John Grinder

Key takeaways

John Grinder belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect John Grinder to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of John Grinder from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

John Thomas Grinder Jr. ( GRIN-dər; born January 10, 1940) is an American linguist, writer, management consultant, trainer and speaker. Grinder is credited with co-creating the pseudoscience known as neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) with Richard Bandler. He is co-director of Quantum Leap Inc., a management consulting firm founded by his partner Carmen Bostic St. Clair in 1987 (Grinder joined in 1989). Grinder and Bostic St. Clair also run workshops and seminars on NLP internationally.

Life and career Grinder graduated from the University of San Francisco with a B.A. degree in psychology in the early 1960s. Grinder then entered the United States Army and served as a captain in the US Special Forces in Europe during the Cold War; following this he went on to work for a US intelligence agency. In the late 1960s, he returned to college to study linguistics and received his Ph.D. degree from the University of California, San Diego in 1971. His dissertation, titled On Deletion Phenomena in English, was published by Mouton in 1976. In the early 1970s, Grinder worked in George A. Miller's laboratory at Rockefeller University. After receiving his doctorate, Grinder took a full-time position as an assistant professor in the linguistics faculty at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). He engaged in undergraduate teaching, graduate teaching, and research. His research focused on Noam Chomsky's theories of transformational grammar specializing in syntax and deletion phenomena. He published several research papers with Paul Postal on the syntactical structures relating to "missing antecedents" or missing parasitic gaps for the pronoun. They argued that the syntactic structure of a deleted verb phrase (VP) is complete. Edward Klima, doctoral adviser to both Postal and Grinder at UCSC, became involved in the early development of generative semantics. Grinder co-authored, with Suzette Elgin, a linguistics text book titled A Guide to Transformational Grammar: History, Theory, Practice. In 2005, Grinder published Steps to an Ecology of Emergence with Tom Malloy and Carmen Bostic St Clair in the journal Cybernetics and Human Knowing.

Development of neuro-linguistic programming In 1972 (during Grinder's stint at University of California, Santa Cruz) Richard Bandler, an undergraduate student of psychology, approached him for assistance in specific aspects of modeling Gestalt therapy. Bandler, along with good friend Frank Pucelik, had spent much time recording and editing recordings of Fritz Perls (founder of Gestalt therapy) and had learned Gestalt therapy implicitly during intense group sessions. After some time, Grinder was invited to participate in group discussions. Although at first Grinder sat quietly, he eventually approached Bandler and Pucelik with some observations and questions. Grinder left a lasting impression on Pucelik and was later dubbed 'the real genius'. Bandler and Pucelik invited Grinder to team up, eventually creating a close group. Although Bandler, Grinder and Pucelik were the main driving force, there were several other students at the university who contributed ‘a hell of a lot’ according to Pucelik. In the end, hours of unpaid research significantly aided the formation of Meta - modern day NLP. From there Grinder and Bandler modelled the various cognitive behavioral patterns of therapists such as Perls, a leading figure in family therapy Virginia Satir and later the leading figure in hypnosis in psychiatry Milton Erickson. As a result, The Structure of Magic Volumes I & II (1975, 1976), Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, Volumes I & II (1975, 1977) and Changing With Families (1976) were published. This work formed the basis of the methodology that became the foundation of neuro-linguistic programming. The trio began hosting seminars and practice groups. These served as a place to practice and test their newly discovered patterns while allowing them to transfer the skills to the participants. Several books were published based on transcripts of their seminars, including Frogs into Princes (1979). During this period, a creative group of students and psychotherapists were asked to join including Robert Dilts, Leslie Cameron-Bandler, Judith DeLozier, Stephen Gilligan and David Gordon (All of whom are considered the second generation of co-developers; recruited by Bandler, Grinder and Pucelik after the original team graduated from university). In the 1977, Bandler requested that Pucelik be removed from the group for personal reasons - which was agreed to by immediate mutual consent. It wasn't long after that that Bandler, Grinder and their group of associates split acrimoniously, and stopped working together. Following this, some members of their group went out on their own and took NLP in their own directions. Some of Bandler and Grinder's books went out of print for a while due to legal problems between the co-authors. Structure I & II, and Patterns I & II – considered the foundation of the field – were later republished. Bandler attempted to claim legal ownership of the term neuro-linguistic programming; however, it was eventually deemed to be a generic term, and could therefore not be trademarked. Grinder and Bandler settled their claims around 2001, clearing a platform for the future development of NLP as a legitimate field of endeavor.

New code of neuro-linguistic programming

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with John Grinder

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what John Grinder claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to John Grinder before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about John Grinder ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of John Grinder

In research: John Grinder appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses John Grinder in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: John Grinder is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1940 births, American male non-fiction writers, American psychology writers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for John Grinder outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study John Grinder in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what John Grinder means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain John Grinder out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is John Grinder in simple terms?

John Thomas Grinder Jr. ( GRIN-dər; born January 10, 1940) is an American linguist, writer, management consultant, trainer and speaker.

Why does John Grinder matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study John Grinder?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on John Grinder.