Chapter 8: Understanding to Be Understood: Meta Programs 133
Discovering Options/Procedures
If you’re more of an options person, you enjoy trying out new ways of doing
things. As a procedures person, you display a preference for following set
methodologies.
An options person loves variety. The analogy that springs to mind is that of
offering a gourmet a smorgasbord or dim sum, and letting the person pick
and savour the myriad delicacies on offer.
If you’re a person with a preference for an options meta program, you are
good at starting projects, although you may not always see them through.
You’re good at setting up procedures, just as long as you’re not the one
who’s expected to follow them! Because of your penchant for testing new
ways, you’re unable to resist improving the most rigorously tried and tested
methods or of finding some way to bend that company rule.
Don’t ask options people to drive, unless you want to see the sights: they like
to take a different route each time. Romilla always allows plenty of time to get
somewhere new because she has a tendency for getting lost. When she gets to
her destination without losing her way, she feels cheated.
Heaven help you if you’re proposing to an options person! Even if the options
person loves you to bits, you may have a hard time getting commitment,
because options people worry about getting hemmed in, missing out on expe-
riences, and so on. To get options people to say ‘yes’ to you, you need to show
them all the opportunities that open up for them if they do assent.
If you have a procedures preference, you like to follow set rules and proce-
dures, although you may prefer to have these created for you rather than
design them yourself.
When you have a working procedure, you follow it repeatedly, without modi-
fication. You may feel compelled to follow each step of a procedure to the
end and feel cheated if circumstances prevent you from doing so. You stick
to speed limits and take personal affront when other drivers drive along
using a mobile phone or with only one hand on the steering wheel.
Romilla really understood the difference between the two preferences when
she was learning the healing technique of Huna in Hawaii. Two of her group
of three wanted to sit out under the trees, by a large pond, overlooking the
ocean, to work on an exercise and experiment. Richard, the third person,
became extremely distressed and was ready to storm off and find another
