Last month at the Rethinking Leadership conference (see the previous post on the Project Management Decade) Peter Parkes from NLP4PM talked specifically about NLP and Project Leadership. You might have been fortunate enough to catch Peter speaking at some of the APM branch meetings this year; if not, keep an eye out for new dates or other events because it is worth your time listening to Peter’s take on NLP specifically for project management.
If you’re a bit of a NLP skeptic, that’s fine, just read on a little more and soon you’ll see that really this is all about human behaviours and interactions – and we know they play a HUGE part in project management – and it’s not all about heebie jeebie mind control and body language mirroring 
The part of the presentation that got me thinking the most was rapport. Rapport is a term used to describe, in common terms, that two or more people feel in sync or on the same wavelength because they feel alike (Wikipedia).
In NLP there is a term called “maps of the world” which in its simpliest terms is how we, as an individual, have our own perception of the world and how this perception is created, shaped,distorted and internalised as we take information in, have new experiences and basically live our everyday lives. So far so clear – we know every person has a different view of the world and ultimately its our individual maps that affect the language we use and the behaviours we exhibit. It stands to reason that it would be useful to understand not only our own behaviours and language and how that affects others but what would be even more clever is understanding someone elses map of the world and what drives their behaviour and language. So back to rapport; rapport tends to come when we have a shared purpose with someone; a shared identity; shared beliefs and values; shared capabilities, and shared behaviours. Peter highlighted the rapport aspect of a couple of high profile relationships from recent political history. Consider the level of rapport between Tony Blair and George W Bush – the “special relationship” they had was not just based on the fact they were politicians but went much deeper with their shared beliefs and even shared religious parts of their lives. Now think about the relationship between Gordon Brown and George W Bush – the level of rapport was nowhere near the same as Blair and Bush. So many things that weren’t “shared” between them prehaps?
One of the most interesting practical aspects of building rapport is “matching language to representational systems “. Each person develops a preference for one of the common senses as they grow up (see, hear, taste, touch,smell) and our preference is often indicated through the language we use, i.e., “I like the look of that”, “I like the sound of that” etc. The idea is that we can build rapport with someone much quicker if we match our language to their representational system. Some examples below are taken from Peter’s book; “NLP for Project Managers” and covers expressions of discomfort followed by matching language responses;
- “I don’t like what I’m hearing” >>> “What would you like me to say“
- “I don’t think you see my point of view” >>> “Show me how you see it”
- “This doesn’t smell right to me” >>> “How can we clear the air“
- “Are there any tastier options” >>> “One of them is really sweet“
As project professionals we communicate and build relationships with people throughout the project lifecycle – from the stakeholders we look to influence and the project teams we aim to manage – all these relationships are important to the overall success of the project. As Martin Barnes stated “project management is about getting things done through others”; so if we can improve our skills around the interactions we have and understand the behaviours and attitudes that others hold we could go some way to building rapport and getting things done with minimal fuss. A final word from Peter’s presentation made me really “get it” and that’s; “Influence by changing your behaviour not theirs” and that’s what made me think maybe this NLP stuff is not so scary really, it’s not about “people doing this NLP stuff on me”, it’s just about being more aware of the differences in people and how you can use this awareness to bring about a win-win situation.
I’ve reviewed Peter Parkes’ book – NLP for Project Managers – take a look and see what you think.
Images | mozzercork| Cory M. Grenier | WalkingGeek | Beverly & Pack
