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Can NLP help or harm your training and development? The simple answer is, "both". It depends on a number of things. Perhaps the first thing to explore is your reaction to seeing those three letters put together? If someone tells you that he or she is an NLP practitioner do you search for your cross and garlic cloves? Do you welcome the person and want to know more?
In this article I want to cover:
* why knowing more about NLP and its uses might be useful for you and others in your organization, whether developing or delivering training and learning solutions;
* what NLP is and some of the key principles;
* how it has been used in training and development; and
* what you might be able to do with it in the future.
NLP defined
Although I have been involved with NLP, and using it in work and other parts of my life, for more than ten years, I am not one of the evangelists. Nor do I believe it is a panacea. I am not aiming to defend NLP. I have my own views about what it is and how it can work for those who want to learn more about it - but I can offer no empirical evidence for these and do not intend to. Over that time I have realized that it can help most people, and in many different ways. Within the training and development area, it has applications in design, presentation or facilitation, interacting with individuals, influencing other functions, coaching and many more. There are some more "obvious" areas where elements of NLP can be incorporated into the content of the training. These can include: improving communication and influencing skills; enabling managers and leaders to operate more effectively; giving sales and customer service people more options when dealing with the wide range of prospects and clients; helping teams to work together; providing tools to address problems; or providing everyone with a better understanding of themselves. The list is not limited to particular disciplines or groups.
One of the biggest problems with NLP is its name. Neuro-linguistic programming is hardly the branding of a smart marketing team. Apart from being somewhat "user-unfriendly" the last word carries...