The Identity Iceberg

You can see what somebody does and what it produces. Everything that causes it sits below the waterline, out of sight — including your own. That is why performance conversations dealing only with behaviour work for about six weeks: the behaviour changes while somebody is watching, then reverts, because nothing underneath it moved.

The iceberg gives you a diagnosis. When a behaviour will not change despite genuine effort, the block is at a lower layer, and effort applied at the top is wasted. The practical value is knowing which layer to work on before you spend money on a course, a system or a new diary.

The five layers

Behaviour and results — above the waterline

The only part anyone can observe: what you do and what it produces. It is also the only part most management attention is ever aimed at. Push on the tip and it springs back.

Skills — what you can do

Capability. Could this person perform the behaviour if everything else were in place? Skills problems are the cheap ones to fix, which is exactly why you should rule them out first rather than last.

Beliefs — what you hold to be true

What you take as true about the market, the work, other people and yourself. Beliefs quietly decide which behaviours are even available to you, and they are almost never examined because they feel like experience.

Values — what you will not trade

The things you hold to even when they cost you. Values are not the problem and rarely need changing. What usually needs changing is the method you have attached to them.

Identity — who you think you are

The shortest layer to describe and the hardest to shift. “I am the one who catches things.” Identity sets the range of behaviour that feels possible, and the business gets built to fit it.

Why does it matter to an owner?

It applies to you first. Take the owner who cannot stop working evenings. He has tried a time management course, a new diary system and a rule about laptops after eight. Each one lasts about three weeks. The habit is not the problem; it is the visible tip of something further down, and no amount of scheduling will touch it.

It applies to your team second, and it is the difference between a training budget that works and one that does not. Somebody who will not sell may not lack technique. They may believe that selling is imposing on people. Send them on a second course and you have bought a better set of tools for somebody who does not believe they should pick them up. The same is true of a manager who will not hold people to account, and of a tradesperson who cannot bring themselves to charge for extras.

It also explains why change programmes fail. A new system is a behaviour change resting on a belief about whether information should be shared. The software is rarely the reason it did not stick.

How to use it this week

Pick a behaviour you have failed to change twice

Your own, not somebody else’s. Two failed attempts is the signal that the cause is below the waterline.

Ask the capability question first

Could you do it if your life depended on it? If genuinely not, it is a skills problem, and skills problems are quick and cheap. Do not go looking for deep causes until you have ruled this out.

Find the belief

Ask what would have to be true for the current behaviour to make complete sense. Write the sentence down. It will usually sound reasonable, which is exactly why it has survived unexamined.

Test it against the last two years

How many times has the feared thing actually happened, and what did it really cost? Most of these beliefs are built from one incident and have never been reviewed since.

Separate the value from the method

Keep the value. Design a different way to satisfy it that does not depend on you personally. If reliability is the value, personally reading every document is only one method of achieving it — and a poor one, since it makes you the bottleneck and you are tired by six. A two-stage sign-off with a checklist, tested on the lower-risk work, satisfies the same value without the same cost.

Do the same for one person before booking another course

Ask what they believe about the activity they are avoiding. If the answer is a belief, more training is money spent to feel like you have acted.

The mistakes to avoid

The first is going straight to the deep layers when the problem is a broken system or a missing skill. Some people are not doing it because nobody showed them, or because the process makes it impossible. That is quicker and cheaper to fix, and starting with somebody’s identity when the real issue is a bad handover is both insulting and a waste of a fortnight.

The second is the reverse: treating every repeated failure as a training need. If you have paid for the same course twice, you have a belief problem with a receipt.

The third is doing amateur psychology at other people out loud. You can ask somebody what they believe about a task and listen properly to the answer. You cannot diagnose their identity for them in a one-to-one, and attempting it will cost you the relationship. On yourself, dig as deep as you like. On other people, ask questions and let them do the digging.

Questions to ask yourself

• Out of 10, how much of what you do in a week is chosen, rather than driven by who you decided to be in the early years?
• What behaviour have you tried and failed to change more than twice, and what would have to be true for it to be sensible?
• Which of your beliefs about your market or your customers has not been tested against evidence since you started?
• If you stopped being the person who catches everything, who would you be in this business instead?

Where this fits in coaching

This is the diagnosis we run before spending money on another course or another system. It is worked through in Personal Coaching, and it sits alongside two related mindsets: Identity and Beliefs and The GROW Model.