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John McWhirter has his usual effect on me – he got me thinking yet again. His workshop, The Spirit of Enquiry, naturally was set in the context of Not Knowing – going beyond Knowledge and into the areas of Doubt – a familiar theme all you Learners on the path to self sufficiency or a natural homeland for those of you who have arrived here.

So this is where I’ve got to so far. I offer my version of what I think John offered us, and I have taken his thinking slightly beyond his presentation, making more distinctions in the process. And then I make a suggestion of the significance of the wider applications.

The Need For Distinctions
We are naturally enquiring beings – or at least we were in childhood – seeking to know more so that we could do more. At that age, the confusion and frustration associated with Not Knowing was not a deterrent to finding out. We had a fairly simplistic categorisation system then – light/heavy, big/small, tastes good/tastes bad, gets praise/gets scolding, is fun/is boring.

As we grow older we develop many more types of categories for our experience. The more we have the more meaning we can make of the events around us. For example, in Edinburgh a school uniform can indicate with a fair degree of accuracy, religion, location, and social bracket. An outsider would be oblivious to these distinctions, and so be denied access to such insights. The same applies to those who know the distinctions which identify those of ‘Old’ and ‘New’ money.

This goes some way of explaining why John has so many distinctions. The more Detail you can gather, and the greater number of ways you can categories, or Scope, this detail, the more precise you can be about the Connections you make, or the greater the possibility of arriving at new connections. The reverse of this generates a simplicity, which may or may not deliver the goal you are seeking.

The Need For Investigation
We live in our own Model of the World. We operate out of what we know, which as NLPers includes all the models we have learnt, using the skills we have acquired and practiced. And as Modellers the danger lies in thinking that we are now ready to model. The opposite may in fact be true! Because we have all these labels ready to apply to the experience before us – predicates, meta model patterns, gestures, metaphors – we can find ourselves focussing more on the models we have at our finger tips to address them, instead of maintaining our focus on the person and continuing to investigate.

The Joy Of Investigation
We know that leaving the comfort of the familiar can be quite a wrench, especially if we are not in control of the process. We may even question if there is any need – after all we have all we need to know in the circumstances. Why would we deliberately subject ourselves to the mental and emotional pain of doubt and confusion?

For the simple reason discomfort can generate curiosity and that investigation brings joy.

If this seems hard to believe, think of the urgency soap opera fans have to find out what happened in the episode they missed. Remember when your weekly magazine ran a story in instalments over several weeks and you couldn’t wait to find out what happened next. Of the exhilaration of gaining the next level in your computer game, not knowing what would now be in store for you. These are all common examples of the joy that comes through investigation and wanting to know more.

Joy is a life enhancing commodity and brings living alive. We can recapture the wonder we had as children living through the mysteries and magic of our fairy stories. There was never a question of not finishing the tale, nor of not starting another one.

The Trigger For Investigation
How do we know when an opportunity for investigation is upon us? The State of Not Knowing has to be triggered by something, in some way, to awaken us out of our trance of knowing. Overall, this threshold point is one of incongruence. When John was talking about one point in his investigations for DBM® he recounted “These things began to puzzle me. I wasn’t happy. I knew this didn’t fit together.” Another time referring to his need to model hypnosis, he said “I became increasingly uncomfortable about teaching it, because I didn’t know how it worked.”

The more sensitive we become to these triggers, the less complacent we have to stay in our own maps. John offers that there are three questions and ask ourselves – Is this aligned. Is this balanced? Is this in harmony? If we gain any sense that events, responses, what is being said is out of alignment, unbalanced or inharmonious, then this is our signal to being the investigation!

The Skills Of Investigation
As ever John offers us a triumvirate of skills, with their counterparts. (One can only marvel at his sleight of hand with the English language. It certainly helps with remembering!)

When presented with something, a statement, an action, a remark or a response, two routes are open to us.

INVESTIGATING – going beyond		THE ALTERNATIVE
Consider	We are open to doubt, accepting the possibility that there may be something to explore further. By beginning the process of investigating we leave that point of certainty, opening ourselves up to the novelty of discovery.	Canister	Immediately decide what is happening, connecting it to something we already know, using existing ‘boxes’ and labels.  We stay within the certainty of our knowledge believing that what we already have is sufficient for interpretation and judgment
Ponder	We ‘chew’ over the emerging information, examining in greater detail and exploring what other considerations might now be available.  We move backwards and forwards between known and unknown, spotting differences and incongruities.	Pander	In the process, we are presupposing that what we already know will stand us in good stead, and that we have no need to seek further.  This is a form of self collusion and self delusion, which prevents us from challenging ourselves any further.
Wonder	At some point we find a new understanding and delight at the results of our discoveries, for ourselves and possibly to others.  As new connections are arrived at, new understanding of the world and our own place in it begins to settle. Our knowledge has increased and so our options for responding.	Wander	If we continue to do this, then we may end up apparently doing a lot of work, but never arriving at a new point of understanding.  We are directionless, and travel within our Map, with no end in sight.  We stay within the limitations of our knowledge.

The Evidence Of Investigation
How do we know we are investigating and not just asking questions for questions sake? The route to Wonderment involves a sense of movement, with a quality of flow which leads to a sense of getting somewhere, as opposed to being static, maintaining continuity and having an impression of merely being somewhere.

Stillness or a static state doesn’t have to be considered ‘bad’. The integration process, when we are assimilating new learning into our system, can be a progression towards stillness. At this point we have reached a new level of awareness and our system is accommodating the inferences and implications. Continuity can be enhancing, for example when we are testing out our new knowledge across contexts or at different fractal levels. And Being Somewhere can be the joyous result of living the differences our learning has brought us.

However if we detect an imbalance between the movement and stillness, then we know there is something here to investigate further.

The Nature Of Conflict
John would have it that most conflicts, where there are opposing options, are fuelled by two fundamental motivations: Development and Safety. We are pulled one way through the desire to learn and grow, and the other way by the need for safety, familiarity and security. This is another example of the difference/safety paradigm.

Within this there is the paradox that to be safe one needs to develop; staying the same would become dangerous in times of change. Conversely, to be free to develop and explore we need to leave the safety of the known and the comfort of familiarity. These tensions can become stressful and set up a resonance of push/pull. We need to be able to become safely unsafe and comfortably uncomfortable.

SO….

If all the above is a précis of some of what John offered, it took me to thinking that the route to Wonder or the route to Wander is the Learner’s eternal conflict. Wondering lead to Development and Wandering kept us Safe.

That point when we are at choice – consider or ‘canister’ - takes place at the edge of our map. What we do here is crucial. It may be a momentary flicker of doubt before we opt for the comfort of existing knowledge. Conversely we may be open to doubt which leads us onto considering that new possibilities could be on offer. Once our considerations take us to deep pondering and reflection, we are far from those shores of familiarity where we might have pandered to our existing perceptions. We are en route to the joy and wonderment of discovery.

So What?
Arguably you will find little new here in terms of concepts, if you are a Northern School of NLP learner. But you will have gained some new distinctions here, which will help you be even more precise in your performance of investigation and also in the management of your learning. Most importantly you will have a clearer idea of the direction your actions are taking. You will gain the benefits of actively pursuing new details as opposed to resting complacently on your existing knowledge. The significance of this is two fold. You will be living testimony that every situation is its own teacher if you are open to learn and that there is always more way beyond the obvious.

And What Else?
This has significant implications for those of you involved in consultancy and therapy. At the most basic level, we all know that a technique will let us down at some stage. Therefore over-reliance on such models leads to vulnerability and potential impotence. Specialising in the process of modelling, using the skills of modelling and being able to create your own models puts you always at cause.

You may have experience of a client who seems to be resistant to all your best efforts. What do you do? Give up? Blame the client for not being receptive to your methodology? Teach them how to respond properly?

The question is: What are you paying attention to – to what is happening in front of you or to those details which match your repertoire of interventions? What are you investigating? What’s going on with your client in that moment, which could include not only her problem, but also her relationship with her problem, and possibly even her relationship with the process of solving her problem, which includes you! Or it could be something that you have never encountered before, for which you don’t have any existing categories or labels. You are both in the Unknown together. Scary or exciting? Comfortable or daunting?

The same can apply with a corporate client. They may be presenting issues and concerns that seem beyond your capabilities. You may think you are getting out of your depth. You may be wondering if your fee disguises your lack of experience. This need not be an issue if you use this discomfort as your trigger for curiosity, knowing you can access the skills to manage an investigation. Knowing that you need to widen and deepen the scope of your investigation, identify the areas of movement and stagnation, explore the principles supporting the current situation as well as how they arrived at this outcome, all combine in making you a Special Investigator as opposed to a mere Model Technician.

All liberating and joyful stuff.

PS I invite those of you who have experienced John’s work, to spot his models which are liberally sprinkled through this article!

PPS I also invite those of you who may have ‘canistered’ John’s work because you couldn’t find a way to manage the discomfort, to consider anew.

Fran Burgess March 2006