This activity was a lot of fun and enlightening at the same time.
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One organisation was an elephant - elephants often have to be poked with a stick and shouted at to get them moving.  They then move very slowly but are powerful and difficult to stop.  They have no predators to fear and perform a very useful function for society.  Unfortunately they cannot see what is going at their own rear.  Occasionally some turn into rogue elephants.

Another company was described as being like a horse.  Horses like to run but may gallop around at random unless they have a competent rider.  They also baulk at jumping obstacles unless the rider knows how to maintain direction.  They may go too fast for comfort or even throw their rider off.  This group of managers had an interesting exchange of opinions about who the rider of their particular horse was.
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Another example was the snake.  This organisation had the benefits of moving stealthily and having a very effective sting.  It could also shed its skin and appear different.  However, its very stealth was a potential problem as it could be stepped on (by the elephant?) or driven over without anyone being aware it was there in the grass.  Also, its reputation made people wary of it when it was noticed, so that it had few friends.

Choose a metaphor, such as pretending that your organization is an animal, a book, a movie, etc.  Then write the scenario that will result from that – for example, if your organization were to be a giraffe (or a group of giraffes), you might imagine a scenario in which:

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You might also produce different scenarios for different trends, and for different levels of impact. For example, if you think that a political change will affect your organization, write an account of life within the organization after that change has occurred.  Then write an amended version that assumes the change is less severe, and another version that assumes it is even more severe than you imagined.

Produce yet more versions of the scenario, incorporating other trends as well.  For instance, a scenario that assumes the political change, plus the need to introduce some form of new technology, together with social changes that alter the demographics of your workforce.
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When you have produced several scenarios, consider the following:

Belief Locations
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Within NLP there is a pre-supposition (among others) that we have specific locations in which we store our beliefs.  If we think about what we believe, we can become aware of imaginary physical positions for different beliefs.  (Try it  -  it really does work, much to my initial surprise.)  Our location filing system is quite specific, so that we generally have separate locations for beliefs that we hold strongly, beliefs that we are not sure about, and beliefs relating to things other people believe but which we disbelieve.

If we want to change a belief, we can do so by changing the location for it.  This can be very useful for dealing with those beliefs we all have that are out of line with current reality.  These include what TA would label injunctions and attributions  -  qualities and characteristics that we accept as our own only because the grown-ups somehow convinced us when we were little.  Examples would be a belief that we are clumsy or stupid, that we will always fail (at work, at maths, at relationships . . . .), or that we are destined to follow in the footsteps of a particular relative (“You’ll come to a sticky end just like XYZ.”)
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The belief changing process works as follows:
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1. identify the location of the belief you want to change.  This will be Belief A.

​(note:  this assumes that you have first checked the benefits as well as the drawbacks of this belief and have made sure that changing the belief is ecologically sound for you  i.e.  that changing it will not lead to unforeseen problems.  If it still does, you can of course reverse the process and put the belief back!)

2. identify the location of a doubt that you have - something you believe may or may not be true.  This is Belief B.

3. identify the new belief that you would like to have in place of A.  Label this Belief C.

4. move beliefs around as follows:
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​You may need to add more detail as part of stabilising the new belief.  If so, check the modalities (how you imagine seeing it, hearing it, feeling it) of the unwanted belief and apply these to the new belief.  Match modalities in terms of aspects such as brightness, colour, tone, volume, internal and external sensations, and any other ways that you recognise are significant within your personal filing system.
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Stroke Locations

We all need strokes to survive and develop.  The orphans in Romania are tragic examples of what happens if strokes are not available in childhood; solitary confinement is known to have a similar traumatic effect on the way people function.  Positive, growth encouraging strokes are best but we will settle for negative strokes if that is all we can get - any attention is better than being constantly ignored.  Small children learn early that negative strokes are often easier to stimulate than positives; grown-ups notice as soon as you are naughty but not always when you are good.

Our stroke pattern is an analysis of the ways in which we tend to give and receive strokes.  If we identify the five or six people we have most contact with at work, for instance, we can then consider what types of strokes we exchange with them, how often, what about, how intense, and so on.  We can prepare patterns also for our social and family situations.

When we do this, we become aware that there are strokes that we accept and strokes that we reject.  It’s as if we let some strokes in but keep others out.  We may even tell the person that we are rejecting the stroke, as when we say someone else deserves the credit or the blame, or that we were just doing our job.  We will of course still remember the strokes that were offered.  It is as if we have a separate place outside ourselves where we can keep the strokes without feeling the impact within us.

Using the idea of locations, we can now identify where we store our strokes.   We probably have different places for positives and negatives, for strokes about appearance versus strokes about performance, for strokes we ‘earn’ and those given to us unconditionally.  We can explore our own patterns in terms of the territory it occupies for us.  Having explored, we can decide to accept positive strokes that we previously rejected and to reject negative strokes that we previously accepted even though they were not justified.

To accept more positive strokes:

​1. identify the location of the strokes you have been rejecting in the past and in future want to accept.  This will be A.

2. identify a location for strokes you receive that you have doubts about -  strokes that you believe may or may not be true.  This is B.

3. identify where you have been putting the positive strokes that you now want to accept.  Label this C.

4. move strokes around as follows:
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Again, you may need to add more detail to stabilise the new sensation of being stroked.  Check and adjust the modalities as you imagine receiving and accepting the desired strokes. 
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Then continue to enjoy the sensation as real people give you the same strokes in future.  Repeat the process for strokes that you give out if you want to have even more of a positive impact on your interactions with other people.
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