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Tip 33 – Language precision: the key to success?

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Do you find that some conversations are ‘muddy’ or vague? After talking to someone, do you sometimes come away with an incomplete picture? Do you get bogged down with irrelevant details? Can the content of a discussion become too distracting?

John Grinder, the co creator of NLP, developed a way to identify and challenge vague and incomplete statements with ‘precision questions’. He used a sub-set of the NLP Meta-model known as the Precision Model, which involves becoming aware of some simple language patterns.

In order to become clearer about a person’s thinking, ask questions based only on five language patterns used by the speaker as follows:

1. Nouns

Notice nouns, especially 'fat' abstract nouns like productivity, communication and relationship, which can be turned into specific information with standard open questions:

• 'Who/when/what/which/how (the noun) specifically?'
• 'What, specifically, do you mean by (the noun)?'

2. Verbs

Pay attention to verbs that are unspecified, in that they could have a wide variety of meanings, eg intimidates, communicates, manages  and turn them into specific information with standard open questions:

• 'Who/when/what/which/how (the verb) specifically?'
• ‘What, specifically, do you mean by (the verb)?'

3. Comparisons

Look out for comparisons for which the basis of the comparisons is missing, like more, less, better, worse and quicker. These can be clarified by asking:

• ‘(comparison) than what?’
• ‘What is the right amount?’

4. Universals

Universals, like every, each, all, none, never, that limit thinking about new possibilities can be challenged with the questions:

• ‘Is there any exception?'
• by interrogative emphasis on the universal ('never?')

5. Rules

Rules, like must, necessary, impossible, should, can't, can be challenged with these questions:

• 'What makes (the rule) necessary?' (This reveals the reason for the rule.)
• 'What would happen if you did/did not do what was limited by the rule?'
  (An answer that steps beyond the rule is invited with this question.)

If you want to gather more information, pay attention to nouns, Verbs and Comparisons. If you want to explore - and perhaps help expand - the limits of someone’s thinking, focus more on Universals and Rules.

A coach can help you develop language skills and in many other ways.