NLP At Work : The Difference That Makes the Difference in Business

Giving and receiving feedback

Games software designers have discovered that by

developing software that “associates” us into the role of one of

the players so that we are playing the game as if we are seeing

it through our own eyes and hearing it through our own ears,

we feel the game as if it were real. Considering that feelings

that are the source of motivation to buy, giving us this

emotional experience is a very powerful way of selling not only

this game but future ones. We need to be aware of how these

tactics are used onus and how they can potentially work forus.

We can no longer plan years in advance: Life and business

have become increasingly unpredictable and chaotic. What we

have to learn to do is present our ideas and products partly

formed and develop them through the involvement of and

feedback from our customers. We can only do this if we have

developed all the skills of giving and receiving feedback. One

of these elements is our ability to dissociate from feedback

that we might otherwise take personally and reject, and then

associate once we have the resources we need in order to let

the feedback in and act on it. Chapter 19, Giving and receiving

feedback, outlines the steps for doing this.

The skill lies in choosing either an associated or a

dissociated state for a purpose. The appropriate choice

depends on your desired outcome. You might choose to

dissociate to protect yourself from painful emotions, or you

might choose to associate in order fully to experience all the

feelings of a situation. Did you know that for most people

decision making takes place through a feeling? If your

preferred style is to keep yourself and others dissociated,

don’t be surprised if you and they struggle to make decisions!

If your business depends on supporting others in making

decisions, you need to know how to associate and how to help

others do the same.

One of the directors of a marketing company found that she

was struggling to get potential clients to make a decision about

the work her company was proposing. She ran through what

she had presented and how she had done that. What we

noticed was that she came across very objectively and factually.

Everything she said was logical, but she did not give space for

feelings. Her voice communicated a consistently auditory way of

40 NLP AT WORK