Our next series of workshops is called Gentle, Reliable Change. I had to think hard about using the word “gentle.” People react as if it means soft or nice or comfortable. I think it means something more like “in enough control to waste no effort.”
We may think of the weak as gentle, but the word started as a description of people with wealth and power, the gentility. To be gentle was to acknowledge that power has a responsibilty to preserve social well-being, to show respect for others. From there, we think of gentle giants, people of exceptional strength (usually physical) who control their behaviour to avoid hurting others. And then to professionals who have to do things that hurt us in order to help us. . . we hope they will do them gently.
What would it mean to follow gentle leaders in business? If we follow the history of the word, it would mean that they put actions behind their words, actions that were both economical and compassionate. They would be leaders who had enough confidence or conviction to use only the force necessary to achieve their goals.
NLP is gentle and reliable in that it starts from the belief that people are well-acquainted with what hurts them: they do not need to wallow in it to find healing. This fits the neuroscience of learning: strong emotions make for strong, resilient connections in the brain. What hurts us, sticks. It is easy to access. What we need is the ability to connect our strengths, and our supportive social connections, to those places that hurt. And bringing those things together needs to be done with both effort and sensitivity.
Gentle also leads to reliable: small, repeated changes require less force and lead to more sustainable healing or growth. Again, this is the neuroscience of learning: words like patient and gentle are often descriptions of change that is nudged, not forced.
If you are strong, your next step is to become so capable that you do not expend unnecessary force. You focus on the one thing, and work systematically to achieve it without harm (because harm is also waste). In effect, the strongest make change happen gently: with efficiency and compassion.
