'Gimme time to think!'

Have you ever been in this situation? You're chatting with somebody who is very talkative and energetic - so much so that if you so much as pause for breath they jump in with their own views or comments! Even maintaining your train of thought can be a frustrating experience - let alone being able to express it adequately.

In situations such as this many people adopt a "what's the point!” attitude and simply give up and let the enthusiastic talker get on with it

Now, on the off-chance that some of us may, on very rare occasions, be guilty of talking too much and too enthusiastically this article is about how to improve your communication by talking less!

Which can be a bit of a stretch for some of us – because once the mouth gets up to speed it’s difficult to stop.

The famous NLP Eye Accessing cues/clues (explored in the first day or two of NLP Core Skills) enable us to recognise that somebody may be thinking in images or sounds or feelings or through self-talk. This is very valuable as a means of understanding them and improving how you communicate with them.

But… one of the most important applications of this model is rarely remarked upon: when their eyes are moving you remain silent…

Let’s do that again for emphasis: While the other person's eyes are moving you remain quiet and allow them to think.

Why not just do it the old way?

Eye movements indicate that a person is thinking - they are processing information - they are likely to be going through their images, sounds, feelings, and having silent inner conversations. If you talk over this and don’t give them thinking space you interrupt their processing and

1.    You significantly decrease the quality of our interaction with them - which means that one or other or both of you will not get what you want from this particular meeting.

2.    You can frustrate them – especially if the subject is complex or of importance since you do not allow them to think it through to the degree or to the length that is right for them.

3.    You demonstrate selfishness because you are attempting to impose on them your pace of thinking and speaking – rather than respecting their needs. (This is especially the case if you do a lot of your thinking in images and they do lots of their’s is in feelings since it takes considerably longer to "check out one's feelings" than to scan one's images.)

Kinaesthetic Processing

Incidentally, many people who favour kinaesthetic processing - who think with their feelings - can come across as "slow" because, in comparison with someone who processes, say, visually they are i.e. they are thorough and careful (but certainly not dim-witted).

For example let's say Martina is an adult who does a lot of her thinking kinaesthetically. Martina likes to consider things thoroughly and to check out how she feels about things and to choose her words carefully because she wants to be able to express the subtle nuances of feelings which she is able to experience.

Now, at school, it's quite likely that her teachers would have grown impatient with her thoughtful response to their rapid-fire questions. And that other pupils will have laughed at her "slowness". And that in arguments she will only have come up with things she would like to have said minutes or hours after the argument is over and has been "won" by the quicker thinking visual/auditory specialists. So after years of this it may not be surprising if her buildup of frustration occasionally leads to explosions of anger or even of violence.

The Three R’s – and the benefits of allowing ‘thinking time’

Central to all of our NLP courses is the concept of Respect, Recognition and Reassurance. So, having considered some of the 'Away-Froms',  let’s now look at some of the Towards – the benefits of allowing people to think at their own pace rather than interrupting them or attempting to hurry them along?

Respect: By allowing the conversation to progress at the pace that is appropriate for their style of thinking you are demonstrating, at quite a deep level, your Respect for their Model of the World. This creates a powerful, subliminal rapport.

Recognition: you are Recognising and responding to their non-verbal communication - to their eye movements and their eye contact pattern. In this way you are further enhancing rapport through nonverbally indicating that you recognise when they need to "go inside" and when they are ready for you to speak

Reassurance: you are creating a “safe environment”- the key element in Reassurance. The person has the experience that their model of the world is being respected and that they are being treated as an equal. Trying to chivvy people along because we consider they are too slow or too boring or too ponderous is unlikely to make them feel Reassured…

Action points

As with any new habit it's best to introduce "giving people thinking time" a little at a time - attempting to do it in every interaction from now on would likely interfere with your normal competence.

For the next few weeks select just one conversation a day and for the first couple of minutes of this conversation observe their eye accessing movements.

When you see their eyes moving wait, however difficult it may be, until they once again make eye contact with you.

And, if at times, your enthusiasm or your impatience gets the better of you and you do cut across their thinking apologise for this. This is not just a courtesy it also subtly demonstrates that you are, indeed, paying attention to their non-verbal as well as to their verbal communication.

Finally, if you don't spend a lot of your daily time interacting with people look for opportunities when you are out and about to talk to people so that you can “wire in” your NLP skills. Just a minute or two once or twice a day will make a significant difference.

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