Achieving Rural Development using Neuro-Linguistic Programming

"You readers are in for a wonderful experience of NLP just by reading this book!" says Dr. Dick McHugh, an American Jesuit who has a PhD Degree in NLP done with Richard Bandler as guide. Dr Dick also says, "The NLP community can be proud of this book. It does in practice what we, of the NLP community, say is so important: make the language easy for all. There are no big terms used!" This author had no option but to make NLP simple, as he was applying it mostly to the totally illiterate rural poor people to help them break free of poverty. The Poor could definitely use the modern psychological technology and benefit from it. The International Labour Organization, seeing the benefit poor people reaped with Arulraja's NLP training, got him to author a Training Manual which ILO published under title: "From Poverty to Prosperity" [ISBN 978-92-2-118575-8] Though this book applies NLP in a faraway context (Rural Development) it will prove as much useful to people everywhere as it deals a challenge common to all of humanity: Our Minds! Our minds were set by others when we were still infants - our food habits, religious and other beliefs etc. We tend to get stuck in the rut we got placed. And, we become defensive when challenged about our mindset. Hence, seeing how someone, living far away, blocks his/her development with one's own mind, and how NLP helps to break free is a great way to challenge anyone to examine and correct one's own mindset! Dr Verghese Kurien, the Chairmain of Amul Dairy, also called the Milkman of India, says of this book: "Using a psychological tool - Neuro Linguistic Programming - Mr. Arulraja has effectively proved that it is possible to address the challenges arising from the mind." NLP is only a tool. A very powerful, elegant and easy to use tool. If you know how deep the roots of problems are you are in a better position to apply these tools and make the best use of it. The training this author had as a Jesuit for 21 years helps him to analyze culture based attitudes, values, beliefs and identities of people - and use NLP at those deeper levels to make the desired corrections. From a Management point of view, leaders of Business Organizations, too, need to understand the behavior and the deeper roots of behavior: culture/mind-set. After gaining an understanding, they need to lead their people to go beyond their limits so they perform to their maximum capabilities. And, to understand behavior from a cultural perspective, and for prescribing appropriate steps to lead people beyond set minds is a challenge for any Business Manager today. And, Business Managers/Leaders will certainly find this book very valuable as it provides them with a great paradigm/opportunity to develop their skills in this much neglected area of leading beyond one’s culture! You will find telling stories to draw people's attention helps. It is easy to reach messages through stories, when it has direct application to the listener. Specifically, when people resist being told about something, better tell them stories and let stories do the talking: Gently shift the paradigm of the story to listeners' situation! This Rural Development Story could provide insights and solutions to problems of modern Corporate Governance. Corporates are led by very brainy people whose minds, unfortunately, seem to get easily stuck to producing quarterly results, even at the cost of losing their business or the people who work with them! At least, when Management Experts apply Management Tools to Rural Development, they might find this book useful. Mr.Theo Vaes a leading business person from Antwerp, Belgium observes: Prof Ester Duflo and A.V. Banerjee both from M.I.T. walk the same path in their recent book 'Poor Economics.’ Dr Robert Chambers, Professor Emeritus of Essex University says: "I have studied this book with interest and enlightenment." May you find this book interesting and enlightening, too!