​The meaning of NLP is simple. It is an epistemology – a model of how we know what we know. How do you know that you
like something or dislike something? How do you know that something like a bill you have paid is in the past or an unpaid bill is something in the future? Neuro linguistic programming is a jigsaw puzzle of your mind. It teaches you where information is stored and how to retrieve it easily. It also contains the methodology of eradicating negativity fast and permanently…

In one of my earlier blogs “What is NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming)?” I defined NLP as an epistemology – a model of how we know what we know. Many people ask “is it beneficial to learn NLP?” As human beings we think and feel then apply language to our actions. These produce results in our lives whether in our career or family contexts. So just imagine if you knew how to change your thoughts and feelings? And if you had language models to influence others? Wouldn’t these produce amazing results in your life?

Well this is what NLP Training does. I teach you models that produce accelerated outcomes, ones that high performers use to achieve outstanding performance. And why wouldn’t it? After all NLP was created by two geniuses in the late 70’s. Co-founded by a Professor of Linguistics, Dr. John Grinder and a computer scientist, Richard Bandler, I had the pleasure of meeting them both on many occasions. I wanted to learn NLP from the masters themselves! So you may be wondering what NLP stands for?

Neuro
We process our experience through the five senses – what we see, hear, feel, taste and smell. Our filtering through values
and beliefs for instance differs from one person to another. We capture and store these experiences.

Linguistic​
We then assign our own meaning to the data we have received and apply verbal and non-verbal language to what we have
captured above in the five senses.

Programming
Our unconscious mind works in patterns which we call habits – good and bad. We are programmed emotionally from young.
We are able to change/break these patterns and install new ones that produce better results.

NLP consists of more than 100 processes, each one for a specific problem. It caters to every type of issue found in a person’s life. Whether it is resolving team conflict, deepening rapport with friends, managing a state of mind to achieve personal goals or understanding how values drive motivation, there is a process for it. The first level of an NLP course that is certified, is the NLP Practitioner program. It starts off by helping to shift mindsets and work with context rather than content.

This migration to resolve issues out of the content of an experience creates accelerated results. We do not need to ask WHY, WHO, WHAT, WHEN or WHERE an experience occurred. For example, if you know the language of influence and use its structure to negotiate a sale or engage your child in a conversation, just imagine the stress you could ooad at the workplace or home.

When an organisation views NLP training as an investment it is an awesome step in re-directing the mindset of employees towards the corporate mission. This leads to clearer and transparent communication which harnesses engagement and ultimately higher bottom line results. It is worth every dollar spent for everyone in the organisation tolearn NLP. Which corporate wouldn’t want such a return on investment? I have seen successful companies get their money’s worth signing up for an NLP course in the following ways:

They invest in upgrading employee skills during downtime, prepared to hit the ground running when good times come around again. It is highly recommended that the NLP program be rolled out over several months to allow employees time to assimilate knowledge learnt and integrate application in small chunks. They launch a corporate wide NLP course to create a common language that opens up communication and transparency.

Here are three major reasons why an NLP program is worth much more than the corporate’s initial investment:

1. Mindset shifts create a healthier culture of working with context and this leads to happier people who take charge. This reduces hours lost in sick leave, conflict resolution and demotivated staff who drag their feet getting things done. A case in point is the CEO who hired me to “make his people happy”. He felt that if his people were happy at work and at home, the rest would fall in place. It was a win-win situation all round. Within 6 months of conducting the NLP program, bottom line results started to spike and once the momentum began, there was no turning back.
   
2. The current workplace scenario not only requires producing exceptional performance but more importantly to behaviour and motivate your team to greater outcomes. An NLP course gives you the tools for effectiveness. NLP training would first teach you to identify the leverage points for making behaviour change. This sets the stage to solve problems and improve team effectiveness fast, working within the context of a person’s experience rather than getting into an endless “he said, she said” altercation.
3. Improving sales is at the heart of business generation and this is why many organisations who sign up for an NLP course always start with their sales force. When the sales force is put through the steps of learning how to build rapport, match language, negotiate effectively and motivate clients there’s no stopping the upward sales curve. Ideally, I would recommend that you learn NLP face-to-face but in the current Covid scenario I’ve changed my format to an NLP online course, blending components of pre-study in audio and book formats plus face-to- face, to pull it all together.
   

I find that this has its advantages too, allowing participants to learn through different styles by engaging in all their five senses. There are myriad reasons why an NLP training is well worth the time and money invested in it. With such a range of processes at your disposal there will always be a solution for any problem in your organisation. An organisation is only as good as its people. Take care of the people and the rest will fall in place.

​Knowing that NLP training is an effective way to empower people in your organisation to solve problems and perform at their optimum level, doesn’t it make sense to pave the way for them?

​Following on from our blog about how to solve problems with Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), a common corporate application is to model high performers. After all, the entire body of knowledge that is called NLP today, emerged from modelling high performers in the field of psychotherapy.
 
Today, we need to think different. We need to understand context of the environment we are in, the players we are up against and the resources needed to achieve our Vision.
 
Whether in an organisation or personally, the ability to extract “excellence strategies” from a high performer with a view to transference to the team, is fundamental to success.
 
Wouldn’t every senior leader want this? Isn’t this something a parent could teach their child?
 
Setting ourselves apart from the masses is the key. Eliciting internal strategies of high performers is knowledge that most do not have. An NLP Practitioner Certification course is the starting point to learn the ropes.
 
A lady in one of my programs found she had no internal dialogue when she was ready to close a deal. She was a high performer in sales. Others in the sales team elicited their closing strategies and realised that they could eliminate this aspect of what they did.
 
True to form, team performance elevated to greater heights as soon as some of them amended their internal strategies. It was only one step that needed a change.
 
Many said it was unbelievable. They wished they had learnt it before. Wouldn’t you want the same for your teams?
 

​Post-Covid 19 Approach

​1. Structure
It is ever so important to learn structure of anything you would like to master. To understand how the mind works is an essential part of progress, for this is where you replicate your talent to others in the workplace.

What do I mean by structure? At an NLP for success at work course, you will learn the art of delivering a message. It isn’t only in the words that you use, in fact the right tonality gives way to a far better outcome.

This is only one side of effective communication in the workplace.

2. Listening power
The other large component is listening power. We have two ears and one mouth to be used in that proportion.

Listen for what is not being said, to diagnose communication problems in the workplace. Often the problem lies beneath the surface and needs to be unravelled, for a solutions-focused approach.

3. Exercise professionalism
In the years that I was an employee working in large corporates, I had a very strong philosophy of leaving my personal and professional life separate.

This continued into my years as an entrepreneur and I am the better for it. I built credibility and colleagues took me seriously. The NLP for success at work course helped me tremendously in tweaking my style of communication to suit the people I was interacting with.

4. Keep the face-to-face meetings
We are human at the end of the day and we need socialisation. With most of our communication now online, we must realise that many communication problems in the workplace stem from this.

If you have the authority to call the shots, decide to bring your team in to the office, at least once or twice a week. This human connection accounts for a lot and reinforces team members’ sense of belonging.

​5. Transparency is key
The last thing you want is for your team to find out about something relevant to them, before you have updated them. If you keep communication rolling, the open nature of downloads will deepen belief in you and the system in place.

Trust is then installed and this is probably the ultimate aim of achieving effective communication in the workplace. Once you have established this, you have everything.

6. Feedback loop
Ensure that the feedback loop is active and works. In many ways your ability to learn is based on receiving feedback. Living in a silo where you are not connecting or communicating with others will make you myopic and unable to relate to others.

Ego and stubborn headedness are also setbacks to effective communication in the workplace. There is no value in this, as colleagues disengage from you and problems like conflict begin to sow their seeds.

You will find many NLP online courses in the marketplace today. Simply put, I would recommend you go for any NLP-based course as the tools you learn will blow your mind away.

Regardless of role in the company, these tools will help you resolve communication problems at work. Highly applicable to the workplace, you will be able to use them immediately.

Sylvia Fernandes is the Founder & CEO of VIA Frontiers. She is a Master Trainer of NLP who is specialised in corporate applications. She started her business in Sydney in 2002 and has been operating in the Asia Pacific Region ever since. She is currently based in Singapore. She is also the author of Bye Bye Black Cat -- Turn Your Luck Around and Realise Opportunities. Visit VIA Frontiers for more information.

Rapid success coaching emerged as a by-product of more than 30 years-experience in changing and aligning organisational cultures. The one thing organisations yearned for was change in a short timeframe.
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As I worked through organisations in a top-down approach, I had the opportunity to understand how I could mesh processes within the Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) toolbox to create more impactful results. The Rapid Success Coaching model was brewing within me.
 
I observed how employees turned around fast, given a few self-management tools. Like catching a tiger by its tail, managers found their teams flew to accelerated results. What underpinned this rapid transformation?
 
I spoke to participants who met with this success. They were animated and eloquent in explaining their internal unblocking experience and were quick to add that NLP processes were at the source of this change.
 
Little did they know that there were other modalities that I was working with too, that they were not aware of. I was adding to the Rapid Success Coaching model which essentially targets self-management.
 
As a change facilitator my objective was to help individuals, departments and organisations make a change…..as graciously as possible, whatever it took. Most organisations were time poor. They were on the search for fast results.
 
Being a quick processor myself, I had the methodology to empower leaders, coach managers and mobilise teams to higher levels of performance. And so Rapid Success Coaching using rapid success technology was born.
 
More and more, leaders realised they needed help. Most worried and shied away from coaching in the beginning as they were concerned with having to divulge private and personal information.
 
However, when informed that these self-management tools comprised a toolbox of facilitated processes like visualising and meditating, they were put at ease. In so many instances, leaders shared at the end of sessions how much they looked forward to the next one.
 
When you master NLP as a coach and are able to use this as a fundamental transformation pillar, then add unique talents and expertise to the brew, this produces magic. The trick is to stay out of content which is noisy and only serves to distract from the issue at hand.
 
As I worked through the context of a person’s experience, they knew what needed to be changed so they made the necessary changes. For instance, one leader felt his hands would involuntarily shake as he presented at the lectern.
 
In a few processes he eradicated this and couldn’t imagine he had lived with that all his life. In fact that also led to other wonderful side effects like restful sleep at night and a feeling of relaxation, something he had not experienced in a long time.
 
Hard to believe and feeling incredulous at the results he had achieved, this was the door that opened him to master NLP. In so many cases as Rapid Success Coaching goes beyond the boundaries of one’s mind, it has to be experienced to be believed.
 

Workplace conflict is normal. In fact, arguments, disagreements and misunderstandings are to be expected when you put a group of people together in any context. It’s all part of communication problems at work or life for that matter. 

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Of course, it’s also normal that we find conflict rather unpleasant and seek to avoid it as far as possible. But that’s being unrealistic. Rather than wish for no arguments, it’s more helpful to accept that conflict will occur now and again. How you handle it, is what matters more. 

The good news is learning how to resolve conflict in the workplace gives us tools which become handy in our personal lives too. It is valuable to look at conflicts or arguments as useful and as a sign of engagement. It shows that people care.

That’s a positive sign compared to apathy, where people feel anything goes. It is also an opportunity to improve teamwork in the workplace.  It would augur well to equip yourself with some techniques on how to be a good team leader. This will boost confidence with the team and reduce stress when conflict arises. 

Here are four ways to improve communication problems at work: 

1. Content Reframing

​This is a very efficient technique to apply when you feel stuck in an argument. I’m sure you recall moments of digging in and standing your ground, not wanting to give in, feeling so strongly about whatever ideology you believed in. 

Reframing will empower you by changing the meaning of the argument into something useful. It’s natural to become defensive when you’re in the thick of an argument but this just blows it out of proportion.

It’s more useful to shift your focus. It helps clear the head and resolve conflict in the workplace faster. For example, if your team is arguing about the approach to be taken for a particular project. 

2. Build Rapport
The world revolves around relationships, at work, at home or in social settings. Lack of communication is the root cause of most communication problems at work. 

The feeling of being on the same wavelength with someone is called rapport. When you’re in rapport with co-workers there is mutual understanding, trust and empathy. Communication is made easy.

Wouldn’t it be great to learn how to resolve conflict in the workplace? Then, build better relationships? People who attend NLP for work courses often report that they see a significant improvement in this area, not just at work but in their personal lives too!

Having empathy for your colleagues and understanding their position enables you to see other perspectives. Participants in my NLP program never fail to be amazed by the immediate shift they experience by stepping into another’s shoes. 

You can resolve conflict in the workplace by learning how to read non-verbal communication cues from the person you are communicating with. A hint is to look for what they are doing rather than what they are saying. It is observing unconscious actions that will boost your skills and set you up for success on how to be a good team leader. 


3. Manage Your Emotions

An NLP for work program will set you up for life. It will teach you one of the most powerful tools, i.e. how to be well-versed with managing your emotional state. And being knowledgeable about how other peoples’ emotions work. 

For example, when you are faced with an angry colleague or boss and you fly off the handle too, the situation will surely go downhill. The intelligent alternative is to acknowledge his or her emotion and then respond with empathy.

Anger is just an expression of some other issue - fear, perceived injustice or lack of rapport, contribute to communication problems at work. So, before you react, step into their world, understand where they are coming from and then respond.   

When you respect your co-workers view of life, which is probably different to yours, arguments are significantly reduced. 

4. Listen Actively

Listening actively is an invaluable skill in any situation, be it professional or personal. It establishes rapport and reveals what the other person needs which helps improve teamwork in the workplace.

For example, dealing with a team that argues all the time can be challenging. It’s a sign of serious communication problems at work. It’s crucial to give team members the time and space to vent their frustration, disappointment or unhappiness.

One way of learning how to be a good team leader is to provide them a safe outlet to freely express their feelings. It’s important not to interrupt them. Or worse, listen with the intention of rebutting what they’re saying.

Nod at appropriate moments to indicate you understand what they’re saying. This gives them the assurance that you’re listening. And finally, ask questions to clarify anything you don’t understand after they have fully explained a problem.

In conclusion, every working person finds themselves in an argument now and then. Disagreements are part and parcel of the workplace. But we have choices too. We can learn how to resolve conflict in the workplace faster and more efficiently, by attending an NLP for work program.

You can go a step further and even learn to reduce arguments through clearer communication with the people in your life. Learning to navigate the minefield of human interaction will certainly make life smoother all around. This is one of the major benefits of NLP for work.

​Signing up for an NLP for work program is a life changing experience. Why live in fear of arguments at work? Empower yourself and your teams with tools to build rapport and manage emotions with the right NLP training! 
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