History of NLP

Author: Eashani Rodrigo 

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) emerged in the mid 1970’s from the University of California, United States, by the two founders - Richard Bandler, a student of mathematics and John Grinder, a professor of linguistics. 

Bandler and Grinder claim NLP as a connection between the neurological processes (“neuro”), language (“linguistic”) and behavioral patterns learned through experience (“programming”). 

There are number of definitions of NLP: 

• “NLP is the study of the structure of subjective experience” - (Grinder, DeLozier & Bandler, 1977)
• John Grinder defines NLP as “an accelerated learning strategy for the detection and utilization of patterns in the world”
• Richard Bandler defines NLP as “an attitude and a methodology that leaves behind a trail of techniques”  

These definitions introduce NLP as a technology for communication and person development, and originally it claimed to be a methodology or a modelling process. 

As definitions imply, Bandler’s and Grinder’s initial studies were inspired by pioneers in fields of therapy and personal growth and development, which lead the two founders to develop systematic procedures and theories that formed the basis of NLP. Their initial work, “The Structure of Magic Vol. I & II” (1975a, 1976), identified the work patterns of the innovative psychotherapist Fritz Perls, the creator of gestalt therapy and Virginia Satir, the well-known family therapist. Their next work, “M.D. Vol. I & II” (1975b, 1977), identified the patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, the world-famous hypnotherapist and the founder of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis.

Although NLP was initially used in the world of therapy, through the years it developed application in other fields.  Currently this approach is being incorporated into areas including: personal development, education, sports and fitness, health and wellbeing, relationships, psychotherapy, business, leadership, management, selling, coaching, negotiation, law, parenting and spirituality. Similarly, the academic literature on NLP remains scattered across those various filed of practices.  

References:

Bandler, R. & Grinder, J. (1975a) The Structure of Magic I: a book about language and therapy. Palo Alto, California: Science and Behaviour Books, Inc.

Bandler, R. & Grinder, J. (1975b) Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D. Vol 1. Cupertino, CA.: Meta Publications

Bavister, S. &; Vickers, A. (2010). Essential NLP. Oxfordshire: Bookpoint Ltd

Grinder, J. & Bandler, R. (1976) The Structure of Magic II a book about communication and change. Palo Alto, California: Science and Behaviour Books, Inc

Grinder, J., DeLozier, J., & Bandler, R. (1977) Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D. Vol II. Capitola, CA.: Meta Publications

Facts Everyone Should Know About Sleep and Sleep Disorders

Author: Eashani Rodrigo

According to American National Sleep Foundation, excessive daytime sleepiness is increasingly becoming a nationwide social health issue in America. Their survey highlights that an alarming one-third of American adults have scored risky levels of sleepiness known to be disastrous, and six percent has scored severe levels of sleepiness. This situation can result in sleep-related accidents, serious physical and mental health problems, high medical costs and decreased productivity in work and day-to-day tasks. Therefore, it is well important and beneficial to be aware of sleep disorders and good sleeping habits for a healthy and happy life which will be discussed in this article.

After reading through this topic, I came across very important facts that everyone should know about sleep and sleep disorders. I believe these facts would be valuable to make awareness about sleep disorders to help you to seek medical help or to practice good sleep habits for a healthy lifestyle.

Did you know that as humans we sleep roughly about a one third of our lives; and according to Dr. William C. Dement, an unhealthy sleep can severely impact the other two thirds of our lives as well. Not having a good sleep leads to sleep deprivation which can make you feel fatigue, daytime sleepiness, and dizziness. Sleep deprivation can be caused from sleep disorders or chronic sleep loss which can put you in a risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, heart failure, stroke, obesity, diabetes and other physical serious illnesses, as well as it can negatively impact on brain and cognition function (www.end-your-sleep-deprivation.com). Therefore taking a good night sleep is essentially important for children as well adults for their good health and mental functioning.

From the sleep disorders, Obstructive Sleep Apnea, Insomnia, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and Restless Legs Syndrome are at the top of the list that cause sleep deprivation.

• Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) can be identified as condition that affect one’s ability to breathe while sleeping; often results abrupt awakening which starts with loud snores interrupted by a sudden silence that signals inability to breath. The surprising fact is, the sleeper does not remember the awakenings but instead he would feel persistent tiredness, exhaustion, apathy and fatigue those results in excessive daytime sleepiness. Unfortunately OSA is becoming commonly discovered in recent days due to America’s obesity problem. The researchers have found that the fat tissues around the neck of overweight people can cause OSA. Therefore making healthy food choices, exercising and proper sleep schedule is important to reduce these conditions.

• Insomnia is another common sleep disorder, which refers to the inability to get the amount of sleep as an individual should get in order to wake up feeling rested.  If you are having difficulty to sleep, it is well important to determine the underlying disease or condition causing it.  Some causes for insomnia can be pain, digestive problems, sleep disorders, anxiety or depression, or some medications (eg. birth controls, antidepressants, heart disease). Many researches have found that people with insomnia have poorer overall health, high work absenteeism and higher risk for depression.

• Some common sleep disorders such as Restless Legs syndrome (RLS) and Sleep Apnea can also lead to insomnia. Restless legs syndrome is a condition that the sleeper gets the overwhelming urge to move the legs often associated with uncomfortable feeling in the legs when they are at rest. 

• Same as adults, even infants could suffer from various sleep disorders. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is an unexpected or sudden death of an infant under one year of age. The causes could be infant sleeping in the prone position (stomach sleeping), use of unsafe beds for infants, overheating due to blankets or room temperature, mother smoking during pregnancy or exposure to secondhand smoke. Therefore it is a responsibility of the parents to be well aware of these facts and to take the right care of your infant to be safe from SIDS.

Practicing healthy sleeping habits helps to be safe from sleeping disorders and to get rid of sleeping deprivation. The researchers suggests that maintaining a regular bed time and awake time schedule helps to regulate our brains sleep-wake cycles. Therefore, it is important to practice a regular and consistent bedtime. Naps, even though a good way to help you on sleep deprivation, if it is taken late in the day can interrupt with the ability to sleep

.

Furthermore, it is advised not to exercise within three hours to the bedtime because the increased heart rate can keep you awake for long hours. Also, it is important to take necessary steps to stay in sleep without being interrupted throughout the night, which involves avoidance of food, liquids, alcohol, caffeine or smoking close to bedtime.

Practicing good sleeping habits along with a healthy lifestyle with healthy food and regular exercises, help to save you from sleep disorders and sleep deprivation, this in return helps to maintain a good physical health and mental health for you and your whole family.

How to Achieve Effective Communication for the Successful Management of Your Organization

Author: Eashani Rodrigo

The previous article on effective communication, discussed why “effective communication is essential for the smooth running of the business”.  It highlighted the relationship between effective communication and company performance, and it also discussed how the benefits of an effective communication can lead a company to drive the performance.

Relating to the previous article, this article will discuss how to achieve this effective communication in workplace for the successful management of the business. This will highlight five aspects to consider when practicing effective communication.  They are: 

• Have a culture where clear and honest communication is present

Employees want to feel their ideas are welcomed and considered, and this positively affect employee loyalty, employee satisfaction, innovation and customer service levels. The company culture largely effect on the employees’ freedom to share their ideas and to build the trust on company management. By instilling practice of clear and honest communication in company culture, can create better work environment for the employees to share their ideas, avoid conflicts, and build trust and respect, as well as to build strong work relationships among individuals, teams and departments. 

One way of creating clear and honest company culture is to involve employees in decision-making, getting their feedback, and keeping them properly informed on current business status and any other changes to the business. 

For an example, if a company is going through a merger it should be properly communicated to the employees. Without keeping them properly updated about this change, employees will resist to work with newly merged employees or the new management. Employee feedback is necessary to resolve conflicts that can arise due merger. If a clear and honest communication did not take place, it will demotivate the employees that could result in higher employee turnover.   

• Have an open or flat structure

Having an open or flat structure enables organizations to have few layers of management. This makes it possible for the communication to be from top down and from the bottom up, making every employee approachable by the top management and vice versa. This means communication can be done from top-level management to front-line employees and from front-line employees back to top management. Moreover, flat structure facilitates horizontal communication, which is the communication across functional/departmental areas. This communication flows enables organization to effectively communicate throughout the organization.

Example of a flat structure and the communication flow

For an example, the CEO of a company can appoints product development team to lead a data-gathering project to recommend product improvements. Having a flat structure enables the department manager to easily gather data from other department managers (horizontal communication) and most importantly, it allows him to gather data from sales employees (bottom up communication) which is a critical input for the project since they are the front-line employees who talks to customers individually. Similarly, once the product improvements are done it can be easily communicated to other department managers through horizontal communication, and directly to the sales employees. This makes it possible to rapidly communicate the change to the entire the company easily.

• Importance practicing empathy

Effective communication requires understanding emotions in others. Practicing empathy is one way of recognizing emotions in other people, and understanding the other person’s perspective and reality. 

Active listening is one of the key aspects of empathy. Listening to the employee’s ideas and viewpoints helps for the effective two-way communication.  Therefore, the company leaders and all the managers should practice empathy in order to establish effective communication in the organization.  

Some aspects to consider when practicing empathy:

—     Try to see things from other person’s points of view

—     Acknowledge the other person’s perspective

—     Have an open mind and attitude

—     Listen to the exact message the other person is trying to communicate

—     Ask the other person to explain his/her position for the better understanding

• Give and get feedback

Effective communication requires a cycle of feedback .Getting a feedback from the receiver helps to ensure that the message is properly understood by the receiver. Depending on the receiver’s feedback, the communication can be improved or enhanced in order to communicate more effectively without misunderstandings.

For an example, a CEO of a company can hold a meeting for the department managers regarding a new project that has been planned to be carried out. After the meeting done, in order to get the feedback from the managers CEO can request each department manager to send action plans highlighting their role in the project. The drafting of action plans requires each manager to communicate the new project with their department’s employees, and the feedback of employees are essentials to agree on responsibilities and timelines. Once the CEO receives all the actions plans by every department, it allows him to ensure that the information about the new project has been properly communicated and understood by the entire organization. If the action plans does not match the message he wanted to communicate he can have another meeting or a discussion with particular department managers to make sure they understand it properly. 

• Make distinction between internal and external communication

Effective communication at workplace should be practiced on internal communication (communicating with employees), as well as external communication (communicating with customers, suppliers etc.). Company management should make a clear distinction between these internal and external communication, as because for the effective communication the message that needs to be communicated, and the communication channel needs to be selected depending on whether it is internal or external communication.

For an example organization often use emails or meetings to communicate with employees (internal communication), and it generally involves getting direct feedback from employees. To communicate with customers organizations often use narrow set of communication channels such as mass media that does not allow the organization to get direct feedback from the customers. Therefore, the mass media advertising campaigns should support the conversations between customers and sales agents, who can provide the company indirect feedback from the customers.

Communicate or Your Business Will Die!

Author: Eashani Rodrigo 

Effective communication is considered to be one of the critical factors in the successful management of businesses. Companies today are increasingly seeing the importance of achieving a culture of effective communication as it delivers benefits from performance, productivity, and stronger employee relationships and customer relationships.

A study conducted by Towers Watson in 2009 (2009/2010 Communication ROI Study Report "Capitalizing on Effective Communication") found effective communication as one of the drivers of performance, especially during the times of economic challenge and change. Their report states, “Companies that communicate with courage, innovation and discipline, especially during times of economic challenge and change, are more effective at engaging employees and achieving desired business results." According to Watson term “courage” implies, when people are told what they need to know they will reward the company with performance; “innovation” implies, when employees are encouraged for creative thinking they will contribute with innovation; “discipline” implies, call for accountability during troubles times where a proper communication plan is needed to keep employees updated about company’s performance. Moreover, their report revealed that the companies that communicate effectively had 47% higher total returns to shareholders over a five-year period compared to the least effective communicators.

So What is this effective communication?

The purpose of any communication is to share information, which involves getting the message across to others clearly and unambiguously.  At work, effective communication is about knowing the employees (receivers) and choosing the right message to convey and the right channel for transmission. 

In general, communication is the process of exchanging information, thoughts and feelings through verbal (e.g. speaking) and nonverbal (e.g. writing or body language) channels. Extending this concept, an effective communication requires the transmitted content to be received and understood by the receiver (e.g. employees) in the way it is intended; this requires the understanding the emotion behind the information.  Therefore, the goals of effective communication are to create a common perception, to change behaviors and to acquire information.

For an example during an organizational change such as automation of businesses operations, people may resist the change due to the fear of losing their jobs or changing job roles. In a scenario like this, it is the leader’s responsibility to communicate the new change to the employees, as the communication is more effective when the employees receive accurate information from one reliable, credible spokesperson within the company.   Moreover, for this communication to be effective the leader should clearly explain with all required details making employees understand the intention of the organization to do the change. Similarly understanding the employees’ concerns is also important for this two way communication, and that helps to discuss and provide solutions for the employees concerns and to clear out the misunderstandings which normally occur due to lack of information sharing. At this situation, if a company effectively communicate their change to the employees in a such a way it will benefit in getting the employee support and commitment for the organizational change to be a success.       

So how effective communication can increase your company performance? 

As Watson’s study suggested, there is a strong link between company performance and effective communication. This linkage can be clearly understood by looking at the benefits it delivers to the businesses.  

• Employee motivation

Effective communication helps for better understanding of people and situations. This can be achieved through listening to the feedback from employees and practicing empathy. In return, this will help to build trust and respect in employees toward the company management. The trust in management can build employee loyalty towards the company, and will motivate them to support company long-term and shirt-term goals.

For an example, when a company go through a crisis situation it might require cost reductions in business operations and increments in sales within a short-term.  If the company management imposed rules and new plans without proper information of the crisis situation, this can result in employees objecting new plans without knowing the real situation. Therefore, if the company management clearly communicates the current situation the company faces and gets the feedback from the employees, it will build the trust between the company and management and it will motivate the employees to work on new plans to overcome the crisis situation as a one unit.  

• Company productivity

Effective communication helps to communicate a message clearly and unambiguously making the receiver to understand the intended message. This helps organizations to save time on repetitive communication, to avoid misunderstandings and to immediately start acting upon the message.

For an example, emails are popular channel of company communication. When writing emails the message should clearly written with proper information considering the receivers.  If the same email needs to be sent to different receivers, the email should be written in a way that every receiver could understand the message (e.g. avoiding jargons). If the message is not clearly understood by the receivers this will end up in lengthy email conversations costing time and frustration due to conflicts, which will result in losing daily productivity of operations.     

      

•  Workplace harmony

Effective communication helps to clearly convey messages and for better understanding of people and situations. Workplace conflicts happen due to misunderstandings among people. Therefore, effective communication helps to reduce workplace conflicts and frustrations. This can be achieved through creating a company culture where clear and honest communication is present. Having workplace harmony can create a better environment for the employees to work and to perform.

For an example when working in projects as teams, the lack of effective communication can create conflicts among team members resulting poor performance, costing more time and effort leading to failures in projects.

• Building strong relationships with company internal and external parties

Effective communication in work place does not only limit to the communication with employees. It also should be practiced when communicating with external parties of the company such as, customers, company suppliers, partners, shareholders etc.  By avoiding conflicts and misunderstandings, effective communication helps organizations to build strong relationships with internal and external parties of the company. It is also important for the communicators to make a clear distinction between internal and external communication.

For an example, getting the right message cross to the customer and getting the customer feedback is important to resolve customer complaints and to bring new ideas for the improvement of the products and services. Similarly, suppliers also should get clear and unambiguous information to provide continuous services and products for the company requirements.  For an instance, if the company did not clearly communicate and agree on supplier delivery dates and the quantity of orders it will result in conflicts between the supplier and the company resulting delays in production.

This shows that all these benefits of effective communication ultimately link to company performance. Therefore, for any company effective communication is essential for the smooth running of the business.

The next part of this article on effective communication will discuss about, “how to achieve effective communication forsuccessful management of your organization”.