'My long history in education and in the areas of new mind technologies where the relationship between success, thought and language are fully understood, means that I know how to make teaching and training effective and meaningful.'
John Sammers - Lead Trainer

Latest articles on communication
(please credit me with a link back to this site if using any of these articles)

Communication Pt3 Influential Language
In this post, which is the third in my communication series, I want to tell you about influential language.  What is influential language? Influential language is language that one feels an unconscious imperative to respond to in the positive, and in most cases simply comply with rather than resist. It’s easy to imagine how useful that could be in business and personal relationships

I recommend using these techniques if you find that people are not responding to simple requests. It could just be the way you are asking.

Now, in all communication, its vital you are absolutely clear in knowing what you want – what your preferred outcome is. In personal relationships it may be about getting your partner to put their dirty socks in the laundry basket. In business it may be as important as your company being chosen for a large contract.

We are all resourceful and talented and we forget this because many of us don’t often use the resources and talents we have. Use it or lose it someone once said. If the unconscious mind knows exactly what we want to achieve it can bring those resources into play. Take your memory for example. If you haven’t yet programmed yourself with instructions like, “I’ve got a terrible memory” then, when you do need to access information (that you may have thought you’d forgotten) in order to satisfy a clearly expressed outcome, the information seems to jump into your head. Only today I was emailing a recent acquaintance to tell her that I had misplaced the mobile her number was on, only to have the whereabouts of the phone present itself. I had spent 15 minutes racking my brain without success, but the moment I stopped trying to remember it and began to write about the outcome (not achieving it in this case, but it still triggered), the information came clearly.

A quick note here; when the level of stress rises, the level of knowledge drops. Stop trying to remember and believe you can. The information will soon arrive – it is all about access.

When you learn how to utilize influential language it will become one of your most useful communication resources.

Once you are clear about what you want, you must then get the attention of the unconscious mind (theirs, not yours – hopefully you’ve already got your own attention). You do this by first understanding a bit about how it works. One of the unconscious mind’s many jobs is to recognize patterns. This is one of the ways we learn (by our mistakes). That tingle you get called instinct or sixth sense is the recognition of a pattern at an unconscious level.

One way to get its attention is through a language pattern based on tone. One set of modelled patterns we have in England and the US is when the tone of a person’s voice goes up at the end of a sentence it means it is a question, when it stays at the same tone it is a statement of fact and when it goes down it is a command. So, when you send the tone of your voice down at the end of a sentence it is picked up unconsciously as a command.

We can add to this what is called ‘analogue marking’. This is when you pause just before delivering a phrase. This is signalled to the unconscious mind as important. Think of the times when you have been told something of significance. There is always a pause before delivery. Now, if you put these two together you have a very powerful combination. The unconscious mind hears, ‘this is important AND it’s a command’.

The final part of this package is to disarm the unconscious mind to lower resistance.

Not many people like to be told what to do. AND if someone gets a sense that you very much want them to do something, the unconscious mind pays resistant attention because a learned pattern for most people is that when someone is trying to get you to do something, it’s usually in their interest rather than yours. Resistance is therefore created, any rapport is broken and your influence melts away. To lower resistance you can say something like, “I’m not going to tell you………….but…………”. When you say something like this first, the mind relaxes. Here’s another way.  When about to command your partner to put the top back on the toothpaste for example, say something like, “You know, I love toothpaste (they relax – hey, I love toothpaste too) but can you (pause – analogue mark) put the top back on the toothpaste tube (descending tone at the end – command). Don’t be forceful – just descend your tone.

Practice it with a friend and have some fun. Notice the difference in the way a statement feels when these techniques are added. Pick something you want someone else to do, put the three techniques together and see what happens.

There is another little component that you can add to these three techniques, and that is a reason. The mind is ok with doing stuff if you tell it why. “Now, I would usually never ask (disarm) but, (pause-mark) can I go in front of you in the cue (command tone – descending) because I have to get back to work as soon as possible.” People don’t really have time to resist because their minds are predisposed to accepting reasons and being reasonable. They usually just comply (you may hear them grumbling later, which is what happened when I asked to go to the front of the cue at airport security to catch a flight). The reason usually has to be a reasonable rather than a, “because I really hate waiting for stuff”. 

There you have some pretty simple techniques for you to experiment with so you can achieve greater influence. When you are first practicing, exaggerate, so that you get the idea of it and then become subtler. You may think they sound obvious but people don’t know what you are doing because they have no prior reference, so usually don’t notice – they know something has happened (pattern detection) but no idea what.

Communication Pt2 Choosing the Right Words
When we communicate we use words that we feel comfortable with in terms of projecting who we are. This comfort comes from our particular map of the world (how we represent our subjective experiences in order to give some meaning and understanding to our life). Personal and business relationships hinge on good communication, so wouldn’t an influential edge be a good thing?

When I ask you to think about happiness, some of you may see a picture, some may get a feeling or a sense of happiness and some may hear a voice describing a happy occasion or a definition of happiness. If I ask you to think of chocolate, a new set of representations will be triggered and so on. We may represent our worlds differently but it is always based on a sensory experience – otherwise it is an abstract concept. This is one of the reasons it is so hard to understand someone who lives in a way or believes in things you’ve never experienced – you just don’t get it.

Verbal communication is usually made using our preferred language type – our conscious output system. This is based on our map of the world and uses 3 of our senses: seeing, hearing and feeling. It is contextual in that it changes for different modes of life and can move from one sense to another (more later). What this means is you may have a mode for work that is quite different to your mode for holidays or shopping. (We can break this up even further into sub-modalities)

People who use predominantly visual words will understand you better if you use visual words with them. It will also create rapport (an unconscious feeling that the person is on the same wavelength) and this is vital to good relationships, especially in business when you have a short amount of time to make an impression OR to convert a sale.

Of course, on the surface it appears much easier than it is, because you should be actively listening to the meaning (see Pt1 above) rather than the type of word, but with practice you will be able to quickly identify the preferred language type and be able to use it to create rapport and ensure better understanding.

A word of warning here is not to make too many assumptions at first because people often process certain experiences through a couple of senses. ‘I like watching fish in a tank because it relaxes me’, moves from visual to feelings. Ask some questions to be certain. What I’m doing with this article is giving a general guide so you will have the basic knowledge to become more influential.  Like any skill you will need to practice and listen, but you will soon begin to notice people change their systems in different contexts when you tune in. People do go into ‘work mode’ and ‘party mode’ and so on.

There are also some physiological clues to help you.

Visual mode people are generally quite upright and talk rapidly, speaking from the head and scan the room well – they are taking it all in. Audio mode people are generally less upright, talking from the chest/throat area a bit more slowly than Visuals, perhaps even turning their head as they listen to themselves. They use a lot of words to say most things, liking the sound of them. Kinaesthetic or ‘feeling’ people can slouch and speak slowly and deliberately as if they are experiencing each word. They may even, and I know this can be taken a different way, be touching themselves in some way – rubbing their hands together, stroking their face and so on. I am predominantly Visual in business with a touch of Kinaesthetic but mainly Kinaesthetic when doing therapy and with friends. Despite my great love of music I am mostly VK with a spattering of A in certain modes.

Now, of course the biggest clues of all are the words used. These are called predicates. You will find much written about these on the Internet and in any work about NLP. Here I will give you some basics and have a more comprehensive list available in the free section of my blog.

Visual predicates: These phrases can be heard from people with a predominantly visual output system. “I see what you mean”, “or so it appears”, “my perspective on this”, “take a dim view”, “a bit of a hazy description”, a mental image”, “mind’s eye”, “paints a picture”, “in plain sight” and so on. You get the picture?

Audio predicates: These people use words to do with hearing and sound. “sounds good to me”, “loud and clear”, “Ring a bell?”, “came to a screeching halt”, “tuned in”, “had an earful”, “to tell the truth”, “Honestly” and so on

Kinaesthetic predicates: Finally, these people feel their words. “Get a handle on” , “Grapple with” , “That was a bit strong” , “Touch base” , “Grasp of” , “Struggle with” , “Firm footing” , “A rough ride”.

The best way to practice these skills is to find interviews on internet TV repeat channels. Look for interviews of business people and celebrities rather than politicians, who are coached on these matters. Study their language and listen for predicates. If you hear them more than a couple of times, you can feel pretty certain of their preferred language type and therefore through which sense they process their world in this mode.

Don’t forget to learn you own predicate phrases from the free handout.

Have fun with it. You’ll be amazed how much your communication will improve when you speak in a way that people understand, and they feel that you really understand them.