Coaching Wizardry

Modal operators are language patterns that set rules.  They are classed as generalisations in the Meta Model - because we generalise out from one experience to generate a rule ("I must" or "I can’t)

Modal operators of possibility set rules about what’s possible. 

A limiting pattern would be when we use them in the negative. 

"I can’t" or "I just couldn’t"

You might challenge these ‘rules’ by asking questions like:

"What would happen if you did?" or "what’s stopping you" or "just suppose you could…"

Model operators of necessity set rules about what’s necessary. 

A limiting pattern might be when they become burdensome, when someone is telling themselves they ‘have’ to do something even if they don’t want to or it’s not in their best interest.

"I must do" "I have to" "I should"

You might challenge these ‘rules’ by asking questions like:

"What would happen if you didn’t?" "Just suppose you didn’t have to, what would that be like?"

This allows people to identify a different set of possibilities outwith the confines of the ‘rule’.

The Meta Model is a set of language patterns, and questions that reconnect the deletions, distortions and generalisations with the experience that generated them.  (We all use filter systems of deletion, distortion and generalisation in order to make sense of the mass of information that we receive from our senses.) 

NLP Practitioners and therapists use the Meta Model both to spot language patterns, and to ask questions that help to move someone beyond the words, back to the experience that created them.  That might be about gathering more information, clarifying meaning, challenging generalisations to identify limitations, and generating choices.

What does a teardrop mean to you?  It might conjure up an image or a feeling - sadness, perhaps, or tears of joy.  You might associate it with the sounds of someone crying (or laughing!)

But a teardrop has no absolute meaning, no meaning in itself.  The meaning we attach to it comes from the context - the surrounding frame.  Consider these different frames for teardrops:

• The flood of tears on chopping an onion
• Weeping, softly, silently, in the quiet of an empty room
• Tears of sorrow at saying goodbye to someone who is leaving for ever
• Tears of joy when you see someone you thought was lost
• Crying with laughter at a comedy show
• Emotions washing over us at the birth of a child
• A baby crying with hunger, frustration and fury
• The sting of tears when we read a beautiful poem
• Eyes watering on a windswept walk along a cliff

The context provides the frame, and the meaning.  But often we imagine what the context is and come up with our own frames, often out of habit (for example always assuming the worst - or the best!) But those frames won’t always show us the whole picture.  They might well be different to the frames that other people use (and that can lead to a good deal of misunderstanding).  They might be frames that do not allow us to feel resourceful, or to recognise that we have choices.

Becoming more aware of frames allows us to:

• see things from a different perspective - or many perspectives
• see things from another point of view
• try out new frames that will make us feel more resourceful, and give us new choices

Pacing and leading are closely related to the concept of rapport.  Pacing involves ‘matching’ someone for a while (going at their pace) until you have gained enough rapport that when you slowly start to change what you are doing (leading) the individual will follow.

Pacing and leading depend on the quality of rapport that you have build up.  If you go too fast or move too abruptly you will break rapport.  (When that happens you will need to ‘go back’ and pace them again.) 

Some people are uncomfortable with the idea of ‘leading’, as if it is manipulative or controlling.  But you will not be able to create rapport, to enter into that relationship with someone, if you doing it with an intention to control: remember rapport is a two-way street, a relationship between people, and that by pacing someone (in order to lead) you are in effect joining someone else’s reality, their map of the world.  You can only do this effectively by respecting their model of the world (another of the presuppositions of NLP).

A really simple way to think about pacing and leading (and again I am grateful to Joseph O’Connor for the metaphor) is to imagine that you are walking alongside someone.  If you are walking too fast they will have to hurry to keep up, too slow and they’ll feel like they’re dawdling.  Either way they’re the ones who are having to make the effort. 

If you want to change someone’s speed the first thing you need to do is walk alongside them at their pace for a while.  That is you matching what they are doing (in terms of speed, physiology and so on) but a deeper level you are signalling respect for their model of the world, and a willingness to enter into it.

Then, once you have rapport, change your pace to one that suits you better and they will be more likely to speed up or slow down… in a totally natural way.

Rapport is fundamental to all coaching and NLP.  The thesaurus definition of rapport is:

• a relation of mutual understanding or trust and agreement between people
• a feeling of sympathetic understanding
• sympathetic compatibility

I’d highlight a few important words from that definition:

Relation… between people. It’s not something one person ‘does’ to another.  It exists between people.

Trust. Rapport is connected to but not the same as trust.  Rapport can be built (and lost) quickly.  Trust takes time.

Feeling. There’s often a ‘feeling’ of connection with someone - but you might not be able to put your finger on why, or how

So rapport is all about the relationship between people.  Although there are things that you can do to build rapport you cannot manipulate another person into feeling it.  To build rapport you also need to let yourself
be open to influence - and to respect the other person that you are communicating with.

You can create rapport by relating to people in a way that creates a climate of trust and understanding.  Although we can learn ways to build and create rapport it is important to remember that rapport is natural.  It is integral to human communication.

As Joseph O’Connor reminds us: “we do not need to create it as much as stop doing what could be preventing it…”