Since I’ve been writing some Reflections about NLP, misunderstandings, hype, the Cult Model, etc. I’ve received not a few emails essentially asking the question of the title, “Is collaboration even possible in the NLP world?” A few writers have taken me to task about it saying that I’m dreaming and not realistic and holding on to a hope that’s long gone. A couple people wrote to ask “How would it happen?” and “What can we do?” to encourage more collaboration in this field of individualists?
As I’ve reflected on this feedback, one thing I’ve become aware of is that if we do not collaborate, the field will not cohere sufficiently to continue as a field. That happened to the Human Potential Movement—a movement that once had 400 “Growth Centers” around the world and by Carl Rogers’ estimate over five million trained in the model. And while individuals persist to this day who remember “the movement,” the original flame of the HPM has long been put out and all of those original Growth Centers have long closed their doors.
So yes, maybe I am unrealistic and naive and over-optimistic about collaboration, yet without it NLP as we know it today has a strong possibility of not making it. And I think that would be tragic— more than tragic, a tremendous loss to the human spirit and condition.
So what can we do? If you share with me these convictions about the value of NLP (and Neuro-Semantic NLP), then what can we do? Well, first and foremost we can operate in a cooperative and collaborative way to demonstrate what our words about working together mean. In our attitude and talk we can develop a fully congruent inclusiveness of language and we can extend ourselves to invite others for collaborative projects and join those projects that are underway.
Along that line, I’d recommend that you take every advantage of every opportunity to go to Conferences, Congresses, and Events put on by the NLP community. Demonstrate your good will and cooperative spirit. That’s one thing I attempt to do and have done every year for many years.
Then there is the importance of dialogue— of staying in communication. It is far, far too easy to step aside and avoid the “conversation” that’s occurring in the NLP field. And that’s especially true for those groups that are so exclusive and judgment, who do “pure” NLP in contrast to all the rest of us who don’t meet their levels of “purity.” I engaged some of that camp recently at the NLP Conference in London. The first half hour, I just listened. I listened to one guy’s judgments of the field, his judgment against any so-called “NLP” person who had not studied in their camp and against people like myself “contaminating” NLP with new stuff not sanctioned by their guru. I listened respectfully for over 30 minutes.
When he had pretty much got all of that off his chest, I asked if I could ask some questions. When I got the green light, I began asking for about the when and what of his criteria for what made up “pure” NLP. I asked who appointed so-and-so the guru who made those decisions? I asked if he conferred with the other co-developers about assuming that right. With each question, I had to do more listening, which I did. And that led to new questions which I asked.
It took 90 minutes, but after that the guys began to relax and we began laughing together about some of the silly things we were talking about. And at the end, I told them to pass on my regards to so-and-so and then wished them well. They both said they were surprised by me, that I was more likeable than they expected (! which made me wonder what they had been told!), and that I had made “some points that they would think about.”
Now who knows what good may come out of that. Maybe none. But I felt that at least there was a human touch, there was some dialogue, there was some decent conversation. I invited them to read some of the critiques I had written on the subject (which they didn’t even know existed).
A spirit of cooperation cannot emerge when people are in isolation of each other. If we isolate ourselves, there will be no conversation and without conversation, no dialogue. So that’s at least one beginning place.
Another is to more authentically operate from abundance. If we act as if there’s scarcity and fight over “my” clients, “my” people, “my” participants, we deny one of the basic tenets of NLP and Self-Actualization Psychology. Now I think I know the key reason some trainers will work hard to actually hide the fact that there are other NLP trainers out there—they are afraid that they will be compared and will fall short in terms of skills and competence!
So, operating out of a sense of their own inferiority, they boaster themselves as “the best,” the “purest,” the “special,” and don’t encourage their participants to get training by others. Conversely, if you’re good, if you know what you’re doing— the excellence of someone else takes nothing away from you. Their skill adds to NLP and what we can do with NLP. After all, don’t we encourage differences, the unique gifts of each person? Another person’s unique skills enriches me and this field. And unless I’m suffering from a paranoid inferiority, I will be proud to recommend others even if they do not agree entirely with me. Surely it’s time to outgrow that childish attitude, isn’t it?
Collaboration is a possibility and an essential one. Make we all do what we can to move this field to one of increasing collaboration!
Michael Hall