Action Steps: Specific behaviors that, when implemented routinely, become habits and achieve the stated Observable Behavioral Pattern from which they are derived.

A.L.A.P.E.R.: An acronym that stands for the six phases to achieve interpersonal perspective and empathy. These phases include Attention; Listening; Absorbing; “Paraflecting” (paraphrasing coupled with reflective listening); Exploring and Responding.

Attainment Motivation:  That motivational energy that is experienced when some desired goal is almost within reach.

Behavioral Pattern: A cluster of behavioral actions that become a pattern of behavior. An “Observable Behavioral Pattern” is detectable by observing a person’s actions, activity, movements, responses, or repeated behavioral executions.

Belonging: The goal of belonging on the useful side of life means striving to be valued and respected by others. All useful behavior that strives to overcome errors is a form of belonging.

Coaching -Work Performance: A leadership activity that clarifies specific work performance expectations and provides direct feed-forward ideas related to desired business results, where efforts are made to shape the professional’s more immediate performance for short-term to intermediate results.

Coaching - Self-Development: A leadership activity which is individualized and a more experiential leadership development process. This effort attempts to build a professional’s repertoire of broad based leadership competencies, where self-development means that improved skills are developed that can be applied “holistically” to greater workplace challenges, as they appear.

Coaching - Interpersonal Engagement: A leadership activity that promotes interpersonal “teaming” toward the organization’s mission, strategy, tactics and the interpersonal relationships that are team-focused on the same mission.

Coaching - Synergration: A leadership activity that promotes the behavioral integration of the work performance, self-development and interpersonal engagement outcomes into a greater “whole” of consolidated, innovative growth.

Confidence: Repeating courageous actions, including errors and successes,  builds a feeling of confidence.

Competency: A cluster of related abilities, knowledge and skills that enable individuals to act effectively in a particular job, position or situation.

Connection: The most basic form of encouraged “Service Beyond Self” that indicates a person’s willingness to be authentically present (“connected to self”) and also be in Connection (expressiveness and listening) with others.

Contribution: Striving toward the goal of Contribution demonstrates an interest in others, the organization, and creates more personal satisfaction in contributing to organizational success.

Cooperation: Activity completed “in harmony” with others for the common good. Cooperation with others, as an equal, is a goal that creates more productivity for organizations.

Courage: Hesitation shows a lack of courage. The loss of courage, or discouragement, suggests that the person fears the consequences more than he does inaction. Courage refers to the willingness to take a chance, knowing sometimes it will fail and sometimes it will succeed. In meeting the danger, one acquires courage.

Courageously Creative Contributors:  Employees who embrace the principles collaborative leadership and engage in consistent self-renewal as characterized by individual innovation, resilience and flexibility.

Creative Movement: Humans proactively adjust to their environments and in doing so, create the next set of environmental conditions for themselves. This view differs from the deterministic view of a totally reactive human, at the mercy of historical forces. Humans are capable of “becoming” (Adler) and “self-actualizing” (Maslow).

Domination: The act of domination over others takes many forms. Dominating behavior is often harsh, controlling, angry, and can be abusive. However, Domination can also express itself more shrewdly with power seeking and manipulative behaviors. 

Egalitarian: The proposition that all humans are equal in fundamental worth and each person is obligated to extend to others the same dignity and respect sought for oneself.

Entitlement: Striving for Entitlement occurs at the expense of service to team and organization goals. Such behavior appears in many forms and is characterized by arrogance, self-promotion and intense self-interest. Attempts to “rule over others” and the use of “command and control” tactics usually stimulates resentment in those talented enough to resist.  

Eupsychia:  Term coined by Abraham Maslow to describe a fictional culture that might result if a large group of truly self-actualized humans were allowed to flourish on an isolated and sheltered island.

Goal: Mental construction or representation of a desired outcome.

Goal Intention: Self-created instructions focused on action toward desired outcomes.

Growth Culture: A pervasive employee growth attitude in organizations that emerges from successful executives and managers who become coaching advocates for the Professional Growth Process while behaviorally demonstrating the success of the process for the employees they lead.

Holism: That the “whole” is greater than the sum of the parts; that the parts constitute a “unique whole.” The view that specifically observed behavior must be viewed in the context of a “whole” and cannot be understood solely in terms of separate instances, apart from each other.

Immanent teleology:  Originally formulated by Aristotle, this view asserts that human activity is purposive. An individual is guided toward a self-created end, that achieves self-realization in the course of the human's development. This view is the antithesis of determinism. See "Uncertainty Principle" below.)

Inferiority feelings: Those universal human feelings of weakness, ignorance, incompleteness and smallness first experienced as a child and often linger into adulthood, to a greater or lessor degree. Inferiority feelings are a source of motivation for overcoming barriers and compensating for self-perceived inadequacies.

Intentional Target: An “intention” is a self-created instruction focused on action toward desired outcomes, or a vision that is directional toward a purposeful commitment to carrying out actions in the future. A “target” is the name of the specific area of focus. Therefore, an “Intentional Target” is an outcome that is named and pursued intentionally, with conviction and purpose based on self-created instructions.

Law of Movement: Human behavior is understood only when viewed as movement toward a goal. An individual's unique activity is generated from the sense of incompleteness or being "less than" toward a vision of fuller completion and the striving toward unachievable perfection.

LifePsych® Coaching: Integrates performance, self-development and engagement coaching using the Professional Growth Process (PGP) designed to promote consolidated and innovative personal growth.

LifePsychia Team: Term coined by GEMA™-Lead360 to describe a “team culture” where each team member is intentionally making an effort everyday to be more connected, more cooperative and more contributing than the day before. In addition, each team member sincerely believes that every other teammate has the same intention.

Microlearning:  Refers to a focus on smaller units of learning that lead to a greater whole. It usually involves shorter-term learning activities completed more frequently over time. The near-term focus is best related to larger strategic objectives such as the mission and goals of an organization.

Mini-vision: Stated goals or “milestones” along the growth pathway, toward a greater self-created vision. In harmony with microlearning, a mini-vision is stated in terms of the "Observable Behavioral Pattern" that is the focus of achievement.

Minus to plus: That all behavior is goal-oriented “movement,” always in a process of moving away from a perceived felt “minus” position toward a perceived felt “plus” position and the motivation to move from “minus to plus” is always present.

Observable Behavioral Pattern: Behavioral description detectable by observing a person’s actions, activity, movements, responses, or repeated executions.

Pattern: A recurrent way of acting by an individual or organization toward a given situation.

Portable Ownership: Employees maintain ownership of the PGPx recording format and therefore may change positions, managers, departments and divisions while the current PGPx stays with them as it is the responsibility of the employee to maintain it.

Private Logic: The unique, integrated and goal-oriented reasoning invented by individuals that radiates from memory, feelings, beliefs and thoughts. People act in accord with how they perceive themselves, the world and their main goal; and this “private reality” is subjective. Most people are only dimly aware of these convictions and their influence in the decision making process. The greater awareness a person has of his or her own private logic, the better one can successfully adapt to the environment.

Process Execution: Means that the Professional Growth Process, in harmony with LifePsych® Coaching, is being executed in some disciplined manner and growth plans are being monitored with the rigor demanded by the PGPx recording format.

Professional Growth Process (PGP): A cost effective method for coaching everyone in any organization toward improved job performance, self-development and interpersonal engagement that result in the creation of consolidated personal innovations. The PGP is an innovative system that efficiently and cost effectively applies to all employees and can be continuously executed by everyone, all the time.

Psychology of Democracy: Alfred Adler’s view that democracy is not just a political system; but more a set of guidelines suggesting how all humans might relate to one another. Democracy is considered to be functional inter-personal equality; social interest in action, for all. With time, effort and a degree of patience, the "new world order" will ultimately be a democratic one. This vision assumes that we humans manage to avoid nuclear war and cataclysmic climate change, a prospect that remains in doubt.

Psychology of Possession: The proposition that humans behave in accord with inherent “traits” that “drive” predictable behaviors. This view is also known as "determinism." By “knowing” these traits, or “type dynamics,” one can presumably predict behavior. Specifically, this view promotes the concept that humans “possess” certain traits and these traits are part of the “constitutional” framework of humans that “drive” behavior. Deterministic philosophy suggests that humans have little control over their lives or the surrounding world, such as climate. Hard core adherents contend that free agency, freedom of choice, innovation and creativity are but illusions created by naive humans.

Psychology of Use: The proposition that humans “use” what possessions they have in their behavioral decision making process. This view is also known as "agency" or "free-agency." Behavior is created, invented, with purpose toward goals, rather than “driven” by the past or how one is “constituted.” This view is mostly about taking personal responsibility for one’s behavior and the manner in which one is “being in the world” for all to see, observed as the chosen “character pattern” of an individual. Free-agency is a form of personal, intellectual creativity that allows for humans to conceive creative thought and then act upon such thoughts. While it is understood that one's genetics and historic environment provides a significant frame and influence, humans are capable of transcending their reinforcement history and genetic predispositions to master a future that is chosen, based on self-created goals. This view is also in harmony with "immanent teleology." (See definition above.)

Resilience: Creating a habit of courageous action, and owning the consequences of the actions, builds a pattern of resilience.

Self-ideal: A representation of the ideal attributes and personal convictions that guide an individual toward the self-created, fictional goal that holistically unifies the personality.

Self-significance: Where self-worth is a person’s estimate of how he or she is valued by others; and self-esteem is the estimate of his or her standing with respect to others; self-significance is a person’s impression of inherent worth and inherent capability to create visions and courageously move toward one’s ideal future.

Socially Interested Capitalism: Promotes the egalitarian alignment of societal benefits with the generation financial returns. It's an economic system that encourages the production and distribution of wealth for the betterment of all people through the integration of ethical behavior, democratically oriented institutions and sustainable, values-oriented leadership practices. In terms of Adlerian Psychology, "socially interested capitalism" is gemeinschaftsgefuehl (social interest) applied to capitalistic economics.

Strategic Behavioral Matrix: Organized set of competencies tailored to each organization. Communicates the specific behavioral patterns, or competencies, required to achieve the goals set forth in the strategic plan intent on taking care of customers.

Strategic Planning: Communicates the intentional goals of an organization and the tactics needed to achieve those goals, as they relate to taking care of the customer.

Striving: Term used to indicate the purposeful motivation toward a goal, which replaces the term “drive” that implies being pushed from behind by some force or power.

Summary of Process Report: Documents the execution of the Professional Growth Process along with some statements of success, or lack of success, occurring during the journey of coaching and growth.

SWOB Analysis: Identifies Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Barriers that will generate intentional growth options for improved work performance, self-development, interpersonal engagement leading to consolidated personal innovations.

Synergration: Term used to describe the behavioral integration of work performance, self-development and interpersonal engagement into a greater “whole” of consolidated goal-oriented innovative growth.

Synergy: The working (“erg”) together (“syn”) of apparent independent parts; the belief that human interests are pooled more than being mutually exclusive; the belief that “. . . synergy is an actual perception of a higher truth, of a higher reality, which actually exists and that the development over into synergy is like the development from becoming blind to becoming seeing.” – Abraham Maslow

Transfer of Training: Refers to skills and knowledge being put to use by training participants based on what they learned. Transfer of training means that learners actually “transfer” the knowledge and skills learned in a training session back to their jobs.

Two Points of a Line: After observing a behavior, the second observation indicates the direction of movement as one cannot move in two directions at the same time. Either you're choosing to move toward "Service Beyond Self" with a courageous and respectful attitude; or you're choosing to move toward "Self Above Service" with a self-centered, disrespectful and irreverent attitude.

Uncertainty Principle: At any moment people can behave in an unpredictable manner, as it is difficult to precisely understand and predict the output of a person’s “private logic.” Therefore, it is best to evaluate behavioral patterns over time, such as the “Observable Behavioral Pattern,” rather than evaluate isolated incidents. In Adlerian psychology, this concept is known as “Two Points of a Line” (see Glossary). In philosophy, this is known as indeterminism and is the opposite of “cause and effect.” In quantum mechanics, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle proclaims that there is “fuzziness” in nature, and a fundamental limit to what we can know about the behavior of quantum particles. Therefore, on the smallest to largest scales of nature, behavior cannot be readily predicted, including human behavior.

Vanity: A personal goal characterized by withdrawing into a self-centered source, one’s personal “private logic,” requiring an essential withdrawal from the guidance and influence of others. While exaggerated vanity is more dangerous than it is socially unbecoming, all humans experience some degree of self-centered ambition. “In the social atmosphere of our times however it is impossible to divorce ourselves entirely from a certain degree of vanity. The recognition of this fact is in itself a great asset.”  — Alfred Adler