Review: From Coach to Awakener

From Coach to Awakener
by Robert Dilts

In this book, Robert Dilts uses his model of Neurological Levels as a comprehensive base for advice and exercises for personal and business coaches. The book is structured around this model, so I have shown a brief outline in the table below.

As can be seen from the rightmost column in the table, the book is structured completely around the neurological levels. While the model has been criticized by some as not being a true NLP model (e.g. Andrew Bradbury in this post and in various other articles on his site; also John Grinder in his book, Whispering in the Wind; also see Michael Hall’s article for more details on the tricky and rather sensitive area of ‘logical levels’), this does not detract from the fact that thousands of NLP practitioners use Dilts’ model very effectively in working with clients. Logically, I do agree with Bradbury and Grinder that the model does not follow the classical mathematical idea of sets and levels, but I have found it extremely useful in my own work. At the very least, the Neurological Levels model provides a series of valuable filters or maps with which to view the territory. More importantly for the purpose of this book, the model also provides a very useful way of analyzing the different ways that a coach can help a client. Or perhaps, I should say Coach with a capital ‘C’ because this is a useful distinction that Dilts maintains throughout the book. A ‘coach’ helps a client to improve at the level of behaviours, whereas a ‘Coach’ works with the client on all levels.

While there are useful exercises and advice for all of the Coach levels, the ones that stood out for me most were those at the level of Mentor (Beliefs and Values) and Awakener (Spirit). Having read quite a few of Dilts’ books recently, it seems to me that he is making the greatest contributions to NLP in the two areas of belief change (Mentor) and awakening people to the wider community of which they are a part (Awakener).

Chapter 4 (Mentoring) offers useful processes for role modelling, aligning values with vision and actions, and putting values into actions. It also supports the important idea that establishing good practices or habits is an important part of the formation of positive long term beliefs and values. This chapter also links coaching to important NLP techniques such as reframing and  uses this to introduce useful processes such as “Helping Critics to Be Advisors.”

Chapter 6 (Awakening) is a valuable contribution to Coaching. For Dilts, awakening is at the level of Spirit, a response to questions such as “what is bigger than you that you are part of” and he describes awakening in the following manner:

The results of awakening are frequently a renewed sense of purpose and meaning, expanded awareness, clear perception and emotional and physical revitalization…. Awakening frequently has to do with reconnecting with our motivations at the deepest level. Consequently, awakenings usually accompany significant transitions in our personal and professional lives.

He ties this idea well to older NLP ideas such as uptime and downtime and the importance of having good communication with the unconscious mind. Similarly, he uses Gregory Bateson’s idea of double binds to show how a Coach can set up positive double binds in which the client can move up to a higher level of learning. In a double bind, the client effectively receives a message such as “If you change, you are a good person… if you don’t change, you are a good person.” By setting up the positive double bind at the Identity level, the client tries to resolve the bind by moving to a higher level of learning and can thus solve their own problem. The chapter finishes with a nice exercise which walks through Bateson’s levels of learning (from Level 0 up to Level III, and Dilts’ additional Level IV).

In the conclusion to the book, there is also a fine exercise for the Coach himself or herself to develop and align their skills at all six levels.

There is an awful lot of material in this book and although I have tried many of the exercises, there is much much more to be returned to, and this book would make a good reference book on the shelf of any coach – a volume to be returned to occasionally when a client’s issue was proving difficult to resolve. By using Dilts Neurological Levels model, it is possible to understand what ‘level’ the issue is stuck at, and to possibly use some of the processes in the book or variants of them to achieve a breakthrough at that level and beyond.