Leading a Successful Inner Team - Part 2
The world of work places high demands on us all: professional expertise, agility and flexibility, as well as first-rate social and communication skills to mention but a few. Sometimes it feels as if we need to become chameleons, adapting rapidly to each and every situation! And yet, these high external demands for adaptability cannot mean that we become like actors, putting on a persona. We rather need to find a way to extend our behavioural repertoire to fully utilise our inner resources, reconcile any inner conflicts and deal with inner resistance that keeps us acting from habit.
In our last article, we wrote about the Inner Saboteur or Inner Critic, an internal “warning system” that wants to keep us in our comfort zone, yet often undermines us and keeps us from adapting to change. It communicates with us through inner voices, repetitive thoughts, uneasy feelings, sudden impulses to do or avoid doing something. Typical messages we might hear internally: “You are not good enough at …” or “you don’t deserve this…”
We saw that this is not just an individual’s problem but can also affect teams in adverse ways and therefore warrants attention. We offered various strategies how to transform our Inner Saboteur into a valuable member of our Inner Team. That’s right - thankfully, the Inner Saboteur is only one sub-personality of many, albeit one that tends to be quite vocal and dominant in our internal decision-making.
The Inner Team
The “Inner Team” is a powerful methodology used in coaching, developed by psychologist Friedemann Schulz von Thun and based on earlier systemic work by Virginia Satir. It helps surface our inner plurality, the many subpersonalities or internal voices we hear or sensations we feel – usually they are quite divers, some self-confident and moving us forward, others harsh and critical. These inner voices are representatives of inner resources and come from our subconscious mind, wanting to be heard, creating an inner dialogue, discussing, debating, analysing or fighting the issue at hand. Some of the following internal characters often appear in our coaching work - the names are arbitrary and will change from person to person.
Star Performer / Inner Driver … wants to achieve, drive forward, “you can do it”, “a little bit more, then it’s perfect”
Adventurer / Free spirit / Curious One … gives everything a try, open to new experiences “that sounds so exciting, give it a go!”
Nurturer / Loving … like a loving friend or family member, tender support, “go slowly and take your time, no rush”, “be good to yourself”, “you deserve it”
Defender / Goal Keeper … knows when to say “no”, healthy boundaries.
Intuitive / Wise Wo-Man … has access to more subtle information, often communicates through hunches, body sensations, diffuse feelings or visions.
In addition to these Inner Team members, we all have an inner resource that is capable of neutrally observing the others. This is the part of us that takes an observer or “bird’s eye” view of ourselves. The more conscious we are of this inner resource, the more we can call on it to align the other Inner Team members, and decide and execute inner decision-making in an effective and congruent way. You could call it the Inner Leader (CEO or captain).
Inner Team Coaching
In the following, we outline a process of how to work with your Inner Team. This is best done working with a coach as you will need reflective space and full attention on yourself and your inner world.
We will use an example of a manager who hires a coach after he repeatedly gets feedback to improve his listening skills and impulse control. In the coaching sessions, the manager identifies concrete situations and examples he got feedback about and his development objectives. This is the point where, without strong self-awareness or guidance, we tend to launch into “problem-solving” mode – while this may patch up things for a time, unfortunately, it will not give us any new insights or prevent the Inner Saboteur from kicking in! A coaching approach – in simplified form – would look like this:
Work with the manager to access his Inner Leader. The Inner Leader or conscious self is the guardian of the client’s values and purpose, full of clarity, determination, wisdom and compassion. This could be done through guided visualisation or centering. Taking regular reflective or mindful pauses awakens the conscious self and builds capacity for inner dialogue, taking into account all inner impulses: positive, neutral and negative rational thought, emotions, body sensations and intuitions.
Have the manager think of the feedback received, identifying concrete challenges. The client should write them down, draw or visualise them. For example, the feedback includes that during specific meetings, he often looks at this phone and people read his body language as passive-aggressive.
After guiding the manager into a reflective space, ask him to observe what messages he is getting from his mind (e.g. “I have better things to do than waste my time!” or “I don’t know how to steer this meeting!”) and body (“I feel a burning sensation in my stomach.”) Make a note of what is observed to help the coachee identify patterns.
Guide the manager to organise the patterns into Inner Team members. Ask questions, such as Who are the Inner Team players? What do they say? What are they like? Can you give them a name? Can you visualise them? Who do they remind you of? The manager might identify a few Inner Team members that he calls, “slave-driver”, “bored one”, “achiever”, “helpless one”.
Help the coachee explore the underlying needs expressed by the Inner Team members and acknowledge them all as valid parts of the team. The coachee needs to listen deeply inside himself without judging. Activate the Inner Leader to start dialoguing with the Inner Team members. For example, his “helpless one” might need reassurance, his “slave-driver” will need a strong declaration that the Inner Leader will take care of this situation now.
The client will use his Inner Leader to listen to all Inner Team Members, dialogue with them, and make a balanced decision that is congruent with his values and purpose. He will identify actions and commit to a practising a new way of being. In order to sustain behavioural change and transform sabotaging habits, we work with mindfulness and breath techniques.
The Inner Team tool helps us identify, acknowledge and align the diverse aspects that make up our personality. By activating our conscious self, our Inner Leader, we achieve clear, effective and positive communication in our lives, both inside and out. As we consciously accept and work with our plurality, listen to conflicting needs and desires, our internal decision-making leads to more authentic and satisfying results. By the same token, the Inner Saboteur, as part of the Inner Team, gets listened to and starts loosening its subconscious grip on us.
