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View detailsStrategy Elicitation Toolkit
Model excellence. Extract the decision sequence behind any high performer’s results.
09 — BEHAVIOURAL SEQUENCES
Strategy Elicitation
The process of extracting the exact internal sequence — the specific steps of seeing, hearing, feeling, and self-talk — that produces any behaviour. The foundation of NLP modelling.
“Excellence has structure. When someone is consistently good at something, they’re running a specific sequence of internal operations. That sequence can be made explicit, taught, and transferred.”
How it works
The structure underneath
Every behaviour — from deciding what to eat to closing a complex deal — is produced by an internal strategy: a sequence of representational steps. You might see an image (visual), say something to yourself about it (auditory digital), get a feeling (kinaesthetic), and then act. Someone else might start with a feeling, create an image, compare it to a memory, and then decide. Same outcome, different strategy.
Strategy elicitation is the process of making these sequences explicit. It requires careful questioning and observation: ’What’s the very first thing that happens internally when you start to [behaviour]? And then what happens? And then?’ The practitioner is mapping the sequence of representational steps — the TOTE (Test-Operate-Test-Exit) model from cognitive science, refined through NLP.
The notation system uses V (visual), A (auditory), K (kinaesthetic), Ad (auditory digital/self-talk), with superscripts for internal (i) or external (e). A motivation strategy might be: Ve → Vi → Ki → Ad → K+ (see something external, create internal image, get a feeling, talk to self about it, positive feeling = go). This level of precision enables transfer.
The practical applications are significant. If you can elicit the strategy of someone who is excellent at a skill — and install that strategy in someone who is not — you transfer competence at the structural level. This is the core of NLP modelling: not copying behaviour, but replicating the internal process that produces the behaviour.
A worked strategy elicitation: motivation to start a hard task
The clearest way to understand NLP strategies is to watch one being elicited. Below, a practitioner maps how a project manager gets herself to start a task she has been avoiding: writing a difficult quarterly report. The question is not why she starts, but how, step by step.
Practitioner: “Think of a specific time you started a hard task you’d been putting off, and it went well. Have you got one?”
Client: “The budget review in March.”
Practitioner: “Go back to just before you started. Where are you, what’s the very first thing that happens?”
Client: “I’m at my desk. I see the file sitting in my inbox.”
Practitioner: “And then what happens?”
Client: “I get a picture of my manager reading it on Friday. Not happy, just sort of waiting.”
Practitioner: “How do you know to do something about that picture?”
Client: “I get this tight feeling in my chest. Then I say to myself, ‘Just do the first table.’”
Practitioner: “Just the first table. Then?”
Client: “It feels smaller. Lighter. I open the spreadsheet.”
Practitioner: “And how do you know it’s time to actually start?”
Client: “When I can see the first table finished in my head. Then I just go.”
Written in notation, the strategy runs as follows.
Ve (file in inbox) → Vi (manager waiting on Friday) → Ki− (tightness) → Ad (“Just do the first table”) → Ki+ (lighter) → Vi (first table finished) → act
Two steps carry the strategy. The self-talk shrinks the task to one piece, and the final constructed image of that piece finished is the exit test that releases action. When she procrastinates, it is worth checking whether one of those two steps is missing. Often the Ad step is “I have to write the whole report”, and the image of a finished whole report is too large to act on.
How to elicit a strategy: questions and cues
Elicitation works best on a specific past instance, re-experienced in present tense. General accounts (“I usually just get on with it”) skip the steps you need. Useful questions follow the TOTE structure described by Miller, Galanter and Pribram in 1960: what starts the sequence, what the person does, how they test the result, and what tells them to stop.
- Trigger: “What’s the very first thing that lets you know it’s time to…?”
- Operation: “And then what happens? Is that something you see, hear, feel or say to yourself?”
- Test: “How do you know whether it’s working?”
- Exit: “How do you know you’re done, or ready to act?”
Words alone are not enough. People leave out steps that feel too obvious to mention, and those are often the important ones. Watch for shifts in breathing, posture, skin colour and pace as the person moves through each stage, and ask about any change you see: “Something happened just then. What was it?” The note on sensory acuity covers what to watch for. Eye-movement patterns are sometimes taught as a reliable guide to which sense is being used; controlled studies have not supported that, so treat them as a prompt to ask, never as an answer.
Common mistakes in NLP modelling
- Leading the witness. “And then you feel motivated?” supplies a step the person may not run. Ask open questions and use their words.
- Stopping too early. Most first passes miss a test step. Run the sequence back to the person and ask “Is anything missing?”
- Eliciting from one example. Elicit two or three instances of the same behaviour. The steps that repeat are the strategy; the rest is noise.
- Copying content instead of structure. Installing “picture your manager waiting” in someone else will not transfer motivation if their working strategy starts from a feeling. Transfer the sequence of steps, then let the person fill in their own content.
- Skipping the test. A modelled strategy is a hypothesis. Try it on a real task and adjust; how decision patterns are mapped follows the same principle.
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In practice
Where it applies
- Modelling expertise — extracting the decision sequence of top performers and making it teachable
- Process improvement — finding the difference in internal strategy between someone who succeeds at a task and someone who struggles
- Learning acceleration — installing more effective learning strategies by modelling how fast learners actually process information
- Sales training — eliciting the buying strategy of ideal clients and structuring the sales process to match it
Connections
Related frameworks
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Continue the series
Strategy Elicitation: questions people ask
What is strategy elicitation in NLP?
Strategy elicitation is the process of uncovering the exact sequence of internal steps (images, sounds, feelings and self-talk) a person runs to produce a behaviour, such as deciding, learning or getting motivated. It uses precise questions about a specific past instance, combined with close observation, and records the result in a notation such as V, A, K and Ad.
What is the TOTE model?
TOTE stands for Test-Operate-Test-Exit. It was proposed by George Miller, Eugene Galanter and Karl Pribram in “Plans and the Structure of Behavior” (1960) as a basic unit of goal-directed behaviour. NLP borrowed it to describe strategies: a person tests the current state against a goal, operates to reduce the difference, tests again and exits once the goal is met.
What is NLP modelling?
NLP modelling is the practice of studying someone who does something well, eliciting the internal strategy and beliefs that produce their results, and making that structure explicit so others can learn it. It was how Bandler and Grinder built the early NLP patterns, by modelling therapists such as Virginia Satir and Milton Erickson.
Can you change your own strategies?
Yes. Elicit your strategy for a situation where you get the result you want, then compare it with one where you do not. The difference is usually one or two steps, such as a missing test or self-talk that makes the task bigger. Rehearse the effective sequence deliberately on low-stakes tasks before relying on it.
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