COVID19 and the NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) communication model (How we experience/interpret the world around us)

This article is my own personal take on, and hopefully an explanation of, how ‘people’ are behaving towards the COVID19 outbreak whilst using the NLP communication model (graphic).

Everyone has their own ideas of what is going on at home and globally. In other words, we create our own map of the world based on what we as individuals are receiving and perceiving.

I saw a photo on Facebook recently of a dog smelling another dogs bum and the caption read:

“Dogs get more information sniffing another dogs arse than humans do from watching the BBC News”

Irrespective of how us humans receive the news about the Coronavirus pandemic we will, in some way filter the information, formulate our own opinions and then behave accordingly.

Q: Does this happen in everyone?     

A: Yes (and the NLP, Neuro-Linguistic Programming communication model explains this for us).

1.   External events

We receive this information through our 5 main senses, Visual, Olfactory (smell), Auditory (hearing), Gustatory (taste) and Kinaesthetic (touch/feel).

So, can we see COVID 19? Well we can see visuals of what the virus looks like, we can see images of people suffering with this disease, we can see people in the medical profession dressed in PPE caring for patients. We can see the stats produced daily and graphical representation of deaths, ages, those with underlying conditions, geography, timelines etc. We can see what the ‘media’ are presenting to us.

We are seeing people using technology more to carry out their day to day work and of course keeping in touch with loved ones, who are not in the same household or location.

We may even see our own loved ones suffering with it directly or indirectly.

We see rainbows, we see posters supporting the NHS, we see people adhering to the social distancing and government/health guidelines and unfortunately SOME NOT! Why? Why is there a minority of people NOT sticking to the rules? Perhaps they have formulated their own opinions through their own perception of events.

I am not making excuses for these people, merely trying to understand them. And when you understand this model, more people may understand too, even though we don’t agree with their actions and behaviours.

With regard to the smell element, we cannot smell COVID19, perhaps if it did have an obnoxious odour it would help. We could avoid the smelly people! That said, the surgical masks may filter out some of the smell.  So for me, my perception of this disease is not highly impacted by my sense of smell but I am smelling more antibacterial smells, sanitisers, bleaches etc.

What are we hearing? We are hearing reports on the TV, Radio, thoughts of friends, colleagues, family, loved ones, neighbours, passers by etc. We are hearing conflicting information, different views, different analysis, different tones, some optimistic, some pessimistic, some just being real.

It begs the question - who should we be listening to? My simple answer to that would be the Government and the medical professionals.

What about taste? Are we forming any COVID19 assumptions around our sense of taste? Perhaps more people are eating in, having home cooked food, fresh vegetables, less meat because they can’t afford it or health choices. More/less chocolate, more/less coffee, drinking alcohol more/less? Perhaps as a result of this we might actually quite like ‘home cooked’ food, we may even be developing better kitchen skills. Perhaps as a result of Jamie Oliver’s C4 programme, people are trying some different tastes, all because of this virus – how bizarre?

Feeling – what, if anything, are we feeling now that was different to before? I know that the medical profession feel warm and uncomfortable in their full PPE, they feel sore where the masks are so tight. They are feeling tired, drained, feeling at a loss perhaps, feeling overwhelmed by the number of deaths they are seeing but also feeling overwhelmed with the gestures of rainbows and ‘clapping’ evenings. They may be feeling upset, disappointed, angry, a whole array of emotions that anyone outside of the medical profession has little comprehension.

Personally, I feel grateful that we have the NHS and people working on the ‘front line’ and this gives me a feeling of hope that we can better cope with this pandemic with people like this on our side.

So our senses are providing us with our external representation of what is going on and just like all information we now have to rely on our brains to make sense of it all and that’s where the filters come in.

2.   Filters

In order for us to be able to create our own internal representation of events, the external information is ‘filtered’. Everyone to some degree has these filters.

The first one I will talk about is ‘deletion’, this has its positives as well as its negatives. In order to be efficient in what and how we do things we may delete certain pieces of information because they’re not important. If I’m in a crowd in a noisy environment (obviously not at the moment) and I want to listen intently to the person opposite me I will automatically delete other sounds around me that may be a distraction. During meetings you may even have certain people that you just ‘delete’ their opinion or what they are saying, perhaps based on previous encounters.

Deletion may also mean that we disregard certain information, because it’s not important to us, we don’t understand it, it’s not for me or it doesn’t apply to me. So this helps me to understand why certain people are ignoring the Government and health guidelines; they’re deleting information perhaps thinking it doesn’t apply to them. Therefore, they proceed to ignore the rules as they have deleted them as just not important.

Generalising, like deletion can help but can also hinder. Based upon our experiences we feel comfortable in generalising. As a simple example I could say that I could ride any bicycle because I’ve ridden many and they’re all the same. Simply 2 wheels, 2 pedals etc. but in truth there are some big differences in bikes. But the generalising allows me to think that I can ride any other bike. 

If on the other hand I cannot ride one bike I may generalise that I cannot ride any.

People may generalise about COVID19 and say things like:

“Well, the Chinese did this…”

“The Italians did that…”

“The Americans are all doing…”

“Us British do it this way….”

We have to be very careful not to generalise as we could be missing some key data to help us see our way through this. When the media report the number of deaths daily, that’s it! So we can’t help but start to generalise and say “Oh we’re the same as the Italians or the Germans”. No. We need the data below these sensationalistic headlines, for example what are the age ranges, what is their standard of living, what underlying health conditions did they have, did they smoke, were they overweight, what was their diet like, male or female etc. 

The final filter is distortion, this is how we change/compare the meaning of the experience against our own map of reality. Distortion doesn’t necessarily represent the truth, it represents our own perceptions. In fact it may even make a problem seem bigger. It could be described as misinterpreting the information coming through our senses.

Often people make situations bigger, more complicated in their heads, a bit like role plays for some people. They take one aspect of a situation/experience and just focus on that which in the end distorts the bigger picture.

My personal views are that the media, particularly when they interview government figures, pick a small point and drill and drill and try to make it a big headline whereas in fact what they are doing is missing the bigger picture. 

It may well be that the people who are not sticking to the rules have decided to generalise, distort and delete according to what they want to see and therefore take advantage of the situation like there has been with scammers, people selling fake goods, protective equipment etc. In my view, they have absolutely no moral compass but in their heads, they will have justified their actions.

Once we have filtered the external representations, we can now formulate our own internal representation.

3.   Internal representation

This is now our interpretation of events, formulate our own mental image of things. We now feel ready to choose a course of action and get ourselves into a state of readiness OR not!

Internal representations is the content of our thinking or the confirmation of information derived from our senses once they have gone through the filters. This now provides us with our perception of events.

This internal representation has the potential to be different in all of us, it’s how ‘we’ perceive things. You may have been in business meetings with several people and when you leave that meeting and start to discuss the actions you may find that you have a different idea of events compared to others. In that meeting we’ve all been filtering away and arriving at our own conclusions. 

This is why the cliché “All on the same page” is critical at times like this. I know this cliché gets ridiculed and often listed in ‘business jargon’ phrases but you could argue that the meaning has become somewhat generalised or even distorted. I think it’s important that during the COVID19 outbreak that we are ‘all on the same page’, don’t you?

So we know that our internal representation will now drive our state of mind but you will also notice from the graphic that there is a 3a. Physiology, which also plays an important part in our state of mind.

3a. Physiology

I have been banging on about the ‘mind body’ link for many years and am definitely a believer in physically fit = mentally fit and vice versa. Looking good, feeling good and all that.

Your state of mind is intrinsically linked to your physiology at that time. They are so closely connected that one slight change in one can have an impact on the other.

Physiology includes actual body movement, gestures, posture, breathing, muscle tension, eye movement, facial expressions, positioning etc. It’s a bit like standing up when doing a sales call, some people will tell you that it makes them feel more powerful, more in control, more confident whereas others may just feel a little silly.

Joe Wickes (The Body Coach) has done a brilliant job during this outbreak, getting people moving and, guess what, feeling good about themselves (maybe a little achy too if you’re a novice). I’ve seen all the social media posts of people doing the Joe Wickes workouts, it creates a good positive vibe.

What about standing up, going to your window, porch, front garden, front door and clapping, banging pots. You changed your physiology and hopefully felt good for doing it. BUT, how did you feel when you saw dozens, if not hundreds of people doing it too? Did you smile, did you feel good, did you get a little adrenalin hit, did you go and do a HIIT session, OK, too far.

Our physiology can also be impacted by our environment, too hot, too cold, uncomfortable chair, poor seating position at your work station, noises, lack of daylight, smelly kitchen, nice pictures on the wall, clean toilets, healthy banter, laughter, good clean airflow etc. As you were going through that list were you thinking about how the office compares to now working from home?

How has the change of environment affected your productivity?

How has the change of environment affected your mental state?

How has the change of your physiology (of WFH) affected you?

These can have a negative or positive impact but hopefully you can see that a change in your physiology can be a real driver in terms of your state of mind and how you now approach things.

4.   State

Your state of mind will drive your behaviour. It is this that will help you to put the effort behind your action, the energy, the emotion, the power etc.

You may have heard people say, “I’m not in the right fame of mind” or “You’re not in the right frame of mind”. In effect they’re saying, go away, re-think, re-set and then come back when you’re ready.

Think of the consequences of approaching something with the wrong attitude, a lack of drive, determination, meaning, belief etc.

That would be a bit like saying, “Well, I’ll try and do the social distancing” – NO!! You HAVE to do it. It cannot be a little effort with no real belief that it will serve the nation. This has to be approached with belief, passion, discipline and the thought of a better future with a positive recovery.

If everyone had a poor attitude towards COVID19 we really would be up that creek without a paddle.

We’ve all seen poor behaviour in the parks, in the shops, at the beaches etc. but we’ve also seen behaviour above and beyond what many of us would contemplate. Our NHS workers, in particular, putting their own lives on the line to save others. What if they had the attitude of “Can’t be bothered”. Their physiology is being stretched to the maximum too and in terms of the environments they are working in, we have no comprehension. OK, you may be stuck in a bedsit, a 10th floor flat but where would you rather be, really? Would you swap places with a front-line NHS worker, care worker and any other front-line services?

We all need to behave in a way that will see us through this.

5.   Behaviour

Our, my, your behaviour/actions is what will see us through this pandemic.

Let good behaviour and positive actions become the norm, let others see this, share it, spread it, make good behaviour contagious!

6.   Result

The results are changing every day, new data brings new ideas, different actions, changes in behaviour and the result is not going to be a quick result.

We are all in this together for the duration, whatever that may be. We must be disciplined, make sure that our internal representations are based on good data, solid advice and that we don’t distort them to fit our map of the world because over the past few months the world map has changed.

No one alive today has ever seen or experienced anything like this, so be understanding of one another, educate where necessary, be positive as well as realistic, offer support where needed, change your behaviour where necessary, make relevant sacrifices for the better good.

The ideal result would obviously be a COVID19 free world but that’s a dream right now, there needs to be an almighty effort from ‘everyone’ to get us through this.

Stay safe, stay at home, stay strong and support one another.

Alan Clarke

14th April 2020

www.recruiterfit.co.uk