do your best at every job. No sleep! Success generates more success. So be hungry for it. Hire good people with passion for excellence.
4. Make SWOT analysis. As soon as you join/start a company, make a list of strengths and weaknesses of yourself and your company on a piece of paper. Don't hesitate in throwing bad apples out of the company.
5. Be entrepreneurial. Look for the next big thing. Find a set of ideas that need to be quickly and decisively acted upon and jump through that window. Sometimes the first step is the hardest one. Just take it! Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
6. Start small, think big. Don't worry about too many things at once. Take a handful of simple things to begin with, and then progress to more complex ones. Think about not just tomorrow, but the future. "I want to put a ding in the universe”.
7. Strive to become a market leader. Own and control the primary technology in everything you do. If there's a better technology available, use it no matter if anyone else is not using it. Be the first, and make it an industry standard.
8. Focus on the outcome. People judge you by your performance, so focus on the outcome. Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected. Advertise. If they don't know it, they won't buy your product. Pay attention to design. "We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them." "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
9. Ask for feedback. Ask for feedback from people with diverse backgrounds. Each one will tell you one useful thing. If you're at the top of the chain, sometimes people won't give you honest feedback because they're afraid. In this case, disguise yourself, or get feedback from other sources. Focus on those who will use your product – listen to your customers first.
10. Innovate. Innovation distinguishes a leader from a follower. Delegate, let other top executives do 50% of your routine work to be able to spend 50% your time on the new stuff. Say no to 1,000 things to make sure you don't get on the wrong track or try to do too much. Concentrate on really important creations and radical innovation. Hire people who want to make the best things in the world. You need a very product-oriented culture, even in a technology company. Lots of companies have tons of great engineers and smart people. But ultimately, there needs to be some gravitational force that pulls it all together.
11. Learn from failures. Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.
12. Learn continually. There's always "one more thing" to learn! Cross-pollinate ideas with others both within and outside your company. Learn from customers, competitors and partners. If you partner with someone whom you don't like, learn to like them – praise them and benefit from them. Learn to criticize your enemies openly, but honestly.