The Journey Inside. Veronica Munro
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operating from?
The model works equally well in a variety of coaching scenarios including face to face, over the telephone, video conferencing and with groups. Here are some further everyday examples that people can relate to.
CASE STUDY 2: OVER-REACTION
A client shared a series of incidents she had experienced in which she began to feel that she was over-reacting. She realised that she wasn’t doing herself any favours in terms of her future career or building relationships in her network. She described the latest incident. She had received an email from a colleague and although the email wasn’t rude, she felt unappreciated. She had sent an email back, copying in a lot of other colleagues, saying she didn’t want to receive such emails again.
I asked her what she would do now if she received a similar email, and she said she would do it again. I asked, Even though you have said you shouldn’t, you still would? She replied ‘Yes!’ I said, Can you think of other times when you have done this? Again, she said ‘Yes.’ I asked her what was going on, what were her feelings, and what was she thinking at those times? What triggered those incidents? She said it was always about when she was feeling unappreciated and undervalued. I asked if there were specific times she could recall. She immediately described a teacher at school who had unjustly criticised her and undervalued her contribution. At the time, she was unable to respond. She went on to say that she still wanted to go back and find the teacher and tell them how she had felt.
I asked if she was willing to explore a model with me. I drew out and described both the Ego States Model and the OK Corral. I asked her which quadrant she thought she might be in when this was happening? She immediately said, ‘I’m OK, You are Not OK.’ She said that she felt unappreciated. Her response was to share with everyone that she was OK, and that the other person wasn’t. She added that in retrospect what she was actually doing was sharing that she wasn’t OK, and the other person wasn’t OK either.
I asked which Ego State she might be operating from, and she laughed and said possibly Adapted or Rebellious Child. I asked her what she would do now if she found herself in a similar position. She replied, ‘I would still take it back to the person, but in private and less aggressively.’
We continued to discuss the issue from different perspectives, and she commented that she had enjoyed working with the model. It made it easy for her to think about how she sometimes responds automatically, and hopefully over time and with practice, she would respond differently, in order to get a more effective and helpful response.
She also commented that by looking at a model on paper, she was able to think about herself in different situations, without becoming emotional or defensive. I asked her what not becoming emotional or too defensive meant? She replied that she felt she judged herself less harshly, and this enabled her to explore in a safe way. In future sessions, we used the model to take some much deeper dives into her thinking, feeling and behaviours.
To discover more coaching tools to change the way you think, and your clients’ thinking, see Chapter 4: ‘Breaking Free: Unlocking Doors with Deep Reframing’ by Richard Haggerty.
CASE STUDY 3: FEELING UNDERMINED
This client was struggling with his new boss. Previously they had been colleagues and peers. My client hadn’t applied for the position as boss, so there was no animosity regarding that. He really couldn’t understand what was going wrong, and said, ‘I just feel undermined all the time.’ He couldn’t put a finger on what was going on but he had stopped enjoying work, and had begun to look for another job.
We explored his current set up, and then I asked if he remembered feeling like this before, and if so, who did it remind him of? He thought for a while, and said, ‘Yes, it’s how I felt around my father sometimes.’ I could see that the Ego States and Life Position Models might be helpful for my client. He accepted my offer to explore, and quickly identified with the model on several different levels. He felt he was being spoken to from Critical Parent, and he thought it had something to do with the tone of voice. He also recognised that he was responding from the Child Ego State.
We continued to explore this in terms of which quadrant in the OK Corral he was in. The most immediate effect for him was relief that he could identify what was going on. He also said that his relationship with his new boss was a good one, and now that he understood what was going on, he was going to have an open discussion with him. He said that he felt that he would find it relatively easy to communicate with his boss from the Adult Ego State and the ‘I am OK, You are OK’ quadrant now that he understood himself better. This was just the starting point of us using the model together. Over subsequent sessions, he explored his style of communication and became more and more comfortable taking deeper and deeper dives.
CASE STUDY 4: STRUGGLING TO WORK WITH A COLLEAGUE (AND DIDN’T KNOW WHY)
Another client was struggling to work with a colleague during working hours. When they were out socially the same didn’t apply, and they communicated really well. I suggested working with a couple of models, and she readily agreed. She quickly identified that she was in the ‘I’m Not OK, You are Not OK’ quadrant. She also recognised that she was operating from a Rebellious Child Ego State. There was a light-bulb moment when she realised that when they were at work, she felt that her colleague was judging her, telling her how to complete certain tasks. She also recognised that she meant well, but this didn’t stop her from feeling angry and put out.
She had another insightful moment when she recognised her colleague’s behaviour as negative Nurturing Parent, and that her own mother had behaved in a similar way when she was growing up. She spent some time reflecting on this information. She visibly relaxed and smiled and said that she now understood what was annoying her, and it wouldn’t any more. She thought that she could move easily into the ‘I am OK, You are OK’ quadrant. She had a new perspective, and now felt supported by her colleague.
CASE STUDY 5: DOESN’T SUFFER FOOLS GLADLY
A very successful Chief Operating Officer (COO) is highly practical and in his own words ‘doesn’t suffer fools gladly.’ He was finding that although he was very successful, others in the organisation were complaining about his communication style (abrupt, rude and arrogant). He had decided that he wanted to explore this but wasn’t sure if he wanted to change his behaviour, as he saw the issues and problems as belonging to someone else. I worked with this client on the telephone. After a few sessions, I asked him if he was willing to explore a theoretical model, and he agreed.
I started by asking him to draw the three circles and simply label them Parent, Adult, and Child. Before I had a chance to say anything else, he said, ‘You are calling me a child!’ I laughed and said Really? Am I? What makes you think that? I only asked you to draw three circles in a vertical line and give them each a label. He was quiet for a few moments and I stayed quiet. Then he said, ‘I think you asked me to draw this because you think I behave like a child.’ I continued to stay quiet, and then after a while I said, Can we explore the model a little without judgement from either of us? He agreed, and discussion about the model followed.
He then stated, ‘Yes, I can see that I could be described as behaving as either a Rebellious Child or a Controlling Parent.’ At this point he was in the ‘Not OK’ position, but very quickly went on to say how frustrated he was with certain others. He blamed them for the way he spoke to them. He had moved to the ‘I am OK, You are Not OK’ position.
After more exploration and more questions, he also realised that the way he behaved with them wasn’t getting him what he wanted. He further commented that he wanted to be perceived as an ambassador for the organisation, and in order to achieve that, he needed to express himself more engagingly.
He often used humour to explore difficult conversations he was having with different colleagues, and he could laugh at himself. Although he didn’t change his communication style overnight, he did discuss wanting to spend more time in the top right quadrant ‘I am OK, You are OK.’ He also commented that