It's about, time ....

At the Indian & International Professional Association of Neuro-Linguistic Programming the same questions are often asked by multiple people.  Compiled here are the most often asked questions about the Standards & Ethics frames.  

If you have a question which is not answered here please send your question via the Contacts page.

Questions Answered below are:

1. What are the IPANLP's Standards?
2. What are the IPANLP's Code of Ethics?
3. What is the IPANLP's disciplinary procedure?

The standard syllabus for each of the NLP training levels are outlined in most NLP membership organisations websites.  These are generally outdated and minimum expectations for their members which cannot be policed. We believe that this continual minimalising of what is expected from their members has eroded standards significantly to date.

We invite our IPANLP associates, as professionals, to strive to exceed these existing standards (which is actually quite easy!). We acknowledge NLP enthusiasts who have trained with any NLP school and are certificated by any NLP organisation. It is partly for this reason that we don't set rigid standards which may conflict, and encourage that each individual seek to improve on the low standard previously expected of them.

We encourage NLP Educators to structure their trainings repectful of the original intentions of the co-creators of NLP, to experiment & explore all that is new in NLP, to use calibration and acuity to teach intuitively at the different levels of skill and ability in their classes.

We observe that this leads to increasing the quality of syllabi which were previously a rigid standard syllabus and that each associate is driven to exceed the standard achieved by their peers.

IPANLP encourage "A Framework of Excellence" rather than a rigid standard syllabus, in order that each of our associates can express their own personality & interests while gaining skills in the patterns of NLP through multiple descriptions.  This means that NLP can expand generatively, creatively & productively in India & UAE without the restrictions of a single organisations minimum standard syllabus.

Standardising (placing restrictions on) a dynamic and evolving field of study, quite frankly, seems odd!

For IPANLP's Framework of Excellence please see here. 

It is observed that almost all NLP membership organisations codes of ethics are blatantly violated by their own founders, directors and trustees!

There is no way to police these codes and petty complaints about (decent) members violating these codes are frequently made by those with poor ethics themselves in order to 'ease the way' for their own businesses.

A code of ethics creates an assumption that members are basically unethical and need a code in order to operate ethically. Most codes of ethics are very basic and most average people would operate that way naturally.

In the short term IPANLP has introduced a voluntary oath taken by new associates to draw their attention to preferred behaviours. It is based largely on the medical professions Hippocratic Oath, because it seems like a suitable and relevant replacement for the NLP membership organisations 'hypocritical codes'!!

Many corporates have a set of 'corporate values' against which the performance of employees can be and are measured.  Specific behaviours demonstrating the values are required of the employees, which means that they themselves can measure their performance against the corporate values. This appears a better solution than an amorphous code of ethics which cannot be policed and is intentionally mis-used by the 'trusted' leaders of NLP membership organisations.

See here for the NLP Oath, soon to be replaced (or perhaps added to) by the IPANLP's values.

IPANLP's Proposal:

How the IPANLP want to achieve a constructive disciplinary procedure is to highlight excellent behaviour and great role models so that our associates may aspire to that level of excellence.

Each of the IPANLP Meta Educators are responsible for the NLP Educators and Trainers that they certify. An IPANLP Meta Educator is to be a role model for their set of Educators, Trainers and Agents of Change.

By keeping in touch with the participants the Meta Educator is able to review their behaviours and offer help in aligning those behaviours with the values of IPANLP.  We believe this is a generative solution! Attention will be drawn to those who do a great job and are excellent role models rather than those who are not.

IPANLP isn't concerned about status & significance, we are all equal and so we believe that there is nothing here for the unethical crowd.
 

Current problematic situation:

As far as we know almost all of the NLP membership organisations have minimum standard syllabi and amorphous codes of ethics. They are unable to police their membership and therefore they can have no genuine disciplinary procedure.

However punishments appear to be handed out willy nilly, which are often expulsion, removal or de-activation from the membership. This is a remedial solution rather than generative as NLP was intended to be!

Very few of the existing NLP membership organisations have a formal complaints procedure (and without a generative disciplinary process, what's the point?).

One of the NLP Organisation who do have a formal complaints procedure operates as follows. The complaints made against their members by the public or through it's own membership are reviewed by an inhouse reviewer to ensure both the member and the complainer are treated fairly. However punishments again appear to be remedial rather than generative and those who know how to 'play the game' continue to evade complaints about their unethical behaviour.

The current situation are disciplinary procedures which highlight and put focus on unwanted behaviour.