Hear And Now An innovative listening technique may be the key to improving communication.

Stuart Kirk used to rely on facts, logic and reason when he wastalking to someone. That's understandable--he's a trainedmathematician and statistician, and worked as a corporateinformation technology director before founding Taconic WoodsConsulting, a one-person Yorktown Heights, New York, leadership andcommunications training firm.

But Kirk says of his former ways, "I don't think itworked very well at all." Now when he sits down to speak witha client or business associate, he thinks less about facts andlogic and more about hypnotic language and using words or gesturesas anchors. This works a lot better, he says, especially when itcomes to creating a sympathetic mood with others. And, says Kirk,"the ability to sit down with somebody and establish rapportquickly and easily makes a tremendous difference to your presencein a meeting."

Kirk's new techniques--and the arcane terminology used todescribe them--came from a self-improvement and communicationdiscipline called neuro-linguistic programming, or NLP. The conceptwas developed 25 years ago to help psychotherapists. Since then,it's been applied as an agent of personal change, most notablyby motivational speaker Tony Robbins. Now, however, NLP isfiltering into business, where it's presented as a solution tomany managerial problems.