Understand to Be Understood: By Using the Process Communication Model

by Gérard Collignon, Pascal Legrand

In this book there is something for everyone. The theorist will have ample opportunity to test his or her current knowledge against this model, to find answers to questions and to stimulate more thinking. The person who needs to see and understand the value of committing time to learn something new will not be disappointed. You will certainly find a rich source of material that will add value when applied in the workplace. The person who likes to play with theory, tossing it around, testing it on friends and even applying it at work, will like this book, as there will be stimulation enough to satisfy. Those who care about people and want to know how to further improve on the quality of their relationships will love this book. People who need to grasp the nettle of tricky situations and apply what they know to get results quickly that make positive impact on their bottom line will grasp the power of this tool. Those who need to take time to turn things over and examine them by reflecting upon the learning points and seeing how to use the tools will find plenty to stimulate their imaginations. This book about coaching using PCM is overflowing with the complexity and at the same time the ordinariness of people in relationships.





This model can help you develop skills in four areas:


self-knowledge and self-awareness self-management knowledge and awareness of others relationship management



Happy Coaching!

Genres: Business, Personal Development

302 pages, Hardcover

Published October 20, 2016

Reviews

[Cory · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book requires multiple ratings.

As a book, two stars. It contains a wealth of excellent, highly useful material on the personality theory called the process communication model and how to apply it as a professional (workplace) coach. Yet it suffers from confusing organization, inconsistent and hard-to-follow formatting, bad (or nonexistent) editing, and possibly poor translation from the French at certain points. Not all self-published books betray a lack of professional support, but this one does, big time.

As to the substance, I give it both one star and five stars at the same time.

The personality model blows me away. It covers the bases of diverse human functioning more completely and more flexibly than any other I've seen, including ones I still admire and use. In particular, it is the first model I have seen that cogently describes how some people's personalities perceptibly change across powerful life shocks (that is, they talk and act differently and are sensitive to different things after a major crisis or transition) even though their underlying personality structure remains unchanged since early childhood.

On the other hand, the authors also assert a philosophical position about being human—really a presupposition or a faith claim—that I find very weak. The model claims that genuine communication between two people only occurs when each person believes both "I'm OK" and "you're OK." ("OK" isn't clearly defined.) That's probably true. But the authors go further and maintain that each person actually is "OK" all the time and that being and acting "not OK" is just a "mask," an inauthentic illusion. I'm convinced rather that the human condition is that we are each both "OK" and "not OK" simultaneously, all the time, and it's a paradox of life.

The authors also assert that if a person is getting their psychological needs met, they experience well-being. Fair enough. But the needs they identify, varying in significance by personality type—recognition for work and opinions, structured time, excitement, contact, solitude, personal recognition, and good sensory experiences—don't get to the core of human longing. Of course they're important for comfort, but if all of them are met and a person still lacks meaning, purpose, sacrificial love, belonging, identity, generativity, growth, justice, and the like, how much well-being will they really have? It's an astoundingly shallow prescription for human flourishing.

[bitter · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not very often that a book comes along that I find thought-provoking on every page. This is such a book.

For those familiar with Process Communication Model, this book provides valuable insights into the nature of base, phase, and stage perceptions, issues with each type, etc. Quite simply, it connected some dots for me. For example, I found the treatment of reactivating issues in Chapter 7 helpful in understanding some of my own behavior at work; I now understand a recent situation at work where I reverted into a prior phase of distress behavior.

Not only do I know, but I know how to respond in such a situation and get myself back on track, should this arise again In short, this is a fantastic resource into which you can freely dip in and learn.

I suspect that for those who have found Process Communication and Dr. Kahler's work so valuable, you'll want to read every word.

[Ante Rogosic]

If you want to understand yourself and others around you in a better way, this is the book for you. Why, after watching the same movie, do you and your friends have completely different impressions? Some of you will be amused, some will be inspired, and some of you will be sad. After reading this book, your communication skills will improve, and you will have less trouble accepting people as they are. It describes six basic personality types and their combinations which create our personality. The book is based on a process communication model created by Dr. Taibi Kahler, which has been tested on more than 1 million people and used by NASA to create the most effective teams for more than twenty years.

[Molly Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want to understand yourself and your colleagues better, choose the Process Communication Model. This book takes you through the different personalities (Thinker, Harmonizer, Persister, Promoter, Imaginer, Rebel). You learn how the different personalities behave when their psychological needs are being met, how to meet those needs, and what channel of communication is most effective. You also learn how to spot the signs of distress and communicate to mitigate this distress. Throughout the book, I kept saying, "Yes, that's my colleague." "Oh I see, my other colleague showed distress." As a manager you learn the strengths of each personality type and how to best use them. Highly recommended for professionals!

[Elisabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a very good way to get at grips with PCM. I have done a course with qualified trainer but wanted to solidify the theory and got this book. It has good examples and is comprehensive.
What I really despised in this book was what to me looked like lack of proof reading. Quite frequently sentences were missing words to make sense of them, punctuation was off, and at some stage in the book Imaginer was constantly named the Dreamer. So it left me with quite the draft feeling. And for that I cannot give it 5*.

[Richard Fitzgerald · Rating 2 out of 5]

This might be a good book, but I wouldn't say I liked it. It did solidify my opinion that Process Communication Model is essentially unusable in real life. The Model is far too complicated for a person who doesn’t study it as a profession ever to remember everything. I never could decide which of the six types was my “base.” I never fully understood the concept of “stages” and “phasing.” Phasing, in particular, read like a lame attempt to cover up a problem in inconsistency with people’s base type (kind of like the inconsistency problem with Myers-Briggs). The book was for coaching using PCM, and it seemed to gut the core of coaching to do so. It read more like “how you can manipulate your clients through PCM.” Further, it was written with too many lists and bullets to have any cohesive flow.