8 Responses

1. NLP in Scotland
   Lyndsey

   I’d advise you to contact David Taylor at a company called Power2Change. He’s based in Scotland and is an excellent NLP trainer. No psychobabble, no frills just an amazing learning experience.

   Julie

2. Try Paul McKenna
   I would suggest Paul McKenna Training – courses are based in London and some are delivered by both Paul McKenna and Richard Bandler, one of the pioneers of NLP.
   This is highly practical training and focusses on achieving results rather than expounding theories.

3. which NLP training?
   Lindsey
   Before you do any NLP training please be aware of the following – NLP for some people is like a religion – they have no life and become NLP training junkies – many courses are full of self development nutters as well as professionals. Talk to me off line about an experience a close friend of mine had after me recommending an NLP course or my own on one very well known course! (and I have completed programmes with several providers over the years.)

   That said there is a lot of good NLP stuff out there.

   1) consider doing a business based NLP programme (more expensive but safer – depends on your goals/ purpose)

   2) if you are going to a more general NLP training provider:
   a) go to a free sample evening to see the trainer(s) and their style
   b) talk to several people that have attended the programme and ask them for 3 reasons why they should train with that provider AND 3 reasons why you should NOT train with them – listen carefull to the answers
   c) go with a buddy or friend if you can
   d) if you want to build skills and ability rather than just knowledge go to a programme over several sessions – the one event programmes are fun at the time but the development of skills is not as effective

   This can be an expensive (and fun) purchase – go in with your eyes open and your purse shut!

   Mike

4. NLP Scotland
   Hi Lyndsey,

   May I suggest that you consider a NLP Training company called Helford 2000.

   They train NLP all over the UK and the world. I trained with them earlier this year for my NLP Practitioners course. I would highly recommend them to anyone looking to train in NLP.

   If you sign up for their NLP Practitioner training you will be sent some pre-course material to work through.

   You will then spend seven days on your course putting the theory into practice.

   I have started to integrate NLP into my training and training design. I only wish that I had discovered NLP earlier.

   Richard Wood

5. Ring them for a chat…
   What an interesting question, and one that only you can answer, as only you know what is best for you – indeed I might argue that you are highly unlikely to get ‘THE best’. Hopefully the prompts below will help you get the best you can after ringing up some suppliers.

   You are likely to invest ca £2000 on an accredited Practitioner so I would expect any supplier to be willing to chat for quite a while, introduce you to their trainers and previous ‘graduates’. You may want to think about the following before ringing…

   1) What, specifically, do you want to get from the programme? The clearer you are about your needs, the more easily you will be able to formulate good questions and sense the value of the responses. Beware anyone who claims to be all things to all women!

   2) You might bear in mind the saying “Theory without practice is sterile, practice without theory is blind”. A good programme will have both theory and practical components and INLPTA (of whom more later) requires hard evidence of both understanding and application before certifying you.

   3) ‘Intensive or Extensive?”. An intensive programme is unlikely to give you adequate time to practice between sessions, whereas an extensive one (ours runs in 2-day chunks every month or so – end of advert!) facilitates application to self and others between the sessions – ‘Homeplay’.

   4) Another challenge with some intensives is that we have experience of participants reporting being put into a trance for a week, coming away having had a good time but not really knowing what happened and certainly not being able to apply their experience.

   5) INLPTA – The International NLP Trainers’ Association – is, in my view, the ‘gold standard’ and accredits Trainers as well as certifying courses. Look on http://www.inlpta.co.uk for details of their syllabuses etc. I would certainly look for an accredited Trainer and beware organisations who only bring in accredited Trainers for the assessment process, leaving you in the hands of less qualified people for the main training.

   6) Filter out the psychobabble, and if the person you are using starts to use it then ask them to clarify their meaning in everyday language – if they are a good NLPer then this should be simple for them. Any discipline has its’ jargon and anyway much of NLP is based on sound principles (indeed Cognitive Behavioural Therapy – which is one label that could be attached to NLP – is increasingly recognised as a preferred approach to dealing with psychological issues) to which the jargon has legitimate application.

   Yes, NLP has its’ fair share of ‘true believers’; so do many other personal development approaches, so I think that it is important to recognise that ‘all’ NLP comprises is a set of approaches/tools to help us get the most out of life/our work…
   I find that the ‘stuff’ I learned through my NLP programmes helps me hugely in connecting with and helping the learning of my ‘trainees’ and hope that you will too.

6. NLP
   Hi Lyndsey

   I’d initially been put off learning NLP in detail due to some early bad experiences with some NLP “Nut-jobs”! But I recently bought a book called “NLP in 21 days” It has the contents of the practitioners course in there, so this might be something that you can spend £12.99 on rather the £2000. The former is a lot easier to live with than the latter should you decide that it doesn’t work for you!

   Cheers

   Rich

7. Theory without practice is sterile…
   Hi Lyndsey/Rich,

   Whilst I would not discourage you from buying and reading books on NLP – my recommendation woudl be Seymour and O’Connor as a primer – you might ask yoursel fif you know anyone who learned to drive or master MS Word or how to plan and deliver a training session by reading a book.

   NLP is essentially a practical domain and I strongly believe that one can only really master it under the tutilage of an experienced trainer.

8. NLP Question

   Hi Lyndsey,

   You ask a good question, indeed how does one measure the quality of training, NLP or other without going through it first?

   I agree with the majority of Geoff Roberts comments above, and I would add the following.

   My personal has always been to measure the program and the trainers by their recommendation. What do past students say about their experience etc? Is the program externally accredited? Are the trainers a part of a CPD program, accredited in some way etc… ?

   Another thought is what are your specific outcomes?

   You mention that you would like to “integrate this into my training sessions”, my guess it would be a good idea to ask the trainers what they do outside NLP training, and will they be able to offer their personal experience of integrating NLP into more generalised training and development programs?

   Ask questions about other areas of application of the core NLP training, what else is included in the program, coaching is another benefit of good quality NLP training as an example.

   On the ANLP website (www.anlp.org ) there is a useful guide to choosing an NLP training program, it’s free and unbiased.. its worth a look.

   If I can personally answer any questions on NLP please feel free to send them my way, I am more than happy to help in any way I can.

   NLP does have its critics, and I understand why, however it can add a some really useful tools to any trainers or practicing coach’s tool box.

   Kind regards

   Tony Nutley