2B. If the strategy or outcome is not satisfactory or if it violates the personal ecology of the individual, a representation of incongruence or interference will emerge at some point in the execution of the strategy — either the individual will complete the steps in the strategy without securing the outcome, or the strategy will be interrupted in mid-sequence. What is important for the programmer here is to identify how the interference is represented (i.e., whether it is an internal voice, a feeling or an image). The most direct way to elicit this information is to simply ask, "What stopped you?" When you ask a question such as this, be sure to pay close attention to any following nonverbal responses, especially accessing cues. Often the individual will be unconscious of the actual representation that created the interference, but will show you by responding with the appropriate accessing cue. The programmer should also pay attention to the tonalities the individual employs as he is going through a step involving internal dialogue. Many times, for example, an individual will say to himself the appropriate words (digital portion) for the strategy step but say them in an incongruent tonality.
3. This step begins the "reframing" of the interference. The incongruence or objection is acknowledged and accepted as a valuable resource for supplying feedback needed to improve the functioning of the strategy. The interference is put to work for the programmer and the individual by determining the purpose or intent of the interference. The programmer will first want to test the client's representation of the outcome: Are there any negative 4-tuples anchored by the individual's current representation of the outcome? Sometimes the individual will fear losing the choice of some previous outcome. An example of this might be that of an individual who desires to have the ability to be more assertive in social situations, but has experienced a part of himself being "put off" at times by assertive people, and is afraid that by becoming assertive, he might lose the ability to be "nice." The outcome looks good but doesn't feel right. These kind of objections may be easily discovered by eliciting the outcome sequitur.
Another thing to test for is whether the outcome is directly contradictory to a meta-outcome, or another outcome of priority from another strategy or part of the individual, causing an internal conflict. In other cases the outcome may lead to experiences the individual is not yet ready for.
Each of the phenomena described thus far applies to groups and organizations as well as to individuals. In the case of larger order systems, the representations, strategies and parts of the system are characterized by the people, departments, subsystems, etc., that make up the operating units of the total system in question. The interference or objections will be represented in the behavior of individuals or other subdivisions rather than through representational systems. The kinds of conflicts over outcomes listed previously will be found within an organization in the same way they can be found within an individual.
4. If the outcome is unsatisfactory to some part of the individual or organization, the programmer should help the individual/organization operate to modify the outcome, or, rather, the representation of the outcome, so that the intent of the interference is satisfied. Depending on the nature of the outcome and of the objection, the programmer may choose one of five possible operations:
(1) Meta-model the client's representation of the outcome to make the representational details of the experience more explicit. Meta-modeling ambiguous outcomes, such as "assertiveness," mentioned in the example given previously, will make them more specific and attainable in terms of the client's sensory experience and will decrease the possibility of multiple responses to ambiguous stimuli. In some cases this will clearly separate the client's new desired outcome from other experiences in the client's personal history (negative or frustrating instances, for example). In other cases it will make the association between the client's desired outcome, and other more resourceful experiences in the client's personal history, more apparent.
(2) Simply ask the individual if he can modify his representation of the outcome in such a way that the intent of the interference will be incorporated. For example, you may ask, "What would it (the outcome) be like if you could be assertive and still be nice?"
(3) Integrate any negative 4-tuples that were accessed as interference by collapsing them together with the positive 4-tuples accessed by the outcome.
(4) Provide a framework in which all parts or aspects of the system (interference included) are working toward the same goal by generalizing the outcome and/or the intent of the outcome to a meta-outcome, until it is general enough that all parts can agree on it. This would involve generalized outcomes such as "survival," "protection," "growth," "making sure all parts get their needs met," etc. This provides a context such that objections and interference no longer function destructively or as "sabotage," but, since all parts are working toward the same outcome, they will be constructive contributions.
(5) Work on establishing, reestablishing or refining the context markers (decision points) around the outcome to allow the client to determine more specifically which outcome will be most appropriate, when, where and in which situations. This will dispel conflicts between outcomes vying for prime control.
5. When the individual/organization has modified the representation of the outcome to incorporate the changes required by the interference, the client and the programmer will need to work together to modify or redesign the strategy to insure that it achieves the new outcome. (Note: Sometimes the outcome will not require modification — the interference will have appeared because the strategy design was incomplete or faulty. In such cases, where the outcome remains the same, the client and programmer will be able to exit through the outcome test phase directly to the strategy test.) In this phase of the reframing, the strategy sequence in question is tested to find out if it will be satisfactory for the modified outcome. Check the strategy against the well-formedness conditions, and make sure it is calibrated and sequenced appropriately (that is, so the individual is able to congruently access the designated representational system to the appropriate degree and in the appropriate order). Also check to make sure that the appropriate context markers and decision points are included.
6. If the strategy sequence needs more work, the client and the programmer operate to modify or redesign the strategy so that the new outcome is achieved. This is done by accessing resources for the individual in terms of:
a) Accessing appropriate reference structures and representations from the client's personal history (or imagination) to be sequenced in with the other steps in the strategy.
b) Accessing the individual's creative strategy, so that the client may apply it to come up with new alternatives.
c) The programmer may simply ask the individual something like, "What do you need to do in order to insure that you can be nice and still be assertive?"
d) Have the client model someone else in order to get the choices he wants. For example, ask him "Do you know any one else who can achieve the outcome you want? What does he do in this situation?"