If you’re involved in teaching, consulting, leadership or coaching, you probably know how effectively metaphor can influence the way people think, and so help them to solve their problems.
But did you know about the research that shows that people’s own metaphors are more influential than any you can provide?
In the Stuff of Thought, Prof Steven Pinker describes how researchers were exploring people’s problem-solving skills. When the team offered subjects a “hint” in the form of a story isomorphic to the problem’s solution, their scores improved – but not by much.
“What’s going on?” asks Pinker. “On the one hand, analogical thinking seems to be our birthright. Metaphorical connections saturate our language, drive our science, burst out (at least occasionally) in children’s speech, and remind us of things past. On the other hand, when experimentalists lead the horse to water, they can’t make it drink.”
In the following paragraphs he answers his own question.
“One factor is simply expertise… Subsequent studies have shown that expertise in a topic can make deep analogies come more easily….
“But there’s more to it than that. The psychologist Kevin Dunbar and his collaborators put their fingers on another way that people are at a disadvantage in the lab: the experimenters More >
My good friend James Tripp is riding high at the moment: his latest Hypnosis Without Trance product sold out in minutes!
I knew James included lots of Clean Language ideas in his work. But I hadn’t spotted the references to “trance without induction” in David Grove’s only published book until I re-read on a flight it recently.
I wonder, is there a relationship?
Written with B I Panzer in 1989, David’s book Resolving Traumatic Memories has been out of print for years. But if you’re curious, you can easily get a copy on Amazon.
I’m not going to recommend the book as any kind of introduction to Clean Language. As ever, David was working on the extreme edge of the known, experimenting therapeutically, and discovering what worked in practice.
The book was created from transcripts – David would never have sat still for long enough for an “ordinary” writing project. And what theory there is feels like “intellectual backfill” (a phrase of John Grinder’s that seems to fit rather well here).
But Panzer, apparently an experienced hypnotherapist, makes some astute observations about David’s work in his preface.
“The use of Clean Language can elicit trance without induction…” he says.
“The therapist’s Clean Language facilitates a state of purposeful, focused, uncontaminated self-absorbtion.”
Is “trance More >
Posted by Judy in Influence
I’m a passionate enthusiast for metaphor (as regular readers may have noticed). There’s a reason for that.
Metaphor matters because it’s the native language of the unconscious mind… and it’s the unconscious mind which determines the bulk of human behaviour.
Traditionally the unconscious or subconscious mind has been seen as a dark, mysterious place, scene of all kinds of inexplicable goings-on. It’s like a foreign country.
Imagine what can happen once you understand – and speak – the native language.
The unconscious mind will probably still be a foreign country. The local customs may vary from those you’re used to. The cars might even be on the wrong side of the road!
But now you can read the road signs. You have the ability to know what’s directing people’s behaviour. You can grasp what’s going on, what’s really important to them, and find effective, win-win ways to fit your plans with theirs.
And you can influence their behaviour more directly, more precisely, when you can speak the language.
Instead of doing your best Basil Fawlty impression, shouting more and more loudly in your own words, you can simply ask for what you want and expect to be understood! That doesn’t mean you’ll always get what you want, of course. More >
Posted by Judy in Influence
How much can a label such as “coach” or “mentor” say about you? My recent blog Call Yourself A Coach? promoted some interesting discussions, online and off.
The consensus? Of course a label can’t say everything about you – because there’s more to you than the label.
But my point was that labels aren’t just about you – they have their primary effect “in the eye of the beholder”.
When someone who doesn’t know you sees your logo or web URL, hears your elevator pitch or even just catches your name in conversation, they have a response which has more to do with them – their knowledge, their experience, their assumptions, their prejudices – than about you.
Typically, if they feel that they understand the label, that’s it. They’re satisfied. They put you in a mental category and close the lid. No open loop, no more thinking to do.
And what happens next? They move on, and probably instantly forget you.
I’ve recently been doing a lot of work with coaches to help each of them find a commercial “sweet spot” (I hate the word “niche”!)
Frequently, at the start of the process they expect that once they find their perfect niche, they’ll have an elevator pitch that everyone More >
Why don’t you ask more questions?
It’s a question that’s been nagging me for a while, as I’ve been busy both exhorting people to do more asking – for example, in this video – and training people to ask specific kinds of questions.
And (doh!) one possible answer has just struck me.
Presumably, something’s stopping you.
The fact you’re reading this blog means that you’re an intelligent person, curious about the world, wanting to learn. It’s also a fair bet that you’re a nice person, wanting to help and do good work.
Why would somebody like that not ask lots of questions? What might stop you?
From here on I’m into pure speculation. But my guess is that what’s holding you back is that you don’t want to be selfish.
You know that great questions will bring you great information, and enable you to have more power and influence over the people you communicate with. You know that the person asking the questions controls the conversation. You want to be polite and kind and helpful… not manipulative… and so you talk to fill the silence, rather than asking questions.
But here’s the thing. Most people love to talk about themselves. And most people find it much easier to talk than More >
