Neuro Linguistic Programming

262 Part IV: Using Words to Entrance

A mere two hours later that evening after receiving this suggestion, Kate had

come away from a late phone call feeling tense, having absorbed some strong

negative vibes from an anxious client; she knew that she wouldn’t be able to

sleep until she was fully relaxed. She didn’t want to get into a negative trance

running her client’s problems through her head. So she took her friend’s

advice, picked up a new novel, sank into the sofa, and became so engrossed

that the angst quickly slipped away – and a good night’s sleep followed. In NLP

terms, she ‘chunked up’ from the specifics of the client’s issues to a more

general sense that ‘all is good with the world’, deleting the details. Sometimes

the simplest solutions to interrupt our trances really are the best.

The common piece of advice to sleep on a problem, and a course of action

will present itself in the morning, contains an essential truth. When you allow

your conscious mind to rest, the unconscious mind is given the opportunity

to process or retrieve information, and then the brain can really get to work

in a positive way. So, next time you’re struggling with an issue, as you go to

bed ask your unconscious mind to help you find the answer, and notice what

comes to you in the morning when you wake.

Groupthink

Have you ever noticed how group reactions to

an event are bigger and more powerful than

the sum of the individual parts? Perhaps you’ve

been to a rock concert, religious gathering, big

sporting occasion, or been caught in a serious

airport delay. People have the ability to get into

a group trance of mass hysteria – for better or

for worse, like the whirling dervishes.

Groupthink is a term coined by Irving Janis

to characterise situations where people are

carried along by group illusions and perceptions.

As a Yale University social psychologist, Janis

was fascinated with the question of how groups

of experts, especially in the White House, were

able to make such terrible decisions.

One of the most famous examples is found

in the abortive invasion of Cuba at the Bay of

Pigs by 1,200 anti-Castro exiles. Launched on

17 April 1961 by the Kennedy administration,

it almost led to war. ‘How could we have been

so stupid?’ President Kennedy later remarked.

In retrospect, the plan looked completely

misguided, and yet at the time it was never

seriously questioned or challenged. Kennedy

and his advisors had unwittingly developed

shared illusions that stopped them thinking

critically and engaging with reality.

Janis believes that when overcome by

groupthink, chief executives or their advisors

aren’t stupid, lazy, or evil. Instead, he sees them

as victims of ‘a mode of thinking that people

engage in when they are deeply involved

in a cohesive in-group, when the members’

strivings for unanimity override their motivation

to realistically appraise alternative courses of

action.’

When people operate in a groupthink mode,

they automatically apply the ‘let’s preserve

group harmony at all cost’ test to every

decision they face.