Right click here to download pdf version: NLP courses Podcast 8 – NLP Trainers flow of information secrects
John: Hello and welcome. John Cassidy-Rice I have the pleasure to be your host for this podcast. Wow! What a week! So, so busy. Back to back meetings.
It’s a real pleasure to take some time out for us to share some ideas. In this session, we’re going to take something that really good NLP trainers do to present information. Well in fact, there are two models of presenting information within NLP training. We’re going to have a look at one of those and it is fabulous.
If you’re asked to do a talk, this will help you organize the information in a way that resonates with everybody in the room; also if somebody says to you, “Uh! The speaker hasn’t turned up. We’ve got ten minutes. Can you go on and do something?” You can say, “Yes, leave it with me.”
Take five minutes, craft a talk and at the same time come across as compelling and engaging. Yes, you still need to know your stuff. If you’re on a topic you know nothing about, this is not going to save you, but as long as you know your topic and you do, don’t you? So let’s explore one of the two models that top NLP trainers from around the world use. It is called the format system.
A teacher called McCarthey noticed that whenever she was teaching, she would only engage certain people at certain times within the group and wondered whether there was a systematic way of capturing people’s attention and she called it the format system which is essentially four questions.
Let’s explore those four questions.
The first question that any group once answered is why? Why are we covering this topic? What you’ll find is, it’s roughly about 35% of any group will not listen to another word you’re saying until you’ve sold them on the idea.
Once you’ve sold them on the idea, they will then listen to you. You can always tell if you have not done enough ‘why’, when presenting any information because somebody will put their hand up and ask the question, “Why? Why are we covering this? Why is it relevant?” And then you go back into selling. Here is where we start to collect the meaning for the individual. Ideally to be involved in some way and to compare where they are now to where they will be once they have the information.
Notice I went into selling this idea with you. I said, “What if you got to do a talk, could you design it so that you captured everybody’s attention in the room?
What if you’ve been put on the spot and you’re asked to give a talk and you only have ten minutes to prepare? This will save you. That’s me trying to stew a mini sell for the format system. Then once you’ve sold the idea and you’ve answered the question why and because it’s 35% of any group, that’s a huge chunk.
Those people happily listen to what you’ve got to say; if not like we said, they do become disruptive. Can you access key feelings and experiences for the people and how would they be able to use this.
Now the next question to be answered would be the ‘what’? What are we covering? You’ll find about 22% of any group want the information. Just the facts, just the facts, so I’d like us to think about ideas, seeking the numbers, the facts, what did the experts think? Quote your sources and you notice I did this when I talked about Bernice McCarthey where this came from.
This is where you describe the principles, what makes something work. For example, one of the principles that make NLP work, there’s no failure, only feedback. This is also the way you introduce any jargon and what you want to do is explain a jargon and concepts behind what’s working here.
If you have to introduce a jargon to someone, let me just give you a quick tip. When you say a word that somebody’s never heard before, what happens is, they go inside their head and they start to try and find the answer. Basically, they’ve stopped listening to you. Now all you’re doing is vamping for time. What are my suggestions? One of my suggestions would be this, say the word again.
They now have heard it twice. They’re still not listening to you and then say it a third time and broadcast you’re about to tell them what that means. For example, if I said the word, transderivational search. Notice it might not mean anything to you and I’ve lost you, you’ve got inside your head and you’re trying to see what does that mean? Have I heard that word before? What I tend to do would be this, “Transderivational search.
Transderivational search. Apart from being a fun word to say, transderivational search what does it mean?” It essentially means you’ve gone inside your head. You’ve gone through all of your folders to make sense of what you’ve just heard.
Introduce a bit of jargon, said it once, lost you, said it a second time, you’re still not listening to me, but at least you’ve heard the word twice, so you’re getting a little bit more familiar with the word and then I said, apart from being a fun word to say and that’s just me stalling for a bit of time, what does transderivational search mean?
You went, “Uh!” Back with me now I said to tell me what it means. If you have to introduce a jargon, that’s just a little tip. Back to the format system. We notice we’re on facts and it’s about 22% of any group just want the information. These guys will sit through a sales pitch that is the ‘why’ selling the idea along just leading to some information; however the why, the people who want the why are we covering this will not sit for the information, they’ll be disruptive as we said.
So that makes a lot of sense, we start by selling the idea and then we go into the principles and we’ll go back over these again so don’t worry we’ll go in a little bit more detail. And then about 18% of any group want to know the how, so they want to test the theory, they want to put it into action, usability, they want to do something, so they want to be engaged in some way, how does it work; let’s do it, let’s get our hands dirty with the information.
And then the last question is what if and again about 25% of any group is going okay, now that I’ve got this can I do something with it and what they start to do is to play with, what are some of the hidden possibilities, so for example what it would be one of the hidden possibilities behind this, well, think about it this way, this is about presenting information to a group of people, where else would sequencing information in a way to capture a lot of people’s attention make a lot of sense, could you also use this in a written format.
Yeah I think you could, so if you’re writing an article doing the blog post, what if you’re were doing a report, doing a manual to learn information, even if it is to learn how to use a camera, there you go, various ways you can use it, where else could you utilize it, and for me I tend to use this section to clear up any questions. I am very useful. So the flow goes, why, why are we doing this, what is it, how do we do it, and what if. So let’s go into a little bit more detail about each of those.
What would we utilize within the why? So for engagement storytelling is good to hear, so open with a story about how this bit of information saved you. Maybe getting people involved. This is a good place to lead to people’s values, so you care about people, do you care about your message, do you want to make a difference in the world, do you want to make a name for yourself, do you want to make money.
Well if you can sell you ideas and present information in the right way, then you’ll be able to connect, you’ll make a difference, make a name, make money for yourself. There you go maybe that’s not your values, but they are values of some people.
Now if you’ve done any NLP of course there’s a whole range of tools you can use in that including the Milton language and also Meta programs towards and away from; so the towards and away from Meta program, the word Meta means above. Program means a system that running, so Meta program is a set of filters that run constantly; see what I’m doing there. I’m explaining my jargon; so one of the most known Meta programs is toward and away from, the carrot and the stick.
Now obviously in NLP we call that a Meta Program, not everybody does. So towards engaging with groups and away from maybe have you ever done a talk and it bombed and people were bored, looking at their phones, getting up and leaving the room. Well me show you a solution that will help solve that, towards and away from, and this is where we start to create some interest, a learning state of curiosity. Now once we’ve got that curiosity and we’ve done selling, you don’t have to use everything I’ve said, just enough to sell the idea.
We then move into the what, like said this is concept so define any jargon, the procedures. Move into principles, so why does it work, so why does the format system work. The format system is a systematic way to connect with people and engage with a group. There you go. Now what will be useful here would be some sort of diagram, so this is where your diagrams go, flowcharts, the sequence what is the order that moves you into being able to do step-by-step instructions, so how do you do it. Obviously we’re on audio so I can’t draw you a diagram, but I’m sure you can picture that in your head.
Next the how; now notice this is where want to get engaged, wants to do something so there’s various ways we can do this, because not every time can we do an exercise. So when you attend to live training what you’ll notice is we sell on the idea why is it important, then we talk about a theory behind that drives it, the principles and jargon, and then we go off into an exercise.
But not always are in a situation where you can do an exercise. Sometimes you can just talk somebody through the step-by-step procedure. Maybe you do a demonstration, you get somebody up or you demonstrate how to do something or you go into coaching, but ideally you want an exercise, you want people doing something. Now if you can’t and if you were to miss one section, possibly and I’m only saying possibly this will be the section to miss, because it’s the least amount of people in the group that want to do the exercises.
We said it was about 18% didn’t we. And now what we didn’t do is the what if. How I like to do this is to deal with any questions, any further information I can use. What’s great here gives you an opportunity to contextualize and generalize the skill to other areas.
So like we said we started off talking about the formats system is one of the two ways that the top NLP trainers use to present information. It helps you present design a talk, even if it’s on the last minute and we talked about presentations, but when I talked about the what if before, I start to contextualize it, what is about information, so you can also do this in the written format, not just from public speaking. So could you also utilize this to design products to write books, I think so, not fiction books obviously, nonfiction books.
And if you’re going to move onto new topic this is one of the places where you build that potential for the next chunk of information. So quick recap here, a very easy way to design a talk that you could use design a blog post, an article, design a book, each of the chapter could be done into a format system by answering four questions, why, what, how and what if, and in that sequence what happens is people will connect the dots for you, you’ll engage groups of people in a way that they want to be engaged with.
Now when I do the NLP trainer program everybody wants to learn the sexy unconscious communication multiple level influence and I get that, I really do, and yet we can spend anywhere up to six months going over the format system to master it, because what I’ve discovered is this, people will allow you to take them anywhere you want as long as they trust you. So how do you build that trust?
Well if you have a structure to the information you’re given out, people do respond to that. Now once you’ve got structure people then trust you, and then we can add little bit of showmanship which always goes a long way and a multilevel communication and a multilevel influence on top of that. Otherwise if you do not have the structure, you can be all wizzy, flash and entertaining, but people go way about really learning something and yeah, they maybe hyped and motivated for a little while, but they’ll go back to how they used to be.
Now this is one of two ways that you can present information. Now you might be curious about what the other way is. We’ll cover that on an upcoming podcast. Now if you would like a resource.
I will put up this information on the website, so head over to nlpcourses.com, find the podcast page and I’ll put it as format system download with a worksheet that just for you. That’s how kind I am to you and then if you got any questions, any comments, what happened when you applied the format system to talk, maybe you could use this in meetings.
Keep in touch, let me know how you’re going, we got whole range of resources. Head over to our YouTube channel and there’s a whole batch of videos there on NLP topics, we are on Facebook, Google+, join us, join the community, love to hear from you. Okay, I think we’re done. Have a wonderful week and I look forward to catching up with you next time.