Neuro-Linguistic Programming

Have you ever wondered why some people like to think about the big picture and others prefer to get down to the detail? Perhaps you've come across people who seem to find the flaw in every idea that's put forward, and others who focus on all the reasons why something will work. NLP explains these differences in terms of 'Meta Programs' or unconscious filters which help us deal with the huge amount of sensory-based information in the external environment. Because we're only able to handle seven (plus or minus two) pieces of information at any time, and in order to avoid sensory overwhelm, we delete, distort and generalize.

Leslie Cameron-Bandler identified around 60 different Meta Programs that help us organize our thinking and decide where to focus our attention; there are potentially many more. Whereas submodalities are concerned with the sensory detail of our internal representations, Meta Programs define the approach we take to issues we come across; they filter the types of things we let into our internal world and what we allow out.

Recognizing meta programs

Once we're aware of what Meta Programs there are it's possible to detect them by paying attention to what people say. If you drop a pile of books some people will rush to help and others leave you to pick them up yourself. Two people will react differently to the same message, story or joke depending on the Meta Programs they're 'running' in that context.

Meta Programs come in pairs of bi-polar opposites. In the dropped books example this would be 'self and 'other'. This does not mean that we are either at one end or the other of a scale, we can also be somewhere in the middle of the continuum.

Meta Programs are 'context specific'. The patterns we use vary in different circumstances - at work, at home with the family, out with friends or with different relationships such as a boss, colleague, spouse, child, close friend or a situation such as buying a car. At work someone might find change stimulating and at home prefer things to remain the same. Having said that we also tend to have dominant patterns, a bit like a default setting on a computer program. While it's important not to put people's behavior in pigeon-holes it's possible to identify patterns that people regularly use across a wide range of contexts.

These patterns can also be defined for groups of people and organizations. Rodger Bailey has explored the use of Meta Programs in the world of business in some depth. He created the Language and Behavior (LAB) Profile, which was later popularized by Shelle Rose Charvet.