Ob-la-di, ob-la-da! Happiness is Something you can Model!

Happiness Is Something You Can Model!

In the multitude of conversations I have with candidates with a work or life questions,

dilemmas in their careers, difficulties around absenteeism and illness or managers who struggle with keeping their team on track in times of Corona, it was great to talk to someone who said with a sparkle in their eyes: “Yes, I am always very happy!”

I decided not to ask the famous NLP (meta model) question “always?” I let her continue: “My basic feeling is always a number 8 or higher. Everything will be fine and I will make sure of that.”

I looked at her almost breathlessly, jumped from my chair, grabbed the MindSonar mug and poured her another cup of tea. “I’m going to take a test with you because so many people will want learn this from you!” She looked at me in surprise and continued: “I’m just naturally happy with the situation as it is and then I make something great out of it.”

You’ll understand that I was very curious about her profile . As context we chose: “Being especially happy”. Here is, in broad strokes, what I found.

Her meta-criterion turned out to be “Fulfilment”. A word I don’t see coming by that often as a meta criterion. Wouldn’t it be nice to have all those meta criteria from all MindSonars taken so far in one big word cloud (because you don’t have enough on your plate, Jaap).

The Sonar diagram contained Matching (8.8!), Present (7.4), Internal reference (7.4) and Towards (8.5).

Also notable were Kinesthetic (almost 7) and People (almost 5). And even scores across

maintenance, development and change and also balance in concept, structure, use.

Every time I Frankenstein this (‘Frankensteining’ = stepping into combinations of meta programs), I immediately feel good myself! I’m in the here-and-now, I feel

fulfilled, I’m doing it together with people, I know pretty much what I want and I have influence on that too. It doesn’t have to happen very fast, I can reflect and work out some details and roadmaps.

Plus: I rarely look at what is wrong in my life.

Amazing what MindSonar can teach us. You could almost sing it out loud!

Happy ever after in the market placeDesmond lets the children lend a handMolly stays at home and does her pretty faceAnd in the evening she still sings it with the band

The Power of Frankenstein

THE POWER OF FRANKENSTEIN

Jantine Wijtsma

Whatever your client’s coaching question is, you can ask Frankenstein to help you to solve the problem. He is always available to help. You can ask his expertise for any client…. curious how?

In a session with a client, the ultimate way of building rapport is by matching the Graves drives and meta programs you see as a coach on page 2 of the MindSonar report. 

I’ve developed the habit of routinely demonstrating the client’s profile by
saying, “I’m you and I’ve got your drives and meta programmes, I’m associated in your context and I’m going to show you what happens when I act like you.”  Thus I play the profile in front of the client.  So far it’s really helpful for my clients to see his or her pitfalls regarding reaching their desired goal. For me as a MindSonar professional, it is good to associate in a profile because it allows me to train myself to become better at association  (and perhaps I’ll also develop an acting  career…)

For example: I welcomed a client who had a huge turquoise Graves ball and mismatching in the context of work/life balance. By acting these mindset elements for her, my client  experienced rapport and I managed to make things clear for her. She had many light-bulb moments.  I was a kind of mirror for her, reflecting where it difficult for her to look, but it worked! The next time she came she was much more positive and her matching metaprogram and yellow “learning” attitude were  much more evident.  

“Frankenstein was looking for beauty,” says Wikipedia. And that’s what I do as well.  Every profile has its beauty. Seeking  a good outcome for clients, I
imagine putting on other meta programmes and drives and I experience the difference myself. And most of the time I really experience  a client’s problem …. and the solution as well. It feels so wonderful to be able to help in that way! You might want to try it yourself, experiencing the beauty of MindSonar profiling again every time.

The Manager who didn’t want to Live in the Now

By Jantina Wijtsma

I was coaching Bert, a manager who worked for a non-profit organization. Bert had a whole list of questions for me:

  • “How can I manage my team to be ready for the future?”
  • “How can I renew the values in the team asap?”
  • “How can I move us forward fast?”
  • “How can I quickly achieve the best results for the company with the people I manage?”
  • “How can I earn money for us in the future?”Continue reading

Jobcraft Your Job with MindSonar

At the moment there is a lot of attention for job crafting. In the survey ‘Purpose and meaning in the workplace’ (by Dik, Byrne, Steger 2013) jobcrafting is defined as ‘the process of employees redefining and re-imagining their jobs designs in meaningful ways.’

That sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Nowadays a lot employees decide to keepworking for their current company. Finding a new job is often hard and might feel as taking risks in terms of the loss of financial security. So, perhaps you’d better decide to stay for a while and make your own adaptations to the job you already have.

What do you need for that, Meta Program-wise?

First, you need the belief that you can have influence on the way your job is being done. So, if you don’t have this belief yet or you lost it somewhere, find a career coach who can help you to put on internal reference and self control. You have more impact on your work environment and your employer than you think, really!

Then, analyze what element of job crafting you are going to work on. According to the theories, there are 3 ways to do this:

  • Changing tasks,
  • Changing relationships and
  • Changing perceptions.

So, a lot of options for the people who like to have several possibilities! When you prefer the metaprogram procedures, you can choose either one of the opportunities and make your own strategy.

Changing tasks

Look at the things you actually do in your day. Just put on use and write down everything you do. After that, analyse what the essence is of all those tasks, and how they fit in the structure  of the company. For example: which tasks are for clients, for collegues, for your own talentmanagement?

Put on your options glasses and look for tasks you can add. Perhaps put on the metaprogram external reference and ask collegues to think it over with you.

You can also emphasize tasks. What is your core business? And how can you make this more visible and get more attention for it? How does it feel when your customers are going to ask for you because you are the expert in it? Having the latest information about the product, knowing specific details, and so on?

Changing relationships

When you use people, external reference, and kinestetic senses you might become astonished what you can reach. What is your goal in relationship to your customers, colleagues, managers? And what would you like to avoid? Do you want to be known as friendly and helpful, of more result driven and focused on doing business? Do you like working alone, or in a team, or in proximity, depending on the task?

You might as well consider building new relationships. Go out networking, put on your external reference and activities and give it a go! Use LinkedIn to register your new contacts and to keep in touch with them on line.

Or perhaps it is possible to reframe a certain relationship and look at the roles you have. In a meeting you can ask to be the chairman, so to be able to develop internal reference and towards. As well as procedures and perhaps past, present ànd future, depending on the subjects of the meeting.

Changing perceptions

In NLP this is a huge one. Because you can always change the way you look at your job, how you feel about it, and what you are saying to yourself on your way home. Remember the cleaning man of the space shuttle who said to himself while cleaning the environment at NASA: “I’m helping to get that man on the moon!” Wow, this has lots to do with your past, present and future ideas of how you want to do your job. What is the pattern you work in? Where are you standing nowadays in the team, and where do you want to be in the next year? Put on change as a Meta Program, structure to look for the patterns and decide (selfcontrol) to expand the way you look at your job. What other options are possible? Are there general things you overlook? Are their details to discover you never thought about?

Enough ideas to get you craft your job! As the survey mentioned before says: ‘In a world where meaningfulness may be in short supply, job crafting can be an important process through which employees cultivate meaningfulness and, in so doing, create valuable outcomes for themselves and their organizations.’

Good luck!

MindSonar and Teams: Lots of Insights!

It was a wonderful combination: working with a management team that was specialized in Graves’ theory. They asked me to accompany them in answering their question: How to put more effective marketing efforts in motion for the company, with the help of MindSonar? It was a typical win-win opportunity: the three of them experts in management drives, and me combining those with meta programs.

At first, we had a funny mistake about the colours. There are so many instruments in the HR-world that work with colours. The colours of the measured metaprograms in MindSonar do not correspond with the Graves’ colours in the report. The team thought it had to match and looked for the connection. I didn’t catch that immediately so for a few minutes we had a funny dialogue, misunderstanding each other  in our different colour perspectives.

After solving our confusion, we spent the evening looking at their team profile. This was very interesting, because most significant in their score together was:

  • they  scored very low on “concept”. “Use” and “structure” where both high;
  • they were high on “kinesthetic” and low on “visual”;
  • they were low on “information”, higher on activities, and highest on “people”.

This was fascinating because the firm has existsted for more than 20 years. One might think that without much “concept”, “vision” and “information”, a company doesn’t live that long! But their power was mostly in doing a lot of projects and things, and feeling what was going well and what was less successful.

During the evening I asked many questions to activate concept, visual and information as metaprograms. For example:

  • What is the essence of your product? Why does the company exists at all? What is the greater purpose of it?
  • What can you see as the advantage of your products for your customers? How do you see the future in a few global words?
  • What do you know about your customers? Are there any facts and figures to find about them? Is anything measured in what kind of customers the company attracts?

And so on. This was very funny, because as almost always, MindSonar proves itself in the now. The answers were all no……..

We later discussed the individual profiles and analysed who was the best in which metaprogram, and how he could contribute to the goal. And so MindSonar gave them  a lot of input for different marketing actions in the future.

And so I had a nice evening with my beloved instrument!