Words That Change Minds: The 14 Patterns for Mastering the Language of Influence

by Shelle Rose Charvet

It is well-known that people communicate through a set of filters shaped by history, sense of identity, beliefs about what is true, and values about what is right, as well as perceptions and interpretations of what is going on. When someone else communicates with us, we squeeze the message through our own personal filtering system to understand. Of course, people from the same ethnic, cultural, gender, national, or geographic grouping have some common history and beliefs. That makes communication within those groups easier, than between people who come from different backgrounds.

Let's start with Programming. Each person, through genetic makeup, environmental influences, and individual biochemistry, has managed to program herself or himself to be excellent at a certain number of things, mediocre at different things, and just awful in other areas. If we observe and listen carefully to how a person behaves and communicates linguistically, we can glean an understanding of how, neurologically, a person puts his or her experience together to be excellent, mediocre, or awful at the things he or she does. Hence, this field is called Neuro-linguistic Programming.

The first process is called deletion. We delete lots of information from the environment around us as well as internally. In his 1956 paper entitled Seven Plus or Minus Two, George Miller, an American psychologist, said that our conscious minds can only handle seven plus-or-minus two bits of information at any one time, and that we delete the rest. That means on a good day we can deal with nine bits in total and on a bad day, maybe only five.

The second process is called distortion. We distort things. Have you ever moved to a new place and gone into the living room before you moved your things in, and picturing what it was going to look like furnished? Well, you were hallucinating. Your furniture was not actually in the room, was it? So, you were distorting Reality. Two examples of distortion are hallucination and creativity. They are both similar in that the external information is changed to something else. That is what the process of distortion is all about.

Chomsky's third mental filtering process is called generalization. It is the opposite of Cartesian Logic (where you can go from a general rule to specific examples but not the other way around). Generalization is where you take a few examples and then create a general principle. This is how learning occurs. A small child learns to open one, two, or possibly three, doors and then she knows how to open them all. The child develops a Generalization about how to open doors. That is, until they have to enter a high-tech company and realize that, to open the door, there is a magnetic card that has to be slid down a slot in a certain way. The child has to relearn how to open doors to deal with those exceptions. Generalization is about how we unconsciously generate rules, beliefs, and principles about what is true, untrue, possible, and impossible. Some women, for example, may have had several bad experiences with men and then come to the conclusion that men (i.e., all men) cannot be trusted. They develop the rule: Never trust a man. People have a certain number of experiences of a similar type and then make a rule or develop a belief. With these three filters, Deletion, Distortion and Generalization, we each create our own model of the world. Meta

Meta Programs are the specific filters we use to interact with the world. They edit and shape what we allow to come in from the outside world. They also mold what comes from inside ourselves as we communicate and behave in the world. Meta Programs are like a door through which we interact with the world. This door has a particular shape and has the power to let only certain things in, or out. This may appear to be part of our individual nature, and therefore be permanent but in fact, the shape of the door itself can shift in response to changes in ourselves and our surrounding environment.

Most people would agree that our behavior is different when we are with different people, at work, or at home with our family. They are not, therefore, descriptions of our personality, but rather a picture of how we are interacting with different environments or contexts. The LAB Profile® simply describes the form of our door, what specifically we let in and out in a given situation, or Context. It is this recognition of our ability to change our motivations and behavior that sets this tool apart from the psychometric profiles that make sweeping generalizations about our personality.

You pay attention to how people answer, instead of what they say. In this way, after asking a few simple questions, you can determine what will trigger and maintain someone's motivation and how they internally process information.

He called the first set of categories Motivation Traits, and they are sometimes also called Motivation Patterns or Triggers. These are the Patterns that indicate what a person needs to get and stay motivated in a given Context, or conversely what will demotivate someone. Sometimes I call these the Motivation Triggers because they reveal what will make a person do something or prevent a person from acting in a certain way. Rodger Bailey called the second set Working Traits, also known as Productivity Patterns. These categories describe the internal mental processing that a person uses in a specific situation. For example, we can determine if a person prefers an overview or sequential details, the environments in which they are most productive, whether a person attends to people or tasks, how they respond to stress, and the mechanics that lead them to become convinced about something.

He also developed the Influencing Language. Once you know a person's Patterns, you can then tailor your language so that it has maximum impact for that person. Imagine for a moment that someone who did not master your mother tongue very well was attempting to get some ideas across to you. Chances are that you would spend a lot of energy translating it into terms that were more meaningful to you. When someone uses terms that you can immediately understand, none of your energy is lost in translating; the meaning just goes in. When you use the appropriate Influencing Language, the impact is powerful precisely because you are speaking in someone's own personal style. You can choose exactly those words that change minds.

I need to make another point before we go on, just to avoid any confusion. From Noam Chomsky and many others, we know that people do not actually live in Reality. By deleting, distorting and generalizing, we inhabit our perceptions and interpretations of Reality. The LAB Profile® Patterns reflect a person's Model of the World. Because of this, I will NOT generally be dealing with Reality in this book, but rather the way we perceive and interpret it.

People transform their actual experience, their opinions, and so on, in ways that correspond to their own particular Deletions, Distortions, and Generalizations.

Criteria is the term we use to describe a person's way of making distinctions about what is good, bad, awful, wrong, right, and so on. They are personal labels we give to our values; those things we value.

A person's Criteria are those words that incite a physical and emotional reaction: HOT BUTTONS. The words themselves are associated (or stuck in our memory) to a series of emotionally similar events that we have experienced through our lives. So, when a person hears one of their Criteria, the word itself will trigger the emotional response attached to it.

Many people took interpersonal communication courses where they learned Active listening techniques, based on Carl Rogers' work. Active listening consists of paraphrasing what the other person said, in your own words, in order to show them what you understood. We can now appreciate that if Simone says that she wants "a challenge" and I play back to her, "so you want something challenging," it does not create exactly the same experience for her. When I paraphrase into my own words, it has more to do with my reality than your reality, (and nothing whatever to do with Reality with a capital R). To solve this problem, and, to show someone you have understood them, play back their key words, their Criteria.

Direction: The Carrot or the Stick? What will trigger a person into action? In what direction do they move? Do they move toward an objective, or Away From problems to be solved or prevented? When you master this category, you will be able to prevent and avoid many problems and know how to reach your goals more effectively. There are two Triggers in this category describing the Direction a person is moving in for a given Context. They are either moving toward a goal, or away from problems.

People with an Away From pattern in a given Context are good at troubleshooting, solving problems, and pinpointing possible obstacles during planning, because they automatically pick up on what is or could be going wrong. They may have trouble maintaining focus on their goals because they are easily distracted by and compelled to respond to negative situations. This is the kind of person who will drop everything to fix something. At the extreme they forget what the priorities are and only concentrate on dealing with crises. If this person is at the top of a department or an organization, the entire organization may be run by crisis management. They can have some difficulty managing priorities because whatever is wrong is likely to attract most of their attention. People who have a strong Away From orientation in a given Context can be perceived as jaded or cynical, particularly by Toward people.

why did you leave your last job? Because you couldn't stand it anymore? Or because there was something better on the burner? Why did you leave your last spouse? Because you were unhappy, or because there was someone else on the horizon? Why did you take your last vacation? Was it because you wanted a break from the grind or because you were interested in doing something in particular? You may have a Toward pattern in one Context and an Away From pattern in another Context. Can your Direction change over time? Yes, it can. Your response to a single significant event may change your pattern.

A good equilibrium between Toward and Away From on a team will help ensure that goals are set, well-laid contingency plans are made, and focus is kept on priorities.

The authors' research showed that investors (both men and women) tended to ask questions of male entrepreneurs about how they "will win" and to ask female entrepreneurs questions about how they "will avoid losing". This means male entrepreneurs are asked Toward-oriented questions that highlight opportunities and promotion strategies while female entrepreneurs have to answer Away From-oriented questions that focused on potential limitations and problems. The authors concluded: "Men are more likely to be seen as the glamorous entrepreneurs who found companies that will become the likes of the Amazon, Google, or Uber. Women, on the other hand, are imagined as the heads of companies which manage only to keep their doors open: small businesses and lifestyle companies whose names are not recognizable."

Liberals become more conservative in their views when they have actually experienced threats of physical harm. An experiment was conducted that made conservatives feel safe and then their views became indistinguishable from liberals in the study group.

If you want to hire someone motivated to perform the job at hand, determine whether the job is mainly goal-oriented or is mainly about troubleshooting. Do you need someone who is excited about working toward goals, or someone who delights in solving crises?

To get and keep Toward employees motivated, they need tasks that allow them to work toward something; to attain goals. You can tell them the benefits of doing a certain task, such as improving efficiency, increasing departmental revenue, or receiving a bonus. In meetings they will want to stay focused on the objective and will have little patience for discussions about what might go or is going wrong. They will consider such talk as off-topic. You will need to explain to them the benefits of discussing potential problems and make sure you do that in Toward terms: "If we discuss and plan for potential problems now we'll reach the objective that much sooner," is more appropriate than: "If we don't look at problems now, we'll be unprepared later."

Many books on sales will tell you that a person will buy either to gain a benefit or to avoid a problem. Once you have asked the question Why is that important, to determine a Toward or Away From motivation, you can use the appropriate Influencing Language. If you want to sell a house to a Toward family, you might tell them (if it matches their Criteria) that this house is close to the schools, has lots of room, and is near public transport. For an Away From family, you could say that it isn't far from the schools, isn't too small, and you don't have to walk miles to get to public transport.

People with an Internal Pattern in a Context provide their own motivation from within themselves. They decide about the quality of their work. They have difficulty accepting other people's opinions and outside direction. When they get negative feedback on work they feel has been well done, they will question the opinion or judge the person giving the feedback. They prefer to decide for themselves, even when presented with compelling evidence. They can gather information from outside sources and then they decide about it, based on internal standards. Because they take orders as information, they can be hard to supervise. "My boss wants this out by Tuesday? That's interesting."

People in External mode like other people's opinions, outside direction, and feedback from external sources to get and stay motivated. In the Context of work, if they do not get that feedback, they may not know how well they are doing. They take information as orders. "He said the green paper matches the decor. I'd better go get some." I

Recent research[12] suggests that "the brain is a large predictive machine, constantly comparing incoming sensory information and current experiences against stored knowledge and memories of previous experiences and predicting what will come next." Wow. That is a great description of what someone in Internal mode does! They do not ignore external stimuli, they evaluate them against what they already know. However, when someone has an extreme Internal Pattern, they tend to automatically discard any outside information that contradicts what they already believe. (See the Macho Test© below)

Make the suggestion (Using the Language of Suggestion for Internals) State what problem it avoids or solves (Away From) State the benefit (Toward) Overall why it's easy to do (for Externals)

According to researcher Tasha Eurich[14], who conducted a large-scale scientific study, self-awareness comes in two types: Internal Self-Awareness, which is how clearly one sees one's "own values, passions, aspirations, fit with our environment, reactions (including thoughts, feelings, behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses), and impact on others." External Self-Awareness, which refers to how well we know how others see our values, passions, fit with the environment etc., as above. High Internal self-awareness is associated with high job and relationship satisfaction, and happiness and with lower anxiety, stress and depression. High External Self-Awareness is associated with empathy, taking others' perspectives and good relationships with one's employees. So far this dovetails nicely with the LAB Profile® Motivation Patterns Internal and External. The interesting part of her research shows that leaders need a balance of both in order to be effective.

Why are there so many upgrades to your favorite software package? A consultant friend summed up the software problem: "Not enough time to do it right once, but all the time in the world to fix it."

But this lesson needs to be relearned over and over. Many firms seem to be constantly re-organizing, re-engineering, shifting technologies and introducing new software, without taking into account the Patterns of their employees. It is important to prepare the groundwork for major technological and organizational changes by knowing your workforce and planning your announcements and implementation. Matching the language you use with the people affected, can dramatically improve the chances of making the change stick. Stress and resistance are not a necessary outcome of change programs.

If a manager has equal preference for Specific and General, they can be very difficult to work for. This kind of manager not only knows what needs to be done, but tends to become very specific in telling employees exactly how to do it. Because they, as managers, have a handle on both aspects of the work, they often do not delegate, believing that it is easier to just do it themselves, or that they can do a better job themselves.

One of the advantages of having an equal aptitude for the detail and the big picture is that this person can handle complex tasks and analyses. They can attend to any level or the whole thing.

There is no specific Influencing Language for Self people. Pay attention to your content because the relationship is not what they filter for. Be totally rigorous in what you say. Define your terms properly. If they also have an Away From Pattern, they will cut your argument to pieces, if it does not completely hold water. There is no point in taking it personally; that is just how they function.

According to Rodger Bailey, most of the population at work has the Choice Pattern (70%). This means that when faced with a difficult or troublesome situation they will first have an emotional response. As a manager you can assist by helping these people disassociate themselves from their feelings, if appropriate, by helping them change perspectives.

If the job requires a high degree of proficiency in all three, you are unlikely to find an ideal candidate and may need to redefine the position.

Leadership and management styles are often characterized by how much focus is on tasks or relationships and when it is best to do more of one or the other. The styles have various names such as authoritative, consultative, coaching style, and so on. You can probably place any management style as being somewhere on the continuum between Person and Thing.

My/My people have rules for themselves and for others in specific contexts. They are willing to communicate their rules to others. Because they believe that people are similar, they think that what is good for themselves will also suit other people. They will say things such as: "If I were you, I would. . .." A large majority of people at work have this Pattern and probably in other Contexts as well.

The My/. (period) people have rules for themselves and do not care about others. They do not necessarily harbor malicious intent toward others; it is simply not their problem or concern. These people often get on with what they need to do without thinking about others. Sometimes they are called selfish by others because they simply did not consider anyone else.

No/My people do not know or do not have guidelines for themselves, but once given the rules, are quite willing to pass them on to others. As a result, they may have difficulty providing direction for themselves or making decisions. Instead, they may get stuck and not know what to do.

My/. people do best where they can concentrate on the job to be done and not on others' needs. This kind of work is increasingly difficult to find, as many companies insist that their people communicate and coordinate their activities. These people sometimes take the "It's my way or the highway" approach and, if also Proactive and Internal, will bulldoze their way through whatever is going on around them.