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

Detecting the clues

Whole body listening means being able to give all of your

attention to someone else. It is the ability to keep your

attention external to yourself rather than thinking through your

own thoughts. Some textbooks on listening advise you to

make eye contact. You can probably remember those

situations when, although someone was looking at you, you

knew that their mind and spirit were somewhere else entirely!

Eye contact alone is no proof of listening. NLP provides the

techniques to enable you to listen with your whole body.

Rapport is a demonstration of whole body listening.

Everything someone says and does will give you some

information about their values. They will tell you some

explicitly and some may be unknown to them, but they are

there. You only have to look and listen.

“I want to talk to you about doing some design work for us. We’ve

worked with one company for a long time now, but they seem to be

getting behind the times with their ideas. We’ve got less time to

spend on this than we had in the past, so we want a company who

is going to take the initiative to find out what they need to give us

what we want. We don’t have a lot of time and I’d appreciate you

telling me whether you genuinely can work in this way with us.”

302 NLP AT WORK

People whose attention is internal

They think of their own thoughts, make evaluations

and judgments. They worry about and

concentrate on what just happened, what was

just said, or even what might happen next.

Their intention is toward themselves.

Their gaze may be defocused or moving around.

Their body posture is often quite still, even though

there may be varied eye movements.

Their language is like to be “I” and “me”

centered. They make statements and often

express beliefs as facts.

People who are listening with their

whole body

They are in a state of curiosity. Their attention is

entirely on the other person.

Their intention is toward the other person.

Their gaze is on the other person, looking away

occasionally to process what the other person

is saying.

They match the other person’s posture.

Their language is “you” centered and they use key

words and language patterns that match the

person they are speaking to. They

predominantly ask open questions.