Manifesto for the Summit

NLP Leadership Summit Manifesto

Manifesto: A public declaration of intentions, motives, and/or views.

Understanding: Recognizing that the future and the legacy of the Field of NLP is in our hands, we present this manifesto of our intentions and perceptions. The future of NLP is in the hands of those of us who have for years been introducing people to this field, training them, certifying them, writing articles and books about NLP, doing research about NLP, organizing trainings, etc. We cannot displace this responsibility to the founders or others — if we have been in this field ten years, 20, 30, or more — then we are the leaders and the responsibility for the Field of NLP is now fully in our hands. It is up to us to shape the future of this field.

In the spirit of The Visionary Leadership Project (1997) and the Millennial Project (2000) that Robert Dilts, Judith DeLozier and others initiated, the Intention of the NLP Leadership Summit is to first invite experienced and senior NLP Trainers and Leaders to begin to get to know each other, talk with one another, cooperate where we can, and collaborate in our attitude. To that end, L. Michael Hall and Frank Pucelik called for the first NLP Leadership Summit in 2012 and 2013 at the NLP Conference in London. The first one was to “get acquainted” and the second was to begin “organizing a collaboration” to plan the Summit every year.

Our intention is to be the leaders that the Field of NLP needs. If we teach a cutting-edge Communication Model, then we need to be models (exemplars) of the model we teach. To that end, we have set forth our vision of what NLP is, our values, ethics, and intentions. Our intention is to help guide this field to the maturity that it needs.

Our intention is to be professional in all of our practices, to rise above the unethical behaviors of those few who have mis-used NLP, to hold ourselves to a higher ethical stance, to treat each other as colleagues in this field regardless of differences in our understandings and styles, and to collaborate as much as possible.

Our intention is to be professional in our practices, to not mis-represent ourselves or this field, to hold high standards for training and certification, to harmonize training benchmarks as best we can, and to keep meeting and talking as the leaders in this field.

Through this Manifesto we are also welcoming any experienced NLP “leader” (someone in the field for 10 years) to join us. If you agree with these intentions, we invite you to go public by joining us. The NLP field and the world need to know who want to take responsibility of the future of NLP. If you care about this and want to collaborate, contact us.

For responses to anyone who contacts us— here are 6 simple and easy questions that can begin checking the person out.

• How long have you been a leader in the field of NLP?
• What have you done in the role of a leader?
• Who on the list of the NLP Summit Leaders knows you?
• Will you ask them to introduce you to the group?
• If no one on the Summit knows you, who in the field does and would recommend you?

From: L. Michael Hall

The responses that Wyatt and Derek have written about the Leadership Summit and this egroup are really valuable posts. Many thanks to both of them for their contributions to this conversation.  Here is a summary of things … I also cut and pasted the “Invitation” to other NLP leaders below.

Who are We and What Are We About?

• We began as a group of NLP Leaders, each in our areas, all with a single interest— how to be more collaborative and to contribute to a more positive image of NLP in the world. In getting to know each other (the first Summit in 2012) and in defining who we are, what NLP is, the values of NLP (Nov. 2013) we defined ourselves as NLP Leaders associating and collaborating and that our purpose and identity is not to create an Association, but to recognize each other.
• In associating but not creating an Association, those of us present recognized that trying to create yet another Association, a meta-association (!) would only create more of what’s preventing us from working together (collaborating) now— trying to bring closure to every difference among us, So in associating our purpose is to talk, seek to understand each other, get acquainted with what’s happening around the world in this field, and show the spirit of NLP in demonstrating high level communication skills and good attitude.
• By beginning with the older leaders among us, those who have been in the field 15, 20, 35 years we have sought to provide a forum for those of us who care about the credibility and reputation of NLP.  This also has been the center of the conversation in the two Summits what can we do together to create more credibility? So as Derek noted, we have talked about ethics, standards, publications, and many of the things that are adding credibility to the field.
• Bob Janes took the initiative to create the website www.NLPleadershipsummit.org.

Who are We and What Is Our Future?

• Our Future is primarily to keep doing what we have started getting together, getting to know each other, and having a forum for conversations about making NLP more professional. We want to grow the NLP Leadership Summit at the NLP London Conference each year. And we are planning a 3-day Summit in January 2016 for the same.
• Inviting others who are Leaders and have been Leaders for many years is our next task and so the invitations to have others join us. As Wyatt noted, he could list 30 sponsors. So could I, but as we all know, many of those who sponsor us are not Leaders. They are just business partners. I mentioned two persons who I met because they sponsored me to their country, but the reason for their invitation was because they are Leaders and have or are influencing lots of people, bringing them into this field.
• About the Invitation to this Associating Group we have made it inclusive (anyone who thinks of themselves as a leader), self-choosing (by their willingness to “sign off” on the statements that we created in November 2013  and that are now on the website), and who are also recommended by one of us.
• There are several conversations that we need to have in the future what counts as legitimate criteria for NLP Certification Trainings, standards, etc. We have only started those conversations. Another conversation relates to it: How can we “police” ourselves and deal with unethical people in the field? And because these will be difficult conversations and challenging, the recommendation is that we go slowly and build up our capacity as an Associating group so that we can have those conversations.