Psychology Behind the News

Behaviours Explained & Motives Uncovered

In the real world there is no second place, no merits for being runner-up and no plaudits for having at least made an attempt. If you don’t win you might as well have come in last. This is something that the new Generation Y don’t appear to understand.

 

Harsh but true. Brutally honest it may be, but important to recognise and respect non-the-less because it is the reality we all have to live with. It really doesn’t matter what political persuasion you happen to adopt, or what values you may personally hold; the reality of experience will affect us all the same.

 

The arrival of Generation Y has brought this into sharp relief. The generation that were born into the virtual reality of never having to win; they just hit the reset button and start over if they need to, or better still change the game so they’re guaranteed success. This generation don’t know what being competitive means or how to go about it unless it’s vicarious. Sure, they’ll scream for their football team and aim to compete for the highest game score. Yet when it comes to competing for real achievements in the real world, they haven’t got a clue. Cosseted by the cotton wool of ever increasing health and safety rulings, they no longer know what it feels like to be first to climb the tree in the schoolyard or to be first to score in a game of murder-ball. Their well meaning but deluded teachers steer them away from any competition for fear that anyone who doesn’t win may suffer hurt feelings. They have been starved of the experiences that would otherwise have served them well in later life. They now find themselves in a world that only recognises and rewards real success, and don’t know how to cope.

They run crying to the HR manager when their boss dares to criticise them. They quit rather than perform to a ihigher standard and are happy to be supported by parents or the state instead. They look for the easy way to get whatever they want and believe that if it’s available for someone then it ought to be available for them. They queue for hours to get on TV talent shows without having made an effort to become a polished entertainer or they spend what cash they have on lottery tickets and cheap booze in an ongoing attempt to get what they want. If they want it they believe they should be able to have it, and have it now!

They are a generation of lost souls; rarely happy with where they are and constantly searching for something that’s better, without ever knowing what it really is. What they are looking for is that which has been denied to them; the concept of competition, risk and reward: The chance to sink or swim with real consequences; the heady euphoria of success and the despair of losing that drives a person on to try again and try harder. It’s been said that people aren’t naturally lazy; they just have impotent goals. Without the frisson of risk there can be no genuine pleasure in reward. There is nothing more potent than the sting of loss to push a person into raising their game. They will come back into play more focused and more ready to win than ever. To be motivated a person needs a potent motive for taking action and there is rarely anything more potent than strong emotion; and the emotion of wanting to win is one that is learned through experience. Take that experience away and you take away potency. Remove potency and you’re left with goals that will inevitably be impotent. Is it any wonder then that we have a Generation Y the way that they are. They didn’t create themselves, they are our creation. We made them like this through our misguided political dogma and overly protective attitude. Attitudes and approaches that now must change.

 

You probably learned to ride your bike by having a few grazed knees. You may have learned to swim after swallowing a few unwanted mouthfuls of nasty water. If you are successful in your career, you got that way by learning that there are times when you have to win. You may not be able to win all the time. That’s not at issue. But to be taught that winning isn’t important is a lie. It is. Without the desire to win you become a loser. A whining, whinging, complaining, irresponsible, selfish and unreliable loser; traits that are uncomfortably reminiscent of Generation Y. Traits that have led them into the binge drinking, drug dependent, no-win-no-fee easy-at-all-costs lifestyle that now needs to change.

Those that change first will be the new winners. Paradoxically it’s true that those who accept responsibility for their actions, become accountable for their own success, and seek support to learn how to take risks will be those who reap all the rewards. Of course, they won’t be successful straight away. There is no golden stairway to the winning enclosure. They will surely take a few falls along the way and have to pick themselves up, dust themselves down and get back on their chosen path; but it’s only by having those experiences that they’ll gain the skills and attributes that are necessary to become winners. These are the keys to the locked doors of success. Earn them and the doors will open. Just expect to be given them and be prepared to wait forever in frustration.

 

The good news is that anyone with the desire to change can be coached to become a winner. I can’t always guarantee they’ll win at everything they attempt, but I can be certain that the act of genuinely and seriously trying to win will lead them closer to their goal.

In the grand scheme of things coaching is relatively new and is still developing ways in which to accurately communicate what it does and how it does it. Like any acquired skill a competent coach can make it appear effortless to an observer. A skilled chef coordinates a busy kitchen; holding in her head essential knowledge about ingredients, cooking methods, the science of food combinations and leadership skills to harness the best from her team. Yet can appear to orchestrate the production of a restaurant full of fabulous meals night after night as a matter of routine. So it is with a skilled and practiced coach. He or she will have spent years studying and gaining practical experience in the application of coaching models that are brought together in just the right quantities and with the correct timing to produce outstanding results. Unlike the chef however, the coaches recipe will always be unique; they will know which ingredients to bring to the table but it won’t be until the client participates too that the exact recipe for that particular individual comes to light.

 

Clearly, experience gained outside of coaching can be invaluable; particularly if that experience has been gained in management and leadership. However it is not enough to enable a person to become a coach, any more than eating at a restaurant qualifies a diner to become a chef.

 

The models that a successful coach will need to have learned, explored, experienced and understood will include at the very least, the following: 

Although variously described, you can pretty much distil coaching models down into half a dozen sub-headings. One is a mixture of ‘client led’ approaches that have developed in response to breakthroughs and insights over the past forty or so years. Another has come about through the adopting of theories about the way people act and react to the world around them, another from specific research into what makes people change what they do. Two have been adapted from existing psychological ‘approaches’ and only one was specifically developed as a genuine coaching model. The others however are just a valid as coaching models even though they didn’t come about in that way.

The first Client Led model includes something called the ‘inner-game’, the ‘grow’ model and ‘co-active’ coaching. Simply put, the inner-game recognises that all people have a dialogue going on inside their heads; and that to create effective change that internal dialogue must be aligned with conscious goals if conflict is to be avoided. The ‘grow’ model is a simple methodology tool; a route map for coaches to follow that puts the client in charge of their own destiny but allows the coach to help them get there. It’s an acronym for establishing a ‘goal’, recognising ‘reality’, exploring ‘options’ and establishing ‘willingness’ to act. Finally co-active coaching is a relationship positioning approach; it puts the client firmly in the driving seat with the coach as a facilitator to draw from the client everything they might need to change.

The second model derived from a theoretical approach is called ‘integral’ coaching. It’s very useful as it provides an overarching framework from which to look at any coaching issue. Often described as the ‘Wilber’ model it suggests that any issue can be looked at as a matrix of four quartiles: Imagine a horizontal axis detailing a person’s perspective; that being either ‘internal’ or ‘external’. The vertical axis then suggests either an ‘individual’ or ‘collective’ understanding of the world. This provides a coach with a way to prompt the client to think about an issue by exploring the four quadrants: (Top left) their internal perspective and personal understanding of what’s going on. (Top right) the way other people perceive them and what others people might understand is going on. (Bottom left) The way their ‘group’ perceives things and the collective understanding from that group as to what it all means. Then finally (bottom right) is the way the world might perceive and understand the situation (by using existing labels or concepts).

The third model flows from specific research and is the NLP or multi-modal model. This is based on the principles of unconscious processing of information and communication. It suggests that the client will be influenced by events in ways that are not necessarily intuitive, and it suggests coaching tools like ‘appreciative enquiry’ (drawing from the client without influence), ‘clean language’ and ‘metaphor’ (influencing without agenda) and ‘meta-models’ of unconscious processing of information. By establishing the client’s goal a coach can use this model to help change behaviour by combining conscious and unconscious activity.

The fourth and fifth models both have applications outside of coaching and come from the world of psychology. Fourth is the model of ‘positive psychology’; it focuses on beliefs, values and needs in the search for ultimate happiness. The fifth model of ‘behavioural coaching’ draws from extensive psychological work in conditioning and adapting of behaviour as a science.

The sixth model is that of ‘ontological coaching’. Specifically developed as a coaching model this is as much a philosophy as a practical tool. It uses slightly different language to the other models and begins from principles rather than behaviour. It focuses on the clients ‘way of being’ and pulls together the triad of language, emotion and physiology. It suggests that the combination of what a person says, feels and does becomes ‘who’ they are. Hence only by exploring those and any ‘breakdowns’ within them can a person reach their goals.

 

An effective coach will be skilled and practiced in all of these models and will integrate them to create the best ‘recipe’ for each and every client.