Coaching is about change and growth. Using a self -reflection journal will support your growing appreciation of the factors at play and what to do about them as you develop new ways of tackling challenges or approach problems.

Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle was developed by Graham Gibbs in 1988 to give structure to learning from experiences.  It offers a framework for examining experiences, covering 6 stages:

• Description of the experience
• Feelings and thoughts about the experience
• Evaluation of the experience, both good and bad
• Analysis to make sense of the situation
• Conclusion about what you learned and what you could have done differently
• Action plan for how you would deal with similar situations in the future

How do you do it?

In a notebook take time to write out the journey through the stages

Description of the experience

• What had you planned?
• What happened?
• What did you and the other people do?
• How did what you planned compare to what happened?

Feelings and thoughts about the experience

Before

• What were you feeling and thinking?
• What were others involved feeling and thinking?

During

• What were you feeling and thinking?
• What were others involved feeling and thinking?

After

• What are you feeling and thinking now?
• What are the others involved feeling and thinking now?

Evaluation of the experience, both good and bad

• What went well?
• What didn’t go so well?
• What did you contribute ?
• What did others contribute?

Analysis to make sense of the situation

• What was it that made elements go well?
• What contributed to the part that didn’t go so well?
• What could help me understand the situation better?
• How could you make sense of the situation?

Conclusion about what you learned and what you could have done differently

• What have I learnt from this experience?
• What could have made it better?
• What skills do I need to develop to handle a situation like this better in the future?

Action plan for how you would deal with similar situations in the future.

• What do I want to take forward?
• What will I hang on to?
• What will I do differently?
• What skills will I develop to support my progress?
• How will I know I have made progress?

If you would like to start exploring then get in touch with me for a free 30 min taster session

Madeline Cranfield is a highly experience Executive coach. She has worked internationally for complex organisations across sectors as diverse as finance and engineering, FMCG and technology. She combines strong business skills in strategy implementation with an ability to engage and motivate people to deliver more of their potential utilising a behavioural approach.

Read more of Madeline’s blogs here.

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If we look a little closer at therapeutic practices, we can see that some disciplines are closely aligned with coaching practice. Solutions Focussed Therapy, CBT, Brief Therapy, DBT, ACT, Mentalisation, and even Mindfulness all share common aspects such as: use of goals, being time-limited, reframing thinking, working towards a future state. Whilst termed Therapeutic approaches, could we argue they are also Coaching approaches?

Many practitioners are starting to see the value in an integrated approach and descriptors used by practitioners suggest an increase in combined practice.

Descriptions in the coaching field such as ‘trauma informed’, ‘trauma aware’, ‘burnout coach’, ‘coaching for depression’, ‘grief coaching’ are all examples of coaches who are moving closer towards the traditional work of therapists.

This hasn’t always been met with open arms by those in the therapeutic professions. Concerns are openly expressed about whether coaches are competent, knowledgeable, aware of the underpinning theory and ethics of therapeutic work. In some instances, these concerns are well founded.

I have seen coaches offering to cure people of a lifetime of trauma using a programme of support which is applied to all clients regardless of their specific history and circumstances. Sometimes at great financial cost. All my training and experience as a psychotherapist tells me this is unethical and high risk.

To offer a different perspective I have many more examples of coaches who are well trained, competent and work within an ethical framework and philosophy which is no different to many therapists.

If I am balanced in my perspective, there is also evidence of therapists who work beyond their competence and do not adhere to current standards and good practice. As with all professions, there is a varied mix of practitioners.

So how do we address the concerns to enable this growing approach to be accepted as a valid method of working with clients?

In my view we start by looking at our similarities. What qualities, standards and ethics bring us closer? My belief is that if we start here, we may see that the divide isn’t as great as we imagine it to be.

Starting with what we share generates a dialogue, creates the space to be more open about what’s different and how to resolve this. From my experience as a dual-practitioner, the line in the sand is generally about competence, training and requirements for practice. Given the wealth of information currently available and the Codes of Conduct and Ethical Guidelines of the many membership bodies, it must be possible to reach a consensus on a minimum standard. If coaches and therapists can’t listen, understand and reach agreement with each other how can we possibly offer that to our clients.

From the client’s perspective their needs are often quite simple, they need support to change something in their life and they want that change to be as sustainable as possible. They want someone to help them who knows what they are doing and who they feel safe to work with. Clients want to be assured of Competence and Safety. A client might have pre-conceived ideas about what type of work they want to do and that will influence their decision about who they work with but their aspiration is broadly the same: they want change.

My aim in writing this isn’t to give answers but to encourage further thinking. Are you working across the divide? Are you offering competence and safety to your clients? Do you have a set of ethics and a philosophy which underpins your work? Do you have a theoretical foundation for your work? Are you working for the benefit of your clients?

If the answer to those questions is anything but a resounding YES then you might need to undertake some further exploration and development. This might be additional training, supervision or it might be a mentoring programme such as ‘The Blended Approach’.

I’ll close with a reflection on my own practice.

As a dual-qualified practitioner I spent many years maintaining the divide. I had my coaching practice and my therapy practice. Even now I still have separate websites and maintain a very small private therapy practice for people who can’t afford my standard rate. In all honesty there is no difference in my work and hasn’t been for many years. When I work with a client, they are leading the way and I support them where they are. I try not to get hung up on whether we are working therapeutically or coaching. The client doesn’t care and my intention is to bring the most helpful approach in the moment.

My focus is on the client as a whole human being. The context and content is the frame within which I work but my client is firmly in the centre of the picture.

Tracey Hartshorn is a Therapeutic Coach, Supervisor, Mentor and Author. Tracey uses the term ‘Therapeutic Coach’ to describe her work. It’s as close as she can get with a range of skills including: Executive Coaching, Mediation, Supervision, Conflict Management, Psychotherapy, Counselling, Leadership, Strategic Thinking, Writing, and the list goes on!

The post Therapeutic Coaching – Bridging the Divide appeared first on Trusted Coach Directory.

It’s what we do every day, and we tend to do it well. We use these skills to helps us support the client get wherever they want to go. We tend to be good at listening to the client story, context and also emotions. Our focus is wholly on the client.

Yet there is a different kind of listening. A listening that comes from being fully present in the moment. Listening that allows you to connect with the aliveness in yourself, in the client and in the connection between you. This kind of listening can also bring many gifts to the client. It helps tap into greater wisdom that comes from your own bodily wisdom. It also allows new insights to emerge and deepens the client’s transformation.

I’d like to share a case study of how I use this other kind of listening and how it supports my work with clients. In this kind of listening I am present with what is in me, in the client and I have no agenda or plan for the client.

My client was wanting to create more time for strategic work, but he would get caught up in endless meetings and he didn’t like to say ‘No’ to them. Obviously one way to work with such a client, would be to help him get more awareness of his situation and then support him to create an action plan.

My approach is quite different.

Before the start of the session, I had taken time to get really present with myself. After he had shared the issue, we then took some time to help him arrive more into the present moment as well. I reminded him to bring his awareness to the warmth of his hands touching each other. He had discovered in a previous session that this anchor was remarkably effective for him.

Then I gave him the space so that he could bring a slower, more present, kind of attention to himself. I invited him to notice what he noticed as he reflected on his situation. I was as present with him as I was with myself and with my own body.

I didn’t feel the need to ask him many questions. As I created space for him and accompanied him, I sometimes reflected the essence of what I had heard and sometimes I was silent. I was following my own inner feelings on this. As he reflected on what saying ‘No’ meant to him, he became aware of all kinds of judgements that he had about himself. Now, in this slowed-down state, his underlying thoughts and beliefs could emerge. He was also able to find words for them and acknowledge them, when he hadn’t even known were there.

I wasn’t only following what was alive in him I was also following my own felt sense of the situation. Not for my own resonance of his story but for what my body was picking up from him. Most of the time there was congruence, but from time to time I experienced something quite different. For example, as he imagined declining a meeting, he experienced tension in his gut even though he knew it was the right thing to do. I recall quite distinctly, in that moment, that my belly relaxed. I was able to share this with him a little later, and after hearing this, he was able to find and experience his own sense of relaxation as well.

In the subsequent session he shared that he no longer attended so many meetings. This had enabled him to find more time for his strategic work, but he was also more available to support his team .

This approach I use comes from focusing and the felt sense which was created by Eugene Gendlin in the 1960s

For coaches, Focusing can help you:

• Deepen your client work through your own embodiment.
• Bring greater presence and aliveness to your client work.
• Become better able to process any emotional responses to difficult clients.
• Regulate your own and your client’s nervous system.
• Feel more resourced in general and in your work with clients.

Find out more about my work and the trainings I offer other coaches here.

Ruth Friedman is a Credentialed Master Executive Coach from the Association for Coaching and has been recognised by the Forbetter Institute as one of Edinburgh’s Top 10 coaches. She is also a Credentialed Focusing Practitioner and Trainer and a Credentialed Circling Leader. She draws on these practices in her work with clients and also provided trainings for other coaches.  More information about her work can be found at www.leadbeingyou.com

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Through a systematic literature review and research, I sought to get to grips with what exactly the construct is and how it differs from self-knowledge and self-consciousness.  It is a complex construct complicated by the fact that the individual elements of ‘self’ and ‘awareness’ have a multiplicity of definitions.  The literature review revealed that the construct is multi-layered made up of several components, which can be divided into intra- and inter-personal elements.  The inter-personal elements comprise of those which can be observed by another person and include perception of others and behaviours.  This of course means we need to attain feedback from others when we are developing self-awareness.  This is fraught with difficulty as we tend to ‘filter out’ what we may not want to see or hear, so this means that developing self-awareness and knowing that one has developed it accurately is a real challenge.  The intra-personal elements include beliefs and values, internal mental state, physiological responses, strengths and weaknesses, motivations and needs.  In sum, self-awareness can be defined as:

“Self-awareness consists of a range of interpersonal (the perception of others and individual behaviours) and intrapersonal components (beliefs, values, strengths, weaknesses, motivations, internal mental state and physiological responses) in order to develop self and human connection with others.”

In terms of differentiating self-awareness from self-consciousness and self-knowledge, it was identified that self-consciousness is the intra-personal components of self-awareness, whereas self-knowledge is the output of self-awareness i.e., self -awareness gives us self-knowledge of our biases, prejudices, responses, needs and wants.  It is this self-knowledge that can then help us develop deeper connection with self, which is an essential pre-requisite for developing connection with those around us.   This is perhaps why it is linked to increasing leadership effectiveness.  However, developing self-awareness is an ongoing journey which requires motivation, commitment, and effort.

If you want to read more please have a look at the published systematic literature review (Carden, J., Jones, R.J. and Passmore, J., 2022. Defining self-awareness in the context of adult development: a systematic literature review. Journal of Management Education, 46(1), pp.140-177).

Julia Carden is an Executive Coach and Coach Supervisor. Alongside Julia’s coaching and supervision practice she is a visiting tutor at Henley Business School teaching on the Professional Certificate in Executive Coaching, MSc in Executive Coaching and Behavioural Change and heads up the Professional Certificate in Coaching Supervision.

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Understanding Imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome is commonly described as a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist despite evident success. Sufferers often chalk up their accomplishments to luck rather than to their ability, and they fear that others will unmask them as a fraud. For executive coaches, operating in arenas where their insights shape the paths of industries and individuals, the pressure to perform can intensify these feelings.

Recognising the Signs

Are you continually downplaying your success? Do you attribute positive outcomes to external factors rather than your competencies? These are typical signs of imposter syndrome. Acknowledging these experiences as a common denominator among executive coaches is the first pivotal step towards improvement.

Reframing Thoughts

The cognitive behavioural therapy principle of ‘thoughts influence emotions and behaviours’ can be a powerful tool against imposter syndrome. By recognising and actively reframing self-deprecating thoughts, executive coaches can recalibrate their internal dialogues to be more positive and self-affirming.

Strategies for Overcoming Imposter Syndrome:

• Own Your Success: Start taking stock of your achievements. Create a ‘success file’ to document positive feedback, outcomes of successful coaching sessions, and goals met. Refer to it whenever doubts arise.
• Stop the Comparison Trap: Rather than comparing yourself to others, focus on your unique value proposition as a coach. What distinct experiences, skills, and insights do you bring to the table?
• Peer Support: Engage with other coaches. Discussing imposter syndrome can be incredibly relieving when you realise others share these experiences.
• Education and Professional Development: Continue learning and honing your craft. Knowledge is power and a surefire confidence booster.
• Mindfulness and Self-Compassion: Practise mindfulness to stay grounded in the present moment. Self-compassion means not beating yourself up for having imposter syndrome but instead managing self-talk with kindness.
• Celebrate Feedback: Place genuine importance on positive feedback. Clients’ successes are reflections of your skill as a coach.

The Path Forward

It’s crucial not to see imposter syndrome as an insurmountable personal flaw but as a challenge to be navigated. Remember, being an executive coach doesn’t mean you’re infallible. Vulnerability is part of the human experience. By acknowledging imposter syndrome, executive coaches can initiate a practice of introspection, leading to growth not only in their professional lives but also personally.

Final Thoughts

Executive coaches guide clients through their insecurities towards leadership excellence. Ironically, they might sometimes lose their own battles with confidence. A key takeaway here is that feeling like an ‘imposter’ is a shared, not an individual experience. In recognising this, executive coaches can lift each other up, fortify their practice, and ultimately, strengthen their impact on the leaders they coach.

Every executive coach has the potential to grow beyond the chains of imposter syndrome. It starts with the courage to face the issue head-on, a commitment to self-improvement, and a resolve to not only be an effective coach but a genuine embodiment of the success that is so often encouraged in clients.

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Why does this happen?  There are many reasons collecting stamps may take place, for example; out of fear of voicing our true feelings, avoidance of our true feelings, the way we have been brought up to deal with certain feelings, or, simply storing up feelings until there is an appropriate time to voice or deal with them. However, in reality we tend to put off ever doing this.

What happens when our stamp book is full?  We ‘cash in’ these stamps.  This happens when we reach ‘the last straw,’ i.e. the one comment or action from someone which pushes our emotions over the edge. This may be a minor comment or action on someone else’s part, but results in us ‘cashing in’ all our stamps in one go and an emotional, often irrational, untimely outburst.

Stamp collecting can form a regular pattern of behaviour with some people and therefore, helping clients understand this concept and the pattern of behaviour involved, enables us to support them throw away their stamp collections (rather than cashing them in).

How do we do this?  By helping the coachee learn how to deal with each situation as it arises; recognising the situation and consequently the feelings and emotions involved. Once this is acknowledged, learning to take the correct action is the next step. For example, this may involve holding an open conversation to understand someone’s response or approach or reflecting on why this situation is causing them to collect stamps in the first place.

For coachees involved in leading teams, helping them to explore the importance of ensuring team members do not collect stamps is fundamental, especially, when they are faced with managing difficult team members.

How do they do this ? Through building trust within the team by creating the right environment for team members to have open conversations, challenge policies, plans and opinions and raise issues in a safe environment without judgement or blame.

Stamp collecting is a harmful and destructive process for the individual and ultimately the team. Of course, trust within teams, or between boss & subordinate, coach & coachee, takes time to develop.  However, the benefits of open, honest communication far outweigh the downside of each team member collecting their own set of stamps.

Helping coachees to understand that solutions may not always be achieved in an initial conversation, is important, as is helping them to understand that by raising awareness, through open dialogue and sharing what may be a source of frustration for either party, can enable progress to be made towards a ‘win win’ solution. This is more desirable than the other person collecting stamps, with possible ‘cash in’ at a later date.

Exploring with coachees how they can face their fears, issues and misconceptions and take responsibility for their own responses to situations, helps them create healthier relationships, whether in a one to one, group or team environment.  Resulting in moving from “I’m OK, you’re NOT  OK”  to an  “I’m OK, you’re OK” scenario and consequently throwing away the stamp book.

Sources: Eric Berne 1950’s TA theories.

TA Harris (1967), I’m OK  

Sue Brown is an accredited Senior Practitioner with EMCC UK and approved DiSC trainer, including Disc 363 for Leaders. Sue is passionate about people being the heart of business and has over 20 years’ experience leading and coaching corporate teams and is the Founder of Smart Coaching UK. Sue develops and implements leadership programmes for high potential candidates and senior management teams.

Sue is also a Business and Leadership Mentor for EMCC UK for newly qualified coaches and also an Accreditation Mentor for EMCC Global. Sue recently led the project team to update and re launch the Mentoring Programme for EMCC UK members.

Read more blogs from Sue: 360 degree feedback models – insightful or inhibiting?

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Me as PCC has been more about: “How are you leading or managing. About your: problem, situation, career, business, project and the people around you. About what you’re going to do, action, your next step.

To me, PCC is about “doing”

People I have coached wanted ‘PCC Dave’ because they want to know, to work out what to do next to overcome their: issue, situation, challenge; how to get up the ladder, how to get the project built. They bring their ‘presenting issues’.

The people I want to coach in the future, know that how they show up, who they “be”, is what really counts: in their life, how they lead, and what they go on to achieve – to have. They bring themselves.

But these people seem rare. They are self-aware, have emotional intelligence and are prepared to look inwards, inside themselves. And they do the internal work necessary to become their desired future self. Yes, they have a view or a vision of their future self. Or, they are yearning for one.

They are in it for the long run, even though my coaching may only be for the start of their journey. Are they rare? Coach mentor, Marie Quigley MCC shared a view,

 “It’s the coaches who are willing to do this work who might be rare, and maybe this is because they don’t believe being a thinking partner and creating a container for the clients’ awareness to unfold is enough”.

They might be rare. Or I may not have been sufficiently skilled to enable this depth of work. This is my inner journey as well.

This depth of work requires that we get real with our self, and with each other, present in the moment.

What’s going on for you right now?

The unaware or the avoiding talk about stuff that’s going on ‘over there’, rather than what’s going on here and now in this moment in them, in us – this partnership – right now.

I glimpsed this when Simon yawned and exclaimed “BORING Dave”. I was shocked, embarrassed and vulnerable right in front of everyone. Shaken, I got real and magic happened. I experienced that and now I know what it’s like to be real and I’m becoming real more and more.

I shared that experience with James and asked “what’s going on for you right now?” He talked about stuff ‘over there’. I challenged him again “here and now?” He didn’t know how to respond. I gave him some options including: “sod off Dave. I don’t even know what you’re talking about here”. This was me supporting him … or was I leading or rescuing him? Either way it was different to how Simon challenged me.

And he ‘got it’, he opened up, he said “I’m frustrated and annoyed” He shared his stuckness. He slowed down, his voice deeper, he was real with himself and me. Maybe he trusted me? I just recalled this from coach mentor, Claire Pedrick’s new book[1].

 ‘People tend to trust you when they know they are dealing with the real you’.

Anyway, he now knows what the work is, he told me. He is unstuck. He experienced “real”. He is more self-aware and can access that when we work together and outside of our work.

He is becoming and I am beginning to be MCC, though still a way to go.

[1] Page 177 “The Human Behind The Coach” Claire Pedrick MCC and Lucia Baldelli MC

Leadership Team Coach Dave Stitt works with construction industry executives and project teams enabling them to deliver remarkable results in a remarkable way.

Dave is the creator of  Coach for Results, an accessible online course teaching the basics of a coaching management style so managers can grow confidence, capability and enthusiasm in the people around them.

Read more blogs from Dave –  ‘All in an instant – in the pool and at work’

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In a previous blog I focused on the personality side of the phrase ‘coaches help change behaviour, NOT personality.’ In this blog I want to focus on the other side of the coin – the role of behaviour for understanding people. Let me begin using an analogy with this tug of war:

The left-hand side (A) represents a person’s inner being – their identity, which includes their personality. The right-hand side (C) represents the context in which the person finds themselves – perhaps a funeral, a wedding, a work challenge etc. Few would argue that people can adapt what they do depending on context. If the red ribbon in the middle (B) represents behaviour, then sometimes this will move to the right since contextual pressures will dominate. Sometimes the person’s inner being wins out and the behaviour moves to the left being more influenced by the person’s style/preferences/personality rather than the context. Focusing on the red ribbon means that we will have an uncertain mix of contextual demands and personal preferences.

Unfortunately, traditional personality questionnaires do not address this issue. They usually ask people what they do or how they feel or what they think ‘typically’. As such they are looking for some kind of average and are context blind! The strong behaviourist tradition in psychology (and psychometrics) emphasises that personality has no meaning unless it translates into behaviour. But I suggest that behaviour can be an unreliable measure of the inner person – and the very concept of personality requires something that is consistent inside the person. This then influences what a person does in different contexts, but it does not determine it. If a questionnaire asks people what they do typically, contextual factors and roles can distort what is meant to reveal personality.

Many personality questionnaires derive their justification via statistics. But statistics are just a tool and are no substitute for a clear rationale. Statistics shine a light on how things are working but it is the rationale that is the route to understanding. Main-stream personality questionnaires (often favoured by academic psychology) make a great play of their statistical under-pinning, but the result is a very eclectic range of questions covering people’s attitudes, beliefs, motivations, behaviours, roles and preferences. This makes for a diffuse concept of personality – the statistical tail is wagging the psychological dog.

A great step forward would be to acknowledge the very real difference between Being and Doing. Doing recognises how people play many roles which can be very influenced by context. But personality is more about Being – a sense of identity; who I really am. It can explain the frustration that people have when answering questions. How often do people think genuinely that ‘it depends’? Is it not time to acknowledge that yes, it really does depend – on context! We need to acknowledge people’s potential to adapt to their context and we could argue that part of our job as coaches is to facilitate the development of people’s adaptability and flexibility. These ideas have been built into the Type Mapping system which clearly separates Being from Doing and you can explore further with this video:

An overview of Type Mapping – Part 1 addressing the Personality versus Roles dilemma

Yet another element of identity which can help people to change is taking a deeper dive into people’s fundamentals – their VALUES. These can be explored further with this video:

Explore your Values using the Values-based Indicator of Motivation (VbIM) a guide for Practitioners

Roy Childs, Managing Director of Team Focus, is an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and, like many other senior staff members, a Chartered Occupational Psychologist.  His background in psychometrics includes having worked with some of the best-known authors of personality questionnaires including Ray Cattell (16PF) and Will Schutz (FIRO). With Team Focus he has developed a new range of instruments designed to bring psychometrics into the 21st century. 

Roy runs the widest range of BPS recognised qualifying courses in the UK and his publications include “the Psychometric Minefield”; “Emotional Intelligence and Leadership”; “The Big Five – Bring a little colour into your lives”; “Coaching with FIRO Element B” published in the book “Psychometrics in Coaching”, ‘Action Learning Supervision’ published in the book “Coaching Supervision” and ‘The Relational lens’ published by Cambridge University Press.

Read more blogs from Roy Childs: How to challenge what I believe about myself

The post Am I what I say or what I do – Being versus Doing by Roy Childs appeared first on Trusted Coach Directory.

This blog is describing a powerful way to help people learn about themselves through feedback.

We know that feedback from others is one of the main ways that we learn about ourselves. It is like a mirror that can help to dispel some of our myths and blind spots – as long as we don’t become defensive.  So how do self-report questionnaires contribute to this process since we are only answering what we believe about ourselves? Self-report questionnaires can provide insight because, by asking lots of questions, various themes and consistencies can be pulled together. These consistencies are not always obvious in the ‘confetti’ of our everyday lives.  However, ultimately, we are still only dealing with what people believe about themselves. In this blog I would like to suggest using psychometrics to significantly enhance the feedback process.

I start by acknowledging that, to help a coachee to gain insight, it is important to start from where they are at. We capture this through our conversations. We can add in some psychometrics to help articulate their beliefs about themselves.

This allows us to compare different forms of self-report. This is analogous to looking at a sculpture from different angles – each adds an additional perspective. This enables differences to be challenged which can contribute to increasing self-awareness – but we must recognise that this is still self-report which reflects a person’s beliefs including levels of bias and even delusions!

Most coaches will be familiar with the Johari Window which is used to understand the process of building self-awareness by reminding us that everyone has blind spots as illustrated here:

To increase self-awareness we need to decrease the Blind Spot. Decreasing the Blind Spot is facilitated by feedback from others. Coaches may well encourage their coachee to solicit feedback directly – suggesting that they go and ask other people. There are advantages to this direct approach. However, direct, face-to-face feedback can involve a range of emotions which result in varying levels of honesty. It can also be unstructured – the person giving feedback may emphasise things important to them rather than the person seeking feedback.

The Paired Process is an alternative. It involves the coachee asking a carefully chosen ‘other’ for feedback – but this time by completing the same questionnaire as the coachee. This ‘other’ answers with their perception of the coachee. Because the result is scored using the same themes/scales, any differences are immediately highlighted. This structured form of feedback can be used with all kinds of questionnaires – personality, values, interests, emotional intelligence etc.

Such feedback is especially important for questionnaires that suggest that they measure self-awareness – as is the case with all the Emotional Intelligence (EI) questionnaires. This is because everyone is above average on self-awareness – at least from their own perspective. Why – because none of us are aware of what we are not aware of! All EI questionnaires would be far more useful if they were available as a paired process. Not only is this an opportunity to check the individual’s self-perception but it also increases that individual’s engagement in the process. This is especially true if care is taken in choosing the ‘other’ for that feedback. Consider completing a questionnaire about your own espoused values – and seeing if these are recognised by someone you have specifically chosen because you value their opinion. The same goes for the way you see your personality. A good coach will help the coachee to choose the ‘other’ and my experience is that the process is both more personal and intimate than what is often called 360-feedback (i.e. from multiple ‘others’ which is then grouped, averaged and anonymous). This creates a better context for reflecting on the feedback as part of a self-development process.

Some questionnaires that offer this option available from Team Focus are:

1. The EIQ (Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire) which covers Personal Intelligence, Relational Intelligence and Situational Intelligence.
2. The VbIM – the Values-based Indicator of Motivation which covers 24 fundamental values.
3. The TDI (Type Dynamics Indicator) which identifies your personality type as part of a dynamic system of personality, roles and situational demands known as the Type Mapping system.

And so why did I use the picture at the beginning of this blog? It is because the coaching context brings more perspectives into the room. Although I am sitting there just with my coachee, it is like having a third person (the questionnaire) or a fourth person (the selected ‘other’) contributing to the self-awareness process.

Roy Childs, Managing Director of Team Focus, is an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and, like many other senior staff members, a Chartered Occupational Psychologist.  His background in psychometrics includes having worked with some of the best-known authors of personality questionnaires including Ray Cattell (16PF) and Will Schutz (FIRO). With Team Focus he has developed a new range of instruments designed to bring psychometrics into the 21st century. 

Roy runs the widest range of BPS recognised qualifying courses in the UK and his publications include “the Psychometric Minefield”; “Emotional Intelligence and Leadership”; “The Big Five – Bring a little colour into your lives”; “Coaching with FIRO Element B” published in the book “Psychometrics in Coaching”, ‘Action Learning Supervision’ published in the book “Coaching Supervision” and ‘The Relational lens’ published by Cambridge University Press.

Read more blogs from Roy Childs

The post How to challenge what I believe about myself appeared first on Trusted Coach Directory.

Most coaches subscribe to the received wisdom that ‘coaches help change behaviour, NOT personality’. But this is based on certain assumptions that may not be entirely valid – one is practical and the other is ethical:

1. The practical element is that, if personality is innate, it is assumed to be relatively fixed. This suggests that it would not be a fruitful use of time to try to change it. To use a well-worn analogy, we should not spend time trying to teach a turkey to climb a tree.
2. The ethical element is that, if personality is part of a person’s identity, we could be violating a core purpose of coaching which is that we are helping people to adapt and thrive. This means being the best version of who they are (given their circumstances and resources). Coaching is not about changing who they are!

So why am I challenging this received wisdom when I agree with the sentiment?

The reason is that the above assumptions are based on misconceptions about personality – or more specifically about how we identify and measure personality. Many coaches will use personality questionnaires which describe a range of traits or types. These are then endowed with both a deeper significance and a high degree of permanence which leads us to the somewhat controversial Nature versus Nurture debate.

Now, few deny that human biology involves underlying mechanisms that guide, and may even determine, certain behaviour. However, psychometric profiles do not measure our genes. Questionnaires invite people to answer a range of questions which capture their ‘story’.

In other words, their answers reveal the sense that a person has made of their life so far. Since personality profiles are based on self-report, it is self-evident that the answers must be influenced by the person’s life experiences. Furthermore, these experiences are necessarily filtered and moderated by different levels of self-awareness and self-protection.

I suggest that we reframe what we get from psychometric profiles. They are best viewed as ‘a method for extracting a person’s auto-biographical narrative’. This means that we are working with a person’s conscious belief about themselves. We are not measuring their DNA and those who claim that the stability of psychometric profiles is evidence of a genetic foundation are over-stating their case. People’s beliefs combine many influences. If we recognise that the questionnaires help a person to articulate their narrative, then most would recognise that narratives can change. Psychometrics can then align with coaching aims (i.e. facilitating change) rather than introducing concepts that cause some coaches to shy away from using psychometrics.

If we accept that psychometric profiles help articulate a person’s auto-biographical narrative, it introduces the potential for change since we can all change what we say and believe about ourselves. This is not to say that such change is easy, but we can now address the ethical element. We are working to help develop a different (and more authentic) self-narrative and not to change their fundamental biological self. If such a change is successful, we can expect some change in the way they subsequently answer the questions in a psychometric. Hence their psychometric profile could change. We do not need to take a position regarding whether this change reflects something more fundamental or biological.

It may help to use a metaphor which is to ask people to think of themselves as a book. This then suggests that they are an evolving story with previous chapters (which is sometimes what a profile reflects), current chapters (which is what we encourage the profile to reveal), and all the chapters yet to come. We can now focus on helping with writing the next chapter of a person’s life story – and coaches usually want to focus on creating the future rather than being overly anchored in the past. This is much more in accord with the philosophy and practice of coaching.

I do not deny that people often show a great deal of stability in their psychometric profile. But there are explanations other than claiming this as evidence that personality is innate. Consider Fleetwood Mac’s song ‘Man of the World’ which has the line ‘there is no-one I’d rather be, but I just wish that I had never been born!’ This looks like a paradox but if you ask most people who have survived bad times, many often say that although they may like to have avoided the situation, it has made them who they are. It is part of their identity and we all become invested in the person we have become ‘warts and all’.

In summary, I like to think of coaching as helping people to develop greater self-awareness, which is necessary for introducing a greater agency in what people choose to do. They are then in a better position to write the next chapter of their auto-biographical narrative. My view is that psychometric profiling, once detached from the baggage of innateness and permanence, can then become a tool to aid that process. A person’s profile becomes a barometer, highlighting factors that link to their identity and which make sense of this stage in their life.

Of course, identity is more than personality. In later blogs, I will build on the theme of changing other aspects of identity which include people’s attitudes, beliefs, motivations, behaviours, roles, preferences – and most importantly VALUES.

But for now, if you are interested in a more substantial critique of personality questionnaires you can view this talk given to the Association of Business Psychologists.

From Shakespeare to Gogglebox – a talk to the ABP on whether Psychometrics is going backwards

Roy Childs, Managing Director of Team Focus, is an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and, like many other senior staff members, a Chartered Occupational Psychologist.  His background in psychometrics includes having worked with some of the best-known authors of personality questionnaires including Ray Cattell (16PF) and Will Schutz (FIRO). With Team Focus he has developed a new range of instruments designed to bring psychometrics into the 21st century. 

Roy runs the widest range of BPS recognised qualifying courses in the UK and his publications include “the Psychometric Minefield”; “Emotional Intelligence and Leadership”; “The Big Five – Bring a little colour into your lives”; “Coaching with FIRO Element B” published in the book “Psychometrics in Coaching”, ‘Action Learning Supervision’ published in the book “Coaching Supervision” and ‘The Relational lens’ published by Cambridge University Press.

Read more blogs from Roy Childs: How to challenge what I believe about myself

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