NLP Podcast Extract : James Prior on Benefits on NLP

"My name’s James Prior. I work for AstraZeneca, one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies. I’m the Organisational Development Partner. My role is really looking after leadership development; it’s also looking after the culture within the business considering where we’re headed as a successful organisation, and looking at the business skills offerings we have. "
"Yes, it’s quite a big role. And obviously I don’t do all that on my own. I have a team of two people as well who help support me in those areas."

"Over the years quite a bit, working up to my Master Practitioner qualification in coaching, leadership development and change management."

"I think it allowed me to really focus on building rapport and relationships with people. And NLP has both allowed me to pick on audio clues and visual clues. To really get a sense of peoples core values and identity. So that we can shape the offerings we have, so that we know that they’re aimed at the right areas that people want to improve."

"I think it’s helped me in expanding my career in allowing me to take on new opportunities. I think in the sense that it’s allowed me to build relationships far quicker than if I didn’t have the skills. But it is also about understanding people. It’s allowed me to specialise in the area that I’m very passionate about - leadership. It has big implications for improvement in leadership in many areas. In building relationships and enabling people to see the benefit of communicating really well."

"My drive and ambition is a big motivator for me. As well as taking responsibility for my own development. I come from a philosophy that things don’t come to you, you have to go looking for them. I work very hard on my own personal development programme. Working hard with external supplies like yourself, and working very closely with the company putting core business cases together. This enables me to broaden my career, broaden my experience and allows me to move on through AstraZeneca.!

"The biggest area for me is listening to people, really listening, in order to understand people on a number of different levels. This includes body language, tone of voice, use of language and beliefs. This has enabled me to be really challenging in some areas. I think people find me challenging sometimes but in the end they see a huge benefit because it allows them to challenge some of their own behaviours and beliefs."

"I’m going to be really honest. I think the first thing I’d advise is just have a go! "
I think from a corporate point of view NLP has sometimes some quite bad press. People don’t really understand what it’s about and they fill in the blanks without ever really trying it themselves.

"So my advice to people is to actually have a go but also speak to some practitioners who really understand it and use it and have been successful. And then go to some taster evenings, like you do yourself, and really explore for yourself what it’s about."

Read or listen to the James Prior transcript and podcast on NLP.

Our index of NLP podcasts

Liam Beale
Business Development Manager
PPI Business NLP: NLP Training and NLP-based Business Training