A Few Meta Programs, Part 5
'General' and 'specific'
Some people feel at home when dealing with details and others prefer the big picture. Jackie's well known among her friends for not reading instructions and avoiding detail like the plague. When she is asked to proof-read a document she sometimes misses small errors. She loves abstract conversations about concepts and likes to think holistically. Caroline gets great satisfaction from obtaining every tiny piece of information she can lay her hands on. She enjoys 'number-crunching' and checking that written work is entirely accurate. She loves telling stories but when she loses the flow she has to start from the beginning again.
Understanding general and specific patterns
The General-Specific Meta Program is sometimes known as Big Chunk-Small Chunk in NLP. It concerns the level of either specificity or generality in thinking style. Most people start from one and move to the other. So if they start with the big picture they 'chunk down' to the detail.
In NLP the idea of chunking up or down is used extensively. Questions are asked to elicit the next level of information and bring about a new way of perceiving a situation. For instance to 'chunk up' a useful question to ask might be 'What is that an example of?' To 'chunk down' ask 'What would be an example of this?'
One of the best ways to identify someone with a general pattern is to bombard them with lots of detail. They'll soon let you know because it usually drives them crazy. They love abstract concepts and have difficulty following a sequence step by step because they tend to process things all in one go. They don't tend to offer much small chunk information and can sometimes miss out important details.
People with a specific pattern love detail. They feel satisfied when they have successfully dotted all the 'i's and crossed the 't's. As the saying goes, they sometimes don't see the wood for the trees. Like the procedures pattern they deal with things step by step. The difference is that with a procedure there are points where another route can be taken. If you interrupt someone with a specific pattern when they're telling you something they usually need to start from the beginning again. This is because they follow a sequence, which unlike the procedures pattern they don't deviate from.
Communicating with people who have a general or specific pattern
People with a general pattern prefer it when you keep the detail to a minimum. They like an overview of what you want to convey and enjoy abstract discussions. When you're communicating with someone with a specific pattern, it helps if you use words such as precisely or exactly. Present information in a linear step-by-step way.