Figuring Out People Design Engineering With Meta-Programs L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. and Bob G. Bodenhamer, D.Min. “An outstanding contribution to this area which lies at the heart of NLP.” Wyatt L. Woodsmall, Ph.D.Figuring Out People Design Engineering With Meta-Programs Deepening Understanding of People for Better Rapport, Relationships and influence L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. Bob G. Bodenhamer, D.Min. Crown House Publishing Limited www.crownhouse.co.ukPublished in the UK by Crown House Publishing Ltd Crown Buildings Bancyfelin Carmarthen Wales www.crownhouse.co.uk © L. Michael Hall and Bob G. Bodenhamer 1997 The right of L, Michael Hall and Bob G, Bodenhamer to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 1997, Reprinted 2000, All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owners. Enquiries should be addressed to Crown House Publishing Limited British Library of Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Acatalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 1899836101 Printed and bound in Wales by Gomer Press Llandysul Ceredigion SA444QL,“By Human Engineering I mean the science and art of directing the energies and capacities of human beings to the advancement of human weal. (p. 1) “Production is essentially a task for engineers; it essentially depends upon the discovery and the application of natural laws, including the laws of human nature. “Human Engineering will embody the theory and practice— the science and art— of all engineering branches united by a common aim—the understanding and welfare of mankind. (pp. 6-7) “The task of engineering science is not only to know, but to know how.” (p. 11) Korzybski, 1921Acknowledgments No one gives birth to a new work without a great number of people who have supported the process. While this work came together very quickly in just a couple of months in early 1997, it grew out of years and years of study, research, and training of the Meta-Programs. We especially thank the following for their support. From Michael: * Wyatt Woodsmall, Tad James, and Richard Bandler who first introduced me to the NLP Meta-Programs. * Cheryl Ann Buffa who devotedly read every word of the text in our first drafts and provided much wise insight. * Jessica Hall, my daughter for putting up with all of my computer time! * The inventor of e-mail—through which medium Bob and I have become good friends as well as co-authors. From Bob: * Richard Spencer whose vision introduced me to NLP. * Gene Rooney, my first NLP trainer and inspiration, * Richard Bandler and John Grinder without whom NLP would not even exist. © Tad James who turned me on to Time-Lining and Language and the power they offer for personal change. © Wyatt Woodsmall who along with Tad walked me through Trainer’s Training. * And most importantly, to my wife Linda, whose love and continued support has encouraged me throughout thirty-two years of marriage and ministry,Table Of Contents Foreword by Wyatt L. Woodsmall, Ph.D... Introduction PART [: Introduction: Understanding The Patterning Of Consciousness Chapter 1: What In The World Do We Mean By Meta-Programs? ..1 Chapter 2: Meta-Programs For Figuring Out People PART II: The Meta-Programs Template Of Meta-Programs . Chapter 3: The “Mental” Meta-Programs Meta-Programs in Thinking, Sorting, Perceiving Chapter 4: The “Emotional” Meta-Programs Meta-Programs in Emoting and Somatizing Chapter 5: The “Volitional” Meta-Programs .. Meta-Programs Involved in Willing, Choosin; Chapter 6: The “Response” Meta-Programs Meta-Programs in Outputting, Responding, Communic: Chapter7; The Melt Meta-Programs.... Meta-Programs about Conceptual/Semantic Realities Identity/Self/ “Time” etc. PART III: Utilization: Design Engineering With Meta-Programs Chapter 8: Context And Meta-Programs ; The Context Determines the Reality Chapter 9: Changing Meta-Program: Learning to Become a Different Kind of Person Chapter 10; Design Engineering In Profiling People... “Shifting from “the way we are’ to ‘the way we function the ability to think more flexibly about uemar nature.” Chapter 11: Reading Meta-Programs On The Outside And Pacing Them .. “Excuse me, butt your Meta-Programs are showing! Appendices Appendix A A Comment On The Eons of The Meta-Programs . Appendix BB Meta-Programs Elicitation Appendix The NLP Eye-Access Chart And Representation System Predicates.Appendix D Appendix E Appendix F Appendix G Appendix H About The Authors. Hierarchy Of Language On The Scale Of Specificity And Abstraction... Meta-Programs In Five Categories And Meta Meta-Programs. Meta-Programs As A Sorting Grid There 15 No “Is” sccsecaneue Meta-Programs To ComeForeword by Wyatt L. Woodsmall, Ph.D. Figuring Out People: Design Engineering With Meta-Programs fills a serious void in the literature of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Meta- Programs allow us to understand human behavior and human differences Even more importantly, they reveal to us how we may vary our own behavior and communications to become more successful in relating to and changing our own, and other people's, behavior and models of the world. Meta-Programs are probably the greatest contribution the field of NLP has made to understanding human differences. Only by understanding and appreciating human differences can we begin to respect and support other people whose models of the world differ dramatically from our own. Only by understanding human differences can we begin to replace animosity with understanding and antagonism with compassion. Only once we realize that other people are not just behaving the way that they do in order to spite us, but because that is their fundamental pattern can we begin to replace conflict with cooperation. Unfortunately, until recently there has been very little written in the field of NLP on this highly important area. I am excited about the authors’ outstanding contribution to this area which lies at the heart of NLP. I was already interested in the general area of human typology when I began my NLP training in 1981. I was trained and certified in the Myers- Briggs Type Indicator® and had learned the Enneagram Personality Model from the Arica Institute before I came to NLP. I inquired curiously to see if NLP has similar personality models and felt excited to find that it did. I first learned Meta-Programs in 1982 from my NLP teachers Anné Linden and Frank Stass. | also had the good fortune to attend Roger Bailey’s training on his IPU Profile, I then learned the Clare Graves Value Model (1984) from Chris Cowen and Don Beck. I was excited about all of these powerful models to explain human similarities and differences and took every opportunity that I could to tell others about them. Anthony Robbins was one of the first people I taught them to. I met Tony at a modeling training of John Grinder’s in September of 1983. | got Tony involved in a modeling project that [ was engaged in on pistol shooting forFiguring Out People the US Army. As Tony and I became friends, I taught him all of the NLP Master Practitioner patterns including Meta-Programs and values. Later, [ assisted Tony in teaching his first NLP Professional Certification Training, (Feb. 1985). During the Second Certification Training (Sept. 1985), we added a Master Professional Track. There in Colorado, I taught both Meta-Programs and values and met my three most senior students: Marvin Oka, Richard Diehl, and Tad James. Next, I taught a NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner Training in Honolulu, Hawaii to a class that consisted of Tad and Ardie James, Marvin Oka, and Richard Diehl, Soon all of these people felt as excited as I did about the Myers-Briggs®, Meta-Programs, and the Graves Values Model. Tad and Ardie began to use Meta-Programs in their business with excellent results. This led to the collaboration between the Jameses and myself to develop the Meta Programs and Values Inventory and the material on Meta-Programs and values that was published in Time Line Therapy and the Basis of Personality. My wife Marilyne and I have spent the last decade applying Meta-Programs and values in business, performance enhance- ment, and therapy. Marilyne and I have recently finished a book on the application of Meta-Programs in business, People Pattern Power, and a book on the applications of values to society. I find it very gratifying to see Michael Hall and Bob Bodenhamer—who are two people I helped to train—become as excited as I am about Meta- Programs, It is even more gratifying to me that they have accepted my admonitions: “NLP does not end with John Grinder and Richard Bandler” and, “It is up to all of us to further advance the field.” They have accom- plished this in this excellent book. The authors have immersed themselves in NLP and Meta-Programs and also in General Semantics and the latest developments in cognitive psychology and therapy. It is refreshing to find that the authors are not just cocooned in the field of NLP, and that they have extensively studied the origins of NLP in General Semantics as well as other disciplines that bear on NLP and its application in the real world. Thave had the privilege of knowing both authors for several years and one thing that has impressed me about both of them is their integrity, their compassion, and their dedication to applying and expanding NLP into areas of the world where it has not traveled previously. This has not come easy. Both have made major sacrifices to pursue their interests in NLP.Foreword by Wyatt Woodsmall While all too often readers may assume that somehow books just happen, they don’t. Nor is this book an accident. It has resulted from long, hard work and study and a great deal of sacrifice and dedication to the field of NLP on the part of both of its authors. For this they deserve our gratitude and thanks. Figuring Out People is unique in several ways. First, it explains the origins of Meta-Programs and places them in the larger context of human growth and change. Secondly, it provides an in-depth discussion of Meta- Programs; and thirdly, it expands on the field of Meta-Programs and makes a significant new contribution to the field. I will briefly touch on each of these points. Figuring Out People has an excellent discussion on the origin and history of the deyelopment of Meta-Programs in NLP. It also places some very important frames around Meta-Programs. NLP essentially involves a process of “de-nominalization” and the authors begin their study by denominalizing beth “personality” and “Meta-Programs.” They make the crucial point that Meta-Programs deal not with what people are, but with how they function. Figuring Out People presents an excellent typology of Meta-Programs. You can classify people in many different ways. The critical question remains, “Is the classification useful?” We have only 5-to-9 chunks of attention, and with 51 Meta-Programs to be considered, it would be easy to get lost. The authors help us to avoid overload by chunking Meta-Programs into five categories (i.e. mental, emotional, volitional, external response, and meta)- This approach provides both a valuable contribution to the typology of Meta-Programs themselves and a very useful map to help us sort out these powerful patterns. For each of the 51 Meta-Programs they have provided valuable information on how to elicit and apply. The appendices to the book are extremely helpful, and I suggest that the reader familiarize himself with them at the beginning, since they serve as an excellent guide to the text. Also they are invaluable for future reference in eliciting and utilizing Meta-Programs. Perhaps the most exciting part of Figuring Out People is the major contri- bution that it makes to the development and expansion of Meta- Programs. | have already mentioned the significant contribution that the authors make in their new typology for Meta-Programs; this book also covers more Meta-Programs in more depth than any other book in NLP. Its value does not just stop there, however. Its virtues are not just expansiveness and comprehensiveness. Perhaps its greatest virtue lies in the creative insightsof the authors into the subject of Meta-Programs in general and into each of the Meta-Programs in particular. The authors challenge us to beth understand and apply. And they continu- ally give new avenues for further exploration and study. This makes this book so valuable. It is truly geeratice and will lead to the further develop- ment, explication, and utilization of even more patterns as we strive to understand and applyits insights. This is perhaps its greatest contribution. Wyatt L. Woodsmal!, Ph.D.Introduction “People are not nouns, but process (Richard Simons, 1997) “L give up, I just can’t figure him out!” “Why in the world does she act that way? You'd have to be a psychologist to figure it out.” “Why does my supervisor have to act so secretive about office memos? He's so paranoid these days. | don’t understand him.” “Go figure. [haven't a clue. When she gets into those moods of hers you never know what to expect ...” “You're doing that because you’re just trying to get back at me!” Figuring out people ... we all attempt it. Living in human society pretty much demands it, don’t you think? So we spend a good part of every day second-guessing people, mind-reading motives and intentions, psychoana- lyzing without a license those with whom we live. We look for tempera- ment patterns in them. We read books on “reading people.” We attend relationship seminars. We do all kinds of things trying to figure out people. Yet what good does it do us? How effectively have we dev¢loped in really understanding the strange and weird world that people live-in, and out of which they come? Do you even have yourself figured ottt? Do | even know my own patterns and processes? Beyond “Temperaments” In this work, you will discover that we have moved far beyond all the models and instruments that try to figure people out by classifying them according to types and temperaments, Since the early Greeks with their model of the “four basic temperaments” (they called them “humours"), hundreds of models of personality typing have arisen. The authors base these types upon the assumption that people walk around with permanent fraits inside them and that explains “why he is the way he is.” ‘You will find none of that here.Figuring Out People Instead of beginning with assumptions of permanent inherent traits, we have opted for another assumption. We have opted for an assumption that Richard Simons, editor of The Fantily Therapy Networker (March/ April 1997) summarized by saying, “people are not nouns but processes.” Here we have looked, not at what people “are” in some absolute, unchangeable trait way, but how people fienction. * How does this person think-and-emote? * How does this person talk, act, behave, and relate? * What processes and patterns describe this person's style for sorting (paying attention to information)? * What mental operational system does this person use in remembering? * What human software (ideas, beliefs) does this person use to think? By focusing our attention on how people actually function in terms of their cognitive processing (thinking), emoting (somatizing ideas into their bodies), speaking, (languaging self and others), and behaving (responding, gesturing, relating, etc.) we discover not what they “are,” but how thei actually work in any giver context ot situation. The value of this focus? Recognizing how a person works enables us to figure out their model of the world (their mental paradigm) that describes their internal “reality.” This increases understanding and enlightens us about “where the person comes from. It also increases our sense of empowerment. Why? Because in knowing how I work, or how someone else works, enables us to evaluate and match that working, * How effectively does this way of thinking work? * How well do | like this way of emoting/somatizing my ideas? * How desirable do I find this way of talking and languaging? * How resourceful does this way of sorting behaving actually work? Dealing with such processes (i.e. how we sort information for relevancy) enables us to change, alter, and transform any process that doesn’t work well. When you (in your mind) deal with traits, things, the way people “are,” then you think-and-feel more in terms of, “Well, that’s the way | am!” “Vm just stuck with dealing with him, because ‘that’s the way he is.’” Wrong.Introduction Here we start from a much more empowering presupposition, “People are not nowns, but processes.” Count Alfred Korzybski said that when you take a word of label and stick it on a person and then use that deceptively alluring but tricky passive verb “is,” you create a primitive form of unsanity. Linguistically, you create the “is” of identity. “I am a failure.” “She is arrogant.” “What can you expect from a bleeding-heart liberal?” “Communists are like that.” “She's heartless because she is a republican.” “He's a Sanguine!” “They ave sado-masochists.” Ete Of course, our emphasis here goes against the history of philosophical labeling, psychiatric name-calling (currently called DSM-IV, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), and psychological typing. Yet we feel that reducing people to fit a category of types, traits, or personality disorders only blinds us to the rich diversity and uniqueness of the person. People operate far too complexly for us to so easily categorize, label, and classify. Nor do people tend to stay put when we put them into some word- box. They change. They grow. They learn new and different ways of functioning—of “being.” People also tend to operate differently in different contexts. Most people, in fact, experience themselves very differently in different contexts. In such, we play out different roles, take on different personas, think-and-feel according to that context or frame-of-reference { What model therefore allows us to take context itself into consideration? What model of the functioning of persons enables us to take learning, development, growth, and empowerment into consideration? ‘Years ago (1979) Psychology Today reviewed the domain of Neuro- Linguistic Programming (NLP) in an article entitled, “The People Who Read People.” It surveyed a brand new field within cognitive-behavioral psychology and some of the models and technologies that Bandler and Grinder had developed for “reading” people. Later we (MH and BB) entered that field. We received extensive training, and began to write about it. When we later came upon each other's writings, we decided to combine our writings about Meta-Programs as a way to figure out people. This domain of “Meta-Programs” (software programs in people's heads about how to think, emote, etc.) got its initial start with Leslie Cameron Bandler as she and Richard interacted. They arose as Leslie did “textbook