NLP And Cultural Difference

© Richard Bolstad

Richard Bolstad, teaching in Samoa, wearing a lavalava.

Culture and Belief Systems

My purpose in this article is to encourage us to continue moving beyond the notion of one cultural experience as more “true” than another. This provides us with yet another example of the way that “The map is not the territory”. I will raise the issue of different cultural experience in relation to NLP training. Over the last decade I have taught NLP in a number of cultural settings in Europe, America, Australasia and Asia. I am an NLP trainer and I am deeply committed to promoting the tools, methodology and deeper values of NLP as I understand it. It is quite clear to me also that NLP emerged from a particular cultural background in the United States of America.

Chicago Professor of Geography James Blaut has been interested in the way that our “science” is shaped by our culture and history. He points out that much of North American and European writing presents “western” ideas as rational and not needing explanation. Meanwhile, “eastern” ideas can be dismissed as if they are merely superstitions adopted in response to the social climate of “oriental despotism”. Blaut continues “Interestingly, we experience no discomfort and sense no threat when we read an account written by some anthropologist or cultural geographer about the beliefs, values, myths and so on, of some small and obscure society in some far corner of the earth. Indeed we expect an anthropologist to tell us more about the social or cultural reason why the “natives” hold to these ideas than about the validity of the ideas…. But when this ethnographic approach is applied to what are called “Western” ideas, in the realms of science, history and the like, the results are disturbing and the enterprise itself seems somehow improper. Ideas are, so to speak, surrounded by culture, and we can examine the surroundings and the ways ideas are imbedded in their surroundings.” (Blaut, 1993, p 31-32)

Anthropologically then, we would expect that even a radical reframing of science such as NLP will retain certain characteristics from its source culture. I believe that the understandable reluctance to examine our own cultural context (referred to by James Blaut above) is present in the NLP community as well. There are a number of subtle cultural assumptions in the way NLP is usually taught. Here I will simply give a few examples from my own teaching experience. Japan is a country I have taught in most summers over the last ten years and provides some clear instances of cultural difference from New Zealand where I teach most of the year.

Goalsetting: Collective and Individual

On the first day I taught NLP in Japan, I introduced the notion of goalsetting. As people wrote out “wellformed” goals, I went around to check that they had understood the process. “What goal are you working on?” I asked one man. “I’m setting the goal to live by myself.” He explained. “I’m in my forties now, and my mother has lived with me for a long time. I think I’d like to live alone.

Immediately, I realised that there could be some cultural ecology questions here. “Have you checked the ecology of this goal?” I asked. “Will it be okay to have the other consequences of making this change?”

“Oh sure,” he explained. “It’s what I really want…. It just has never occurred to me to ask the question you got us to ask. I always asked myself ‘What should I do?’. Never ‘What do I want to do?!’ It’s a whole new approach.”  The next person whose goal I checked was a woman who was setting the goal of leaving her husband…. Suddenly, to quote Steve and Connirae Andreas in Change Your Mind and Keep The Change (1987, p 188), it occurred to me that “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore!”

Goalsetting as such was not a new concept to these people. But what I had done was to (inadvertently) redefine goalsetting as an individualised process of asking what I want to do, separated from the social network in which I live. Previously these people had mostly set goals for themselves as subsystems imbedded within wider social systems.

An annual survey of secondary school students from a school in the city of Nagoya asks them “What are your goals for the future?” In 1960, five times as many replied “To become a person useful to society” (24%) as replied “To make money” (5%). But by 1976, this statistic had almost reversed, representing a huge values shift in Japan (Horio, 1994, p 308). None-the-less, the goal of “fitting in” still takes priority in many situations. Kate Elwood notes (2001, p 12) that when employees are asked their goal within a large Japanese company, they often say they want teki o tsukuranai (not to make enemies). One can see here that while Japanese society has certainly nurtured goalsetting, the goals involved have been very different to those we “expect” in western cultures. This subtle difference, I believe, makes NLP part of a huge cultural time bomb currently being positioned in Japan.

The president of Sophia University in Tokyo, Joseph Pittau, suggests out that the key career goal of most Japanese teenagers has previously been to get into a good university. This is the socially approved aim of childhood. The rest of ones life, it is believed, will fall into place once one has achieved this goal. “What one should do after entering one of these famous schools, or what one wants to do with ones life, are questions the Japanese do not think about very much.” (from an article in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, quoted in Horio, 1994, p 304). Japanese professor Teruhisa Horio frustratedly describes the resulting Japanese university study as “a four year moratorium on living and thinking” (Horio, 1994, p 308). Many Japanese students who come to our NLP trainings have already rejected this moratorium, and they choose to come to a western-run training for what they call the “free-thinking” approach. They say they find the very use of English language opens up a sense of freedom of thought, which they value. They realise already that westerners use goalsetting in a slightly different way, and they are interested to experience that way.

The choice whether to value independent goalsetting or directing one’s life in a more socially approved way is a choice for each person and group to make. For us as NLP trainers, the point is to notice that the way we present NLP often assumes the western style of goalsetting behaviour, the western values. We teach people how to reach goals, and assume that the goals they will want are highly individualised.

Identity: Co-operation And Self-direction

Our students in Japan sometimes say they equate the English language with individualistic thinking. Of course, it’s no surprise to NLP Practitioners that language shapes our expectations. Peter Farb studied Japanese American women, who spoke both English and Japanese.  At some interviews he asked the questions in Japanese, at  other interviews he asked the same questions in English.  He found that a woman asked “What do real friends do?” in Japanese might say “Help each other” while the same woman, when asked in English, would say “be very frank.”  A woman asked “What happens when your wishes conflict with your family’s?” would respond in Japanese “It is a time of great unhappiness” but in English “I do what I want.”  Different language filters actually create different human beings! (De Vito, p 440).

It would be tempting to make the western assumption that these women are denying their “real” feelings when they answer in Japanese. The Japanese way of experiencing this is a little more subtle. Tatemae and honne are two Japanese words “used to describe a situation in which a person’s stated reason (tatemae) differs from his real personal intention or motive (honne).” explains the bilingual “Japan An Illustrated Encyclopaedia” (Andrews, Befu et alia, 1996, p 91) “Traditional Japanese social norms have greatly emphasised harmonious interpersonal relations and group solidarity. Self-assertion is strongly discouraged, and the individual often finds that he must sacrifice personal needs and emotions so as to avoid confrontation in the group. Social norms are considered indispensable: Japanese people are taught early to follow their personal aims but not to defy tatemae openly. The result is that in certain social situations it becomes difficult to discern the person’s real intentions.” However, as Kate Elwood suggests “Japanese people do not think of tatemae as a lie. They see it as something vital to the smooth functioning of human relationships.” (2001, p 14) From a Japanese perspective, westerners frequently value honesty higher than good relationships. If your friend asks you if you like their new haircut, and you find it repulsive, would you tell them the absolute “truth”? Possibly not. You understand that part of your choice of response is to care for their need to be supported – a need which is called amae in Japanese (Andrews, Befu et alia, 1996, p 93).

The people on our Japanese trainings often report frustration with the tatemae-honne distinction, just as westerners get frustrated with social “niceties” in our own culture. Many Japanese people seize eagerly on communication skills which enable them to make the distinction more clearly (for example, Effectiveness Training, a model of clear communication which I have taught is the west and in Japan, is prospering in Japan more than in any western country, according to internal Gordon Training International memos). But wanting skills to deal more effectively with a culturally created “grey area” is not the same as wanting to reject that culture. The same Japanese person who expresses frustration with tatemae in a work conflict situation may be shocked at the insensitivity of a westerner who pours their own drink at the dinner that evening (Pouring one’s own drink just because one is thirsty sends a message that one’s host has not looked after one well enough. Waiting for the host to notice allows the host to save face and pour the drink for you. Waiting does not express one’s honne fully, but it is socially caring behaviour. Put simply, it is “polite” in that context). 

Another aspect of this cultural difference about social cohesion is the valuing of what is usually translated as “resignation” and “obedience”. In the past, many Japanese have viewed endurance (even resignation; akirame) in the face of difficulty as a virtue. “Like all of nature, human life, with its pain and hardships, was accepted as transient. Because of this almost stoic resignation, many Japanese endured hardships without protest and accepted their place in a rigidly hierarchical society with a sense of akirame.” (Andrews, Befu et alia, 1996, p 91). Does this mean that NLP would offer a new sense of choice to Japanese resigned to their fate and obedient to a brutal social code? For some participants it would. Merry White argues for others, the opposite might be true. White re-interprets the word sunao, usually translated as obedient. In the English notion of an obedient child is the implication that “natural” childhood behaviour will often tend to be anti-social or “disobedient”. If the child co-operates with all requests, they are being “obedient” in the sense of submissive and self-controlling. The traditional Japanese assumption is more that co-operative behaviour will be the child’s normal choice and will make the child more happy (because it will bring them so much social approval and closeness). White argues “Thus when we translate sunao as “obedient”, we project our notions of authority and our idea of an innate capacity for evil onto the Japanese child. A more accurate translation of the term is “cooperative as an act of confirmation of the self”. Hence a sunao child is a good participant in group activities, a good listener to adults, a good replicator of society’s norms and standards. Being all these things makes him feel accomplished and enhances his identity -his most profoundly personal “self”.”

Recommendations (A)

As I said initially, my aim is not to define one cultural reality as more true than another, or to say what “all Japanese” or “all westerners” are like or should be like. Instead, my aim is to call for the attention of NLP trainers and other NLP practitioners who work in a cross-cultural setting. Understanding something of the cultures we are working in enables us to more fully identify the kind of differences in values and metaprograms which I give examples of here. We can thus present NLP in a more ecological way.

Merely to dismiss tatemae as lying may not respect the importance of sensitivity to others’ feelings in Japanese society. To translate sunao as  blind obedience may fail to understand the personal power engaged in choosing to co-operate with others in the context of Japanese culture.

In the same way, when giving examples of goals in a Japanese context, it becomes increasingly clear to me that co-operative and socially motivated goals are important to mention. The goal of creating a co-operative work team can be as empowering as the goal of earning more money.

Even where I deliberately offer culturally foreign experiences (such as using group games which involve more body contact than is normal in Japan) I can do so more effectively once I understand the cultural norms. NLP gives me tools useful for this task: tools for identifying verbal and nonverbal distinctions, for eliciting values hierarchies and metaprogram differences, and for pacing and leading from these to new places. Understanding all this also enriches my sense of what NLP is and where it comes from.

The Cultural Basis Of Our Metaphors For NLP

My own country, New Zealand, also provides me with examples of cultural difference. NLP Master Practitioner Hirini Reedy is a teacher of New Zealand Maori traditional skills such as Maori martial arts and traditional storytelling. While enthusiastic about NLP’s contribution to Maori cultural studies, he is alert to the reframing of culture which the NLP models produces. He cautions, “As we enter the 3rd Millennium, the digitisation of information and the acceleration of change is seeing a greater need for NLP skills worldwide. This digitisation is even implicit in the name, Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) as coined by the founders of NLP. The name, NLP, suggests to me that we can encode and decode our internal thinking systems very much like programming a computer if you understand the necessary programming code. The use of the words such as auditory digital and now visual digital continues the influence of digital age terminology. The danger is that this digitisation of the human mind and body into its constituent modalities can sometimes take away the mystery and magic that has always been part of the human experience, part of our cultural makeup. Ancient cultures have always had an understanding of NLP processes as expressed through their mythologies, songs and dance, rituals, ceremonies and knowledge systems. We are now seeing many NLP leaders from around the world starting to integrate ancient teachings with NLP. Examples of recent discoveries include Tad James and his exploration into the teachings of Huna, the Hawaiian esoteric system of knowledge which led to the creation of his Time-Line Therapy. Dr Richard Bolstad and Margot Hamblett have been instrumental with integrating Chi Kung energy practices into their teachings of NLP here in Aotearoa [New Zealand]. In my opinion the use of metaphor and associated terms in NLP is perhaps creating new terminology for the ancient art of storytelling. Storytelling reflects the power of the spoken word, the oral tradition which preceded the advent of the written word and print media which has revolutionised the transmission of knowledge ever since.” (Reedy 2000, p 2)

Reedy urges a mythological framing of NLP for Maori practitioners. He points out that in the traditional Maori worldview, genealogy (called whakapapa in Maori) linked each individual human being to their tribe and to all of nature (describing them as the descendents of the creator her/himself). “This whakapapa or kinship meant that the Maori saw the human form as a child of the universe, a microcosm of nature, subject to the same forces and energies that affect the seasons, the tides and the planets. Therefore many Maori rituals, beliefs and ceremonies focussed and honoured this universal kinship with Nature. The whakapapa concept can be used to explain the workings of the human mindscape where the neural pathways of thought can be navigated back to their parent source. This intimacy with nature meant that the many wananga (learning) systems of the Maori were attuned to the seasonal and daily cycles that affect the human mind and body. Essentially to the Maori, the classroom was nature, the sky the roof, the earth the floor. In this classroom there are many teachers of both human and non-human form. Before we can begin to gain insight into Maori concepts, protocols and language we must have this understanding of the Maori world view.” (Reedy 2000, p. 3).

This call parallels a concern expressed by Robert Dilts in relation to all modelling. Dilts quotes Gregory Bateson saying “If you want to think about something, it is best to think about that thing the same way in which that thing thunk.” (in Dilts, 1998, p 118). Dilts calls this code-congruence. Using the neurological levels model, he notes that when we model human skills without this “code-congruence”, we may get capability level information and miss identity level information. Hirini Reedy is saying similarly that to think of Maori skills (for example martial arts skills or therapeutic storytelling skills) as being computer-like misses the whole sense of identity that the Maori user of those skills has; an identity linked with the natural world rather than the world of human constructions.

Maori psychiatrist Mason Durie points out that western psychology in general is analytical, looking for meanings in the smaller details. “Maori thinking goes in quite the opposite direction.  You don’t obtain knowledge by looking for the details, or dissecting, or uncovering, or going deeper and deeper.  You go upwards.  Knowledge is obtained from the relationship that a person has with Maori systems, not the relationship he has with his own feelings, nor his own thinking, nor his own intelligence, but the relationship that he has with the stars, with his land, with his family, and the things that are much bigger than him as an individual.” (Durie, 1985). This is a profound difference in metaprograms. 

Culture and Emotion

This is not merely a cognitive concern. Different cultural experiences produce different emotional states. Remember that an emotion is not merely a physiological or kinaesthetic response. It involves the attribution of meaning to physiological response. In experiments, we can inject people with noradrenalin and their kinaesthetic sensations will become aroused (their heart will beat faster etc). However, the emotional state they enter will vary depending on a number of other internal factors. They may, for example, become “angry”, “frightened” or “euphoric”. It depends on their other sensory representations and on their meta-representations -what they tell themselves is happening, for example (Schachter and Singer, 1962). The same kinesthetics do not always result in the same state!

In Japanese culture, there is an emotional state known as “amae“. Japanese psychiatrist Takeo Doi says that this emotion could be described in English as a feeling of dependence or yearning to be looked after by another. He says that all people can feel this emotion, but that Japanese society has evolved to encourage and deepen its expression. “The Japanese, in short, idealised amae and considered a world dominated by amae as a truly human world; and the emperor system might be seen as an institution of this idea.” (Doi, 1981, p. 60). This, he points out, also explains the origins of some distinctly Japanese psychiatric disorders such as shinkeishitsu (characterised by attention-seeking psychosomatic problems and fear or shame in front of other people – Doi, 1981, p. 101-102). Allowing this emotion of amae to flower requires a Japanese understanding of the positive value of mutual support. The emotion is simply unlikely to evolve in this form in a more individualistic culture.

In Aotearoa (New Zealand), Dr Joan Metge has studied an emotion known to New Zealand Maori as whakamaa (Metge, 1985). The literal translation of whakamaa is to make white, and the emotion refers to a kind of shame or severe withdrawal which occurs when a person feels that they have lost their spiritual power or mana. This mana comes largely from connection to (or respect from) others and from connection to the world. Without a sense of connection to nature and to the dignity of ones whakapapa (kinship networks) it is possible for a Maori person to physically sicken or even to die of whakamaa. Maori consultant Puti Turner gives an example: “You work, you sit exams, and suddenly the results come out and you have not got through. Now that sort of experience on a Maori lad is whakamaa, because he has not achieved. All the people at home who know that he is going through secondary school are going to look at his parents and say, “Ha! See, your child has missed out!” He carries this tremendous responsibility.” (in Metge, 1985, p. 41).

When we teach NLP in a different culture, then, we are confronted by different values and beliefs, different metaprograms and even different emotional states. In a western culture, amae may be considered intrinsically negative, but in Japanese terms it may be an appropriate and resourceful emotion which needs to be utilised correctly. In a western culture, the solution to whakamaa may seem to be to get one’s sense of identity from ones own self. But as Maori psychiatrist Mason Durie explains, “Maori people would regard someone who is independent, who is directed by his own thoughts and feelings as a disturbed person and in a very bad way.  He should see a counsellor!  Because the antithesis of health is independent living, independent feeling and regarding yourself as sufficient as an individual; all very unhealthy thinking (in Maori terms).  He has failed completely to acknowledge where he has come from, what his strength is, and probably where he is going.” In Maori terms, the solution to whakamaa is to re-establish ones mana, not to smash it further by becoming even more isolated.  

When A Culture Is Denied Expression

Such culturally unique emotional responses, values and metaprograms are transmitted to children very early in life, by both verbal and non-verbal methods. The responses are largely unconscious. However, when one culture becomes dominant in a community, it may become increasingly difficult for members of other cultures to manage with the cultural responses they have  taken in at this deep level. Let me give you an example.

One day, a New Zealand man came to see me because of increasing arguments with the woman he lived with. He sat by me, looking down at the floor and explaining that one of his biggest failings was his inability to make eye contact with people. Also, when he and his partner argued, he somehow was unable to get across to her that he wanted to apologise. No matter how he demonstrated his sadness, sitting close to her and trying to do things for her, she didn’t get the message. And the things they argued about really puzzled him. For example, when they went to her parents’ place for the weekend, she wanted to ring up beforehand and sort out what food they would bring. He felt humiliated by this—it seemed rather petty and rude. Surely they should just take whatever they could, and things would work out.

Was this man a poor communicator? No, he was an excellent communicator. Then why was he having so much trouble? And why did he believehe was no good at communicating? Because he was playing football with the basketball rulebook. Hisway of communicating worked perfectly in the family he grew up in, because that family was Maori. It did not work with his partner because she was from a European-based culture: a culture where people value ‘looking you in the eye’ rather than looking down to indicate politeness; where people talk about their feelings rather than expressing them (at a funeral, for example, she might say, ‘I’m so sorry’ rather than simply weep and hold someone); where people negotiate the arrangements for hospitality rather than giving a koha (gift). Both ways of life work perfectly. And it’s quite possible for people to live together even when they grew up in different cultures … providing they understand the difference and know who they are. Problems begin when we pretend that cultures don’t exist, and everyone is ‘the same’.

This man didn’t even think of himself as “Maori”. He grew up in a Maori marae (community), but had consciously rejected that background and considered himself a “New Zealander” rather than a “Maori”. In New Zealand, as in most colonised countries, it was for a long time the government policy to encourage such rejection of indigenous culture. Maori collective ownership of land was declared void, and Maori were required to get individual titles to land under the 1862 Native Lands Act. Maori children were punished for speaking Maori at school, under the 1867 Native Schools Act, and required to adopt English. Maori traditional religion and health care was illegal from 1907 under the Suppression of Tohunga Act. These laws remained in force until the end of the 1960s (Bolstad ed, 2001, p 21-26). It’s as if someone said, “There’s no difference between basketball and football. The reason why you’re losing the game is because you’re no good at sports (or too lazy to try). You’ll have to learn our rules better.” The fact is that there are differences. As I listened to this man describing each of his communication ‘failures’, I affirmed for him that his responses sounded perfectly sane and skilled and that they were very much as I understood Maori responses to be. After half an hour or so he was glowing with a new sense of understanding, and working out how he could contact a Maori NLP Practitioner to explore this further. We spent the last quarter of an hour rehearsing his process of explaining this to his partner in a way that would be respectful of her.

Recommendations (B)

In our Transformations New Zealand NLP Practitioner training, we have previously had a Maori NLP Master Practitioner, Robin Fabish, run a three hour session on using NLP with Maori clients. In our Master Practitioner course we spend 1-2 days exploring the relationship between Maori and non-Maori culture in New Zealand, past, present and future. I consider this to be essential, not just because New Zealand / Aotearoa is the homeland of Maori culture, but because these sessions give a sense of the power of culture in general. When Robin Fabish runs his session, he runs it in a Maori way. Practitioners are immersed in the culture as the process of the session, rather than learning “about” it. We begin with a welcome ceremony in Maori, complete with formal speeches, songs and group greeting processes. People then introduce themselves in the Maori format (by discussing their family connections and place of origin, rather than their job and their personal achievements). For many people, this is the first time they realise that, for all its radical content, the rest of the training has been conducted in a monocultural, western style.

In the last two years we have increasingly added Maori welcome and conclusion karakia (chants) to our day, again acknowledging that this is Aotearoa and the first and last voice come from this land.

If we truly believe that NLP belongs to the whole world, then it is useful for us to passionately move beyond the ways in which our practice may have limited NLP to a small subsection of the available cultures on the planet. The ability to move between different cultural settings is an excellent example of the flexibility we pride ourselves in as NLP Practitioners. The Maori King Potatau Te Wherowhero said about education “Kotahi ano te kohao o te ngira, e kuhuna ai te miro pango, te miro whero, te miro ma.” (There is but one eye of the needle whereby the black thread, the red thread and the white thread must pass). His meaning was that the thread does not have to change colour to get through the needle. While the needle remains the same needle, it permits each thread to pass through in its uniqueness. In the same way, it is in our interests to have NLP available for people from many different cultural threads to pass through.  

In his Tauparapara for the NLP book Transforming Communication, Te Hata Ohlson (Tuhoe, with links to Ngati Whare, Ngati Kahungunu, Ngati Porou and Te Arawa) says:
Tini whetu ki te Rangi
Ko nga whakaaro hou taka haere
Ki Papatuanuku
Hei kakano mo nga aitanga
Whakatupu, whakarapu
Ka werohia
Ka whakapoutamahia
Ka tu te tangata
Mana motuhake
(Just as there are multitudes of stars in Father sky, so there are new thoughts roaming Mother earth; seeds for descendants growing and searching. By challenging; they progress until they are able to stand tall in their own uniqueness.)

Bibliography

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