Done properly, you may actually win the respect of a blamer by acting like a blamer, but this is advanced. You have to be in that style without putting the blamer on the defensive, so pacing the blamer’s style means adopting that kind of critical attitude and intensity without causing the blamer to feel that they must fight with you or otherwise defend their vulnerability. Being upset about the same thing as the blamer is an excellent strategy. Remember that after pacing comes leading. The blamer is much more open to your input once rapport has been established. The problem for most people, though, is that they are too shaken up or angry to want to establish rapport with a blamer.
Since blamers may hold a lot of power in an organization, this can be a fatal mistake. It’s best to see it as an opportunity to practice NLP rather than to expose your vulnerability. Which do you love more? You can gain rapport with a placater pretty easily since they really crave attention and understanding.
The trick is to get them connected to their real responsibilities without losing them. Starting with their higher values, that is, at a more general or abstract level and working down into the specifics, is an excellent strategy. Distracters are more open to rapport-building than you might think. As with most rapport-building, you must start out by being non-threatening.
Being non-threatening with a Satir category means not directly confronting the way the style acts as a defense against internal vulnerabilities. In the case of the distracter, you do not rub their face in whatever it was they were trying to distract you from. As a Neuro Linguistic Programming practitioner, you are getting used to juggling different ideas and even using confusion as a technique yourself. The trick with the distracter is to lock firmly onto the facts, position, and agenda that are important to you, and then take a detour. Go all over the place with the distracter, but keep dropping in points about how it is in the best interest of the distracter to do what must be done. It’s a bit like breaking a horse. While the distracter tends to fatigue others, you are fatiguing the distracter because all of their efforts bring them back to the same spot, your agenda. On one level, you are pacing them. On another, you are kindling a state of compliance. Add Ericksonian language to the free-wheeling conversation and you will be the distracter master. Since levelers respect other levelers and your NLP skills help you see both sides of any debate, you will have the easiest time establishing rapport and understanding with the leveler. If there is a disagreement, make sure that you have a good mastery of the facts and a concise knowledge of the agendas of the players in the situation.Of course, you can use everything you have already learned about rapport-building. But now you know even more.
By learning about the Satir categories, you know not only more about what to do, but also what to avoid doing. But if you aren’t sure where to start in an interaction, being the leveler is best. That’s because the leveler always understands their side of the issue. The only concern is that the leveler may be persuaded by the other side. This creates an incentive for the person you are talking to to want to create rapport. If they are not skilled, or if they are stressed, they may fall into their more un-evolved category style, but that means that they will be more obvious as to what category they belong to.
You will be able to take your cues from there. It is very important to remember that when you see someone in a more stereotypical, manipulative, or irrational state, that state may not be where they are most of the time. Don’t limit yourself by assuming that what you see is all you will be dealing with in the future. This insight makes it easier for you to bring out the best in people. This makes their lives, and yours, a lot easier.
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I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it —I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know — but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me. However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me. I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am Okay.
Virginia Satir