The Map Is Not The Territory
The title of this post, “The Map Is Not The Territory” is one of Neuro-Linguistic Programming’s (NLP) presuppositions. It’s one of my favorites because it affirms the fact that at the surface level, a person, situation or a state of mind may look a certain way, but things may not be quite as they seem. A map of a city is not the actual moist loam comprising the physical terrain. Paper does not equal soil. Likewise, our perceptions of situations, people and states are not the situations themselves. The next time you’re confronted with a strange or stressful situation, it’s helpful to remember that you don’t have all the information there is, and the other person’s maps of their inner “territory” may not match your own. From that point, it’s helpful to be open to learning the way that the other person conceptualises to prevent mismatch in your communication with them.
Try it, you’ll enjoy the results!
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April 27th, 2004 12:23
I used to live in Milton Keynes, Britain’s only grid-plan city, and one of just four planned-from-scratch cities to be built any where in the world in the 20th Century. Roads there are designated ‘H’ (East-West) and ‘V’ (North-South). We eventually worked out that these stood for ‘Horizontal’ and ‘Vertical’ The NLPers joke there was that it’s the only place where the map actually is the territory.
April 27th, 2004 13:45
Hi Ian,
And I used to live in Cambridge, not far from Milton Keynes! I absolutely loved the major carriageway roundabout signs “THE NORTH” and “THE SOUTH”. Never any East or West, just the two directions. [grin] Thanks for the funny story, I’ll retell it this weekend in my next NLP Master Prac. class…
April 27th, 2004 15:47
Hi Maryam,
Guess where I’m writing this from? The centre of Cambridge, where I now live! What a very, very small world.
May 14th, 2004 00:56
I’ve found NLP to very a very usefull tool, learnt early I believe it can give u some great tools for life.