Meta Programs and the LAB Profile®: What’s the difference?

There are now over 550 LAB Profile(r) Consultant/Trainer Certification graduates from around the world.
“How strange,” I thought, given that NLP is used so much by trainers, facilitators, consultants and coaches, even if they don’t mention NLP.

Why haven’t more people been using the LAB Profile and contributing to the ever-increasing knowledge base, especially since the LAB Profile has become the accepted way of teaching Meta Programs in many countries?

So I asked some questions and here is an unscientific sample of what I heard on some NLPers’ beliefs about Meta Programs and the LAB Profile(r):

* Meta Programs are the same thing as the LAB Profile(r). * I already studied them and know what I need to know. * They are just filters and who needs more filters? * Nice to know but there are no practical uses for them.  What!? I was shocked!

And all these years I have been using the LAB Profile(r) along with my NLP skills to create a very lucrative practice helping organizations and people.

Since 1998 I have been certifying consultants, trainers, coaches and executives from around the world to use the  LAB Profile(r) (Language & Behaviour Profile) in business and other organizations. Highly-skilled people attend this program because they know it will dramatically increase their ability to help clients solve difficult problems as well as create a unique opportunity for their careers.

Learn more about the LAB Profile(r) »

Some Examples from my consulting business:  

  • Assisted a manufacturer to avoid a strike and get the first 5 year contract with their union in the history of the company;
  • Decoded specialized LAB Profile market research to develop successful advertising strategies;
  • Transformed entire call centre representative behaviour to stop the bleeding of customers from an insurance company;
  • Helped negotiators to increase revenue by millions of dollars by changing their behaviours with their customers.
  • Appeared on national television using the LAB Profile(r) to decode election strategies for the general public.In short, my NLP and LAB Profile skills have made my fee irrelevant in the market place. My customers are willing to pay whatever it costs to take advantage of the insights and skills afforded them by these skills. Perhaps the information has not been getting across to NLP-based trainers and consultants, so I would like to correct some misunderstandings.

What are the Differences between Meta Programs and the LAB Profile?

Meta Programs, originally developed by Leslie Cameron-Bandler (now Lebeau), describe what information a person takes in or gives out. Are they filtering for information, place, person, thing or activity? Do they notice sameness, similarities or contrasts? And many, many more filters.
When I learned these patterns in an NLP Master Practitioner program in Paris in the 1980’s, they are rarely connected to how to detect them and what to do once you know the patterns. I did learn however that some patterns were better than others; it was better to be internal than external, better to approach than avoid etc., a belief I have since rejected.

I was fascinated by the information at the time, but also thought there was nothing one could do with the information. In 1984 I translated Rodger Bailey’s LAB Profile(r) manual into French when I working in Paris.

I was immediately struck by the differences between his model and the standard NLP Meta Programs. I chose to use and develop the LAB Profile rather than any of the other psycho-metric profiling tools because of its simplicity, accuracy and usefulness. While the LAB Profile was based on the original Meta Programs and Noam Chomsky’s deletions, distortions and generalizations, only the LAB Profile consists of:

  1. A reasonable number of patterns to learn,
  2. A methodology for detecting the patterns, and
  3. A specific set of Influencing Language to match each pattern.

Meta Programs

Development

LAB Profile

Benefit

60 patterns

Summarizing, concentrating on essentials

14 practical Categories

Easy to learn and remember

No methodology

Structured approach

Questionnaire for

eliciting patterns

with clear indicators

Easy to use for research

with groups, & in casual conversations

No specific language

Research and

development of

language structures

Matches the Motivation Trigger and Influencing Language for each pattern

Dramatically increases ability to be persuasive  because it  fits language to internal mental structure

No practical

applications

On going research and development

Used for mass & interpersonal communication, self-knowledge, psycho-metric profiles

Incredible potential for creating new and rigourous applications

Rodger had also discovered some practical applications. This was something I could actually use. At the time we included the LAB Profile(r) in a program called “Managing High Performance Teams” and I began to explore what else could be done with it.

On top of this several people have used the LAB Profile(r) as a research topic for their Master’s or Ph.D. theses. Several psychological profiling tools have been developed using the LAB Profile(r) to use with individuals and teams.

(See Jay Arthur’s NLP Personal Profile, Patrick Merlevede’s IWAM, Arne Maus’ Identity-Compass and Jaap Hollander’s MPA Mind-Sonar)

All of this information on what uses trainers, consultants, facilitators and coaches are doing with the LAB Profile is irrelevant if people won’t give it a try for themselves. I wrote the book Words That Change Minds quite a few years ago to describe the Patterns and give information on how to use them for a few practical applications. But that was only the beginning.

Since then, we have discovered many more practical applications for consultants and trainers. Imagine being able to understand, and predict people’s behaviour using a rigourous, empirical and scientific method for motivation. The LAB Profile is an exciting alternative to standard problem-solving approaches which our customers have all heard before.

But don’t believe me. Check out my books Words That Change Minds and The Customer is Bothering Me at www.theShellestore.com

or have a look at the LAB Profile Consultant/Trainer Certification Program at www.LABProfileCertification.com

Please email me at [email protected] and visit my website for more information www.WordsThatChangeMinds.com

Here are some examples of the LAB Profile practical applications many of us have created over the years:

  • Marketing Research: Since these patterns vary by Context, several methodologies have been developed to empirically determine the different below-conscious motivations customers have for competing products and services. This is used to create whole mass communication strategies.

  • Coaching: I developed a methodology using the LAB Profile called Conversational Coaching, whereby the coach elicits conversationally the LAB Profile patterns of the present and desired state and casually overlaps the Influencing Language to enable the client to experience the desired state and develop his or her own solutions.

  • Training for Behaviour Change: Using the LAB Profile you can choose activities which will create the desired behaviour changes for any target group, first by decoding the Motivation Patterns for the group and then understanding which LAB Profile patterns are addressed by any given activity.

  • People Management: You can train managers to identify the LAB Profile Patterns and thereby the strengths of their team members, so they can adjust assignments to suit what staff members naturally do best at work.

  • Recruitment: You can do a LAB Profile for a position and corporate culture to create an advertisement that will be irresistible to those who fit and turn off those who do not fit. You can the screen the selected short-listed candidates to find the best match. (Note: The LAB Profile does not measure skills, knowledge or attitude; rather it measures whether the person has the Motivation Traits and Internal Processing to fit the tasks and the environment; in other words “fit”.)

  • Skills Training: Learning the LAB Profile will enable people to develop finely-tuned abilities in the following areas: Influencing & Persuading, Negotiating, Leadership, Conflict Resolution, Sales and Customer Service.

  • Consulting and Problem-Solving: I developed an easy to use LAB Profile methodology to diagnose and develop solutions to any communication problem. This is a favourite amongst business leaders and consultants.

  • Implementing Organizational Change: You can diagnose the present and desired organizational cultures in LAB Profile terms and determine the appropriate change methodology for maximum sustainable results.

  • Team Building: When you do a team LAB Profile, you can determine the team’s strengths and weaknesses with regards to their mandate. You can also identify communication patterns within the team and between this team and others, as well as determine the patterns of the next person to add to the team.

  • Teaching and Learning: Teachers and students can easily identify the LAB Profile Patterns which facilitate or cause difficulties in learning for individuals and whole groups. Minor adjustments can then be made to the teaching/learning methodology to correct any problems. I gave a workshop to the National Indian Education Conference in Canada (for teachers on Native Indian Reservations) on how to prevent drop-outs using this methodology.

  • Modelling: The LAB Profile Patterns can be used to decode any strategy or any skill, simply by identifying the behaviours (internal and external) used. This is an essential part of the modeling demonstrate this methodology to help students with their modeling project.

If you are interested in booking me (Shelle Rose Charvet) for a presentation, keynote or workshop contact me at [email protected].

5 thoughts on “Meta Programs and the LAB Profile®: What’s the difference?

  1. marie-claude LOUGHNEY

    Bravo Shelle pour ton article, le LAB PROFIL® te permet de mieux comprendre le monde de l’autre de voir le monde à travers les yeux de la personne avec qui tu communiques et d’optimiser ta communication.
    Mes clients trouvent que cela facilite leur business et cela leur permet de gagner du temps. C’est magique.
    Merci pour ton article.

    Reply
  2. Luca Biotti

    Thanks Shelle for the detailed analysis, which I personally find correct. I would like to point out one unique feature of LAB Profile®, that is to link directly the behavior with the language. It is possible to practically design a text to be used for a specific application (advertisement, recruiting, coaching, etc.) starting from the observed or desired behavior of the people involved in that context. This is the aspect I like most and the reason why being already an NLP™ trainer, I decided to become a LAB Profile® one too.

    Reply
  3. James Lawley

    Shelle, I appreciate you acknowledging the role played by Leslie Cameron in the formulation of the metaprograms model. For those interested, there is a more detailed history at http://www.labprofile.net/ (written I guess by Patrick Merlevede).

    Thank you also for making the distinctions between the metaprograms model and the Lab Profile tool clear.

    One point, I do think it’s a little unfair to say metaprogams have “No practical applications” since the Lab Profile was itself a practical application of the idea of metaprograms.

    All the best, James

    Reply
  4. L. Michael Hall

    Shelle

    An excellent article! We need more articles like this awakening the NLP Community to the importance of Meta-Programs as the invisible frames that govern our thinking styles, our point of view, and our preferences for perceiving. Meta-Programs is an essential NLP model and the person who doesn’t know the meta-programs, how to detect them, how to use them, and how to expand them for unleashing potentials— is missing a great part of the power of NLP!

    L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

    Reply
  5. Rosie O'Hara

    Yes well you have my vote on all that you say.
    Recently I helped a company decide they really needed to lose one employee whom they liked but he wasn’t suitable for his job as the LAB Profile showed. The same company has restructured another employee’s job based on the LAB Profile, and the company is now looking at using more LAB Profile on a day to day basis.

    On a personal note LAB Profile helped me realise I am not Sameness with Exception and Diffference in relationships!

    And 2 1/2 years ago the LAB Profile enabled me to get my husband on my side for my all important breast surgety – it took me 30 minutes to get him to make a life enhancing decision – that he would help me instead of believing in fate – that is detailed in my new book No More Bingo Dresses – I know advertising here, without the LAB profile my breast cancer decisions would have been who knows what.

    LAB Profile all the way………..

    Reply

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