If you are involved in a decision making process with this person, or if an outcome you desire depends on a decision made by this person, and you have elicited this as his strategy, you will want to utilize it by sequencing and organizing the information that you are presenting to be decided upon so that it matches the form of this strategy step for step. That is, you will first want the individual to see clearly or get a good picture of what you are talking about (rather than go into a long verbal explanation or description, or have him get a feeling for what you are talking about). You will then want to direct him, and give him time, to internally talk about what he sees. Finally you will want to make sure that he checks out his feelings about these verbal thoughts.
For instance, you might pace the strategy with your verbal communication in the following way: "I think you should really take a good look at this, so you can see how it will fit into the whole picture (V). I'm sure you'll find that it will answer the questions we've all been asking (Aid) ourselves, and you'll really be able to say, "Yes, this is the one!" You'll feel (Ki),as I do, that this is the most solid and grounded choice available."
At the same time that you are presenting this verbal pace you can strengthen the effect in a powerful manner by pacing non–verbally. First, as you verbally present each of the steps of the strategy you use your hands to direct the person into the appropriate accessing posture. For example, as you say, "… really take a good look… . you can see …" you capture his visual attention by movements of your hand and then move your hand up and to your right. This will cause the person to look up and to his left (assuming you are facing one another), thereby placing the person in the appropriate accessing posture to, indeed, allow him to . . take a good look… ." At the point where you say, "… questions we've all been asking …", you would move your hand down and to your right, thereby directing the person's eyes down and to his left. Such supporting non–verbal maneuvers greatly add to the effectiveness of pacing communications.
By packaging information this way you will be making your communications maximally congruent with the other person's model of the world and behavioral strategies. Mirroring a person's thinking processes with your communication will often, in fact, make the outcome that you are proposing through your communication irresistable to the individual. A person can't not respond to his or her own strategies.
The following are a couple of exercises that we often have people in our seminars practice as a means to learn how to utilize strategies. Try them out for yourself and notice what kind of responses you get so that you may begin to sharpen your ability to identify strategies and use them effectively.
EXERCISE A:
Step 1. Elicit a creative strategy from someone by finding out what his internal processes were at some time when he was being very creative. Through questioning and observation determine the sequence of representational systems applied by that individual that lead to the creative outcome.
Step 2. Have the individual identify some area or incident in his life or current experiences in which he becomes stuck or blocked, or in which he would like to have more choices of behavior.
Step 3. Utilize the creative strategy you have elicited as a resource for the situation by having him reprocess the experiences, either experientially on the spot or through imagination and memory, in terms of his creativity strategy. Direct him through his creativity strategy by having him reconsider the situation through the representational sequence that he runs through when he is creative. In doing so the person will automatically generate, or create, a number of new possible choices.
For instance, suppose the person you are working with is a business executive who has a creativity strategy that goes:
In this strategy the person would begin by looking externally at the significant components in the situation (Ve). He would then begin to talk to himself about the object or components (Aid); how
they operate together; asking what kind of resources may be required for the situation; perhaps describing some incident from his personal history that was similar to the situation he is facing now. As he talks he gets a feeling about each of the verbalizations (Ki) which indicates to him whether the direction of the thought is appropriate or not to the situation in question. If the feeling is negative, executive will operate by looking back out at the situation, talking about it and feeling out each of his verbalizations. If the feeling is positive, he will repeat the internal dialogue that felt good (Aid) and begin to construct internal visual images (or "flash" on new possibilities) that detail the progression of the new behavior (Vc).
Let's say this executive is frequently getting stuck or blocked in communicating or coping with an associate that he spends a lot of time with. He often finds himself irritated with this associate to the point that it interferes with his work, and he would like to have more choices in dealing with it.
(Note that as the executive accesses the blocked experience, he is also accessing the strategy that makes him stuck and keeps him stuck. By paying close attention you will notice that the strategy sequence the person goes through when he gets stuck is very different from his creative strategy and will be missing some of the steps that serve as resources in the creative strategy. The stuck strategy, for example, may occur because the associate of the person you are working with says something in a tonality (Aet) that initiates negative internal kinesthetic (Ki-) sensations (i.e., irritation). The irritation triggers a series of criticisms of the associate inside the head of the executive, through internal dialogue (Aid ). He then, however, has a polarity response to his own internal dialogue, and tells himself that he should be trying to work together with this associate and not blaming (Aid ). This makes him feel as though he is failing because he has gotten irritated (Ki-), and so on. This strategy would be shown:
As we can see, this strategy is obviously very different from the creative strategy and is obviously missing the person's visual resources.)
If you were to utilize the person's creative strategy as a resource in this instance you would first have him go back to a situation in which he experienced the difficulty (either physically or through imagination). Rather than allow him to get caught up in the feelings of irritation, direct him to look at his associate so that he can see him clearly (Ve). When he has focused on the person, direct him to begin to talk about the situation to himself — what kind of expression is on his associate's face; what he is doing; what are some possible alternatives are for changing the situation (Aid). Have the person choose whichever proposal feels the best (Ki) and then have him look to see if he can find a way to implement that change (Vc). If he draws a blank, have him take another look at the situation outside of himself.