I entered a local café. The food is excellent, the coffee good.
The venue is attractive and the service is usually fast. However,
when I stopped there for an early morning coffee the waitress
did not smile or greet me. As soon as she had taken the order
she returned to talking to one of the other waitresses. She was
the same with other customers. Although so much else about
that café is excellent, the overall impression I got that day (and
other days) was that customers weren’t important.So you might get 99 percent of what you offer right, but to
provide the support, service, friendship, and even love that
really shows you care in the way that the other person will
recognize, you need to know how to get 100 percent right. You
need to know how the message you are giving matches (or not)
the perceptions of those on the receiving end of you and your
business. If you get the match right, it is increasingly likely that
people will choose you as the person or business with whom
they want to trade, and keep on choosing you for the future.
This overall impression is the metamessage—the message
that is the sum total of all that we are doing (and not doing)
that is creating an impression on other people.
A metamessage is what is communicated but not said.
Because it is what is not said, it is often the things of which we
are unaware that create this overall impression. In this chapter
we are going to explore these “things” and how you can become
more aware of them. In this way we increase the chance that we
do indeed communicate what we mean to communicate.
You may have experienced some of the following:❏ Being surprised when you discover that someone has got
the “wrong” impression of you.
❏ Discovering after an event that the way you thought you
had come across was different to the way you had been
perceived by others.
❏ Feeling annoyed with someone because they did not
understand what you intended.
❏ Being surprised that something you asked someone to do
was not done or was done in a way that you didn’t want.
❏ Finding that people react to you in a way that you don’t
want.136 NLP AT WORK
People will choose youA metamessage is what is
communicated but not said