Do you find yourself spinning your wheels with a client? Maybe the Ware sequence is your answer.

My last blog was about behavioural drivers. I’d like to share a bit more about how you can work with people when you see them displaying one of the driver behaviours. I’ve found this tool incredibly useful and it’s helped me personally. This is the work of Dr Paul Ware and is often called the Ware Sequence but I’m not going to attempt to describe the whole model here as it’s got too many moving parts! I’ll just describe what I’ve found as one of the most useful elements in coaching and that’s the ‘Trap Door’

Ware described how clients have three different ‘doors’ through which you can approach them. These are different ways you make contact with the client and each adaptation has:

1. An Open Door – how best to establish rapport
2. A Target Door – where change can occur, and
3. A Trap Door – where you’ll get stuck

What I’d like to share is how to avoid the Trap Door for the 3 key Drivers of Please Others, Be Perfect ​​and Try Hard (please see my previous blog on Drivers). These are instances when a coaching conversation may take an unexpected negative turn where rapport seems broken or you just seem stuck.

Let’s take Be Perfect first

When using this driver the client will have already done everything they can do to be as perfect as possible. So when they subconsciously perceive any criticism of their behaviour their psychological defences come right up! The Trap Door here is Behaviour and if you approach through discussing behaviour, you will have unwittingly fallen through the trap door.

Perceived criticism of behaviour may not be coming from you. The client may be reporting an ‘imperfection’ in the judgement of their manager or an internal critic. If you stay in the mode of behaviour their defences will remain raised and it becomes difficult to maintain the level of trust needed for the coaching container to be maintained. So it’s necessary to move away from Behaviour (their Trap Door) and push against their Open Door which is Thinking – “tell me about your thoughts as you approached this challenge?” Appreciating their thinking will bring the rapport back.

Please Others

Alternatively, if their strongest Driver is Please Others they’ve already done everything they can do to please so any criticism of their behaviour brings their psychological defences to the fore. In this case, the Open Door is Feeling “How were you feeling as you approached this interaction?” Again, you’re just escaping the Trap Door.

Try Hard

For the Driver Try Hard, you know you’ve fallen through the Trap Door when you realise you’re spinning your wheels. The trap door here is Thinking. People can spend absolutely ages wrestling with a problem from a logical perspective. They can enjoy doing it too so you won’t perceive any defensiveness. You may be enjoying the intellectual sparring too if it engages your own Try Hard driver! This has happened to me and that’s when I metaphorically slap my forehead, realising “Oh no, I’ve fallen down the Trap Door!”. This time the Open Door is Behaviour but in the form of play (laughing) “We could spend hours sparring round this! Tell me how you really feel about it”.

I hope this gives you an added level of awareness so you can avoid or just notice the Trap Doors and encourage you to learn more about the Ware Sequence.

My favourite book on this topic is Personality Adaptations by Vann Joines and Ian Stewart (but it is 408 pages and includes a lot more than the Ware Sequence…)

This blog post is part of a collaboration between two Executive Coaches Sarah Turner and Gregor Findlay, co-hosts of The Coaching Question Podcast. This blog features as part of a special series on the topic of Transaction Analysis in Coaching. Check out the podcast here.

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