PCM: The How-to Guide to Decoding the Human Black Box
How the discovery of motivators led to the development of the Process Communication Model, and how our communicative behaviors provide deep insights into the human personality.
Let's imagine the following everyday leadership situation:
A department head, who is well-known and highly regarded for his structured and goal-oriented approach to work, is holding his weekly meeting with his employee. The employee is a very quiet but extremely creative expert in product development. The topic on the agenda is the current slowdown in generating ideas for a new product. The department head, who has just learned new coaching techniques in his leadership training, wants to put them to use right away and asks his employee the following open-ended question: “What if, hypothetically, we were to call your best product developer while he’s on vacation and ask him for his first three spontaneous thoughts on the new product? What would he tell us?” The employee’s reaction is to gaze out the office window into the distance. He begins to respond as follows: “This idea […] of calling him while he’s on vacation […] makes me feel a little strange […]. Still […and during this pause, he closes his eyes…] I imagine […]…etc.” The department head then begins to explain in long sentences that it’s just a hypothetical question and that he wants to arrive at a solution by shifting perspectives and so on.
What the two of them don’t realize is that they’re already exhibiting pushy behavior—a sign of mild distress. Their constructive thinking has become clouded. If one of them doesn’t change their communication style at this point, negative behavior will follow. And this is predictable when you look at their typical communication patterns based on their choice of words, tone of voice, gestures, facial expressions, and body language.
Thousands of conversations like these—or similar ones—take place every day. And some of them do indeed turn out negatively. But what are the reasons for this? How do the driving factors come into play here? What do such conversations and their typical behavioral patterns tell me about a person’s personality? And: How can I steer such conversations in a positive direction?
The Drivers—From Clinical Concept to Management Application
Dr. Taibi Kahler, an American psychologist and transactional analyst, discovered five behavioral patterns during his clinical training in the early 1970s—observable through word choice, tone of voice, gestures, facial expressions, and posture—which he called “drivers.” These behavioral patterns can manifest both as introjected (“I must…”) and projected (“You must…”) forms.
He recognized the following pattern: “Regardless of whether a patient’s behavior suggested a diagnosis of psychosis, neurosis, personality disorder, or simply normal misbehavior, immediately before an outburst of distressing behavior, patients exhibited very brief behavioral patterns that appeared to be defensive.” (Taibi Kahler, Process Therapy Model, p. 20)
The scientific basis for his work—both on the Miniscript and its further development into the Process Communication Model—was behavioral psychology, as well as concepts from the transactional analysis of Eric Berne and his students.
Further research showed Kahler that these triggers were the starting point for a sequence of distress behaviors, which he called “miniscripts” at the time (now known as “distress sequences”). These distress sequences are not limited to patients; they also occur in a non-clinical form in healthy individuals.
He originally assumed that there were up to 60 variants of these miniscript sequences. In 1977, Dr. Kahler was awarded the ITAA’s Eric Berne Memorial Scientific Award for his concept of drivers and miniscripts. His further research revealed that only 6 of these negative behavioral sequences can be observed.
Dr. Kahler was now interested not only in observing the negative behavioral sequences but also in examining the positive behavioral patterns more closely.
Further research led him to view human personality as a layering of six personality types, which he called the “architecture of personality.” When we operate within this architecture, we have access to all of our positive behavioral patterns (“I’m OK, you’re OK”). Under stress, we abandon this “I’m OK, you’re OK” attitude and reveal our motivators before we display our destructive, negative behavioral patterns.
He called these six personality types —traits that every person possesses to a greater or lesser degree—the Perseverer, the Logician, the Empath, the Rebel, the Dreamer, and the Doer.
He writes:“My hypothesis regarding these characteristics included: character strengths, positive personality traits and communication channels, modes of perception, preferred social environment, leadership and interaction styles, habits, facial expressions, preferred living and working environments, and psychological needs as motivators. I no longer viewed a person solely through the lens of a single negative pattern in the clinical sense, but rather saw each person as having a personality structure comprising all six personality types, all of which could be activated in a measurable sequence.”
Further research was now necessary. In 1979, Dr. Kahler was invited by Terry McGuire, NASA’s chief psychiatrist for manned spaceflight, to assist in the selection of astronaut candidates. Since lengthy selection interviews proved inefficient, Dr. Kahler developed a questionnaire to identify the applicant’s personality architecture. This marked the birth of the Personality Pattern Inventory—a tool that today serves as a scientifically grounded resource for Process Communication Model training and consulting.
The mini-script and the driver concept have now been developed into a non-clinical methodology for communication, management, and many other fields of application
Language Patterns and Personality
If we now examine and analyze the communication patterns of our department head and his employee from the perspective of the Process Communication Model®—as a profiler would (see the box “PCM Personality Types and Communication Patterns”)—we very quickly notice the following:
The department head has a strong "Logician" component in his personality. When he experiences mild distress, his ability to think in a logically structured way is lost, and he tends to use overly detailed phrasing (Driver: "I have to be perfect for you").
His colleague exhibits behaviors typical of someone with a high “Dreamer” component. When experiencing mild distress, his calm, imaginative way of developing new ideas is lost. Instead, his clear inner images become blurred, and he feels that his emotions and thoughts no longer come from within him but from outside. He tries to endure this state internally (“I have to be strong for you”), but outwardly he becomes increasingly passive.
If we analyze these insights—which we can easily gain in just a few moments through trained observation of word choice, tone of voice, gestures, facial expressions, and posture—then I can deduce from them that,
- how—that is, using what linguistic patterns (words, tone of voice, punctuation)—I structure my next verbal interaction to encourage the other person to reconnect with their strengths and abilities and avoid slipping into negative behavior.
- which social setting is appropriate for interacting with my boss or a coworker.
- Which leadership or interaction styles are ideal for the person I'm working with, so they can perform well over the long term and enjoy their work.
- what are the main motivators that help the person I'm talking to cope with even difficult (life) situations in a positive and resilient way.
These and other insights into the “human black box” enable both the department head and the employee described to better know and understand themselves and others, and to use these insights to improve their interactions. And all this is achieved simply by adapting my communication style to my conversation partner and making a few simple adjustments to my self-management.
Simple and highly effective—every time!
So what should our department head do? Instead of long, explanatory, convoluted sentences, a directive communication style—adopting an “OK, OK” attitude—with clear instructions to reflect would be much more effective:
"Imagine—just hypothetically—that we were to call your best employee! […] Ask him to come up with his top three ideas for the product off the top of his head […] Take a moment to think this through for yourself! […] Tell me what three ideas would come to his mind!"
This directive, structured style of communication helps people who perceive the world primarily through reflection to organize their thoughts and express their imaginings to others. Questions, on the other hand—such as those the department head asked at the beginning—are “communicative poison” for him and lead directly to negative distress behavior.
The Missing Link to Other Theories and Models
What Dr. Taibi Kahler has developed from the "drivers" using the Process Communication Model® is a set of concepts and tools that can be universally applied in any communication situation. This makes the PCM a communication AND personality model that can be uniquely integrated with nearly all other successful theories and models. With the PCM, for example, the
- Situational Leadership
- Systemic Questioning Techniques
- Team Development and Change Models
- Sales and Negotiation Techniques
- Conflict Resolution Models
- Didactics
- and much more
be tailored to each individual and their unique personality. And this can be done without having to memorize and master a multitude of models. Process communication is thus the missing link between all these models and the individual.
This allows already successful theories and models to be given a turbo boost, so to speak. This is an ideal addition to the service offerings of existing consultants, trainers, and coaches in particular.
Experience it instead of just talking about it!
The drivers and process communication are very dynamic behavioral patterns that are evident in every moment of our interactions. That is why the best way to experience and learn process communication is in a PCM seminar led by one of the certified PCM trainers. After just a few days in the PCM seminar, participants’ diagnostic eyes and ears are so attuned that they can assign speech patterns and behavioral traits to the PCM types with such accuracy that they significantly improve their use of process communication techniques in their personal lives and interactions with others immediately after the seminar.
See for yourself what PCM has to offer—sign up for a PCM seminar, or treat yourself to a PCM profile and coaching session with one of our certified trainers or coaches.
