I will say first that I do not have an NLP background. I first heard NLP in a Clean for Teams workshop in Tokyo. It wasn’t part of the instruction, but a few participants mentioned it, and I did not know what they were talking about. I looked it up afterward and found out that NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Later, I found out that without NLP and the project to model David Grove undertaken by Penny Tompkins and James Lawley, Symbolic Modelling and Caitlin Walker’s Systemic Modelling probably would not exist.
A question that I’ve been struggling with, therefore, is “do I need to study / practice / agree with the premises of NLP in order to fully understand / embrace / teach / practice Systemic Modelling?” I don’t know the answer to this yet, but I know that one stumbling block for me so far is the casual use of the word model in Systemic Modelling training as if everyone already knows what it means.
Here are a few pages from my notebook showing how I’ve been working through what model / modelling means for someone trying to understand and practice Systemic Modelling without an NLP background:
This is not just a theoretical question. Systemic Modelling has modelling in its name, and we are told that a goal of the approach is to get a group to be able to self-model. There’s no way to guide / train a group to be able to do this if I don’t understand what is being attempted!
I had a real-life experience with this when I recently tried to run a theme at a Systemic Modelling training in Japan. Japanese is a non-native language for me, and so some difficulties could be ascribed to that, but my experience in this particular instance was probably more related to personal lack of clarity regarding what I was trying to get the group to do. I started out saying that we were aiming to understand each individual’s model of “effective practice” [with the context that we had talked about wanting to practice SysMod after the training was over] as a step toward developing a shared model of what effective practice might be for the group. We moved along more or less as usual until a comment by a participant moved me to say that participants were welcome to ask “what might we see & hear” questions in order to move us from the metaphors into practical options. This invitation generated disturbance and confusion. As a learning opportunity, it was fantastic. As something to choose to do in order to generate intended effects — not so great. I’m still reflecting on what happened, and I’m guessing that tying it to a point of feedback that I had already received twice when facilitating themes is probably relevant: I tend not to ask nor give much time for asking Clean Questions when an individual shares what comes up for them. The inference that I am making now is that I still don’t really understand modelling. I can welcome all information of all kinds from all people, but I don’t really “get” what I’m trying to do for the group.
One next step for me could be to take at least one Symbolic Modelling training. And once I do that, will I feel the need to take NLP training as well? I don’t know. This prospect makes me feel uneasy. It’s “too much.”
Instead, I’ve committed to Caitlin’s next "Inside Story" Webinar Series for Systemic Modelling Trainees. I still feel most interested in working with groups, and I want to learn more about how she is doing it. Hmmm . . . “how she is doing it” . . . am I trying to model her? Maybe I’ll feel frustration that I “don’t know how to model,” and then maybe for the first time I’ll feel motivated to delve into NLP. I won’t know until I try.
