Product Description

Neuro Linguistic Programming explains how you make sense of your world and how to be what you want to be. In this edition, the author explores recent developments in NLP and shows how NLP has become even more significant in our increasingly unpredictable business and personal lives.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41750 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

From the Author
A jargon free introduction to NLP for you and your work
My work was transformed when I began to apply the thinking and skills that constitute NLP. I use it for myself and for the consultancy and training work that I do..... I wanted to make NLP accessible to people in business without all the jargon that sometimes accompanies this subject. This book is meant as a comprehensive introduction to how NLP can be used in this way by starting with yourself and then exploring how by the changes that you make to yourself you influence everyone around you. You will find many different things under the banner of NLP - the emphasis depends on the principles of the person who is presenting it. One of my key principles is that the only person in the world that we can change is ourselves and this book is built on that concept. I wrote it as a book that can be dipped into. There is a toolkit that you can work through if you wish and I have included thought provokers at the end of every chapter. I hope that you enjoy it and find it valuable to you personally and to your work. If it does that then it has fulfilled my wishes for it. If you have read the book then I would love your feedback.

About the Author
Sue Knight is a leading consultant and speaker who pioneered the use of NLP in business. She is the founder of The Sue Knight Partnership - an international business consultancy that provides tailor-made education and training in NLP. She is the author of NLP Solutions, also published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

Customer Reviews

A great please to start exploring NLP
This book is pitched fair and square at the NLP beginner. It is by no means the first such work - so can Sue Knight make a space for herself alongside the other authors who have attempted to engage people coming to NLP for the first time? I have tried to answer that question by pulling a few other introductory NLP books off the shelf and comparing them with this one. The answer is a definite "Yes!".

The (nicely ambiguous) title "NLP at Work" is a clue to the fact that this book is intended primarily for those who might want to use NLP, in the first instance anyway, to help improve their performance at work and in business. Again, this is not the first book to tackel that particular area. It comes well presented in a lew-key fashion, without the hysteria that sometimes dangles from the kind of business books that promise YOUR TOTAL GUIDE TO FAME AND FORTUNE.... This is a solid presentation of the NLP basics as they might be useful to someone who doesn't have (or isn't bothered about!) phobias and painful experiences, but who just wants to get on and do things better for themselves. The author says that her aim has been to "provide a simple and usable guide to NLP at work". She has deliberately avoided jargon whever possible, and if words like "universal quantifiers", "complex equivalence" and "metaprograms" are really important to you then you may find this book disappointing. However, the ideas and skills behind these words are most definitely present, and are communicated with sensitivity. There are many examples of individuals and groups in particular situations, some of the "NLP classics" and many more from the author's own experience as a consultant and trainer, which all help to convey the ideas and approaches under discussion. The whole book comes across to me as both sympathetic and clear.

The sequence in which the wide range of NLP is presented has obviously been carefully considered, and Sue Knight has chosen an interestingly different approach from other authors. She starts with a short "very big picture" section of a few pages to describe briefly what NLP is, where it came from and what it can do. This is not (as those of us who ahve attempted to do it can testify!) and easy task, and the description here is well up to job. I was particularly pleased to see some of NLP's grandparents mentioned up front, including Bateson, Korzybski and Watzlawick, alongside the natural parents!

The first half of the book proper tackles "neuro", "linguistic" and "programming" in turn. Under the heading of Neuro, Knight covers preferences in thinking patterns, including representational systems and filters, including many metaprogram distinctions like match/mismatch and big chunk/small chunk. Incidentally, both big and small chunk thinking is well catered for - each section contains a "big picture" summary, the details are well layed out, and the space in the book is used to present an interesting visual aspect (for my money sometimes ignored in some cases) as well as useful words. The illustrations are uniformly of high quality, useful and relevant - again, this is not always the case.

The "linguistic" section covers sensory language, precision questions and the power of metaphor. Under "programming" comes modelling, some key points on how to get somone else's strategy for something. It's good to see this being handled so early and up-front, rather than being mystified and left for the Master Practitioners to do. In fact the whole book makes NLP sound reasonable, achievable and common-sense, which will no doubt help the business-folk who may buy it.

The second half of the book is mainly given over to "Managing with NLP". This is a neat way to cover the things which don't fit so well into the first half. There are six sections, covering matters like well formed outcomes, rapport, perceptual positions, anchors and the standard NLP set of logical levels from Robert Dilts. The section on "Beliefs of Excellence" is the most novel. Here, Knight has reworked the presuppositions of NLP into nine beliefs, as well as having a discussion about beliefs in general and hop they affect the way we operate. I was interested to see "Every problem has a solution" as one of these beliefs - this has been clearly present in NLP since the outset, but more usually as a presupposition of the presuppositions. I wonder whether people who hold the opposite belief find it helpful to be told this, or have it presupposed to them?

The final part of the book is a series of question sets to help the reader identify their thinking patterns, outcomes, filters, stoppers to change and so on. There are also "thought-provokers" at the end of each chapter - a set of questions to be answered by the reader and thus more actively stimualte their thinking. This is a useful step towards involving the reader, and as such is an excellent step forward from the simple "read-it-so-what" pattern that we find in most books.

So that's what is in this book. What's missing? The "therapy" patterns (V/K dissociation, swish, etc) are not here, and quite right too. For this audience there are more important matters, and just because NLP came from therapy doesn't mean we always need to start there. There's also no mention of reframing - this is more of a surprise, since the ideas around reframing have found some favour with organisational consultants, particularly regarding innovation and change.

I do have a couple of reservations. Firstly, there is no mention of the importance of doing NLP as opposed to reading about it, and I would have expected the author to recommend that interested readers get some training. Also, this is a safe and solid exposition of NLP. When I started investigating NLP, I read the Bandler/Grinder books. Although in many ways they are infuriating and badly presented, I felt excited that, just around the corner, something outrageous was about to happen. Perhaps as NLP gets more mainstream, some of the irreverance and unexpectedness gets lost. Does it have to be so, or is there room for both? In summary, this book meets its own remit excellently. If a good visual presentation, jargon-reduced descriptions and lots of fine examples of NLP at work in the workplace are your desire, this is a great place to start.

A great Holiday Read
A great holiday read!, July 18, 2002
Reviewer: Mrs Mary Baxter (see more about me) from Watlington, United Kingdom
I took this book on holiday with me and when I picked it up for a quick flick through I was amazed that I couldn't put it down! The only problem was that I was constantly drawn into the book by wonderful revelations about how to improve your personal effectiveness and there is so much in the book that deserves really thorough study, like the "thought provokers" at the end of each chapter. It will take me a long time before I have really extracted all the goodness from this remarkably accessible book.

NLP at Work is delightfully free of jargon. The style and language Sue uses are very attractive, and an excellent example of how to deliver messages effectively. She illustrates points with mini real life case studies. The stories which punctuate the book are delightful in themselves, but also rich in wisdom and wonderful catalysts to greater understanding.

Sue invites the reader to explore their heart's desire, and to understand that whatever they desire, they are capable of achieving. "What you think is what you get." Achieving potential, both one's own, and that of those around us, is a very attractive proposition. Sue leads the reader through a wonderful journey of exploration. She helps us to understand ourselves and our own individual map of the world in a new way. She shows us to be more effective in our business and personal lives. She helps us to acknowledge our own true values, and to ensure that our lives are in harmony with them.

NLP at work is satisfyingly well constructed and laid out. It is delightfully surprising and entertaining, and it is deeply rewarding and helpful to anyone wanting to learn and grow.

Great book about NLP in business
Very clear and well-structured overview of NLP as it applies to business. Sue is a UK-based trainer and consultant with a long track record in business.

Her book is great on the importance of integrity and congruence in organisations, and on how to use sensory-rich language in corporate communications. I also found this book useful in my work in brand positioning a few years ago, before I became a full-time NLP trainer and executive coach.