150 NLP AT WORK
THOUGHT PROVOKERS1 Look around you now. What is present in your surroundings?
What characterizes your environment? Is it inherited and if so
what decisions have you made either to accept it or change it?
How is your environment a metaphor for the patterns you run in
your life? How is your acceptance or influence of your
surroundings symbolic of the decisions you make concerning the
other bigger systems of which you are a part—for example your
team, your organization, your family?
2Visit your company as if you were an outsider. If possible, walk in
the footsteps of someone who is entering your company as a guest
or a visitor. Pay attention to those things to which you notice them
paying attention. What are you drawn to? What do you hear?
What values and impressions do these things give and how are
they characteristic of patterns in the culture of the company?
Notice especially how the space is used, how open or closed the
area is, how easy it is to make contact with those people you want
to reach, what is the decoration, and what accessories are there?
What state are the surroundings in? What are people saying?
3 Invite feedback from your visitors to establish what they notice in
their first impressions of the company. Ask them what they paid
attention to and what significance they placed on what they saw,
heard, and felt. Ask them what impressions they formed instantly
and to what extent these impressions changed subsequently,
especially what contributed to these impressions.
4 Consider all the actions you have taken so far today. What have
you been an example of to others?
5 Think of someone you witnessed recently whose words were at
odds with their actions. What effect did that have on you?
6 Think of someone whose words were at one with their actions.
What effect did that have on you?
7Someone whose self-esteem you would like to help boost asks you
if you think they are right to stand their ground in respect of a
decision they have made. What do you say?
8 What is the metamessage in the story opposite?