After observing yourself and identifying your accessing cues, you can use them to think more clearly and effectively.

Developing Rapport - When you are presenting an idea that you would like to be accepted by the other person, based on the accessing cues that you are noticing, you can modify what you say, when you say and how you say in a way that makes the other person more comfortable. This may make the person more receptive and make it easier for the person to understand what you are saying.

Business Presentations - You can adjust it to the characteristics of the person to whom it is being presented. For example, a person who is highly visual. He/she will like to think in pictures and will give you more attention if your presentation is not too fact-filled, has lots of anecdotes, is delivered in a slightly high tonality, has a brisk pace and is supported with lots of visual aids such as slides, photographs etc.

The lead representation system also gives us information about people’s ‘personal space’ needs

Representational systems are also relevant where some tasks are better performed within one representation system or another. For example, in education, spelling is often learned best by children who have unconsciously developed a strategy of visualising words rather than phonetically ‘sounding out’. When taught to visualise words, previously poor spellers can improve.

In writing for a wide readership or while giving speeches or in training programs, it’s useful to mix the representational systems so that everyone can see your point, tune into what you are saying, grasp the meaning or understand it in the context which is in sync with their taste!

How we relate to someone to a large extent depends on how effectively we understand them and communicate with them. Many relationships are adversely affected as a result of partners having different preferred representation systems.