Steven Leeds and I participated in the NLP Leadership Summit in Alicante, Spain on January 12-14 with 79 other NLP Leaders. There were NLP trainers, authors, educators, business coaches and therapists from all parts of the world to have a conversation about NLP. Although the summit is leaderless, we did have two facilitators, Heidi Heron, from Australia (born in the U.S.) and Michael Hall from the United States who made sure that we stayed on point, found ways to be respectful and created a format for us to follow. The phrase, ‘herding cats,” was used quite often to describe a variety of ourgroup processes. We had large group sessions and then would have break out tables of 8-10 people for the smaller work group discussions. In the small groups we discussed issues such as Professionalism, Standards (including competencies), Marketing, Branding, Technology, Research, The 4 th Generation (the future developments) and the Overall Big Picture. After a 40 minute discussion we would come back to the group at large and report.
The discussions began about NLP and what we each believed was the best thing NLP had to offer and our visions for the future, and then went to what are some of the problems to achieve those visions and then what are solutions and next steps. The visions ranged from wanting to see NLP in all educational systems to helping create a peaceful world. The problems ranged from discussing the lack of research to why people don’t know about NLP. The solutions ranged from commitments to research, to sharing any news about NLP that we see in the main stream.
As I reflect on the meeting one of the most memorable experiences was a process we did about dealing with difficult conversations. Our goal as NLP leaders is to walk our talk and communication is supposedly one of our specialties, yet there was a concern that when disagreement arose we might forget and get caught in a fixed mind state as opposed to an open mind state. The question posed to us by our two facilitators was given that our discussions may be difficult, “What would make the conversation easier.” We created mini groups of 4-5 and shared what we did internally. Here is a sampling of the words that people shared: acceptance, belonging, grounded, humor, letting go, compassion, centered, curiosity, openness, etc. Then when we had our small group discussions we reminded ourselves to remain in these states. It was a very useful exercise and the goal of having healthy open conversations was achieved.
If you have an idea for a research question, or hear of NLP in the news either negative or positive or simply have a question or suggestion for the NLP Leadership summit please e-mail us at info@nlptraining.com. Although the summit is only open to NLP trainers with 15 years of experience or more, you are welcome to attend the London conference held in May. For more information about the NLP conference go to www.nlpconference.com.
-Rachel Hott
Click Powered by NLP ebook to read this ebook published by the NLP Leadership Summit just after their 2016 meeting in Alicante, Spain
And a second book, “Powered by NLP2” was published just after the 2018 NLP Leadership Summit in Alicante, Spain. To read it, click Powered By NLP2 eBook