It’s a matter of life and death!

One of the things I love the most about NLP is how it encourages us to attend to the power of language. I recently came across a beautiful, if slightly macabre, example of how altering mere words can have a profound effect on how people perceive and respond to circumstances.

We have probably all heard of ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ instructions. These are issued by medical staff (theoretically with the approval of family members) who are caring for those who are terminally ill or close to death from natural causes. They are an instruction not to attempt to resuscitate such patients in the event of a heart attack or similar medical crisis, on the grounds that bringing them back from the edge of death would just pointlessly prolong their suffering.

It is understandable that family members who are distraught at the prospect of losing a loved one may object to what they perceive as callous medical instructions. ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ sounds so clinical, cold, disinterested – cruel even. When such words are used a certain percentage of family members will refuse to agree to a ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ decision being made for their loved one.

Some researchers were curious as to what would happen if the term ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ was replaced with another form of words and they decided to find out. The term ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ was swapped for ‘allow natural death’ – a term that I am sure you will agree has a much different feel and connotations.

The result? Family members agreed to the latter phrasing 27.5% more often! The process of medical treatment (or lack thereof) was exactly the same – it was only the words used to describe it that had altered.

Reflect on that in your business or workplace for a moment. If you had the language skills to elicit such increased levels of agreement to your ideas what would that make possible?

Language patterns delivering such skills for influence are taught on our NLP for Business and NLP Practitioner trainings in Cheshire and London.