Penny Tompkins and James Lawley

Section 4: Stage 1: Preparing to do a Modelling Project

Section 6: Stage 3: Constructing a Model

Section 7: Stage 4: Testing Your Model

Section 8: Stage 5: Acquiring the Model

Your outcomes

If this is your first attempt at conducting a modeling project (perhaps you are on an NLP Master Practitioner course) remember, your primary outcome is to become familiar with the basics of NLP modelling. Whatever else you gain is a bonus. Until you have completed your first project from start to finish you will not know what is involved.

Your evidence that you have achieved your learning-to-model outcome will come in four forms, each demonstrating a higher level of competency. In our opinion, demonstrating the minimum criteria specified below fulfils the requirement for NLP Master Practitioner certification anything else is a bonus.

The MINIMUM is that you:

(a) Demonstrate you have acquired a model of modelling that enables you to:

- Specify, plan and implement your modelling project

- Gather information appropriate to the outcome of the project

- Construct and document a model from the information gathered

- Test the model's effectiveness at reproducing the required results.

(b) Describe the difference having learned to model makes to you.

PREFERABLY you will also demonstrate that you can use the model you have constructed to reproduce results similar to your exemplar(s).

CONCEIVABLY, you will demonstrate that you can devise an approach which enables others to acquire your model and facilitate them to acquire it.

ULTIMATELY, you will demonstrate that the acquirers are able to reproduce results similar to your exemplar(s).

Why Model?

We are right behind David Gordon and Graham Dawes when they say:

Modeling is a doorway into the vast storehouse of human experience and abilities, providing access to anyone willing to turn the key. For the individual who pursues modeling, this means:

• Access to an ever-widening range of new experiences and abilities.
• An increasing ability to bring those same experiences and abilities to others.
• A finer understanding of the structure underlying unwanted experiences and behaviors so that you know precisely what to change in those experiences and behaviors.
• Ever-increasing flexibility in your experience and responses.
• A growing appreciation of the beauty to be found in the patterns of human experience.

Learning to Model

Modelling, and learning to model, are highly systemic processes. Modelling is a type of learning, and therefore learning to model is 'learning to learn'.

You will realise very quickly that modelling is an iterative process. That is, the results of each activity feed back into other processes, which are modified by the new input. The now modified processes feed forward to the next operation, which feeds back, and so on. For example:

Learning to be comfortable with not-knowing, an abundance of information and what to pay attention to, especially in the beginning of a modelling project are prerequisites for becoming a master modeller.

What constitutes a modelling project?

In general, almost anything that interests or excites you enough to want to acquire another way of doing, being, feeling, thinking, believing, etc. We recommend you go for something that will really make a difference in your life - and/or others' lives too.

Having said that there are some practical constraints (aren't there always?):

You need to have completed enough of your modelling to be able to demonstrate your learning and competence by the end of the programme.

You need to choose a topic where you have sufficient access to your exemplars.

And you need to remember that your primary purpose is to demonstrate you are learning how to model. The project is the primary means by which you will acquire that learning and then be able to demonstrate your learning.

As a minimum, you need to show that you can model patterns of:

External behaviour

Internal states

Internal processes

One of the most interesting parts of the process will be selecting the 'chunk size' of the project. This will require you to balance your desire to acquire some big chunk skill with the resources available within the time scales. As a general rule, people learning to model initially overestimate what they can achieve (i.e. they bite off too big a chunk) and they underestimate the value of modelling a small chunk in depth.

It's OK to start with a big chunk outcome and refine it as the project progresses. In fact, it is common not to discover "the difference that makes the difference " (Gregory Bateson) until well into the process. But when you do, that piece should become the focus of the rest of your project.

What is a Modelling Project?

Modelling is a process whereby an observer, the modeller, gathers information about the activity of a system with the aim of constructing a generalised description (a model) of how that system works. The model can then be used by the modeller and others to inform decisions and actions. The purpose of modelling is to identify 'what is' and how 'what is' works - without influencing what is being modelled. The modeller begins with an open mind, a blank sheet and an outcome to discover the way a system functions - without attempting to change it. [Note: We recognise this is an impossible outcome, since the observer, by simply observing, inevitably influences the person being observed. However this does not affect the intention of a modeller to not influence.]

Steven Pinker in How the Mind Works (p. 21) uses an analogy from the world of business to define psychology, but he could just as easily be describing the modelling process:

Psychology is engineering in reverse. In forward-engineering, one designs a machine to do something; in reverse-engineering, one figures out what a machine was designed to do. Reverse-engineering is what the boffins at Sony do when a new product is announced by Panasonic, or vice versa. They buy one, bring it back to the lab, take a screwdriver to it, and try to figure out what all the parts are for and how they combine to make the device work.

Pinker is not saying that people are machines. He is saying the process of making a model of human language, behaviour and perception can be likened to the process of reverse-engineering.

When 'the system' being observed is a person, what usually gets modelled is behaviour that can be seen or heard (sensory modelling), or thinking processes that are described through language (conceptual modelling). Figuring out how great tennis players serve is an example of the former, while identifying their beliefs and strategies for winning is an example of the latter.

The field of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) was established as a result of several modelling projects conducted by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. They, in collaboration with Judith DeLozier, Leslie Cameron-Bandler, David Gordon, Robert Dilts and others, did much of the original work to codify the process of modelling sensory and conceptual domains.

We used sensory and conceptual modelling to study David Grove at work, and as a result discovered a new way of modelling never previously documented which we called Symbolic Modelling. [See Metaphors in Mind: Transformation through Symbolic Modelling by James Lawley and Penny Tompkins]

Definition of terms

Result	The reproducible outcome which can be described in sensory specific terms.
The model	An abstract formulation constructed from the information gathered from modelling the exemplar(s) which when actioned by an acquirer produces a similar class of results.
Exemplar	The person (or group or organisation) that consistently achieves the results the modeller is seeking to reproduce. (In the early days of NLP, also sometimes confusingly referred to as - a model .)
Modeller	The person who gathers information from the exemplar, constructs the model, and tests its effectiveness, efficiency and elegance at reproducing similar results (usually by first acquiring the model themselves, and then facilitating others to acquire it).
Acquirer	The person (usually including the modeller) who 'takes on' the model and attempts to reproduce results similar to those obtained by the exemplar.
Modelling	The process of gathering information from an exemplar, constructing a model, and testing its effectiveness at reproducing similar results (which requires someone to acquire it).
Modelling project	Both the plan for accomplishing the production and acquisition of a model, and the implementation of that plan. We distinguish five stages (see diagram below): 1. Preparing to model 2. Gathering information 3. Constructing a model 4. Testing the model 5. Acquiring the model
Self-modelling	The process of a person constructing a model of how they achieve the results they get. Facilitating the exemplar to self-model in Stage 2 is often a very efficient way of gathering information. At Stages 3 and 4, the modeller self-models as a way of making explicit the out-of-awareness information they have gathered. During Stage 5, the acquirer can self-model as a way of monitoring their response to acquiring an unfamiliar model. NOTE: A light bulb moment for us came when we fully grasped the implication of a Michael Brean statement (at the London NLP Group in about 1993): "All modelling is self-modelling."

Five Stages of a Modelling Project

Fundamental or universal ways humans make sense of the world

'Experience' is a unified whole. Yet to be conscious of our map of the world we categorise, evaluate, compare, decide, reason, intuit, etc. All these processes require us to delete, distort and generalise (Bandler & Grinder). The most common way to do this is to make use of one domain - usually our everyday experience of the physical world - to make sense of another domain, usually the non-physical world. In other words, we use metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson). The most commonly used metaphors, which appear to form the basis of all languages, are:

Space	Relative location.
Time	Sequence of events defined by a before, a during, and an after. Schematic of a Sequence of Events
Form	The attributes or qualities by which something is perceived, and at the same time, distinguished from other things, i.e. how it is known. The content of our perceptions.
Perceiver	The someone who is perceiving the something. To do this the perceiver needs a 'means of perceiving' (seeing, hearing, feeling and other ways of sensing) and a 'point of perception' (where the perception is perceived from). The perceiver is therefore always in a certain relationship with the form of the perceived within a given context (time and space). Perceiver-Perceived-Relationship-Context (PPRC Model) [Note: This model is our synthesis of David Grove's "Observer-Observed-Relationship between" and John McWhirter's "FROM-TO-IN" models.]
Level	Levels are a means of ordering and categorising experience in a hierarchy. They are therefore usually referred to as 'Levels of' something e.g. Learning, Organization, Abstraction, Explanation, etc.

Stage 1: Preparing for your Modelling Project

Your first task is to define your modelling project by specifying its:

Overall Outcome

What results have you noticed other people achieve in the world that you would also like to achieve?

Sensory specific evidence of completion

How will you know you have got these results?

How will others know you have got these results?

Scope

Time scale

Breadth of project - what is included and what is not

Contexts in which you (and others) want the results

Definition of terms

Value to you

What's important to you about being able to consistently reproduce the results specified above?

Exemplars

Who consistently demonstrates the results you want?

What is your evidence?

How will you get access to such people?

Be careful how you define your criteria for an exemplar. One modeller discovered the organisation that commissioned the work picked their 'top performers' by how much they contributed to the top line (revenue). They later realised these people did it at the expense of other people – they burned relationships and therefore were not building a constructive culture.

Presuppositions

What are you presupposing to be true before you start?

What metaphors are you using to describe your project?

How are you going to describe the project to exemplar's with minimal presupposition and metaphor? (Hint: think behavioural examples.)

Your second task, is to plan how you are going to gather the relevant information. To help you do that see the article:

Introducing Modelling to Organisations has a chart, The Who, Why, How, What, Where and When of Modelling which uses two of Robert Dilts' frameworks to consider a modelling project from a number of perceptual positions and Logical Levels. (First published in Rapport magazine issue 40, Summer 1998)

Stage 2: Gathering information from your exemplars

Types and reliability of information

It is important to distinguish between different types of information gathered from the exemplar. The following five are in descending order of reliability of information:

i. Observed behaviour with sufficient repetitions to indicate a pattern

ii. Observed behaviour with insufficient repetitions to indicate a pattern

iii. 'Relived' descriptions or role-playing by the exemplar of what they do

iv. Explanation by the exemplar (i.e. the exemplar's conscious model of what they do)

v. Second-hand descriptions

Ways to gather information

• 'Live' observation of exemplar achieving their results (by 3rd position observation and 2nd position shadowing)
• Video or audio tapes, or material written by the exemplar which demonstrates achieving the required results
• Face-to-face interview
• Role-plays and mini-scenarios
• Questionnaires
• 'Unofficial' observations
• Written information edited or co-written by someone else
• Description by someone else, e.g. biography
• The general rule is, the closer (and more often) you get to observe the exemplar achieving the results in their 'natural habitat' the better.

While gathering information it is preferable that you model the exemplar's behaviour and description so that you can ask questions from within the logic of their information.

High-quality modelling questions tend to:

• Make minimal presuppositions about the content of exemplar's map
• Be short and contain a minimal number of non-exemplar words
• Be simple and ask for one class of experience at a time
• Invite the exemplar to remain in the appropriate state to demonstrate what they do, i.e. in the 'perceptual present'
• Relate to the project outcome
• Invite the exemplar's attention to move towards the boundary of what they already know, and then to stretch the boundary into areas of yet-to-be-aware-of
• Not ask the exemplar's attention to jump too far (in space or time)
• Not get 'no' or disagreement for an answer.

'Standard' Modelling Questions

Every question directs the exemplar's attention to some where, when or what in their mindbody map. So it is important to know the type or class of information you what (i.e. to have an outcome for each question) and to what your question is inviting the exemplar's attention to do. The following are examples of some commonly used modelling questions.

1. Developing pre-existing information

And is there anything else about ...?

And what kind of ...?

And where/whereabouts is ...?

And what's the relationship between ... and ...?

2. Context(s) where and when exemplar commonly achieves the results?

Where do you ...?

When do you ...?

3. Desired outcome(s) the exemplar is attempting to achieve at the time

(Also, how is the outcome represented?)

For what purpose do you ...?

4. Operations performed internally and externally to achieve the outcome

(Also, what inputs are attended to while performing these operations?)

How specifically do you do that?

What's the first thing you do ...?

Then what do you do?

What do you do next?

And then what happens?

And what happens just before you ...?

5. Evidence criteria/test of progress toward and completion of outcome

How do you know you are achieving ...?

How do you know you have achieved ...?

What let's you know to ...?

What determines when you ...?

6. Motivation for having outcome and enablers for doing the operations

What's important to you about ...?

What's important about that [answer to previous question]?

What makes it possible for you to ...?

And where does ... come from?

7. Range of choices available to the exemplar

(What does the exemplar do in unexpected situations, when they encounter difficulties, interference or distractions - especially when these might affect whether they achieve their outcome?)

What do you do if it doesn't go well / doesn't work?

How do you know to stop trying to achieve ...?

Stage 4: Testing your Model

You can get feedback, the 'gold dust' and primary purpose of testing, from:

Testing your model with the exemplar

a. Test the components and steps of your model for accuracy.

For each exemplar, describe (in their words) as much of the model as you have of their behaviours/abilities/states and ask them to evaluate your description for accuracy.

Use your sensory acuity to calibrate that the pace of your description enables the exemplar to 'try on' your model of them so that they can compare it to their own model, component-by-component and step-by-step.

Every response you get from your exemplar is feedback as to the accuracy of your model. They are the world's expert on their model, and at this stage, that's what you are attempting to reproduce. Anything they think is confusing, illogical, or that doesn't fit, is a signal that your model is incomplete.

b. Test the logic of your model for accuracy

After you have confirmation of the accuracy of your model from the exemplar, you can start to make predictions as to how the exemplar has or would 'run' their model in some as yet unspecified context.

The aim is to test if your understanding of the exemplar's logic enables you to go beyond what you have been specifically told or observed.

Testing your model on your own

'Try on' your model by 'running it through' your system

Can you run the model - from 'before' when the start Test criteria are triggered, through 'during' the Operations until the end Test criteria are met, and on to Exit 'after' (TOTE model)?

Would you expect to get the required results?

Does it all fit together?

Can you break it - under what conditions would you not get the required results?

At this stage you are only acquiring the model 'for the moment'. You are not seeking to integrate it with your pre-existing models, instead you 'put them aside' while you run your tests. In other words, you are self-modelling to obtain feedback from your own system within an 'as if' frame.

 Testing the model for real

Having had your model tested by the exemplar, and used your own neurology as a test bed, your outcome changes. You are now seeking to test the model for the degree to which you can reproduce the required results. You want to compare the results you get with the results the exemplars get. To do this you need feedback from the external world. Two ways to do this are:

a. Prepare safe 'test conditions'

Taking into account the ecology of the wider system and depending on the potential effects of your model not working, you may want to establish some 'test conditions' in which to test it's efficacy.

b. Go 'live'

The ultimate personal test. Can you get similar results to your exemplars under similar conditions? And can you do that consistently and under a variety of conditions? (Steve Andreas has said that when he constructs a new model for change, i.e. a new NLP technique, he has to test it out with 20-30 clients before he is confident he has ironed out the majority of creases.)

Remember, your model may work perfectly but you may not yet have enough background knowledge or experience of running it to get the same results as your exemplars. Acquiring Einstein's problem solving strategy won't make you an Einstein overnight, but you can expect it to give you access to a different way of thinking about problems and to a wider range of solutions than you had before.

Other acquirers testing the model

If part of your modelling project is for other people (who were not involved in Stages 2-4) to make use of your model, your outcome for testing changes again. Your design for an acquisition process (Stage 5) should include testing by the acquirers. The feedback you want now is: To what degree are the results the acquirers get similar to those achieved by the exemplars.

And to reiterate:

Test, get feedback, adjust model, test again, get feedback, adjust ...

Stage 5: Acquiring the Model

Over the history of NLP the metaphors used to describe Stage 5 have changed from:

Installation of the model by the modeller in the acquirer
to
Transmission of the model by the modeller to the acquirer
to
Acquisition of the model by the acquirer (facilitated by the modeller).

Interestingly, these changes seem to parallel a general trend within NLP; that is, the focus of the practitioner-client relationship is moving away from the practitioner and towards the client. We support this trend, since our preference is for the acquirer (to be facilitated) to self-model their own process of acquiring.

Acquiring presents a paradox: The exemplar gets their results largely through unconscious processes, but the acquirer initially acquires the model and uses it consciously. This is a double paradox when the skill being modelled has to be unconscious, e.g. an intuitive signal.

Generalised process for acquisition

Starting with a thorough understanding and experience of using your model:

1. Gather information about the acquirer's outcome, the context where they want the required results, their existing map in relation to the model to be acquired, and their learning preferences.

2. Where possible, modify your model to align with the acquirer's existing map as long as the integrity and essence of the model is retained.

3. Design an acquisition process that includes multiple descriptions and is congruent with both the model and the exemplar's map.

4. Facilitate (or make available) the acquisition process.

5. Utilise acquirers responses - preferably in the moment - as feedback to adapt the process of acquisition to the acquirer's existing model of the world and metaphors.

6. Test: to what degree do the results the acquirers get match those of the exemplar?

Some ways to present your model to an acquirer are to:

Enact the activity of each step of the sequence

Map components, their location, their functions and their relationships

Chart the flow of information and decision points

Physicalise or use non-verbal metaphor (Dance/Movement)

Tell stories and analogies

Write description and examples

Facilitating the acquisition process

It may surprise you to realise that your primary aim is not for the acquirer to acquire your model. Your model is only a means to an end. Your joint aim is for the acquirer to reproduce the specified results.

As much as possible the acquirer needs to fully experience the model as they acquire it. So pay attention to whether the acquirer is replicating the model in their own mind-space and body. i.e.

Not all components of the model will be equally important for the acquirer to acquire. Often a single piece will make a big difference. But you are unlikely to know in advance which one!

Acquiring is an iterative process. Acquirers need both big chunk information (how the model all fits together as a whole and its purpose) and small chunk information (what to do).

Different acquirers will prefer to start with different aspects of the model. For example, they might first like to get know all the bits and what they do; or how the bits fit together and relate to each other; or the order in which things happen; or where and how they can use it.

Time, repetition and multiple descriptions are useful allies.

Common responses to acquisition

According to Gordon & Dawes there are 5 common ways people do not acquire a new model (assuming they want to). In effect they indicate:

I can't get out of my present model

I can't get into the new model

I can't make sense of the model

I am concerned about the consequences of taking on the model

The model does not fit with who I am

One way to respectfully respond to this type of feedback is to facilitate the acquirer to self-model what is happening that means they are not acquiring the model (including how you are presenting it):

1. Fully acknowledge the way it is for them.

2. Confirm that they still want to achieve the required results.

3. Facilitate them to discover:

Where is there a mismatch between the existing and the new model?

What is making that mismatch possible and what is maintaining it?

Have they been in similar situation and how they resolved these?

What needs to happen to resolve it now?

Which other metaphors/descriptions/representational systems will enable the acquirer to achieve the required results?

What are other circumstances where they could use the model?

What 'platform' knowledge, skills or experiences are prerequisites?

Notes on Expert to Novice Acquisition (added 24 Nov 2006)

Almost by definition, exemplars are experts while acquirers are novices (cf. Dreyfus & Dreyfus).

The model you construct will be of an expert who will have years of experience and lots of unconscious habitual strategies. With so much happening unconsciously, the exemplar has spare capacity to pay (conscious) attention to other things that are happening. For example, comprehending language is a completely unconscious process for a native speaker, and hence they can attend to puns, patterns, double meanings and all sorts of subtle communication that is not available to the novice second-language learner. (cf. Gregory Bateson: as behaviour is repeated it becomes ever more deeply embedded in the organism, i.e. pushed down the levels of organisation.)

An acquirer does not have the same level of experience and so the acquisition process has to act as a bridge from the novice's way of doing things to the expert's way of doing things. To do this you may well need to add in some extra steps that are not part of your exemplar's model. The NLP Spelling Strategy is a good example (Joseph O'Connor and John Seymour, Introducing NLP, 1990, p.182). This model includes a step where the acquirer spells the word they are learning backwards  despite the fact expert spellers never do this. So why is it is in the strategy?

When the modellers first tried to teach the spelling strategy to poor spellers, they found that even though they learned it, they did not believe this was enough to become a good speller. So someone had the bright idea of getting them to spell the words they were learning backwards on the basis that "If you can spell the word backwards, you know spelling it forwards will be easy." For the spelling strategy to be useful an extra 'convincer' step had to be added. (A second advantage of the backwards spelling step is that it allows the facilitator to very easily calibrate whether the acquirer is using the required visual accessing or reverting to the less efficient auditory method - with the latter it's almost impossible to spell words backwards.)

You might need to add extra steps to prepare an acquirer to access a state that the exemplar switches into naturally. For example, Penny Tompkins was modelled for her ability to "notice a client's nonverbal cues and subtle presuppositions of logic" when she is in therapy or coaching mode. Penny can instantly "clear my mind" and be in a very open and receptive state. She suggested that if someone else wanted to acquire her noticing ability then they might modified the SWISH technique so that they could temporarily move away all the stuff that is present for them until it is a dot on the horizon, and in it's place to bring back a "clear space" in which the client and their stuff can be situated.