Business language“A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover’s ears will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopp’d:
Love’s feeling is more soft and sensible
Than are the tender Horns of cockled snails:
Love’s tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste.”
William Shakespeare, Love’s Labours LostIt is reassuring to know that you don't have to be Shakespeare to
write and speak with compelling, enriched language. I first came
across NLP when I attended a course on creative writing more
than 12 years ago. I wanted to be able to write with interest and
style. The course I attended was run by two people, one an
author, the other a consultant who had “coded” the writing skills
of this author in order that we might reproduce some of his
writing style for ourselves. I became curious about this process
of coding talent, which is how I came to be interested in NLP.
Since then I have modeled many writers. I had the
privilege of listening to Brian Keenan, author of An Evil
Cradling, talking about the process he went through to write
this book about his harrowing experiences as a hostage in
Beirut for four and half years. His discussion of the writing
was as compelling as the writing itself. Both his spoken and
his written communication are rich in the use of all senses.
When he spoke to our course you could have heard a pin
drop, such was the quality of his communication.
You can code the writing or speaking style of any great
communicator. It sometimes seems that the qualities of
compelling communication have been stripped away to leave
the cold, neutral language that fills so many hours of business
presentations and pages of reports. By studying the difference
between the people to whom you are more likely to give your
attention and those whose reports you shove to the bottom of
the pile, you will uncover the secret of enriched communication.Studying the Shakespearean passage you will find that it
contains language appealing to the eyes, the ears, and the82 NLP AT WORK