7C's: A model for the individual

When I studied to become a chartered psychologist my post graduate area for specialization was the individual, and one to one work. Working in Occupational and Organizational settings I assumed much of my work would be coaching, however I soon discovered this was not the case and large numbers of people who I was seeing privately came with verified clinical symptoms.

I think in my 25 years of coaching the thing I have learned the most is there is a huge difference between the shiny Personas we produce in the work place and the Persona who collapses into the kitchen or living room at the end of a hard shift with a sense of relief and gratitude that another day is over.

In the 7C’s coaching model we encourage people to recognize that both of these personas are equally real. It is not a case of the Shiny one at work is fake and the exhausted one slumped over a cup of tea, or possibly something stronger at home is the real one. In 7C’s we call the Personas Alter Ego’s after the questionnaire and within coaching we refer to them as “SuperHeroes” because actually in each context they provide a very important function for us.

My daughter brought me a lovely Hugo Boss watch for Christmas and this was a part of the big dress up for her wedding which hopefully we will be able to celebrate on 3rd January 2022. I will also have a very smart 3 piece suit on and leather shoes and will make the appropriate Daddy speech which everybody will love. With 3 bars in the stunning Tudor Mansion where this is all happening, the many guests will be retiring to their 4 poster beds and collapsing with a different type of exhaustion at the end of that day. The point is, is as I don my “Daddy” super-hero and share with my daughter and our guests a wonderful day, I am simply fulfilling a role, as Erving Goffman would say the whole world is a stage. In other contexts and on other days, I quite literally need to be somebody else if I am to operate at the level of excellence.

What I have found as a coaching psychologist is the difficulty is we attempt to live out our multiple lives, in our multiple contexts using a default personality as though this default personality is the real me or the authentic self. The sad fact is the “authentic self” in many contexts is just not good enough, and in order to develop sufficient capability so as to be stress free, excellent, and in a flow type experience, sometimes fundamental changes need to be made. When I say fundamental I do not mean behaviour, language or a current implicit cognitive strategy, but rather a deep seated belief, which may be triggered by the context and cause the coachee to underperform.

7C’s coaching is all about first of all identifying what the goal is, or more fully what is the “Well Formed Outcome”, (WFO). Secondly it is about identifying which of the multiple contexts within which we live our lives is this WFO going to be played out in, and finally it is about the strap line of the Alter Ego Personality Questionnaire; “Who do you need to be to do what you value” in that particular context? Many coachees when they let go of the paradigm of the self as a unity and begin to embrace the idea of the self as a multiplicity, find it surprisingly easy to create a new Super Hero through behavioural modelling who is fit for purpose in the context where they wish to be excellent.

Even though I have been a practicing psychologist for over 25 years, this is my first attempt to develop and then share a coaching model. I know I have many skills which I will need to develop over the years and this is just the beginning of my journey. However one characteristic of a WFO is that of motivation. The late Professor Anders Ericsson tells us it takes many years to develop excellence in a particular domain and as Professor Angela Duckworth assures us, if we develop sufficient grit to develop excellence over time using deliberate practice we will always get there. Patience and Motivation, focusing on enjoying the process of growing and learning is therefore the key, not just for me, but also for my coachees too.

This way we build bespoke Super Heroes for the specific contexts we inhabit throughout the days and weeks. The more we develop these resources, the easier it becomes to slip in and out of them as the dynamic of the day unfolds. And of course the more of them we have, the greater requisite variety we possess. I will give myself 10 years to build my 7C's coaching psychologist, however as I do this, I am not going to bemoan the fact that I am not there yet, I will celebrate each day as a new day in which I can develop skills and appropriate beliefs as well as values so I can discharge this function more effectively and most importantly enjoy that learning and development journey.

I really hope some of you can find time to join me on my new journey and please visit the following weblink where you can sign up to the 7C’s newsletter at the bottom of the page. I intend each month to provide useful coaching tips, updates on 7C’s coaching and hopefully an enjoyable coaching resource for the professional world of personal and executive coaching.

Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous 2022.

References:

Duckworth, A. (2019). Grit. Why passion and persistence are the secrets to success. London:Ebury.

Ericsson, A. (2016). Peak. Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. New York:Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Grimley,B. (2020) The 7C’s of Coaching. A personal journey through the world of NLP and coaching psychology. Abingdon:Routledge.

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