PERSONALITY TYPE & THE COACHING PROCESS – PART 1

© Copyright 2007 Pamela Hollister
www.thepeopleprocess.com
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The application of personality type into the coaching process—both the person being coached and the type of other people in their life—is particularly valuable because you can identify and develop his or her strengths, assist them in recognizing blind spots and how to manage them and strategize a method for personal and career development.

Step 1: Assess the Client’s Type
Guide the person through Side 1 of the The PEOPLE Process Wheel, explaining each of the four dimensions of behavior, the two preferences within each behavior dimension, and have them choose their four letter type.

Step 2: Determine Strengths and Challenges
By yourself, review the person’s type from the standpoint of their strengths as it relates to their personality type. Think through the description of their preferences on side 1 of the Wheel and determine which qualities are assets and which present the greatest challenge. Have the person answer the following questions:

• As you read through the description of your personality type preferences, which ones seem like assets and which present the greatest challenges?
• If someone wanted to have a positive relationship with you, what fundamental things about your type would they need to understand?
• Which aspects of your psychological type are the most difficult for you to accept or change?
• Which aspects of your type most often cause relationship problems between you and others?
• How have your personality type preferences influenced your life and career?

Often conflicts between the person being coached and the people in their life comes from differences in preferences. Lead the person through the descriptions of all of the preferences on Side 1 of the Wheel: E-I, S-N, T-F, and J-P. Assist them in choosing the four-letter type of the person with which they are experiencing conflict from Side 1 of the Wheel.

Have the person choose their Profile Sheet and the Profile Sheet of the person with whom they are experiencing conflict from the package. Compare the individual descriptions in each of the categories and answer the following three questions on Side 2 of the Profile Sheet:

When going through this exercise, the person is then able to step back and realize that behaviors are most often the result of each other’s inborn, personality type.

Use the following questions to guide discussion around areas they might need to address:

• What contributions do you bring to the relationship?
• Which of your habits might be irritating to the other?
• What do you find valuable about each other?
• What does the other do that bothers you?
• What do you hope to achieve in resolving this conflict?

Step 3: Evaluate Individual Needs
Assist the person being coached in evaluating their needs through discussion of a series of questions:

• What are some of your behaviors that seem to get in the way of having effective relationships with others?
• What talents do you have that are especially helpful to others?
• How would your spouse, boss, colleagues, or close friends briefly describe you?
• What do you care most about in your life? What concerns you most?
• What do you feel proud of and what concerns you about the way people at work treat one another?
• What inspires or motivates you?
• What kind of appreciation/recognition do you prefer? From whom? Under what circumstances?
• What kind of criticism do you prefer? From whom? Under what circumstances?
• Which work tasks do you pass on to others, ignore, or never get around to doing?
• Tell me about a recent change you’ve experienced. How did you react? How did you cope with it?
• Describe how you handle change.
• What are your thoughts about conflict? What do you do to resolve it? How effective have your efforts been? Why?
• Are there any questions I have not asked that we should discuss?

Step 4: Assess Skills and Interests
Lead the person through a discussion of the following four questions:

• Things I like and do well
• Things I don’t like but do well
• Things I like but find difficult to do
• Things I don’t like and struggle to do

Focus your discussion on things the person likes and does well. Those things the person doesn’t like and struggles with doing, identify as areas for coaching. Assist the person in developing ways to handle those things they don’t like and struggle with.

Step 5: Develop Your Action Plan
The key to successful coaching is identification of objectives, steps that will be taken, timelines and the desired results. To achieve this:

• Have the person identify someone they trust that can help them practice the coaching suggestions
• Develop specific action items and timelines. Establish accountability—such as how will the person know when they have reached a goal?
• Encourage the person being coached to practice the behaviors in coaching sessions and then in “real time.”
• Suggest the person keep a journal where they record behaviors practiced and the results—who, what, when, and where. Discuss the results of the experiences practiced in the next coaching session.
• Share personal insights about your own type and your potential interactions with other types as it relates to strengths and differences. Encourage person being coached to give details about how process is moving forward toward identified goals, needs and wants, and be clear about what is working.

Pamela Hollister
Author, The PEOPLE Process
April, 2007
Resource Materials: The PEOPLE Process Participant’s Package
    Introduction to Type & Coaching, CPP Inc.