NLP Technique - Walking State

Walking state is a technique that enables your client to prepare and rehearse for a meeting that will have a far greater positive impact on the result than the majority of rehearsal approaches. It will also introduce the concept of the huge choice of useful states available to all of us.

Walking State - What's important

Using your calibration skills ensure that your client does have a visual and auditory movie of the meeting.

Brainstorm a large number of states, ensure you have at least one of the families of Fierce, Tender and playful.

Do spend time asking questions when your client is 'walking the states.' You're teaching him or her to start to recognise how state and posture are related.

Walking State - The technique

Have your client identify a future meeting that he or she would like to go particularly well.

You may suggest to your client that this exercise is an exploration to increase their behavioural options - which will lead to them being more successful at the meeting.

Have them imagine seeing and hearing a 10-20 second movie of them interacting with this person at the meeting.

Ask them to break state, for example by asking them the colour of the carpet.

Brainstorm with them, preferably on a whiteboard a large whiteboard, states that might be useful in the context of the meeting.

As practitioner it's important for the next stage you 'go first', when you're walking with your client asking then to walk 'as if' in a particular state - you get into that state first.

Have then choose three of the states to explore in the context of this meeting, then have them walk 'as if' they were in the first state. As they walk ask them questions about their physiology and breathing while in that state. Is their walking fast or slow? Where are breathing from? Is their breathing fast or slow? How are their shoulders? Where is there attention? etc etc.

Repeat the about with the other two states. Then ask them to walk with a representation (whatever that means?) of all three states. Then ask them to stop and ask them 'through the lens' of those three states play the movie again and notice what changes - however small or large the change may be.

Copyright 2007 PPI Business NLP with thanks to John Grinder