As NLP becomes the latest buzzword in business jargon I spoke to the man who could tell me what it's all about. One of the countries most sought after consultants, coaches and trainers - Michael Breen.

10 years ago Michael Breen and Paul McKenna met at a dinner party. Michael had his own company doing consultancy and training. Paul was working as a DJ and making a name for himself as a Stage Hypnotist. "We had a really great conversation," Michael recalls and he decided to bring Paul in on some of the motivational and sales training he did with his corporate clients. Paul was really interested in NLP but he told Michael he'd never met anybody involved with it "who was close to normal."

NLP or Neuro-Linguistic Programming is a unique approach to the study of human behaviour. Rather than try to explain why we are the way we are, it's focus is on how exceptional results are created individuals in any field of human endeavour. Then taking these principles and creating something new. NLP is based on an assumption that an individuals subjective experience has a structure and that a practical description can be made of it that allows it to be taught to others.

NLP arose through the collaboration of two men in California in the early 1970's. Richard Bandler was studying mathematics and computer programming at the University of Santa Cruz where John Grinder was a Linguistics Professor. They first met one night while sabotaging parking meters using spray paint as protest against the introduction of parking charges on the campus.

When John Grinder attended the evening class Richard was teaching on Experimental Hypnosis he watched Richard work with people and realised that he must be doing something systematic. He impressed with what Richard was doing and did a deal with him - Richard would teach John what to do, and John would create a linguistic model of it. With Richard's background in mathematics this appealed to him.

When Bandler and Grinder started working together they began by studying some excellent communicators that all happened to be therapists. These therapists were able get exceptional results and it seemed like they possessed magical qualities. Rather than concern themselves with the theory, Bandler and Grinder modelled the behaviour of these therapists until they could duplicate their results. These therapists were able to meet people at their "map of their world" in such a way to influence it and produce lasting change. Bandler and Grinder made a practical description of the therapists' "mental maps" and behaviours that could be taught to others.

The first book they wrote on the patterns of language used by these outstanding communicators was entitled "The Structure of Magic" - with a wizard on the cover and references to sorcery many bookstores still have difficulty knowing in which section it belongs.

The first group people to take an interest in NLP were therapists and the original training programme was designed for them. After some discussion Bandler and Grinder decided on the name 'Practitioner' for the training, and as more material was developed this became known as 'Master Practitioner.' Certificates were issued to indicate that someone had actually attended a course of training. "These were not intended to represent any hierarchical status - like priests and bishops, as much as people might like to think. says Michael, adding, "Once you try to make NLP into an academic subject it is no longer living NLP."

"NLP is not a science or theory and we are not looking for 'the Truth.' We want useful rules of thumb about thinking and doing that get people to do the things they say they want to do and more."

These "rules of thumb" are patterned observations the effect someone's communication has on themselves and others. By making use of these patterns you will have better choices around how you communicate with them. Having a structural perspective to communication allows you to be more tolerant and less reactive to patterns of behaviour in others. You can be less judgmental and you don't get caught up in the content so often. When you have an awareness of how you are communicating to yourself and how that influences your behaviour you can use your thinking to create specific results and become more of who you are.

Some people still associate NLP purely with therapy, but it is the study of the human excellence whatever the field. "It is the field about other fields," explains Michael.

Now there are a variety of popular books and people teaching. At first glance the newcomer is confronted with a whole new vocabulary of Meta Programs, Strategies, Well-formed Outcomes, Submodalities etc. It would seem that what had started out as the study of excellent communication had lost its way.

"The terminology is there as a kind of short-hand and an aid to teaching," Michael clarified. "We always put people through the experience before we give a name to it. Otherwise they start talking to other people using meaningless jargon and it sounds like a therapy session. The distinctions we make are so we can organise and keep track of our own thinking. As soon as you take the labels that are in your head and stick them on someone else you stop noticing what is going on in front of you."

This ability to observe is at the heart of how NLP was created. By knowing what you want, what you hope to see or hear you can keep your attention on what direction you're heading in and modify your behaviour until you get there. It also makes a number of assumptions about communication and behaviour that generate an attitude of curiosity, flexibility and tenacity in pursuing those results.

Bandler and Grinder have since gone their separate way and Richard Bandler continues today to develop NLP and teach it to 1000's of people each year. As a methodology it is constantly evolving and each training session he presents is different as he finds more elegant and efficient ways to teach the material. To such an extent that what was regarded as 'state of the art' a few years ago has been discarded for superior methods, and it would seem that the only consistent definition of NLP is simply "what Richard Bandler does."

Since 1993 Paul and Michael have worked very closely with Richard Bandler. Together the three of them put on public seminars throughout the year in London giving people the opportunity to experience NLP as it was originally intended. Paul McKenna is now famous around the world for his TV shows and anyone who has heard of NLP will have heard of Richard Bandler. Michael, however, is less often in the public eye. His communicating style is so elegant and engaging is he often referred to as "the normal one" - a description that always amuses him.

"In the corporate environment people do not care about NLP itself," Michael says, "They do care about results." So, rather than trying to force a company to fit some generalised model he uses the principles of NLP to think through situations, analyse them and to create interventions that will produce the desired result, "I want tools that I can use," he says.

The first thing Michael did when he had completed his earlier training was to ask himself what he was going to need in order to make his life better. Using his contacts in the business world he sought out the very best he could find in consultancy, training, marketing, advertising, and using his modelling skills identified patterns of behaviour to enhance his own skills and turned those into something he could pass on to others.

In 1992 Michael let some of his business clients know that he was interested in using NLP with them. When he asked them if they would be willing to incorporate into their programmes, a number of them dismissed it as "that New Age thing." He was surprised at the response but freely admits his first reaction when someone suggested he check out NLP wasn't much different. He had picked up a copy of The Structure of Magic, taken one look at the cover and thought "Oh no, it'll be crystals next." Now, however, he started to compare what he had learned with what other people were doing with NLP, and says, "I didn't really recognise what they were doing as necessary, essential or as representative of NLP. These people had been treating NLP as if it were 'a reality' rather than simply a way of talking about things."

Paul and Michael got in touch with Richard Bandler in 1993 and discovered that they had some mutual interests. They were all concerned about what was happening with NLP and the standards that some organisations demonstrated. Michael himself realised that he had had a certain amount of indoctrination with his earlier training and a lot of unlearning to do. "Basically I discovered that I'd gone up the mountain the hard way," he says. In the way that NLP had developed, for a long period of time, people basically copied what Bandler and Grinder did - and in merely duplicating it, dropped bits off, without knowing what they were for. "What happened of course is that those who wanted to look like experts and dictate standards took NLP and tried to turn them into a domain that they could control."

When Bandler, McKenna and Breen designed the one-year training program they brought NLP back to where it should have been had the principles been applied to its own development. They started with the latest material first and didn't impose any restrictions on who could come on the course. "We took apart this myth of Practitioner, Master Practitioner and Trainer as hierarchical grades - because that was never the intention." They applied the principles of NLP to the teaching of it and developed accelerated training courses. Although some people cling to the notion that Practitioner training still has to take 22 days, that way of setting standards actually goes against one of the inherent principles of NLP - as you get better at something you should be able to do it more efficiently and effectively. Few people realise that the original 22-day course was partially designed so that it would fulfil the in service training requirements of licensed therapists in America. "Not because it took that long - that's the point."

Richard has expressed some surprise at the way people still go through the same mistakes that he had made. When the only reason he had done it that way was because he didn't know any better at the time. However, it seems that those mistakes have been enshrined. "Some people claim that if you don't make those mistakes you're not doing it properly," explains Michael, laughing, "And they tell Richard this - These people don't have a sense of humour or a sense of perspective."

While some people are treating NLP simply as a marketing phenomenon to sell on to others. Richard's intention is to create opportunities for people to do things in all kinds of fields.

NLP began with an attitude of curiosity about how human-beings learned, and over the last thirty years has modelled excellence in every possible field - from therapy, business, the arts, sciences, sport and entertainment and beyond. As Michael Breen puts it, "If somebody did something really cool, Richard wanted to know about it - in essence it is about learning from the best."

NLP has accumulated a huge body of knowledge and Richard continually refines his process of modelling. More recently he has developed two further fields - Design Human Engineering and Shamanic Human Engineering.

Michael continues to develop his own approach and will be teaching Business Master Practitioner which concentrates on consultancy and thinking skills and Paul and he have recently got together with Roger Black and developed a Sports Success program.

It was ten years ago while working together in the corporate environment that Paul and Michael decided to run a public training and commented "Let's have some fun." Now McKenna Breen is the largest training organisation offering NLP training in the world.

Since this article was written Paul McKenna and Michael Breen are now two different training organisations: - 

For NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner see www.paulmckenna.co.uk

For NLP Business Practitioner and High Performance Coaching see www.mbnlp.com

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