NLP Workbook: A practical guide to achieving the results you want. Joseph O’Connor

Outcome orientation – consistently thinking in outcomes and having a general direction and purpose in life. Until you know what you want, what you do will be aimless and your results will be random. Outcome orientation gives you control over the direction in which you travel. You need it in your personal life and it is essential in business.

      The opposite of outcome thinking is ‘problem thinking’. Problem thinking focuses on what is wrong. Our society is caught up in problem thinking. We notice what is wrong and the next step is allocating blame, as if bad things only happen because people make them happen deliberately. This seems especially true in politics. Many people get lost in a labyrinth of problems, finding out their history, cost and consequences, asking questions like:

      ‘What’s wrong?’

      ‘How long has it gone on for?’

      ‘When did it start?’

      ‘Whose fault is it?’

      ‘Why haven’t you solved it yet?’

      These questions focus on the past or present. They are also guaranteed to make you feel worse about the problem because they really push your nose in it.

      Problems are difficult because the very act of thinking about them makes us feel bad and therefore less resourceful. We do not think as clearly, so it is harder to think of a solution.

       Problem thinking makes the problem even harder to solve.

      It is much more useful to think about problems in terms of contribution and ask:

      ‘What was the other person’s contribution towards that problem?’

      ‘What was my contribution towards the problem?’

      ‘How did those contributions add up to the problem?’

      These questions lead us in a more useful direction: what do we want instead and what are we going to do about it?

HOW TO STRUCTURE OUTCOMES

      There are nine questions you need to ask when working with outcomes. These are known as ‘the well-formed conditions’. When you have thought them through, then your outcome will be realistic, achievable and motivating. These conditions apply best to individual outcomes.

      1 Positive: What do you want?

       Outcomes are expressed in the positive. This is nothing to do with ‘positive thinking’ or ‘positive’ in the sense of being good for you. Positive here means ‘directed towards something you want’ rather than ‘away from something you wish to avoid’.

      So, ask, ‘What do I want?’ not, ‘What do I not want, or want to avoid?’

      For example, losing weight and giving up smoking are negative outcomes, which may partly explain why they are hard to achieve. Reducing waste, reducing fixed costs and losing fewer key staff are also negative outcomes.

      How do you turn a negative into a positive outcome? By asking: ‘What do I want instead?’ and ‘What will this do for me?’

      For example, if you want to reduce your debt, you can set the outcome to improve your cash flow.

      2 Evidence: How will you know you are succeeding/have succeeded?

       It is important to know you are on track for your outcome. You need the right feedback in the right quantity and it needs to be accurate. When you set an outcome you must think how you will measure the progress and with what degree of precision.

      There are two kinds of evidence:

      1 Feedback as you progress towards the outcome. How will you know you are on track?

      2 Evidence for having achieved the outcome. How will you know that you have got it?

       Ask:

      ‘How will I know that I am on course towards my outcome? What am I going to measure?’

      ‘How will I know when I have achieved this outcome? What will I see, hear or feel?’

      3 Specifics: Where, when and with whom?

       Where do you want the outcome? Where specifically? There may be places and situations where you do not want it. You may want to increase productivity, but only in certain departments. You may want to buy a house, but not if interest rates rise beyond a certain point.

      When do you want it? You may need to meet a deadline or you may not want the outcome before a specific date, because other elements would not be in place to take advantage of it. Ask:

      ‘Where specifically do I want this?’

      ‘When specifically do I want this?’

      ‘In what context do I want this?’

      4 Resources: What resources do you have?

       List your resources. They will fall into five categories, some more relevant than others, depending on your outcome:

      

Objects. Examples would be office equipment, buildings and technology. There may be books you can read, television and video programmes you can see, tapes you can listen to.

      

People. For example, family, friends, acquaintances, your business colleagues, other business contacts.

      

Role models. Do you know anyone who has already succeeded in getting the outcome? Whom can you talk to? Has someone written about their experience?

      

Personal qualities. What qualities do you have or need to develop to achieve the outcome? Think of all your personal skills and capabilities.

      

Money. Do you have enough? Can you raise enough?

      5 Control: Can you start and maintain this outcome?

       How much is under your direct control? What can you do and what do others have to do to get this outcome? Who will help you? How can you motivate them to actually want to help you rather than feeling they have to help you? Ask:

       ‘What can I do directly to get this outcome?’

       ‘How can I persuade others to help me? What can I offer them that will make them want to help?’

      6 Ecology: What are the wider consequences?

       Here are some wider systemic questions to consider:

      

What time and effort will this outcome need? Everything has an ‘opportunity cost’. Spending time and effort on one thing leaves others neglected.

      

Who else is affected and how will they feel? Take different perspectives. In your business life consider your boss, your customers, your suppliers and the people you manage. In your personal life consider your spouse, your friends and your children. When you think about the ecology of the outcome, you may want to change it or think of a different way to get it.

      

What will you have to give up when you achieve this outcome? It is said that you can have anything you want if you are prepared to pay for it (and not necessarily in money).