A client recently came to us looking especially weary. He was tired of having to motivate his employees. “Why can’t they be self-motivated?” he asked, frustrated.
 
Frankly, that is a question many leaders ask. However, instead of lamenting your employees lack of motivation, take steps to solve the problem. If a large number of your employees are waiting for your cue to perform better you probably have unresolved fundamental issues.
 
Moreover, you’re probably suffering from burnout from having to constantly propel your employees to action while managing other responsibilities. Clearly, this makes for an unhealthy work environment.
 
The solution lies in going back to basics. Start with these steps:
 
Elevate your employees’ mental states for purposeful execution of roles
 
Ask yourself why your employees are unmotivated. Chances are, they don’t feel as if they have a stake in the organisation’s success. This requires you to discover each person’s career objectives and aspirations. Once you’ve identified these, align them with the organisation’s goals. Being able to show congruence in terms of purpose will go a long way towards motivating employees and sustaining their motivation.
 
Connecting individual purpose with organisational purpose takes skill.
 
Firstly, break down your possibly lofty organisational purpose into actions that will make the purpose achievable. Too abstract a purpose can cause people to disengage.
 
Secondly, ask employees to think about the following questions:

1. What do I care about?
2. What am I skilled at?
3. Based on the answers to #1 and #2, how can I serve the organisation’s purpose on a day-to-day basis?
4. How does that fit with my own purpose?

Doing such an exercise will enable people to be self-motivated without the need for daily pep talks.

Cultivate healthier professional relationships to engender psychological safety
 
Many organisations engage in personality profiling, but most don’t use results from such tests constructively. The goal should be to meet people where they are, then take them on a journey to fulfil both their goals and the organisation’s goals.
 
In order to meet people where they are, leaders have to be skilled at building rapport and listening, among other things. Do you allow your employees to speak honestly without repercussions? Do you allow them to make mistakes and learn from them without career-destroying consequences?
 
Cultivating an environment where people feel psychologically safe not only elevates mental health and working relationships, but also performance. If people can be honest about problems, solving them becomes easier. They’ll feel like they have a stake in the organisation and can lead change even as individual contributors.
 

​Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) is an epistemology, a model of how we know what we know. Co-founded by a Professor of Linguistics, Dr. John Grinder and a computer scientist, Richard Bandler in the late 70’s, NLP was discovered through observing high performers in the field of psychotherapy.
 
Consisting of more than a hundred processes, each geared towards a specific type of problem, NLP began to gain traction from people in other industries. Today it is used in corporates to resolve conflict, deepen rapport, manage states of mind and more. 

At an organisation level, NLP is used to align cultures, heighten motivation and build high performing teams. As the CEO of an organisation, wouldn’t you like to spike the performance of your teams? 

This could only happen if you understood behaviour. As Aubrey Daniels (the man who coined the term Performance Management) so rightly said, “Business is behaviour and behaviour is business.” In order to get the most out of your people, you need to know what makes them tick. 

The gold nugget in all this is that you don’t need to become a psychotherapist to do this. NLP provides a series of models that are based on how human beings use the five senses to experience life. 

Designed with process in mind, engineers, IT programmers and other process-oriented industries would take to this like a duck to water. As Grinder & Bandler observed how three psychotherapists were ahead of their counterparts, they coded and structured their findings in a simple-to-use model called NLP.

Today, learning NLP is merely signing up for a course to attain these processes. Conducted in a fun but intense seven days, these international certification courses can be found globally. 

In following blogs I will detail some applications that are most useful to individuals and organisations. 

The holy grail for every organization seems to be a chase to increase productivity in the workplace. It isn’t rocket science that creating effective people is directly correlated to the level of happiness an individual may feel about their job. 

“Our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are but we are responsible for who we become” – Barbara Geraci
 
This quote signifies my motto in life. Since reinventing myself from a career banker to an NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) Trainer, I have taken charge of my life by learning about my unconscious mind and making it work for me.
 
Tapping into my unconscious mind was not a deliberate strategy on my part. Life just took me towards a path of personal growth. I first joined courses that were based on conscious mind strategies. Important to get the ball rolling and then go beyond to the more powerful mind.
 
The unconscious mind influences our behaviors, decisions and abilities but most often since people are unaware of this way of being, operate below what they could achieve.
 
My unconscious mind which helped me access hidden thoughts, feelings, and motivations was a new world. I embarked on meditation practices initially through guided imagery, learning about the visuals I was creating in my mind. 
 
Then went on to 10 day Vipassana meditation retreats to understand myself better. While accessing deeper realms of my mind, I began to become aware of my dreams, many of which were messages about my future Life’s Path.
 
One thing led to another. I was drawn to dance and art, expressions of my creative brain, exploring and harnessing the potential of my unconscious mind. I loved every moment of these new parts of ME.
 
Yoga became part of my weekly practice and out of curiosity, I attended classes on Tarot Reading, Astrology, Palmistry and more. I felt a calling to learn and eventually my Path settled on NLP.
 
Having found my calling, I soared to high performance without trying. I loved what I did. I had become a facilitator of change, pulling all of my vast experience together from my beginnings in corporate.
 
My heart sang in doing this work even though it was long hours of consulting, working with clients to get the desired outcomes.
 
Today, I urge everyone to attend whatever makes your heart sing. Become the person you want to be by upskilling your talents and moving towards your strengths. Allow yourself this bandwidth to find meaning in your life. 
 
High performance will just follow! 

“Don’t think of a pink elephant!” was my instruction to the audience in front of me, as I began teaching the language segment of my class. They burst out laughing. I knew they had done just the opposite. Most of them had a visual of pink elephants in their head. I had captured their attention.
 
Carrying on, I explained that the unconscious mind could not process negatives. Words like don’t, can’t, won’t and so on, were deleted internally because the unconscious mind processes through the five senses. What we see, hear, feel, taste and smell in our daily experience is stored this way.
 
Having trained people from all walks of life to understand how they operate, I am super alert to language used around me. Let me share a recent example that occurred a few weeks ago.
 
I lawn bowl in my free time. As the National tournaments commenced I was pitched against an 11 year old in one of my matches. She was a first timer so I knew the pressure of bowling in a competition of adults, would be mounting within her though she was adamant she would be ok.
 
Halfway through our match she burst into tears sobbing at the edge of the Green. I waited patiently while her mum and coach began to get her out of this negative state.
 
I heard negative language like “stop crying” which made me cringe. They were focusing her on crying and so obviously, she carried on. I couldn’t intervene (as with most times when I observe people using negative language) since I was her opponent.
 
I hear parents speak to their children so much in this way not knowing they are installing exactly what they do not want. It’s more effective to say it the way you want it;
 
- “focus on the game”
- “you have already won the first set”
- “the game can turn from one second to another”
 
A simple awakening to a small aspect of language has the potential to change your life. Responses will begin to emerge as positive and you are far closer to the outcome that you desire.
 
Try it and observe. These are simple processes in the Neuro Linguistic Programming toolbox that can change your life around immediately. 

​For Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) Practitioners such as myself, the Covid-19 Pandemic did us a humongous favour. It shone the spotlight on mental health, a subject seen as “nice to have” rather than a necessity. Escalated in importance overnight, as the Pandemic swept through the world with its witch’s broom, we realised globally that it wasn’t only our physical health that was under threat. 

Most people answer NO to this question and yet it is the driver that stores our thoughts, feelings and memories. The key point here is that like a hard drive on our computer, it processes everything that is outside our conscious awareness which significantly influences behavior.
 
The biggest domain of our unconscious mind is to protect us. In doing so, it represses memories and emotions so traumatic experiences don’t surface.
 
These are too painful or disturbing for the conscious mind to handle however repressing them does not mean they have been eradicated. In fact to the contrary, these unresolved emotions such as fear, anger, guilt and sadness are very much driving the individual.
 
This is why many people believe that they are born a certain way and have no control over their emotions. I often hear “oh this runs in our family”. But this is a myth.
 
You can change patterns of behaviour by understanding the unconscious mind, as all change occurs in the unconscious.  
 
So imagine if you could master through Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), the methodology to get rid of conditioned emotional and behavioral responses? How cool would that be?
 
For instance, breaking the pattern of flinching at the tonality of your boss because he resembles your father’s tonality, who you never got along with. Often people who have never delved into learning about their unconscious mind, are unaware of their behaviours.
 
Why do I like / dislike this person so much? Is it a matter of the look they have that reminds me of someone in my past? Instinctive reactions and intuitive judgments often arise from unconscious processing of information and past experiences like these.
 
This is how individuals can help themselves achieve more in life. Eradicating phobias and irrational fears which are rooted in unconscious memories and associations, leave them to create a life that they yearn for.
 
NLP has more than a hundred processes in its toolbox, each designed to attend to either removing past negativity and once done, to create a life that the individual desires.
 
This is where true transformation lies!

I am not sure if you have noticed but the number of books written on trust in the organization has risen. “Wanting it to go back to the good old days when employees’ welfare was taken into account?” My hand is raised.
 
As an entrepreneur and consultant today, I feel sustainability in senior positions rests on the laurels of people who are kind and considerate. Believing that everyone has contributed to the end outcome is valid.
 
A story that comes to mind. A close friend I visited recently in the U.S. related that when she invented / innovated good products for the organization, it was with the support of everyone in the team.
 
Hence their names appeared on the project success not just hers. She ensured that everyone along the way was acknowledged. This to me served her well for it encouraged the team to continue doing as much as they could to win yet another award.
 
What stops organizations from thinking this way then? Nothing but the ego of people involved. While it is great to have ego strength for purposes of pushing back in one’s self-defense, it is also imperative that ego is left behind.
 
Ego-driven leaders speak in the language of “me, myself, I”, obvious to the listener. Employees turn the other way from these types of leaders knowing they will not be rewarded or reinforced for their support.
 
One of the global trends today, is sustainability. Whatever we do it has to be workable in the long run, stable in process to produce good results over time. I urge leaders of organizations, families and teams to understand this simple strategy.
 
Step aside and let it not be about you. Trust will naturally install itself in the system and you will stand to gain the benefits of this.    

​My recent trip to Lisbon began at the check-in counter. Computer terminals were not working as a check-in staff hopped from one to another, hoping for better luck. Her frustration was mounting as she raced against time.
 
I was glad when she looked up and beckoned to me. Pushing my heavy-laden trolley forward, I began to step into her world. It was a bad start to her morning.
Speaking in a tone, rhythm and speed similar to her, I began to build rapport, a fundamental Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) technique.
 
This relaxed her. She felt I was familiar which gave her the focus she needed to get her job done fast. I was carrying 61kg of personal belongings for a friend who had just migrated from Singapore. For me, it was fundamentally about how I could get as much checked in as possible.
 
Giving her the silence that she needed intermittently, I slowly wove a story in to her unconscious mind, about my friend. I felt she had much in common as I realised she was single too. I knew she was intrigued as she asked more questions, engaging with me. Her curiosity led me to believe that she was in the same predicament. I had struck some empathy with her.
 
She looked at my trolley and asked “do you wish to check all those bags?” I frowned with a smile and said “yes” then left a block of silence. I gave her time to process.
 
She said “give me a minute” and hurried over to her manager. Nodding her head as she returned, she said “I’ll do it for you”. I couldn’t believe my ears. My heart thumped with excitement as all boxes were checked in seamlessly. She had acceded to my request. I wasn’t charged for the additional 21kg. 
 
She totally understood my desire to help a friend and the gates of rapport had opened within her, to help me. I had stepped into her shoes to realise that she too might want new possibilities someday.
 
Thinking back I reflected on what I had done. This is what came to mind;
 
LOOK FOR A CONNECTION

• I connected with her world by stepping into her shoes – she was single, desiring what my friend was seeking too.

 
MATCH TONALITY OF SPEECH

• Her unconscious mind relaxed when she felt a familiarity with me – this came from pacing her language.

 
USE NEGATIVES TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

• Rather than say “You’ve had a difficult day” which would focus on tough experiences, I focused her mind on “easy”.

 
This is outcome-driven communication. You become targeted in approach. If you enjoyed this read, it is a sign that you are ready to learn more NLP techniques.
 

All through my career in corporate, not once was I shown the way to change patterns of behaviour. The standard way was to receive feedback ceremoniously or otherwise and make it happen.

I saw and experienced myself, leaders who were controlling rather than trusting. At the time, I merely avoided them or worked within boundaries I was given. When I left corporate after 18 years to become an entrepreneur, my fascination with understanding human behaviour was at its peak.

Was it a calling? A path I was meant to walk? My fate? Regardless, I took steps to upskill myself and today 21 years later, I speak from experience. Having worked with all types of clients who wanted behaviour changes, I have a system that produces high performers.

Our ways of being have been installed from the past. Growing up in a controlling family would only give rise to a child who operates from control. Clearing negative patterns of behaviour like these give rise to individuals feeling free to then create their future. 

Anger and fear are stimulants to the adrenal system. Eradicating these allows the individual to release the “battery bunny” inside them to a level of normal energy. Sadness and guilt on the other hand suppress the adrenals hence energy levels are low and do ascend once these are removed.

While most people feel these interventions need to be long, this is merely a myth. Clearing a negative emotion from the past timeline can take as much as four sessions. Imagine if a whole workforce could release their past negativity,  belief systems included?

Propensity for the organisation’s performance to spike would be tremendous. Isn’t that something that all organisations seek? If I were senior leadership, this is what I would spend my budget on. ​

The clients who have done so and continue to do are reaping the benefits.

He /she has to be an advocate for change, someone who is a natural communicator standing for messages to be sent down the line as frequently as possible. Engaging the workforce regularly through different channels while keeping in mind the makeup of his/her workforce.
 
When I conduct my training using NLP Communication Tools to create powerful cultures, I often ask my students what their culture looks like. Many reply control, authority and a focus on results.
 
Where is the fun, care, learning and purposeful focus? Has leadership not realised they could achieve a lot more if they created an ambience for their employees to relax and feel comfortable?
 
After all, when we are in our element, this is where intuition surfaces. Ideas come to us in our most relaxed moments. Aren’t we setting up cultures counter intuitive to what is needed for employees to do well and retain their mental health?
 
Breaking down hierarchical boundaries for open & transparent communication that is problem-solving and solution-oriented in nature yields a positive culture. At the end of the day, everyone works for the same organisation so why not roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty altogether.
 
With younger generations demanding flatter structures in organisations, the uncommunicative older style leader has to be weeded out of the system.
 
Communication strategies which set the tone and direction for successful change has to be linked to organizational goals. When aligned it enhances organizational performance and influences energy levels, keeping everyone focused on goals and priorities while providing feedback on progress.
 
This creates a powerful organisational culture!
 
When these building blocks are in place, the rest flows. Employees feel they have a purpose. They have a sense of belonging and strive to high performance.         

Trevor was the Head of Human Resources in the organisation that John worked for. They were good friends. Both were members of the Senior Leadership Team, John being Chief Operations Officer. He was always on the lookout for great talent. He needed people who had great relationship skills and were easy to work with.

Trevor helped him recruit. He hired people with potential who could be coached and mentored into more senior positions. So when John returned from the NLP Practitioner Program, the two colleagues decided to catch up for a drink. Friday night was a good bet. They usually went on through the wee hours of the morning. 

As John related his NLP experience to Trevor, both knew they were on to something that would really propel their careers. Sylvia was the NLP Master Trainer who John trained with. He chose her because of her deep corporate experience in Banking and Professional Services.  

Sylvia had also created Rapid Success Coaching which caught John’s attention. This model as Sylvia shared at the NLP Program, emerged as a by-product of more than 30 years-experience in aligning organisational cultures. As she worked with corporates, she observed that every single one of them yearned for change in a short timeframe. 

John took notes as she related her experience of how she applied NLP to the corporate context. He would hire her for some big chunks of initial work with the leadership team and perhaps have some of their internal people trained too. Then progress the initiative down the line. 
​
Trevor was buying in to this idea. John needed that. He was after all the one with the purse strings and authority to push this forward in the organisation. He asked “tell me more about the Rapid Success Coaching model” as John explained how Sylvia meshed NLP processes within the toolbox, to create more impactful results. 

Organisations needed more effective managers and authentic leaders. A complete dearth at the moment was communication. He could only imagine what would happen if the organisation heightened communication throughout. It was like oiling the machinery for smooth operations. 

Sylvia’s focus was to have employees self-manage so leaders could focus on what they were really meant to be doing. She 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?” Trevor asked. John spoke to some participants at the NLP Program who had experienced this. They had met with rapid success. They were animated and eloquent in explaining the internal emotional unblocking they had experienced and were quick to add that NLP processes were at the source of this change. 

The distinct difference was that NLP worked with the unconscious mind, the five senses. Sylvia then further explained that Rapid Success Coaching combined NLP with other modalities that she was qualified in too. All up, she was essentially targeting self-management as her main objective. 

People were too reliant on managers and leaders to make decisions for them. The onus of decision making had to fall in their hands so a deeper culture of accountability would form. This is how Sylvia applied her corporate experience in business units that she worked in. 

​The person with the greatest behavioral flexibility will often take control. One of a myriad of success beliefs that Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) Practitioners live their lives by. 

Problems occur when people uphold a mindset of rigidity. My way or the highway does not augur well for resolutions or negotiations to a strong positive outcome. 

So I guess the question is what keeps people rigid? Is it the authoritarian in them or the fear to traverse new boundaries? Either way it reflects on the person. 

Employees in organisations who make great progress up the career ladder are flexible in their approach. That is why they are earmarked beyond their colleagues. What are some points that might reveal these types of people?

• A willingness to learn 
• Positive approach to being coached 
• Volunteer to do new projects
• Open communication style

Why are these the tenets to success? Because as employees climb the career ladder they become responsible for teams. There is a need to understand makeup of the workforce and diversity that peoples’ behaviors bring. 

At this point behaviour becomes business. Leaders who understand behaviour,  know how to coach them to success. They become the winners. Employees emerge self-driven and motivated. No need for a manager to “manage”!

Flexible leaders attract people to them. Employees want to work with such leaders. It works both ways. A relationship made in heaven, one that could make all the difference. 

Those who continue in rigidity fall away beneath the radar. They live a monotonous life in an automatic way of being. Unnecessary and sad as there is no shortage of courses and books, seminars on and offline to open one’s mind. 
For me, a turning point in my life was mastering NLP techniques. Working with the unconscious mind I learnt how to build rapport and engage people to success. 

Like bees to honey I enroll people in my life who join me on my Purposeful journey.  

I look back on the phases of my life and notice that my earlier years were tough. I didn’t know who I was neither did I know how to make good decisions. Falling and picking myself up so many times over, I sharpened intuition without realizing it.
 
I had a feeling that represented intuition. I would call it a grounded feeling where my entire body agreed and said “yes” to a decision I was about to make.
 
Thankfully over time as I moved out of corporate into my own business, I learnt Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) which provided me with the context, process and structure of daily activities I undertook.
 
The main one being how to make a good decision.
 
I realized that as long as I had an identity conflict, the parts within me were pulling in different directions. Understanding how to pull the parts together towards a common goal, I found myself to be more congruent in my decisions.
 
The natural thing to do was to follow the intuitive feeling I speak of above…but only once I achieved congruence where every part of me felt aligned.
 
Today, I teach this process. How do people reach congruence? Eradicating all emotional blocks along the way, learning from the past and moving focus to the future.
 
Generating a powerful future comes easily today. The formula for manifestation is straightforward, filled with structure that produces strong outcomes.
 
It is available in the NLP toolbox. The question is “have you had enough of living life with the future resembling the past?” If yes, then the door is open to learn NLP processes that will have you thinking different.
 
This will definitely produce better results than your past and you will never look back, loving the future you are creating. 

​A typical statement isn’t it?
 
On meeting participants at my Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) trainings, I address exactly this. “Most of you have been sent to this Program and you don’t really want to be here. You have so much to do at your desk and you feel this is a waste of time” I say.
 
Asking for a show of hands, I am deliberately eliciting engagement with my audience. By doing this, I am beginning to gain rapport with them. As a Trainer I step into their world to understand and empathize where they are. My focus is to eventually bring them closer to my day’s objective. 
 
Beyond that conversation which extroverts typically begin, it is my job as the presenter of the day, to engage introverts, the remaining audience, who take a longer time to warm up.
 
These are some power presenting tools that successful trainers hold.
 
As a Transformation Specialist one of my success beliefs is to make the time spent worthwhile, for my audience. Taking trainees deep into the workings of their unconscious mind, I emphasize flexibility and the ability to adapt to change.
 
NLP skills in broadbrush strokes, helps people navigate through life’s changes whether in career, relationships or on the personal front, with resilience and a positive mindset.
 
A situation I encountered many years ago when a gentlemen about to retire, exclaimed the exact title of this article. I could see the difficulty he was having just being there.
 
Approaching him, I promised that he would be thankful by the end of the Program as this was not just another training. He confirmed this at the end and exclaimed he had learnt so much on how to communicate with his son.
 
 I encouraged him to learn more as ongoing learning would lead to mastery especially when advanced NLP techniques were explored. Engaging in continuous self-improvement could only lead to better outcomes in whatever aspect of life.
He promised he would do so. Just one 2-day Program made a huge difference to this man’s life. He saw situations differently and had the tools to rectify / solve problems.
 
Wouldn’t you want to be in his shoes? Don’t wait for life to take you to a dead end. Begin your self-exploration journey today. 

Observing successful individuals climb the corporate ladder in a short space of time requires strong communication skills. In this order, every individual would do themselves justice if they did the following;
 
Understand your Personality Preferences
 
We are born with preferences. As a trained Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI) facilitator, I know the importance of this especially for leaders, when setting up their teams.
 
A senior leadership team without diverse personality types is in grave danger for they see things the same way, rather than attend to the objections of someone with opposite preferences.
 
Transform Yourself by Letting Go of the Past
 
Unbeknownst to many, we are driven by our past programming. If we don’t eradicate old limiting beliefs that serve us in today’s context, we are doomed. Attending a Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) workshop would address this.
 
It is the only personal development modality that transforms individuals at the training they attend as learning is through the five senses. Bypassing conscious mind filters, the unconscious mind is easily accessed.
 
Focus Your Unconscious Mind on the Future
 
Values are our deepest unconscious filter. Not knowing how to elicit them leaves individuals powerless. The greatest asset a decision maker could have is to understand their values and align them with a future path.
 
This is where a Vision forms and building blocks fall in place for success. It is the pathway to intuition which is the greatest asset individuals possess but are not using. Most don’t know how to.
 
Learning with structure and process so that success is easily replicable, is one of the deepest tenets of sustainable success. The answer lies in attending an NLP Practitioner Program which equips individuals with a powerful jigsaw puzzle for life.
 
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) skills are incredibly versatile and are applied in various aspects of life for long-term personal and professional development.
 
Using these life skills, individuals go from strength to strength, operating from resilience and adaptability.
 
Wouldn’t everyone want this?
 

It might seem counter productive to be talking about how to improve career growth in the current environment. People may have lost their jobs, had to change jobs or are just hanging on to the jobs they have.

Whether you are considering starting a business, have just started one or are already in business, you will find this article relevant.

Petra walked down the street and came to a crossroad. She had to choose – left or right? She had already been through hell in her life. The wrong road would only make her suffer more.

Her heart said right and her thinking mind said left. She decided to go right. After all she had been training her soul intelligence to find its way towards self management and she was beginning to see some success through the otherwise closed blinds of her life.
​
Reminiscing to only a few months before when she craved an answer that would yield rapid results. She saw an ad on Facebook that called out to her. The language called out to her. It said Practitioner, a word that had been playing on her mind.

Nervousness is the body’s way of responding to stress. It is nature’s way of sending a signal to the body, to prepare for an imagined threat. A little bit of stress can be good. This is called good stress. It keeps us on our toes and heightens awareness.
​But too much stress leads to nervousness and having this occur frequently, does impede functioning. So, it’s good to learn tools that manage stress levels and teach us how to stop feeling nervous.

Nervousness can be brought about in a variety of stressful situations:

• attending a job interview
• making a speech
• going on a first date
• meeting new people
• handling tough clients
• going in for surgery

These are but some examples. Even children are not spared. Nervousness is rampant on the first day of school, parents included. A common trigger is upcoming exams and the thought of making friends, especially for introverted people.

So it isn’t surprising when people seek out remedies of how to stop feeling nervous at one point or other in life.

A worthy point to note is that sometimes we can mistake excitement for nervousness. For example, when you’re about to step on stage to receive an award.

It is natural to feel excited but the sudden increase in adrenaline causes a rapid heartbeat, sweaty palms and butterflies in the tummy, which feel a lot like nervousness.

Years ago I conducted an NLP for self-confidence course to a group of head teachers and head mistresses of a large Government pre-school. Within two half days their level of confidence shot through the roof.

​It was a matter of using the excitement they felt for self-confidence. Just like we re-cycle things physically, we are also able to do the same with states of mind. A short process is all it takes!

As the backdrop of war pervaded in the external world, organisations began to see the greater need for employees to live with strong mental health. Covid-19 and the Ukraine invasion dominated. It caused anxiety fears that the very basis of survival, safety, was under threat.
​
Employees needed to feel safe. The corporate sector was in a global war for talent.  Today it was a very different global war we were up against. This one brought everyone down to a most basic level of a human being’s very existence. 
As the backdrop of war pervaded in the external world, organisations began to see the greater need for employees to live with strong mental health. Covid-19 and the Ukraine invasion dominated. It caused anxiety fears that the very basis of survival, safety, was under threat.

Employees needed to feel safe. The corporate sector was in a global war for talent.  Today it was a very different global war we were up against. This one brought everyone down to a most basic level of a human being’s very existence.  

Trevor and John felt that their decision to drive NLP through the organization in an effort to align their culture, was timely. It was no longer just about talent. As businesses and people in the workforce struggled to stay afloat it was imperative that they focused on creating effective people. People who could adapt and thrive in a new norm, ready to reinvent themselves whatever it took. 

While the need for talent to drive leadership and fill pipelines for succession planning would remain, they felt it would augur well to prepare for challenges ahead. How would they do it? By creating effective people from within the organisation. 

This would reduce reliance on external recruitment and why not? Their employees were well trained and had the capacity to step up to the next level through mentoring and coaching.  A strategy that had proven to be the cheapest as organic growth from within, meant employees already embraced the organization culture.

Sylvia, the NLP Trainer who would take them through this culture alignment initiative was a great advocate of this strategy. Through her many years of NLP training and coaching, she helped ordinary people become extraordinary. She believed that people inherently had the resources within them,, they just did not know how to access them.

With multiple generations in the melting pot of the workforce,  they were keen to make use of the inherent diversity of Baby boomers, Gen X, Gen Y and Millennials. So many different values and perspectives to tap on! It was an exciting time for Trevor and John to see how the organization would morph and transform into something immensely different and powerful. For one, a natural culture of higher tolerance towards difference.

Sylvia shared some traits in common of highly effective people, that she had observed over the years of doing this work. Regardless of generation and level of seniority, she found these traits surfaced unbeknownst to the employee;

• personal values were aligned to organization values
• able to tap into personal resilience and confidence
• goal oriented driven by passion and purpose
• disposition to thrive under pressure
• willingness to take feedback & improve

So what was the start to creating effective people? The operative word was “accelerate”. The fastest way was to identify high performers at each level of seniority in the organization, who would present the formal leaders.

They would begin to attend Sylvia’s NLP modular courses inside of the organization’s program. She had depth and breadth of corporate experience. She fit the bill and her stories from past experience would fit the context in this case.

Bit by bit in small chunks, little nuggets of NLP tools learnt would give them the opportunity to apply to daily contexts at work. From conflict resolution to building rapport with the most resistant team member, these formal leaders would start the change process towards creating effective people.

In a matter of months the organization would see momentum building. This type of program had to be a “C-suite” buy.  It usually started as a conscious effort, a directive from the Board or something akin to that. For the initiative to work, there had to be total commitment from the senior leadership team. Timing of implementation was everything.

An NLP program offered organizations a way to support their employees in tough times while giving them tools to manage change. Employees who were open to improving themselves would be the first to spike performance and hit new targets.

Exponential growth after an NLP program, especially one that was conducted organization-wide was common. From employee’s feeling motivation to mobilizing a team to higher performance, these were some wins the organization could look forward to.