COLOUREM® by Excellence in Mind

The yellow system: the inner manager (extension memory)

This system covers all the neuronal networks in our brain that can process in parallel, i.e. that are designed to receive and process several items of information simultaneously. In this system, you have an overview and your emotional state is determined by composure.

The system must be understood as a kind of control centre for your biographical experiences to date. This is where your knowledge about your own desires and needs is stored, but also about your social environment. This system enables you to answer the question as to the ‘meaning’ of what you learn. If you cannot manage to activate this yellow system, the inner manager, the meaning of learning and thus the sustainability of learning success gets lost.

The blue system: the inner controller (object recognition system)

This system subsumes the networks working in a discrepancy-sensitive way, i.e. placing a focus on identifying inconsistencies. So, this system should be understood as the discrepancy detector in our brain. Your emotional state in relation to this area of the brain is dissonant.

Here, you control your actions and plans, and it is here that your error analysis has its home. The blue system shows you any inconsistency from the ‘norm’ you have established from your experience to date. The inner controller can stop you from implementing new knowledge, if it is insufficiently integrated.

The red system: the inner planner (intention memory)

This system covers all the functional areas that work sequentially, i.e. step by step.

This portion of your brain houses conscious thinking and planning. Here, you are in a position to devise precise work plans and steps of action before putting them into effect. This system costs a lot of effort and is very heavily involved in any intake of ‘new knowledge’. Your emotional state in this area of the brain is characterized by objective sober-mindedness.

Whether the ‘new knowledge’ can be incorporated in a sustainable way is contingent on how well the link between the red system, the inner planner, and the yellow system, the inner manager, works.

The green system: the inner doer (intuitive behaviour control system)

This system covers all the networks that work fully automatically and intuitively.

This area of your brain accommodates your intuitive behaviour control. The system becomes active as soon as you can actually apply your recently acquired knowledge. Your emotional state in this area is positive and full of joy.

The more you use this system, the stronger networking becomes, i.e. the stability of what you have learnt. And you will acquire the skill to transfer this new knowledge into a routine, permitting you to have this knowledge available without major effort.

You can simply act.

How do we utilize this knowledge for COLOUREM®?

In COLOUREM®, four coloured ground anchors serve to explain the different functions of the individual systems and their interaction in concrete spatial terms, to make them come alive motorically and emotionally and become conscious. One of our salient topics is self-regulation through emotional regulation: crucial for self-regulation are above all the interactions between the ‘self’ (manager), which processes information in a parallel and holistic way and whose activity is perceptible in the form of moods in the background of consciousness, the ‘ego’ (planner), which processes information in a sequential and analytical way in the foreground of consciousness, and the ‘controller’, which signals by negative emotion that something is wrong. The activity of the ‘self’ or ‘self-access’ in consciousness is a necessary precondition for identifying authentic goals and solutions to problems.

The ‘correct’ use of our information-processing systems in the brain is essentially contingent on our capacity to control the increase or decrease of positive and negative emotions ourselves, i.e. to influence them actively. This competence can be termed emotion management.

How do we utilize this knowledge for COLOUREM®?

An understanding of the neuro-functional dynamism of learning and brain development forms the foundations of COLOUREM®. Authentic self-development can only occur in a dynamic process with the inclusion of knowledge about competence development. It is known from neuropsychology that our brain only forms or reforms structures when we are either emotionally moved and/or actively use something repeatedly. So, we acquire new competences in dealing with the social context and our environment. Hence, individual skills and insights are not isolated building blocks, but function together in a complex structure and in reciprocal exchange. So, every competence necessitates the existence of other competences in order to grow in dynamic interaction.

In COLOUREM®, we exploit knowledge about long-term learning and development processes requiring the complex interaction between all systems in order to achieve sustainable results and hence stable integration. ColouRem® helps to reveal, expand and consolidate existing potentials with the goal of guiding the personality towards growth and maturity.

Dynamic Skill Theory

In classical development theories, children and later adults form competences in specific development cycles in similar ways. So personal development occurs as a kind of differentiation between biologically inherent abilities and the relevant interaction with the environment. This decides which skills are expanded to operate sustainably. Despite possibly similar basic dispositions, every development proceeds individually, and thus the mature or less mature system of the self mirrors the interactive dynamism between basic disposition and response from the direct environment. Fischer’s thesis is that systems and skills develop through the combination and interaction of stable states (e.g. biological parameters) with the most differing variants of environmental conditions (reference persons, culture etc.). According to Fischer, personal skills develop in the initially fragmented strands of a network that may potentially be integrated via different grades of maturity.

Like the 8-stage theory by Erikson, the Theory of Dynamic Skills describes a development in different stages, but, unlike other theories, places a focus on the fragmented, but parallel development of diverse competences, normally considered separately from one another. Hence, in Fischer’s view, development does not proceed according to a classical, singular ladder, as described by e.g. Piaget, but dynamically and in a non-linear manner. Fischer’s theory postulates four salient stages in development. The first stage describes the fragmented form of information reception, i.e. a natural, binary subdivision into positive and negative emotional bias. The next, second stage represents a simple level of initial integration skill, expressed in the ability autonomously to switch between positive and negative emotional bias. The third stage concerns a form of partial integration and the fourth stage stable integration. Within these four central stages, there are different levels of representation and abstraction ability that can be considered in a framework of a total of twelve different skills and four more abstraction levels.

The 8 development stages according to Erik Erikson

The first stage of development (trust vs. distrust) refers to the first year after birth and, in Erikson’s view, is crucial for the building of fundamental trust versus the forming of fundamental distrust. If the building of trust essential for the child takes place in its initial stage as a result of the prompt, appropriate and affectionate response to needs, which contributes to experiencing bonding security (see also Bowlby, 1951; Ainsworth, 1978), fundamental trust may develop.

The second stage of development (autonomy vs. shame) describes early childhood up to the age of three and lays the foundations for either autonomy or shame and doubt. Due to the increasing autonomy of a child aged between 2 and 3, at this stage of development it is crucial how the direct environment responds to the child’s attempts at autonomy and self-expression.

The third stage of development (initiative vs. guilt), age 3 to 5, is crucial for forming initiative vs. guilt. This stage concerns the child’s desire to assert itself, which in this phase particularly relates to initiative and assertion against opposition. At this stage, a kind of detachment from the parents takes place. If this stage lacks the foundation of bonding, or wholesome support, Erikson says that shame and feelings of guilt may develop.

The fourth stage of development (diligence vs. inferiority) refers to primary school age between 6 and 11 and describes in particular the ability to integrate the autonomy and self-competences acquired in a changed social environment.

The fifth stage of development (identity vs. role confusion), affecting the age group between roughly 12 and 20, concerns the differentiation of a person’s identity. At this stage of development, the greatest challenge in development consists in forming the most differing images of the self and others, related to one’s own traits of character, into a coherently integrated self.

The sixth stage of development (intimacy vs. isolation) concerns early adulthood as of the age of 20. At this stage, it can be seen to what extent a stable personal identity has formed over the previous stages and if it is possible for the young adult to allow genuine personal intimacy without surrendering a portion of himself, merging with others or experiencing his own needs as incompatible with those of others.

The seventh stage of development (generativity vs. stagnation) refers to adulthood between the ages of roughly 30 and 60 and the ability to pass on one’s own experiences and knowledge, i.e. positively to influence following generations or to be of unselfish support for them in their own existential development.

The eighth stage of development (ego-integrity vs. despair) describes the task after the age of 60, in which it is a question of the retrospective meaning of what one has experienced. If a person has managed to master the preliminary stages in such a manner that one’s own life seems to have followed a natural order and purpose, at this stage a kind of rounding off of the age-overlapping integrating system of the self takes place that, according to Erikson, can be termed wisdom. In Erikson’s view, despair emerges, when an affectionate and accepting look back over life does not seem possible and fear and anxiety dominate instead.

A closer scrutiny of the 8 stages shows that his model appears to go beyond a pure ego consideration, as the development tasks sketched on the different stages can hardly be attributed to an explicit, sequentially and analytically functioning ego alone. Rather, the identity development conflicts described indicate an expanded consideration of personality, additionally taking implicit aspects of the self into account.

EXCELLENCE IN MIND – LIESENFELD EXECUTIVE COACHING GMBH

The Liesenfeld Executive Coaching GmbH (previously Corporate Coaching Company) with its guiding principle EXCELLENCE IN MIND is an international coaching and consulting company, established in 1999. It is our mission to guide people towards personal maturity and professional excellence. With our own research sector (www.liesenfeld-institute.com), we work on a profound neuroscientific and personality psychological basis. We support companies and their executives with a major focus on authentic leadership, generation change in family businesses and transformational change. Core values informing our approach and manner of working are a fundamental stance of appreciation, professional excellence, growth and freedom.