Are you an adult, parent,
or child accountant?
Dear subscriber
 What’s your take on Jekyll and Hyde, one-and-the-same protagonists of Stevenson’s tale of a physician and his murderous Other Self? Gothic Horror nonsense? Real human behaviour, albeit psychopathological?
Or something closer to home?
To put it another way, how do you see yourself? Are you a simple, uncomplicated soul?
Or are you complex? Either way,
I bet you don’t brag about your ‘multiple personality’, which suggests ‘disorder’.
In truth, however, we all have Other Selves, and some of us switch between them easily although unconsciously. Others keep rigidly to a dominant ego state, an inflexibility that some people admire but many dislike: the parent treating family like an awkward shareholders’ meeting, or the managing partner drilling trainees like squaddies.
In fact, different communication styles are so normal that our friends don’t expect us to behave on holiday as we do at work: they’re surprised only if there’s no difference, or if the difference is breath-taking.
‘Good God! Sixteen pints of Carlsberg and those rugby songs! See him flaunting at the Audit Committee, you wouldn’t believe it...’
Let’s consider parents and children. There are two distinct parental ego states, one that controls and criticises the child and one which (we hope!) nurtures and cares. These are learned from parents’ own childhoods and are deployed automatically. They are complemented by the mature adult ego, which is less automatic, more reflective, and based on logic rather than feelings and prejudices.
The child ego also has two automatic facets, one that is naturally primitive and undisciplined, the other acquired from parental discipline and possibly complicated by guilt and rebellion.
We are able, by using Transactional Analysis, to study how our decisions and communications are based on thoughts and feelings, and to put that knowledge to use.
 So in the office it helps to know which ego state is to the fore,
and whether it’s the most effective. Your Genghis Khan approach to discipline and sanctions (‘it never hurt me...’) is unlikely to enhance staff relations. Treating colleagues like children, however kindly, is also
unwise. Remember too that switching communication styles keeps people alert, but that if
you always behave to type they
will quickly read you like...well, like
a story by Robert Louis Stevenson!
Need a little more help?
Just email me at info@theaccountantscoach.com
and book a complimentary telephone consultation.
theaccountantscoach.com,
I’m here to help!
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