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Transactional Analysis

Process Communication Model (PCM): Harmonizer

Some people are focused on data, some on exchanging opinions. Some wants to have fun, and some want to stop talking and start doing. And some are speaking emotions and take care of others. Do you know one or two people who are strong in that are? That’s the Harmonizer. The fifth out of six personality types in Process Communication Model. We’ve started the story about PCM HERE, then we’ve described Persister, Thinker, Promoter and Rebel. Today we’re adding another piece to our PCM puzzle, so we understand different people once we meet them, have them as team members or stakeholders in different circumstances (professional and private). For those of us who has little Harmonizer energy, this one can appear like an extremely emotional person who can’t think logically. Why? Let’s unpack it today!   How do we recognize Harmonizer?    Harmonizer is a person who experience the world through the lens of emotions. Most of the time, they use their empathetic state: they have a very good and fast access to their emotional states, and they use this skill to map and understand it with others. How to recognize a Harmonizer in the Base of personality? Again, the easiest way to make a strong hypothesis is to look for the key words that the person uses the most. For Harmonizer it will be: “I feel”, “In my heart…”, “I love…”, “I am sad”, “I feel frustrated…”. They’ll use the whole spectrum of wording that describes emotional states. They say all that because they want to connect with others, but differently than a Rebel who wants to connect with as many people as possible, to share reactions. Harmonizer wants to have meaningful relations, that are important for them: privately and at work as well. They take care of others, about the atmosphere in the team. When they see a micro conflict or even a symptom that one can appear, they do everything in their power to stop it. They remember about birthdays, taking charge of organizing gifts, birthday cards and all types of evidence that we care about each other. The recognition of Harmonizer is also easier when we look on their non-verbal communication: most of the time their face is warm, with a lot of sighs of emotions on it. Their voice is soft, soothing, comforting. They lean heir body towards the other person while taking with them, using a moderate number of gestures to emphasize the support and care that emanates from their bodies. If you see and hear it, that’s a strong indicator that there’s a Harmonizer in the Base on the other side of the communication process. How to use it to get along with that kind of person?   What does Harmonizer need in communication?   The Harmonizer needs communication process where they have a chance to express their emotions. Extremely important for them as well is to have a space, where they can go into contact with others to build meaningful relations and to matter to people. To be efficient in communication with Harmonizer, we need to use nurturative channel of communication. It means that we need to reach to the comforting and caring level of our energy to open a conversation. That means that asking questions or directly saying what’s there to be done won’t work in Harmonizer’s case. How to do it? Using the same example as before: when we want to delegate a task, so a chosen employee covers it, the great approach will be opening the conversation with care first. “Hi Kate, thank you for finding out the time for us to talk. I know that lately it’s been hard, so I am grateful that we made it together. I’m going to take some things out of your plate and in exchange, I have a task that I feel will be a good fit for you.” Once they FEEL cared of, we have them on board to discuss the details (scope, deadline, support, required learning etc.). They value Benevolent interaction style. It means that they need care, meaningful relations within they feel that they belong, are needed and important part of a team or community. One of the worst things that we can do while getting in contact with Harmonizer is to be too directive, asking questions, in a high speed won’t work very well too. Yes, they need structure and clear contract on what’s there to be done and for when, but they need to be in comfort to work around it. They value relations over goals, so it’s crucial to remember about it while building an environment for them. Harmonizer seeks to answer the existential question: am I loved? It’s not always about the romantic love. It’s more about the feeling that we are important, needed, valued as people. That we matter for others. For them the following equation is the only truth.   I’m loved by others = I’m valuable as a person   Two motivational needs attached to this PCM type are recognition of person and sensory. It’s important to know it, since when those needs are not met, Harmonizer goes into distress and loses access to their skills, abilities to think clearly. Recognition of person means that we are seen as people. Not for what we do, but who we are. It’s different than the recognition of work that we’ve seen in case of a Thinker or Persister. Instead of “good job” we say: “it’s good to have you here”. The sensory means that this person is experiencing the world by using their senses. The environment should be nice, pleasant, they like colorful clothes, comfortable, warm and soft. Listening music or other sounds that have a good impact on their mind and body. Experiencing the nature, having plants in the room. Each Harmonizer can need something a little different, but the key thing is that they feed their senses. That kind of environment will cover what’s the most important for Harmonizer so they can

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Self-Development

What Kind of Rituals Do You Have in Your Life?

While running the other day, I was listening to the podcast by Lori Harder “Earn Your Happy: This Will Get You the Results You Want in Your Life Fast!”. And there was one sentence at the very beginning that stick with me, and I thought about it a lot afterwards. “If you have in your life the results that you are not very happy about, it means that you have a ritual that creates that kind of result”. So basically, it’s about connecting the dots between what we do and what kind of outcome we get because of making a certain decision (or not). It seems obvious, as well as the quote that I got from the podcast, but it dawned on me that many times in our life we don’t think that way. We look for guilty and blame the outside world for something happening to us. I can’t lose weight, because of my genetics (big bones). It’s impossible for me to take care of myself, because I have kids. I’m not becoming the entrepreneur, because I need financial stability that 9-5 job gives me. I feel bad after eating another piece of candy or slice of pizza, but I can’t help it. We all have those voices in our heads. They relate to all areas of our life and it’s natural to have them. Our brain tries to protect us all the time from being hurt, suffering or feeling disappointed. That’s how rituals are made. What kind of rituals in different life roles you have that bring you certain results? Let’s dig deeper into this subject today. Health Rituals What kind of rituals do you have regarding your health that give you certain results? Do you like those results? Are you healthy: physically and mentally? Sometimes we are surprised that we eat in some way, don’t work out or don’t take care of our sleep and we are tired, we gain weight, or we can’t focus. Examples of the bad health rituals and their results? At the other hand, there are some examples of good health rituals and their results: Do you see the difference? The rituals we have shape the results we get, the emotions we feel and the thoughts we have in our heads. If you don’t feel happy or satisfied with your health and body, it means that you have rituals in your life that give you that kind of results. What can you do differently in this area? How can you change your rituals to get some other results than before? Work Rituals Are you satisfied with your professional life? Are you who you want to be? Or you hate Mondays, waiting for Friday every single week and having a stomach age every Sunday afternoon? What kind of rituals do you have now connected with your work? Do you work every day 12-14 hours, barely see your friends or family and feeling constantly guilty about it? But you do it for them, right? So they have a good life, or you can spend time together travelling or hanging out in fancy places? Or maybe you just love what you do so much that you lose the track of time and that’s why you don’t have space for rest or anything else? Or maybe you didn’t participate in any training session, workshop, mentoring or coaching program for years and you are surprised that you are the last person in line to get promoted, younger people beat you in any category of activities and you are upset about it? The second scenario is that you invest time every day to be a better specialist, manager, entrepreneur or colleague for your teammates. Even if it’s just 5 minutes of reading or listening to the podcast that feed your brain, you do it consistently. And it pays out. Maybe you look for the opportunities all the time, seeking proximity to those people who achieved success, so you can learn from their experiences. The choice is yours. Many people look at all those experiences and say that it happens to them, the circumstances are not very good, it’s not a good time or economy. And it’s so not true. Rituals you have in your work-life have consequences that create your professional reality. Relations Rituals If your relationships are not looking like you wanted them to like, most people look for guilty outside of themselves. He/she is not behaving “like before”. I reached out twenty times, now’s the time for my friends to do the first move. My parents weren’t very supportive when I was a child, so now I’m going to punish them, and I won’t contact them more than every other Christmas. Or I’m so busy that I don’t have time to make a 5-minute call and check what’s up. What kind of rituals do you have in terms of the relationships in your life? And what kind of results are you getting from it? Do you spend time that you have together with your significant other by scrolling social media, instead of focusing on what the other person is talking about, and your relationship is falling apart? You are calling or writing to your friends only when there is an emergency or you need something, and they stop reaching you out? Or maybe when you with someone, you put your phone down and have a quality conversation with the other person, so you feel closer to each other every time you speak? Or maybe you call your parents every day, even if it’s just 5 minutes while you simply exchange what happened during the day and say that you love each other? Rituals that you have make the results you get. If you invest time, focus, good energy, care in the people that are around you, you have certain, mostly positive outcome. If you don’t, there is also an outcome: but I bet most of us prefer to have those results coming from the first scenario.

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