NLP with Sheep!

No you’re not misreading this and no we haven’t taken leave of our senses. NLP with Sheep is a fascinating and fun experience run by our colleague Clare Smale and shepherd Chris Farnsworth, which is a great teambuilding and communication exercise and also enables people to practice their NLP modelling technique.

There are two main elements to this experience, firstly to take a group of 8 – 12 people and have them round up a flock of sheep into a pen. Having experienced this I’m not sure who’s in charge the sheep or the people! Once your ego has survived this channel it’s time to turn a sheep onto it’s back, Chris makes this look effortless, however personally I made this a lot more difficult than it needed to be.

As mentioned earlier these exercises are excellent vehicles for exploring how people work together and communicate with each other and also to take people out of their comfort zone and demonstrate to themselves that the impossible is indeed possible.

Linking this back into NLP Clare utilises the TOTE model (George Miller 1960) to help people focus on setting a goal for turning the sheep.

Test – the trigger – are we ready to start working towards the goal of turning a sheep on its back?

Operate – run the strategy for turning the sheep over successfully.

Test - has the goal been reached?

Exit – the strategy has worked.

To read more about NLP with Sheep read Clare’s article in the Autumn edition of Rapport magazine or at www.whitehorsenlp.com/upload/p38%20NLP%20and%20Sheep.pdf

Clare Smale is an NLP master practitioner, trainer and coach. To find out how Clare could help you and your team contact us on 08444 827280 or by e-mail at office@bluegem.co.uk.