ABSTRACT
In complex projects people often need to communicate complex and difficult ideas to others. This could occur in any phase of a project life cycle but is more likely to be prevalent at the beginning of a project. When managing a complex project, particularly one characterised by directional complexity, the project manager needs help to build trust amongst the participants in order to maximise the potential for information sharing. Dialogue has been used extensively in organisations to help people to explore positions. Hazen argues that dialogue is essential for effective organisational change. For practical reasons the author looks for some tools, in addition to dialogical tools, to find ways of assisting project managers. One avenue he investigates Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). However NLP provides a very useful range of tools and techniques which are central to influencing. The Perceptual Position model is known as 1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person shifts' in the NLP literature.
