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TOOLBOX: TRIED & TESTED – THE WORK TO BE DONE

by | Mar 5, 2024 | Articles, Road test, Toolbox, Tried & Tested

This issue: Tia Moin shares her True Self model for exploring diversity, equity and inclusion in coaching

 

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is an important priority for organisations. The Global Human Capital Trends survey by Deloitte (Eaton et al., 2023) reported that 86% of organisations surveyed wanted to incorporate more inclusive and equitable ways of working but in the same report, only 25% of organisations reported that they were ready to do so – revealing a readiness gap (Hatfield et al., 2023). 

It becomes easy to understand this gap when we consider the track record of some DEI initiatives, such as unconscious bias training (UBT) which was widely embraced but came under fire (The Behavioural Insights Team, 2020) for being ineffective at best, and making matters worse in some cases by triggering defensiveness. 

In the wake of significant, eye-opening events such as the wrongful killing of an African-American man, George Floyd, by a police officer in the US (BBC News, 2021) and reports of disproportionate numbers of death in minority communities across the UK during the COVID pandemic (Platt, 2021), there has been an increased spotlight on DEI action and outcomes, including seeing the introduction of gender and race pay gap reporting (García & Duncan, 2023; Office for National Statistics, 2023). 

However, despite billions being invested in addressing DEI in organisations (Paulise, 2021), there appears to be slow progress in changing the status quo. It makes sense that organisations, and more specifically the people within them, are feeling less confident to address matters of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

As a coaching psychologist, I was curious to explore how coaching could be used as a tool to address this confidence gap. In 2019, I completed some research published in the International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring into “inclusion coaching” – a deep exploration into the subjective and individual experience of a small group of clients who were leaders, teachers and healthcare workers wishing to build their confidence in supporting DEI in their professional lives (Moin & Van Nieuwerburgh, 2021). 

Readiness is a concept that often comes up in coaching – how ready is the client to be coached? Can coaching be used to get the client ‘ready’ to face an important but perhaps previously avoided goal? The Trans Theoretical Model of Change  outlines five stages of behavioural change: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance (Prochaska, 2008). 

Inclusion coaching works with individuals who are at the contemplation stage. They may have a stirring to take action, but may doubt if they have what it takes, or what to do specifically. This is understandable given the sensitive and often challenging nature of DEI work, fraught with fear of saying or doing the wrong thing (Rinderle, 2021). When facing the current, often disappointing outcomes from DEI efforts in organisations, individuals may experience difficulty finding confidence and self-efficacy which could be preventing future action and effective change. 

The coaching industry has not been immune to the challenges of DEI. That’s why representatives from leading coaching bodies and institutions have come together to form the Coaching Round Table – to mobilise action towards race equity as a start, previously highlighted by Charmaine Roche and Jonathan Passmore in their report (Roche & Passmore, 2023) as a pressing issue. There’s much work to be done in this area and we know from models of change that building self-efficacy, confidence and courage is a key foundation to taking the first steps. 

The exercise outlined below, which was introduced at the recent Roundtable webinar on moving race equity from the margins to the mainstream (see page 7, News), can help us and our clients move from contemplation to preparation and action.

 

True self exercise

The coaching model I applied in my research was strengths-based coaching – leveraging positive psychology principles diametrically opposed to traditional DEI interventions such as UBT. UBT focuses on a human deficit (our unconscious bias), removes autonomy and control (you aren’t even aware you’re being biased) and tends to induce negative emotions (you are hurting others with your behaviour). 

In contrast, positive psychology coaching focuses on human strengths (I’m guided by my character strengths, values and virtues), building competence (I’ve applied my strengths and values successfully in the past) and self-efficacy (I can do it again in this new situation) in an effort to empower individuals, create a clear sense of purpose and motivation and by leveraging the power of positive emotions. Indeed, it’s important for DEI leaders and advocates to be clear on their own purpose, values and strengths when engaging in such challenging territory where leader authenticity is key.

In my research I designed a coaching intervention titled: True Self (published in WeCoach! Coaching Tools, Passmore et al., 2021). The coaching tool leverages the theory of the true self (Strohminger et al., 2017), which posits that at our core, we’re all inherently good and noble – naturally inclined towards choosing and demonstrating morally virtuous behaviour. To access our true self, I implement a visualisation exercise, asking the client to imagine a scenario where they’re in a socially diverse situation – with people from all walks of life. I invite them to imagine their true self in this situation. To really get into the subconscious space of the client, we do this activity as a writing exercise, writing for at least 10-15 minutes. Because of the fear and negative emotion often surrounding the topic of DEI, the writing should be facilitated in a psychologically safe space where the client can write without fear of judgment or expectation of their writing. While there may be some debate about whether the true self is indeed real, thinking about a true self has been shown to increase prosocial behaviour and reduce intergroup bias (De Freitas & Cikara, 2018).

This exercise may seem similar to King’s Best Possible Self intervention (King, 2001), where one writes about their best possible self. However, it’s important to distinguish between a possible self and a true self. A possible self is a manifestation of future goals; a benchmark to work towards. A true self aligns with inherent personal attributes we believe already exist within us: core strengths, values and virtues that are an achieved benchmark to compare our current behaviour against. The client is can then feel authentic and intrinsically motivated towards DEI-aligned goals rather than driven by extrinsic pressures such as benchmarks or fear of being judged – aligning with the concept of a true and false self, proposed by psychologist Winnicott (1996). The True Self exercise combined with strengths or positive psychology coaching was found to enhance motivation and self-efficacy in DEI aligned goals of the coaching clients in my study (Moin & Van Nieuwerburgh, 2021).   

 

About the author

  • Tia Moin is a member of the Roundtable for Race Equity in Coaching, committee member and DEI-outreach lead for Division of Coaching Psychology, British Psychological Society, MD of The Inclusion Coach and PhD student at University of Reading, researching coaching and listening for DEI. 

 

 

References and further info