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Coaching towards an agile mindset, how do you do that?

As agile coaches, we are responsible for turning groups of people into agile teams. This means that we ensure that teams (or entire organizations) get an agile mindset: intensive collaboration and show transparent, open and eager to learn behavior. To get there, we need to work with individuals and teach them a growth mindset or growth mindset. All sounds great but how do you do that?
Door: Basile Lemaire op November 3 2020.
Read in: 3 minutes.

About agile and growth mindsets

What an agile mindset is, and why we then want to coach on a growth mindset, I described in my previous two articles An agile mindset - what is that actually? en Coaching towards agility = coaching towards a growth mentality. In short: an inquisitive growth mindset at an individual level is necessary to achieve an agile mindset at team level.

The question now is: how do you ensure that team members, but also management and stakeholders, get a growth mindset? My experience has taught me that the "agile box of tricks" does not always offer a solution. Individual transformation to a growth mindset requires more than extensive retrospections, or a team game of Celebrity Rescue, or drawing up a Definition of Fun.

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Lagant Change guide milton language patterns for growth and agile mindset 1

Milton Language Patterns

In my Master NLP training (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) I came into contact with the application of the so-called Milton model. By applying specific sentence constructions or language patterns, you as a coach can address the subconscious of the other. You pass, as it were, the critical (and unruly) part of the brain. You can gain access to underlying emotions, values ​​and beliefs in the other person - provided you really master the Milton model. An excellent technique to get a "fixed mind" open (again).

Milton language patterns are named after the American psychotherapist Milton Erickson. The language patterns consist of indirect suggestions and presuppositions. It offers ways to be "effectively vague" in language by omitting specific information from your sentences. This encourages the other to give substance and meaning to what you say, based on his or her own context and experience.

The more detailed the descriptions, the more likely something will conflict with the other person's frame of reference. This reinforces a fixed mindset in the other. That is why we consciously omit, distort and generalize in our language. If you do that carefully, you can use such filtering to agree or create new openings and options. This opens the door to a growth mindset in the other.

In practice

Milton is often used in a therapeutic context. But handy sales people also apply such language patterns. There are many different language patterns. Below are some of the Milton language patterns with examples.

Language patternExample
To read minds

You indicate that you know what the other is thinking or feeling without indicating how you know
"I know you're wondering ..."
'I can see you ...'
Eternal truth

Make value judgments without the person who judges
"It's best to ..."
'That is perfect!'
Cause and effect

You imply that one leads to another
"If you ask that question, then you understand."
Complex equivalence

You compare two things and make them equal
'Just being here now means you want to change'
Presuppositions

With the words in your message, you assume something while drawing attention to something else
'You are constantly changing'
'You are learning a lot'
Nominalizations

You "freeze" a verb by putting it down as a noun
'All your new decisions show your confidence'
'This gives you new insight and understanding'

If you Google Milton, you will find many more language patterns and examples. The idea is that you frequently apply different language patterns in a coaching conversation. You avoid (too much) detail and realization and instead you are effectively vague. This allows the other to open up to your message, to change and growth, and thus to a growth mindset.

Manipulation vs. sincerity

Personally I think Milton language enriches my agile coaching practice, although effective application in coaching conversations is not always easy. It takes a lot of practice. And I also had to cross a threshold. When I first started working with Milton, it felt quite manipulative to me. As an agile coach you do not become concrete, do not say what it is about, do not show the back of your tongue. It is not my natural way of communicating.


Milton Language Patterns are part of our training NLP for Agile coaches. In this training we practice with the different patterns so that you as a coach get a feeling for this and can use them in the workplace with the aim of stimulating the Growth Mindset.

About agile and growth mindsets

What an agile mindset is, and why we then want to coach on a growth mindset, I described in my previous two articles An agile mindset - what is that actually? en Coaching towards agility = coaching towards a growth mentality. In short: an inquisitive growth mindset at an individual level is necessary to achieve an agile mindset at team level.

The question now is: how do you ensure that team members, but also management and stakeholders, get a growth mindset? My experience has taught me that the "agile box of tricks" does not always offer a solution. Individual transformation to a growth mindset requires more than extensive retrospections, or a team game of Celebrity Rescue, or drawing up a Definition of Fun.

(text continues below image)

Lagant Change guide milton language patterns for growth and agile mindset 2

Milton Language Patterns

In my Master NLP training (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) I came into contact with the application of the so-called Milton model. By applying specific sentence constructions or language patterns, you as a coach can address the subconscious of the other. You pass, as it were, the critical (and unruly) part of the brain. You can gain access to underlying emotions, values ​​and beliefs in the other person - provided you really master the Milton model. An excellent technique to get a "fixed mind" open (again).

Milton language patterns are named after the American psychotherapist Milton Erickson. The language patterns consist of indirect suggestions and presuppositions. It offers ways to be "effectively vague" in language by omitting specific information from your sentences. This encourages the other to give substance and meaning to what you say, based on his or her own context and experience.

The more detailed the descriptions, the more likely something will conflict with the other person's frame of reference. This reinforces a fixed mindset in the other. That is why we consciously omit, distort and generalize in our language. If you do that carefully, you can use such filtering to agree or create new openings and options. This opens the door to a growth mindset in the other.

In practice

Milton is often used in a therapeutic context. But handy sales people also apply such language patterns. There are many different language patterns. Below are some of the Milton language patterns with examples.

Language patternExample
To read minds

You indicate that you know what the other is thinking or feeling without indicating how you know
"I know you're wondering ..."
'I can see you ...'
Eternal truth

Make value judgments without the person who judges
"It's best to ..."
'That is perfect!'
Cause and effect

You imply that one leads to another
"If you ask that question, then you understand."
Complex equivalence

You compare two things and make them equal
'Just being here now means you want to change'
Presuppositions

With the words in your message, you assume something while drawing attention to something else
'You are constantly changing'
'You are learning a lot'
Nominalizations

You "freeze" a verb by putting it down as a noun
'All your new decisions show your confidence'
'This gives you new insight and understanding'

If you Google Milton, you will find many more language patterns and examples. The idea is that you frequently apply different language patterns in a coaching conversation. You avoid (too much) detail and realization and instead you are effectively vague. This allows the other to open up to your message, to change and growth, and thus to a growth mindset.

Manipulation vs. sincerity

Personally I think Milton language enriches my agile coaching practice, although effective application in coaching conversations is not always easy. It takes a lot of practice. And I also had to cross a threshold. When I first started working with Milton, it felt quite manipulative to me. As an agile coach you do not become concrete, do not say what it is about, do not show the back of your tongue. It is not my natural way of communicating.


Milton Language Patterns are part of our training NLP for Agile coaches. In this training we practice with the different patterns so that you as a coach get a feeling for this and can use them in the workplace with the aim of stimulating the Growth Mindset.

By Basile Lemaire

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