248 Part IV: Using Words to Entrance
✓ Get more information: When you need to understand, for example, the
objectives and scope of a new project.
✓ Open up more options: When you need to explore different ways of
doing things for yourself and for others.
✓ Spot your own and other people’s limitations: When you need to work
through beliefs and unhelpful habitual behaviour.
Taking two simple steps
When you use the Meta Model, challenge distortions first, and then generalisa-
tions, and then deletions. If you begin with deletions, you may get more infor-
mation than you can handle.
To use the Meta Model, follow these simple steps:
- Listen to the words and spot the pattern (distortion, generalisation, or
deletion).
Refer to the section ‘Gathering Specific Information with the Meta
Model’ earlier in this chapter for an explanation of the language clues
that help you recognise which pattern is being used.
- Intervene with the right question.
For distortion, ask:
‘How do you know?’
‘What’s the evidence?’
For generalisation, ask:
‘Is that always the case? Every time? Never?’
‘What if... ?’
For deletion, ask:
‘Tell me more.. .’
‘What, when, where, who, how?’
Remembering a few caveats
You can ask questions in two basic ways: one is considerate and valuable
and the other sounds more like an interrogation by the Spanish Inquisition.
So here are some important points to bear in mind (you don’t want to fall out
with your best friend!):
