How to use NLP in business ?

Patrick E. Merlevede, M.Sc
Last update by the author on 5th October 1998.

A. Introduction

"Using NLP" in business can be interpreted in several ways. First, one could look into which specific NLP models are transferable to a business situation. Second, one can use NLP technology to model excellence in business, and make a transferable model out of it. Third, one can combine both.

  1. If your focus is on using NLP, the basic NLP elements from a typical practitioner course are useful, a well as some models taught at Master level:
  2. A lot of books have been published on business related topics:

    For details on books, see my book-list.
    That page gets regular upgrades, as authors send me their books.

    Merl's World is an
    Amazon.com associate

In the remaining of this web-page we put the focus of applying some variations of "classic NLP" material in a business context. For more information on using NLP for making models: read a paper I Wrote about that subject. Even if NLP offers you powerful material, you may want to know that current research offers possibilities going beyond NLP. Neuro-Logistics aims at going beyond classic NLP material. It reconnects NLP with more recent findings from the field of Cognitive Sciences.

B. An example: TOTE & SMART models

The TOTE and SMART models are planning tools, helping you to come from your currrent situation to a desired situation, or outcome.
The SMART model is well known from the world of Quality Management. The TOTE model is one of the basic models used in NLP. However, it was originated by Miller in 1956.
When I gave a first presentation on combining SMART & TOTE, a few other NLP trainers among my test audience knew about the SMART model. Not surprisingly, they also had a business background.

SMART is an acronym. It stands for :

"Specific" means that the outcome you want is well specified, so that all persons agreeing on the outcome have the same idea of what they are going for. This fits together with "Measurable", meaning that you can measure the outcome you get. If you know what you want, and you know how you know that you reach it, then you are already half way obtaining it. The outcome you are going for should be accepted by those responsible for getting the outcome (mostly the whole group deciding upon the outcome).
"Realization": Planning for reaching a goal also means setting out the actions (steps) you think you need for reaching that goal.. The Planned actions should be flexible: if getting the outcome requires an action that was not planned for, try adding that action to your choices (if not, you are limiting yourself, and possibly decreasing the chances you'll reach your outcome. If an action does not work, try something else. For increasing the chances that you'll run out of actions before reaching your goal, do your homework while setting up your realization plan. This means taking into account the possible risks (risk analysis) and the (needed) resources for the actions.
Once you have your action plan, you have to decide upon the timing, taking into account the available resources, the wanted deadline, etc. Be realistic: a lot of projects "fail" or are overdue because the needed resources are not available at the moment you planned for them.

What does SMART offer you?

SMART is a way to get the outcomes that you want, by making them specific and measurable. However, these elements are not enough to reach the outcome. Everyone has to be committed to the outcome (it has to be acceptable for them). There must be a realization plan (the steps it takes to get to the result) and a reasonable timing must be set to reach the outcome. Working trough each of the 5 points increases the chances to get the results you want in the smoothest way possible. This tool can be used individually as well as in team.

In NLP, the TOTE and SCORE models help you reach the same goal. However, in the way they are typically used in NLP, they stress the structure of subjective experience, where in business it pays to focus the SMART on the content of the goal you want to reach. On the other hand, SMART stresses on timing. You may want to know that putting time as a part of the goal may reduce your effectivity in reaching the goal.

What does it take?

To get SMART "into the walls" of a company is not that easy. If the company is not following the philosophy behind, it can take months and a lot of commitment from management to get it implemented. Implementing it is as difficult as other change work. Based on the training I worked out, I think it takes one day to get people really into the SMART way of working (groups of 12 to 20 persons). The training both include the model (with individual applications and group applications) and a series of practical excersises.

C. 2nd Example: Asking Questions

Gathering information is something that is important in a lot of jobs. This is obvious when you do knowledge acquisition, where the jobs is only asking questions so that you can make a model out of that knowledge. For some people this is less obvious for other domains. But when you talk to a modern salesperson, he'll tell you that asking questions and getting a good idea of the way the customer thinks, and what are his needs are crucial elements, more than talking about your product.
To illustrate what NLP does in this area, I wrote a web-page about asking questions.

D. How do I use NLP?

I'm working as a managing consultant for Acknowledge, a company specialized in Knowledge Management and HRM (read about Acknowledge). Our vision of the future is that Knowledge is the most important asset to make a difference in the future. My personal mission is to acquire knowledge and to pass it on to others. The ways to distribute knowledge range from designing a training, over writing manual or developing web pages to building complex expert systems (see my C.V.).
In my company, and in related companies in our network, we use NLP both at the acquisition side (to get the information faster, and more accurate) as on the distribution side (e.g. we followed NLP trainer's training to have better skills and to give better training).

Apart doing consulting from within a company structure, I'm also training NLP related material. I bring most material from a context of teaching Emotional Intelligence in a form that is useful for people in a business environment (see the site on EQ). Some examples of this are "training on asking questions" and "training on making plans" (e.g. TOTE-model). NLP related training material can be easily embedded in a sales course or in a leadership training programme. Often, my trainings go beyond the "classic NLP": I combine it with more recent findings from the field of cognitive sciences.

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