CHAPTER 7

DEEPENING COACHING SKILLS: WORKING WITH INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCE

Up to now, we have been presuming that coaching is ‘one size fits all’ – that the same approach works for everyone. But it doesn’t.

As is apparent to anyone who looks up from their phone while travelling on the London Underground, human beings vary rather considerably. Sophisticated coaching must flex to adapt.

‘Individual difference’ is what the scientists call it, as they are dispassionately interested in objective assessment of individual variation. But in coaching, we’re not using psychometrics, or any other tool, for the sake of it: we’re usually doing it for a very particular and subjective purpose, namely to raise self-awareness.

Self-awareness is important in coaching for three reasons:

• ●From the coach’s perspective, the more we know our own personality/issues, the more we can set them aside and hence become less of an ‘interference’ to our coachee.
• ●From the individual or organisational client’s perspective, having greater awareness of themselves and their impact on others is often in itself a goal for coaching.
• ●And sometimes most valuable of all in business terms, having experimented on themselves, clients can put their deepened knowledge of how people tick towards significantly better management and leadership of others.

We consider here a number of different ways of deepening self-awareness, from simple pen-and-paper methods, through to more complex psychometric approaches; then finally take a look at how in practice some coaches put them all together.

1. Pen-and-paper approaches

We presume the client is healthy and well; so if raising self-awareness is an issue, they should be able to figure it out for themselves, and indeed they can.

Johari

One well-known method is the ‘Johari Window’. The Johari Window (see Figure 7.1) is not an ancient mystical technique, but a simple two-by-two matrix developed apparently by two Californians called Joe and Harry.¹ It is a quick and effective way to gather information about ourselves.

The matrix illustrates that in any situation, logically there must be things that:

• ●I know and you know: the Arena;
• ●I know and you don’t know: the Façade;
• ●You know and I don’t: the Blind Spot;
• ●and the Unknown, which we both don’t know!

Being asked to fill in the Arena box about a particular situation; for example, ‘how I am perceived as a team leader’, might of itself generate some insight – it is really just another way of asking a coaching question. Should one want to find out the perspective of others, one does so by pushing back the vertical line in the matrix, i.e. requesting feedback. To have others made more aware of oneself, one pushes down the horizontal line, i.e. by making more disclosure.

Figure 7.1 The Johari Window

Source: Adapted from: Luft, J. (1970) Group Processes: An Introduction to Group Dynamics. Palo Alto, CA: National Press Books.

For some, including I confess myself, this is too simplistic a model, but I include it as every now and then a coach or client says they find it exceptionally useful.

Wheels

Similarly some decry the various ‘wheel of life’ diagrams, but others find them indispensable. Jenny Rogers describes in depth how several variants of the approach can be used.² Coaches who use this technique often develop their own standard blank template and ask the client to fill it in.

This has its merits but, as Jenny notes, a different and potentially better way is to give the client a blank page and ask them to draw and label their own wheel – and to draw each segment’s size according to its current importance in their life. Then they repeat the exercise, drawing the segments how they wish them to be. You’ll see what happens: clients are confronted with sometimes very imbalanced wheels, but entirely of their own drawing. (A good moment, perhaps, for allowing them to sit in contemplative silence, as mentioned in Chapter 6.)

But it’s ‘horses for courses’. We discuss personality difference below: clients who prefer the established order of things, and relish structure, might like the security of a pre-printed chart; others would prefer the freedom to design their own.

Life v. business?

The above techniques both owe more to ‘life’ coaching. There is vigorous debate as to how much one needs to know about broader life background, family, past, etc. in business coaching. Some business coaches believe firmly that it is essential to know this at the outset irrespective of the coaching contract, while others are equally firmly of the view that for much short-term coaching on straightforward issues, none whatsoever is required. Where there is a specific need for this information, as in career coaching, some coaches address it by working through a set of proprietary questions. This ‘structured interview’ approach perhaps represents a halfway house between the two views: any necessary and relevant information is sought, but in a business-familiar manner. And as the client goes through the background material, there may be ‘ah-has’ of self-awareness; as in ‘R’ of GROW, merely pulling the information together can generate insight. (Coaches collecting and storing data on individuals should of course conform with the information and privacy legislation current in their territory, such as GDPR in the EU.)

2. Psychometrics

As its name implies, a psychometric measures the psyche, in whole or in part. There are probably millions of them out there, from fun tests in magazines that have no validity whatsoever, to scientific instruments that have quite strong power to predict how people will behave in a variety of ways. (Strictly, not all psychometrics are tests, particularly personality: a test suggests right or wrong answers, hence the word instrument is preferred by psychologists. I use test here as that tends to be the generic term used among coaches and buyers.)

Defining quality in psychometrics

While this diversity is interesting, and it might be tempting to use wacky or untried tests, in the USA, organisations have been sued for using poor tests or those that unfairly discriminate in assessment situations, and coaches using them for development should also stick to the reputable. Some key determinants^* of quality are that the test is:

^* Adapted from the former OPP website, now the Myers-Briggs Company, https://eu.themyersbriggs.com.

• ●objective: the results are not influenced by a scorer’s personal preferences or biases;
• ●reliable: repeat testing yields a similar result – i.e. it captures something in the person that is relatively stable over time, rather than a transient mood or situation; it is measuring ‘trait not state’, in the jargon;
• ●valid: it ‘does what it says on the tin’ – i.e. it actually measures what it claims to measure. For example a test of literacy should in fact predict how well people can read.
• ●discriminating: the test should be discriminating, showing clear differences between individuals on the behaviour being tested, for example sorting out people who can process in 3-D sufficiently to be a safe air-traffic controller, compared with those who can’t. It should not be discriminatory, i.e. unfairly discriminating against minority or any groups on the basis of irrelevant characteristics.

What tests measure

The assessment consultancy Getfeedback puts it neatly: see their Bullseye diagram in Figure 7.2 and the explanation of each circle below. There are tests for every level, but the closer to the centre of the bullseye, the harder the thing is to change.

Figure 7.2 The Bullseye diagram

Source: Adapted with permission from: Getfeedback, Guide to Effective Selection, see www.getfeedback.net.

• ●Motivation: ‘will do’. An individual’s motivation is formed at an early age and usually doesn’t change much. It might be based on things like the strength of their desire for power, or need for structure.
• ●Capability: ‘can do’. The classic was shorthand/typing speed tests, where very precise measures could be obtained. At executive level, ‘can do’ tests will typically measure clients’ capability to make strategic decisions or value judgements under challenging conditions.
• ●Personality: ‘likes doing’. Personality or character traits are those that we generally recognise about people: a characteristic pattern of thinking, behaviour and feeling.
• ●Behaviours: ‘does!’ The easiest to change.^*

^* Adapted from www.getfeedback.net.

Access to tests

To protect the public (and perhaps also for a smidge of commerciality) there are several levels of access to tests, from freely available to anyone, to those only available to medically trained doctors and psychiatrists.

The levels of access in the UK are:

1. 1Open access. A few good psychometrics for specific purposes are available to everyone, simply by paying a small fee per test. Three that are useful for business coaching are Schein’s Career Anchors, available at www.careeranchorsonline.com or in hard copy from Amazon; the Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI), available at https://eu.themyersbriggs.com; and strengths profiles (on which more below). As pressure on budgets increases, these rarities – soundly research-based tools, which add value to coaching but where no costly training is required – will be even more prized.
2. 2Open access, after training. Anyone can also use tests including the popular MBTI and FIRO-B, provided they undertake a training with the distributors (The Myers-Briggs Company). Trainings typically take two to five days per test and are not inexpensive.
3. 3Psychology-based qualifications required. The next level is where you have to undertake training in test use before you can use them. In the UK this is controlled by the British Psychological Society. The system is complex, but is explained on the test use qualifications pages at https://ptc.bps.org.uk. It is still in essence divided into two parts (corresponding broadly to the old ‘BPS Level A and B’ system), covering ability, and personality. Ability tests are not generally relevant to business coaching, with the exception of a few such as the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal. For business coaches, personality assessments are more frequently used. These include the NEO PI-R (www.hogrefe.co.uk), the Hogan suite (www.psychological-consultancy.com), 16PF (www.16pf.com) etc. Most still then also require product-specific certification before you can use them, although this can sometimes be bundled together, with proficiency in testing, and learning a particular instrument, taught together.
4. 4Only available to medical practitioners. Tests such as the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) a comprehensive mental health-oriented personality assessment that measures everything from soup to nuts, including all the major pathologies, and the Beck Depression Inventory, a short and very useful test that could be invaluable in business coaching, are only available to qualified clinicians.

Indirect access to tests

If you are not qualified in a particular test, but want to use it, the simplest way is to pair up with someone who is. They deliver the test and give the client the feedback, ideally with you present as well so you hear it in full; you and the client then take it forward into the coaching. Many qualified people are likely to be found in the alumni of any good coach training, so you may have colleagues who can readily do this for you.

Alternatively there are test bureaux such as Getfeedback (www.getfeedback.net) that deliver online testing to your clients, with appropriately trained organisational psychologists giving the feedback, and again you take it on from there in the coaching.

The tests business coaches use

The inner rings of the bullseye diagram are more relevant to selection: as the things most unlikely to change, these are the ones targeted in selection decisions. Once the person is hired, business coaching comes into play, perhaps to help them settle and/or get to peak performance. Tests used by coaches tend to concentrate on the third ring of the diagram, personality. (All this fine teamwork leading hopefully to ideal outcomes on the outer circle, behaviours!)

The ‘gold standard’ of what good-quality business coaches are expected to have at their disposal used to be MBTI, FIRO-B and a method of 360° feedback. That is, as we shall see below, a measure of overall personality (MBTI, or a trait instrument); one for how the client relates to others (FIRO-B) plus data-gathering from the client’s context (the crucial importance of which is discussed in Chapter 9). Things have moved on, and with the Positive Psychology resources coming on-stream, the ‘gold standard’ now includes the above three plus a Strengths inventory.

360° feedback is discussed in Chapter 9; here we consider each of the other three in turn.

1. Overall personality: the MBTI controversy

By far the most popular tool in coaching for raising awareness of overall personality is the MBTI. I presume most readers are familiar with it, but if not it is, in essence, a general personality assessment based on the work of the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, and developed by Americans Katherine Briggs and Isabel Myers. It is built upon four core dimensions of how people prefer to manage energy, information and decision making (i.e. E/I, or extraversion/introversion; S/N, sensing or intuition, according to how we take in information; T/F, thinking or feeling, according to how we use information, i.e. take decisions; and J/P, judging or perceiving, i.e. whether we take pleasure in completion and closure; or curiosity and the journey). This results in 16 possible personality types, such as ‘ENFP’ or ‘ISTJ’. The 16 types are not intended to be a label or a box to put people in – the useful metaphor is rather to think of them as rooms in a house: we need to be able to occupy them all. Some of us prefer to live out on the front porch, some prefer the quiet of the library, but we all need to use the kitchen.

The MBTI is the most widely used personality instrument in the world, taken by more than 2 million people a year. Its fans may therefore be surprised to learn it is a pariah among psychometricians! It is largely absent from reputable psychology textbooks and degree courses, is rarely accepted as a measure in psychology research, and is also rarely mentionable in mainstream academic peer-reviewed scientific journals.^*

^* A fine exception to this is the excellent article by Penny Moyle and John Hackston (2018): ‘Personality Assessment for Employee Development: Ivory Tower or Real World?’, Journal of Personality Assessment, Vol. 100, No. 5, pp. 507–17.

Why?!

The case against

There are three strikes against the MBTI:

• ●Type v. trait. Psychologists as you will have discerned in earlier chapters often disagree with each other: Freudians, behaviourists, humanistic psychologists, etc. have been fighting like ferrets in a sack about the fundamentals of psychology for 100 years. Except, that is, in the area of personality, where there is a rare level of agreement. Personality psychologists are in almost complete accord, and have been for 40 years, that there are five basic building blocks of personality that combine (like the four components of DNA) to form the infinite variety of human beings. (Hence the ‘Big Five’ theory of personality – but this is the psychometric Big Five, not the coaching one.) This is the ‘trait’ world, and it has captured all the citadels of psychology – universities, peer-reviewed journals, prizes, scholarships. MBTI is, officially, not a trait measure but a ‘type’ instrument; the psychometricians say no such thing exists.
• ●Five v. four scales. Mainstream trait theorists are agreed there are five core building blocks; the MBTI has only four scales. This matters more than being one short on the numbers: the missing fifth scale is, the trait theorists say, crucial, as it is the scale that runs from emotional stability to neuroticism (the normal half of the scale) and then on from neuroticism to psychoticism (the abnormal half). MBTI lacks this fifth scale they say, and therefore cannot be a comprehensive personality instrument such as the researchers’ gold standard, the NEO.
• ●Normal distribution v. bimodal. Trait psychometricians insist personality characteristics, such as introversion, are normally distributed, i.e. people’s scores range across a bell curve, with most bunched in the middle phasing out to a few strays at either end. Type says the distribution is bimodal, i.e. people are at either end – either one thing or the other – so an extravert or an introvert with no shades of grey between.

The rebuttal

• ●Type v. trait. Guilty as charged. There is no such thing as type; the MBTI, some would say, is a good trait instrument.^*

  Why then does the MBTI industry cling to the type label, which keeps it beyond the scientific pale? Partly for historic reasons, but partly because the simplification that the type approach enables is one reason for the MBTI’s great usefulness. If, following the trait approach, you are an O12, C26, E32, etc. then the numbers are essentially meaningless to a lay person and require constant expert interpretation. But if, as in MBTI, you have a forced choice of either E or I, either S or N, etc., ending up with a ‘best fit’ type, such as say ENFP, you have something readily understandable and useable (see ‘Applications for coaching’ below). Trait keeps power with the white coats; type hands it over to the clients.

• ●Five v. four scales. False. The MBTI world is perfectly aware of the fifth scale, and a version exists with it included, the Type Differentiation Indicator (TDI). But the purpose of the MBTI was to make information about personality widely available, to bring about greater understanding and harmony in the world. It was therefore designed from the outset to be delivered by (trained) lay people. The designers did not however think it right for lay people to be running around saying, ‘I’m afraid, Mr Smith, you are psychotic’. So the form most of us are familiar with does indeed lack the fifth scale, and the full-scale TDI is available only to licensed clinical psychologists and psychiatrists. So the MBTI is a five-scale instrument, with one scale removed from the most commonly used version, for perfectly good reasons. (The lack of this fifth-scale data to non-medics is of course a drawback of the MBTI: there are times when I am working with a client and can sense something is horribly wrong, or at the least clouding the picture, and wish I had that fifth scale to confirm/disconfirm my hypothesis.)
• ●Normal curve v. bimodal. The jury’s out: looking at the scatterplots of the data in detail, one could in fact argue the case either way. If you look at it with your head to one side, you could discern a bunching in the middle, but if you tilt your head the other way, there is a case for seeing a bunching at either end. Anyway this is a technicality of interest only to the boffins. The great value of the bimodal approach is that it lays the platform for a superb suite of applications for us as business coaches (see below).

^* Type adherents don’t of course agree. Commenting on this section The Myers-Briggs Company made the following good point: ‘Type reflects how most people understand others. “He’s an introvert”. “She’s a caring sort”. In this respect type is very real. It may be that they are made up of underlying traits, however the human experience is to categorise to create meaning and understanding and to reduce complexity down to a useful set of data for navigating everyday life.’ (Email to author, 30 July 2010.)

Value of MBTI in coaching

Having explained the controversy, why has MBTI, despite the disdain of science, become the most widely used instrument in coaching worldwide? There are in my view three reasons:

1. 1Non-judgemental. If the Beck Depression Inventory scores you as clinically depressed, or even if the NEO says you are high on emotional instability (i.e. neuroticism), then this has practical implications: such material appearing in your personnel files may affect your chances of getting a job, promotion, etc. (The tests could well be entirely right of course, and you shouldn’t get the job!) Trait approaches imply judgement; indeed, that in some cases is their purpose.

   By contrast I suspect a major reason why the MBTI has been so successful for over 80 years is that it goes to great lengths to be judgement-free. Each of the 16 ‘types’ is treated with scrupulous even-handedness, with an equal measure of pluses and minuses. There are no cut-off points, and no reference to one type or another being suitable for a particular occupation: whether you are an ISFP or an ENTJ in a manufacturing company, you are just a different type of employee, with different things to offer. (Hence its usefulness in development, but not selection.) Rogerians have long held that the human soul shrinks in the presence of judgement; Frederickson has solid research evidence that we flourish in the presence of positive emotion (see Chapter 12); and countless people over the years have said to me that MBTI worked for them because it felt true, but not judgemental.

2. 2Applications for coaching
   • (a)How to coach, by personality type

     The advantage of simplifying responses into either/or preferences, is that you can build detailed and comprehensive support materials from that base. The most crucial for business coaching – I would suggest, one of the most important references in this entire book – is Introduction to Type and Coaching (available from https://eu.themyersbriggs.com), one of a series of almost two dozen substantial booklets that help put the MBTI to practical use.

     The coaching booklet is based on the solid data set built up over the decades, from millions of people taking the MBTI each year. Based on that, the booklet sets out detailed guidance on the strengths of each preference; what typically goes wrong for them; and, very usefully, what the research evidence says is the best way of tackling the deficits. The material is highly accessible, presented in short bullet-point format. And best of all, for each preference, there is a section on how best to coach them! This might sound appallingly prescriptive, but it somehow manages to strike the right balance of offering extremely useful tips, yet without cramping coach or coachee’s individual style. Indispensable.

   • (b)Stress and getting out of it

     That very useful coaching guideline is becoming well-known, but much of the other supporting material remains untapped by coaches. For example, another booklet in the series, In the Grip (also available from https://eu.themyersbriggs.com), is about stress. Others talk about ‘coping’ with stress, but the MBTI isn’t content with mere toleration: it offers tried-and-tested means (again based on decades of experience and data) of how to get each type out of it. The business benefit, to say nothing of the reduction in human suffering, of having methods that consistently and reliably shorten times in anger, depression, or any of the other ways different types react to chronic or acute pressure, are very significant.

   • (c)Change

     Similarly, there is detailed guidance available to assist coaches working with people going through change, in Type and Change (also from https://eu.themyersbriggs.com). One learns in that, for example, that of all the types, it is ISFJs who have by far the most difficulty coping with change, particularly if it is suddenly imposed from the outside. The counsel is to back off – exactly the reverse of what, in misguided helpfulness and concern, colleagues, consultants or coaches might otherwise do. Again, it’s not prescriptive, but provides valuable food for thought in dealing with an unfamiliar personality make-up, or a puzzling reaction to a situation.

   • (d)Conflict

     Here I refer you not to a helpful booklet, but back to the original Jung. In Psychological Types³ – which I warmly recommend not just for its insight but as classic literature – he says in cases of conflict, look to the middle two scales, S/N and T/F, which are about how we process information. Often if two people are irritating each other, one of these is the culprit. Ss drown Ns in too much data; conversely, Ns never give Ss enough information – so both chafe, and think the other incompetent. Similarly, if needing to take a joint decision, Ts may get irritated at Fs’ subjectivity, while the Fs get cross at the Ts’ detachment. No one here is setting out to be difficult, all are people of goodwill, they are simply processing data differently.

     In any event, if a coaching client reports being consistently wounded by another person, investigate a possible S/N or T/F mismatch. If this is indeed the problem, sighs of relief all round as with quick explanations, and agreement to try and remember the other’s requirements, the tension can vanish almost overnight. (Until the next time – so a memory-jogger might be helpful too!)

3. 3Development

   Jung was most unusual among psychologists: instead of studying babies, or the mentally ill, he had a particular interest in adults, and especially the highest performers. A central feature of his account of personality is therefore a description of how we develop in mid-life, and I notice clients find it uncommonly liberating. Jung said the tasks of the first half of life – forming relationships, earning a living – are carried out using the genetic preferences – I and S and F and J, for example, if you are an ISFJ. But the task of the second half of life is to bring out the other hitherto undeveloped preferences, the E, N, T and P, in this case, to become, as he puts it, a whole human.

   Lovely – and exactly how many of my clients experience it. People who have been extravert all their life become more reflective – the extraversion hasn’t gone away, they’re just developing another piece. In my own mid-40s (right on schedule, Jung would say) my natural N stayed very much with me, but suddenly I developed a passionate interest in two very S hobbies, gardening and family history, and both have given me great pleasure ever since. Jung wouldn’t see it as a ‘mid-life crisis’, just as normal human development.

   This is important in coaching senior executives: people at later career stages are often unrecognisable in standard MBTI terms. Their results tend to be quite undifferentiated (E4, N8, T3, J22, for example), and asked to choose between preferences they say, ‘but I can do both’. To which the reply is yes, they clearly do, but which was there from the beginning, and which has developed over time? Usually they can answer instantly. Hence the ‘development needs’ section of Type and Coaching is largely irrelevant – they have already knocked the rough edges off. But the booklet still remains very useful in helping them understand and work better with other members of their team.

Intelligence as confound

A final caveat: another aspect of raising self-awareness in senior executive coaching is that high intelligence can cut across almost everything we are mentioning in this chapter. So those familiar with MBTI will have a view of what a ‘typical’ type – say an ISTJ – is like, but for many of the individuals we coach, their intelligence is such that it almost wipes the other pieces off the board.

Professor Adrian Furnham says in fact in job performance only three things matter: ‘High G but not too high; high C but not too high; and low N’.⁴ That is to say, high intelligence (‘G’), but not to the point where it becomes disabling; high conscientiousness but not to the point of obsession; and low neuroticism, or being emotionally stable. Others don’t agree, and see individual difference in more complex terms, but there are times when I think to myself he’s right. Intelligence does indeed give a positive cast to other features; emotional instability/neuroticism gives a negative one; and many of our driven high-achiever clients wobble on the edge between conscientiousness and over-perfectionism. But only someone with Adrian’s great authority (and charm) can get away with handling the nitroglycerine of testing leaders for their intelligence; the rest of us must plough on with more conventional means of raising awareness in coaching.

MBTI and your coaching

If you are familiar with the MBTI, to bring this section to a close you might like to think about some of the following questions:

• ●What assets do you bring to your coaching as a result of your preferences?
• ●Which aspects of your profile present the greatest challenges in coaching?
• ●How might you mitigate these?
• ●And how might your preferences affect your approach to the business of coaching (e.g. marketing, selling, contracting, chemistry meetings, documenting coaching sessions, closing assignments, providing organisational feedback)?

2. FIRO-B

The MBTI is the first psychometric many people turn to in coaching. The second is usually FIRO-B (which stands for Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation-Behavior; for more information, and how to train, see https://eu.themyersbriggs.com). Whereas MBTI is an intra-personal instrument, i.e. it looks at the personality within us, FIRO-B by contrast is an inter-personal one, looking at the needs we have in relationships with other people.

The brainchild of Will Schutz, FIRO-B was developed at the time of the first long-range nuclear submarines. They were designed to submerge below the surface of the seas and stay there, invisible for up to eight months at a time. The designers realised the greatest ‘risk to mission’ was not a failure of the hardware, but the risk of what might happen among the men cooped up in a steel tube for eight months. As a result, Schutz was commissioned to undertake a research project of enormous scale, researching everything known on interpersonal relations and conflict, not just in psychology and science, but across the world’s great classic literature and religions as well.

Having boiled it all down, Schutz said the essence of interpersonal relations is a function of three things: inclusion, control and affection (I, C and A), and the extent to which we differ in our individual needs for each. His great stroke of genius, the thing that makes FIRO-B so exceptionally useful, was to then go on to split the scores from his test into two. He called them the ‘Expressed’ and ‘Wanted’ scores, i.e. what we signal to the outside world, and what we want within, for each of I, C and A.

The result is a simple 3 × 2 matrix, which he claimed, and research over the subsequent half-century has tended to support, gives the essence of an individual’s interpersonal make-up.

FIRO-B is of course useful in raising self-awareness in individual coaching, but its main application is in working with more than one person, or teams. The psychometric (FIRO-B is well within the ‘trait’ pale) shows how pairs or groups of people fit together – or not! – like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. If I have a high ‘Expressed Inclusion’, for example – naturally wanting to include most people in most things I do – and you have a high ‘Wanted Inclusion’ – naturally wanting most people to include you in most things – then our needs match beautifully and we’ll get along fine. But if we don’t have a good match, then two people of goodwill can rub each other up the wrong way, quite without meaning to. If, in the Gestalt saying, ‘simple awareness is often curative’ then FIRO-B is a peacemaker.

3. Strengths Inventories

Most of us are well aware of our weaknesses, and these are often highlighted in appraisals or other assessments. But particularly in historically modest Britain, we are often less clear about our strengths – yet knowing these is often required in coaching. The problem is, while we have clear and detailed language to describe what’s wrong with people, we had until two decades ago, much less developed ability to describe and understand strengths. If you went to a psychiatrist, they could consult the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual), a vast heavy tome that could detail with great precision which sub-variant of complex pathology you had – but there was nothing to chart human strengths with equal comprehensiveness and authority. Positive Psychology has invested enormous amounts of research effort to redress this balance. As a result there are now three major tools for coaches to use in raising awareness of strengths:

• ●The VIA (Values in Action) Inventory of Strengths. This is the result of decades of research by Martin Seligman, Chris Peterson and their teams at a number of top US universities, including the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan. More than 6 million people have already completed the inventory, which looks at 24 overall human strengths and virtues, identified by Peterson and Seligman (2004) in their landmark study.⁵ To try it, go to www.viacharacter.org (alternative links may be found at www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu) and take the test – it should take only 15 minutes, and as output you receive a short report listing your strengths. (Some may surprise you!) There are various payment options; one is free or fuller versions are available at a small cost. The free version is entirely sufficient for most purposes. The site also has a free library of further information.
• ●CliftonStrengths™ (formerly Gallup StrengthsFinder). In recent decades the Gallup Organisation has poured millions of dollars into research on strengths in the workplace, and has published its own strengths profiling instrument, CliftonStrengths, now available in several versions. (The name honours Don Clifton, one of the distinguished founders of strengths science.) To access it go to www.gallup.com and follow the links to Clifton- Strengths. The basic report gives your ‘top five’ strengths and some description; different cost options and fuller reports are also available. The Gallup instrument focuses on strengths relevant to work.
• ●Cappfinity (formerly Capp) Strengths Profile. Subtle but important differences in language and behaviour mean people should ideally use the strengths tool appropriate to their own context. Both the VIA and CliftonStrengths are American instruments; the Cappfinity Strengths Profile is the result of three decades of research by Dr Alex Linley and his colleagues on strengths in the European context. It is therefore likely to be the best strengths tool for people who grew up in that European context. (A US version is now also available.) Strengths Profile is also valuable as the only one of the three to take real-world account of our weaknesses, so providing a holistic, overall assessment of strengths, weaknesses and learned behaviours – and also what energises us. The Cappfinity research also identified further strengths not found in the VIA or Clifton instruments.^* To take the test see www.strengthsprofile.com. Again multiple cost options are available.

^* Such as ‘bounceback’ – perhaps something we have had to develop through Europe’s long and often difficult history?

Most valuably for coaches on the lookout for ways to deliver transformational results in clients, the Cappfinity Strengths Profile report also breaks strengths down into ‘realised’ and ‘unrealised’ strengths – that is, the ones you know about and play to, but also those strengths that currently lie untapped. For a person who has been promoted up to a new level, needing new approaches, their unrealised strengths corner is like ‘money in the bank’ – a potentially valuable resource that is authentic for them but that they perhaps didn’t realise they had. Equally useful for leaders and coaches of hardworking businesspeople is the ‘learned behaviours’ category, i.e. the things that we believe to be strengths, as we do them well and use them all the time, but that in fact drain our energy. A very important awareness to raise!

What else?

Beyond that core of intrapersonal + an interpersonal psychometrics + a strengths instrument + information from the context, what else should those coaching leaders consider adding to their toolkit? Perhaps:

• ●The ‘dark side’. The full Hogan suite of personality instruments (see www.psychological-consultancy.com) is comprehensive, including measures of personality and motivation, and famously including the Hogan Development Survey (HDS), which measures the ‘dark side’ of leadership. The HDS is unique as a reliable measure of management ‘derailers’ in the normal business population, and it is explicitly intended to support coaches called in to tackle individuals with dysfunctional interpersonal skills, or to fix damaged teams.
• ●Leadership. Tough times need ever more nimble leaders, but the avalanche of information and demands means leaders are often having to make crucial judgements with imperfect, unclear or conflicting information. The fascinating Leadership Judgement Indicator (LJI) (see www.hogrefe.co.uk) was developed to test how wise leaders’ decisions are. It tests them in a number of different business scenarios and is able to determine, for example, not just how they normally behave but whether they have the mental dexterity and complexity of self-concept sufficient to judge even against their preferred style when the decision or context require.

And in practice?

Given this wealth of resources to draw upon, what do coaches actually use in practice? I notice differences according to whether coaches come from a psychology background or not. If they do, then they tend to emphasise up-front assessment (sometimes called an initial ‘battery of tests’ – a phrase with a telling double meaning!). Non-psychologist coaches tend instead to engage in the coaching process first, contracting and drawing out goals for the coaching, then pulling in specific tests on an ‘as required’ basis, responding to the specific needs identified (if any).

An example of perhaps the extreme end of the former approach is in the case study described by Keil and colleagues.⁶ In their model, when coaching a CEO, two coaches work together, one a clinical psychologist, the other an organisational development specialist. The first stage of their approach is ‘fact-gathering’:

The consultants interview the client in considerable depth about work life, personal history, and current personal life, and the client completes a battery of Psychological tests, which may include such elements as the Adjective Checklist (ACL), FIRO-B, Myers–Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI), Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and a team management instrument. [plus] . . . the client prepares a list of those individuals who could offer information helpful to the client’s development process. Up to 20 work colleagues and significant persons in the client’s individual life are individually interviewed by the team following a structured data-collection format.

The second phase of the programme begins with a 2- to 3-day [offsite] ‘insight session’ during which the consulting team presents all of the collected information to the client to create a comprehensive portrait. This picture pinpoints strengths and shortfalls and offers perceptions of the client’s motivation, use of power and influence, decision making, expectations, handling of conflict, integrity, emotional competence, and other dimensions of personal and professional effectiveness. The consultants work with the client to consolidate the information and target areas for development, including the leveraging of identified strengths. Both parties collaborate to produce a document that integrates the collected data and use that information as the basis for a development plan that details specific and measurable goals and action steps.

By contrast, a respected senior UK leader who read this case as part of their own coaching training was incredulous that any CEO on their side of ‘the pond’ would have the time or interest for this quantum of introspection – and, with a slight raise of one eyebrow, what must it cost!

Admittedly the Keil example was from the pre-crash heyday. But the essence of it still prevails: coaches in another organisation I know still use a broad range of approaches to deal with individual difference. Different members of the group are trained in different tools, including Positive Psychology and the three strengths tests (VIA, CliftonStrengths, and Cappfinity Strengths Profile); MBTI; FIRO-B; and the Hogan Dark Side. Additionally, they take care to see their coaching in its context, through a series of initial interviews (though more like half a dozen than 20 – qualitative researchers know that 6–8 interviews are indeed often sufficient to get the key insights). They also constantly review other potential psychometrics and other lenses to work with, by bringing in a range of experts to their supervision sessions, to expand their potential range of approaches. (Although, remembering the tree in Chapter 6, sometimes plain coaching without all this can be very powerful indeed!)

We started this chapter by saying that Big Five coaching on its own isn’t enough; it needs to be supplemented by an awareness of how to flex to work with individual difference. In the next chapter we consider a particular aspect of individual difference: diversity.