Looking at the panels on this poster you will see that the first one shows a large parent, smaller adult and smaller child.

This picture of a person with a large Parental Ego State is probably a person who doesn’t know how to relate to someone if he or she isn’t “giving down” to the other person. The person with an oversized Parental Ego States oftentimes won’t be able to relate to you unless you’re willing to have them “parent you.” It might either be nurturing (which can be smothering) or critical (which can be demoralizing). But it will be parenting.

The middle panel gives us a small parent, a small adult, and a big child. Here, a seven year old runs the life.  There is very little self-discipline, very little self-control, they are totally fearful.  They are essentially everything a seven year old would be.

The third is a large P, a small A, and a large C. Most people I work with in my Executive Coaching look like that third panel. They have continued to raise themselves after their parents quit raising them. Their critical parent continues to try and get their compliant child to do the heavy lifting.

Oftentimes in sales, it will have to do with cold calling. They know they need to cold call. And so, the parent inside begins belittling the child inside – trying to shame the child into getting up in the chair and making those cold calls.

“What are you afraid of? They’re not going to kill you. Get up in that chair. What’s that? You don’t want to?”  Any seven year old would be afraid of cold calling. But the parent eventually coerces the child into the chair to make the cold calls.

This person doesn’t understand that they have an adult ego state in there who will understand much more about cold calling than you’ll ever convince a seven year old. How much better to nurture the child? “I see you’re afraid. I see you’re scared of cold calling. Why don’t you stay here. I, that would be the adult, need to go make some cold calls” would be a much healthier internal conversation.

The adult ego state needs to be exercised. In fact, exercising the Adult is one of the best exercises you can do.  Standing in front of a mirror, work hard at saying things without any emotion. No emotion allowed, not even a curled lip. I find you can say almost anything to anyone when you speak with no emotion from the adult.

Practice this ego state so that you can access the ego state that’s appropriate for any given communication. When tempted to speak from the critical parent, go to your adult, but seek 70% to speak from your nurturing parent.

Then again on any given day, you might not be able to find your nurturing parent. That’s when the words “Help me understand” become important. That word track is the battle cry of the nurturing parent. “Help me understand how that happened.”  “Help me understand what was going on when that occurred.” The nurturing parent often has to begin with a word script (i.e. behaviorally).  The emotions can come along. but on any given day you might not be able to find the nurturing parent, and you’ll need to lead from your behavior.

The parent, the adult, the child — three key parts of who you are. It ends up being a wonderful model for better understanding how we connect with other people in our leadership role.

Categories: Communications, Vitality

Tags: vitality