NLP Archives - Frequently Asked Questions about NLP These web pages are part of "Merl's World on NLP", one of the first websites on NLP, created in 1995 on CompuServe out of a Frequently Asked Questions file on the topic. This site has been resurrected because (1) its non-commercial, impartial nature and (2) much of the information here is still hard to find...
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Asking Questions, version 1.0

Patrick E. Merlevede, 24^th September 1996.

This text on Asking Questions is written because asking good questions is the key to gaining knowledge, whether it is in knowledge acquisition, in business, in therapy or in every day's life.

Background and basic definitions

This article explains the Meta-Model. This model is the language-model most NLP trainers will teach. A simplified more recent variant of this model is the Precision Model (1979, also by John Grinder). Finally, since 1997, after this acticle was originally written, the "3 rule model" was developped. These newer models fall outside the scope of this article.

The Meta-Model was developed by Bandler and Grinder between 1972 and 1975 (see The Structure of Magic, Vol I). In turn, they based it on the transformational grammar that made Noam Chomsky famous (see also Syntactic Structures, 1957 & Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, 1965)

The basic element of the Meta-Model is that language is the way we have to communicate about our experiences. There is a Difference between the surface structure (language) & the deep structure (experience). The structure of our experience that is below the language is richer than we can know from the language.

We transform an experience into language by using deletions, generalizations and distortions.

• deletions: elements of language on the surface which omit parts present in the deep structure or in the outside world. As an observer you notice a deletion because you can't make a representation that is only based on the information given to you. If you notice this, there is a question to ask: don't try to fill the gaps with your own interpretation: it might be wrong!
• generalization: from an experience or a set of experiences, the person makes a generic statement.
• Distortions: the sentence as it is said by the person is modified compared the experience from which it was derived.

When we want to acquire knowledge from an expert, we'll try to get a complete, correct and consistent model. This means we'll ask questions to complete the information the expert is giving, get the ambiguities out of what someone says; to find out what he presupposes, to challenge his inconsistencies and so on. In fact, we are trying to reverse the transformation he made while explaining his experience!

Exercise:

The goal is to show that the picture is much richer than a thousand words, that an explanation is not complete, and that good questions can help to complete the picture.

Specific Language Patterns

A sentence can contain several language patterns. Which one you will use to ask a question depends on the information you want to get. If you don't get the response you want to your question, ask another question, or another type of question.

e.g. He must be motivated by that job because he was always good at programming applications.

• he = unspecified referential index (who are you talking about, what is the person's name?)
• must = modal operator of necessity (What would happen if he is not motivated by the job?)
• motivated = unspecified verb (How do you know he is motivated, what does he do to be motivated?)
• by = cause and effect (how does the job motivate him?)
• that = unspecified referential index (what job are you talking about?)
• job = nominalization (what does he have to do specifically in that job?)
• He must be motivated …= Mind reading (How do you know he is motivated?)
• always = universal quantifier (Don't you know about an occasion when he wasn't good at programming applications?)
• good = comparative deletion (good compared to whom?)
• programming = unspecified verb (what does he do exactly?)
• application = unspecified noun (what kind of application in specific?)
• the second part of the sentence is a judgement (Who is saying that he is better, how do they know, what evidences do they have?)
• the combination of the first part of the sentence and the second one is a cause and effect relationship ("If he was not good, wouldn't he like it?" Or "Do you have to be good at programming applications for liking that job?")
• presuppositions: the job he likes of somehow related to his programming skill, when you are good at something you like it

Categories

The patterns and their related questions can be organized in 3 categories:

Find out more about the information behind the sentence a person said.

Unspecified noun

Unspecified verb

Nominalization

Unspecified referential Index

Comparison

Challenge the person's map of the world

Universal Quantifier

Modal Operator of Possibility

Modal Operator of Necessity

Presupposition

Semantic Errors

Mind reading

Cause and Effect

Complex equivalence

Some concluding remarks

In the NLP community, people will sometimes talks about meta-model 1, 2 and 3. What are these:

• Meta-model 1: the patterns and the type of question to ask
• Meta-model 2: the direction, the outcome frame of the question (what do you want by asking the question?)
• Meta-model 3:the relation between the meta-model, the internal experience and the physical cues.

Learning to ask questions, means noticing the pattern in the sentence and having a set of possible questions for each pattern, so that one does not "detect" you are questioning him. There is a difference between a 3^rd grade interrogation and asking questions. For one, put the lamp away! Use open sentences, but put them into a context: frame your sentence, pace what the other was saying, introduce the question, keep using your "normal voice tone.

Know what you want to achieve with your question: e.g. if you ask questions to Challenge the person's map of the world or to "correct" Semantic Errors, you are influencing the person; if you gather the correct information, you enhance your knowledge.

7 Steps to Emotional Intelligence Patrick E. Merlevede, Denis Bridoux   This book integrates much of the material which was developed for these websites (and much more!);

Read more about it, get other examples

Note: Most of the underlying discussion is based on the Meta-Model of NLP, its roots and its applications. Since I wrote this article, I developed a new way of asking questions, based on 3 rules discovered by John Grinder. This new model goes beyond NLP. It is easier to train and offers the same power. An article about this model appears on my site " NLP in Belgium". Both the question asking model explained on this page and the 3-rule model can be found in my book "7 Steps to Emotional Intelligence" (see advertisement to the right).

Apart from my own book and the original books mentioned while discussing the background of the meta-model, I can also recommend the 2 following books. Both books cover also other NLP models.

Sue Knight, NLP at Work Joseph O'Connor, Introducing NLP If you want to know more about NLP books in general, please consult my book page.

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Last update for this page: 22 mrt 2001