When I talk about hypnosis to business people, I often get some strange looks. It’s also fairly obvious what they’re thinking at that point: “What place could hypnosis possibly have in business?”
This is a perfectly natural response because most people don’t really know about or understand hypnosis, so they draw upon one of the two apparent stereotypes of hypnosis available to them:
- Stage hypnosis
- Hypnotherapy
Both of these are applications of hypnosis – and both are distortions of what hypnosis really is.
In the case of stage hypnosis, if someone really had complete power over you, do you really think they would just use it to have you cluck like a chicken? In stage hypnosis, this illusion of control (and the showmanship surrounding it) is what makes the show entertaining. It’s not that someone is on stage pretending to be an aeroplane – it’s that someone appears to be making them do that. And that’s not what hypnosis is really about.
In the case of hypnotherapy, the hypnosis is reduced to a set of formal practices that have a healing effect. Despite the immense value of hypnotherapy, there’s really much more to hypnosis that that. And (to return to our main topic) do businesses really need therapy? Some might, but that’s not necessarily the best way of looking at business development.
Think about this: therapeutics is derived from the medical mindset, which is all about ‘getting to okay’. If you have any doubt about that, what would happen if you went to your doctor and said “I’m feeling healthy and well at the moment – could you give me any pills that make me feel fabulous?” Similarly, any business development focused on ‘getting to okay’ is a recipe for disaster – if being average is your highest aspiration, you might struggle to compete with those who wish to continually raise the bar on excellence.
What type of hypnosis has an important place in business? Think about this broader definition of hypnosis:
Hypnosis is a special form of everyday communication. It involves (or is characterised by)
- Purpose-focused, or outcome-focused communication
- explicit feedback which values verbal and non-verbal responses
- access to authentic responses only
- triggering of resourceful response and/or resourceful states of mind
Given that definition, I’m sure it’s becoming easier to see why hypnosis might be an essential part of the tool-set necessary for bringing out the best performance in others. To take it further, think about this:
What would business be like if your staff were at their best?
What would it be like if your suppliers were at their best?
And what would it be like if your clients were at their best?
What if your business was filled with clear, direct, authentic , purposeful communication. How valuable would that be to you?
So put aside stage hypnosis – it’s just for entertainment. Don’t ask someone with a therapeutic mindset to develop your business – unless you’re a long way short of ‘okay’.
Hypnosis does have a vital place in business. If you want to know more, ask me about specifics.
