Neuro-Linguistic Programming

NLP has a reputation for introducing some powerful tools for personal change and one useful model is neurological levels, developed by Robert Dilts. It provides a framework for understanding personal change issues and makes it easier to know where best to intervene when working with ourselves or with others.

The model is hierarchical, with six different levels, starting with environment at the bottom and spirituality at the top. Not everyone, however, agrees with this model, with some in the NLP community arguing that the relationship is heterarchical - with six different elements on the same level. Here we describe the model as it was originally conceived.

Environment (where, when and with whom you do things)

This level is about the external environment - including where you are, the physical environment, the people you are with, the greater society and culture of which you are a part - and the constraints it potentially places on you. For change to take place at this level you will be asking 'where' and 'when' type questions. If you're a leader of a team, for example, you may want to question whether your working environment fosters good teamwork.

Behavior (what you do or say)

The behavior level concerns what people do in the environment, and includes thinking, speaking, listening, reacting and taking conscious action with the intention of achieving something. It can equally be about what people don't do. If you withdraw from a situation you are still influencing it in some way. For example, you can actively participate in team events and help to foster a good team spirit or ignore everyone else and go your own way. When you are a member of a team your behavior will impact for good or ill on your colleagues and affect the atmosphere of the environment you all work in.

Capability (how you do it)

This level relates to the skills, abilities, strategies, talents and resources that guide our behavior and enable us to take action. It's about how we do things and the skills and processes that let us know we can carry out a task or act in a certain way. When we learn something new, such as riding a bike or playing a musical instrument, we start out with a vacuum at this level which gradually fills up till we reach a point where we can do it without having to think about it. Because capabilities are things we can do reliably, constantly and repeatedly, we are often unaware of them because they're so taken for granted.