IDeConstruct ©
Concept and Framework Background
My coaching framework, IDeConstruct ©, is the product of many years of academic and empirical research into strategic change and identity transformation and aims to add value to engaging people and organizations that define, create, and execute purpose by differentiating their identity organically.
In philosophy, identity deals with the problem of distinguishing sameness from change, or unity from diversity; primarily examined in connection with personal identity, universal, and the law of identity in logic.
The term identity has also become increasingly important in modern psychology, largely through the work of Erik Erikson (1902-1994). He has used the term to designate a sense of self that develops in the course of a man's life and that both relates him to and sets him apart from his social milieu. The terms ‘identity crisis’ and ‘identity confusion’, introduced by Erikson (1968), have gained a wide usage in various disciplines and a prominent place in the quest of individuals and organizations for continuous performance and engagement in a radically changing world. They also constitute ‘in vivo’ quotes as emerged from sessions with my clients in their effort to describe the kinds of processes they utilize to enable themselves to adapt to personal and professional challenges.
On a practical level, identity formation depends on who is assigning what identity to whom and under what premises (DiLeo, 2003). Ultimately, questions of identity shape every facet of life and their appropriate management will determine the progress of a personal and/or organizational change project, for example life change, career change or organizational mergers/restructurings.
Deconstructing is a method of philosophical and literary analysis, derived mainly from the work of Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), which questions the fundamental conceptual distinctions, or ‘oppositions’, through a close examination of their language and logic. Such oppositions are characteristically ‘binary’ and ‘hierarchical’, involving a pair of terms in which one member of the pair is assumed to be primary or fundamental and the other secondary or derivative (Derrida, 1968).
To ‘deconstruct’ an opposition is to explore the tensions and contradictions between the hierarchical ordering assumed and the dualities of power processes, such as the multiple identity stretching experienced by my clients (personal, organizational, professional and social). IDeConstruct © ‘displaces’ the opposition by showing that neither identity is primary; the opposition is a product, or ‘construction’, of the identity transformation process rather than something given independently of it.
The personal/organizational/professional/social identity tension, according to which only one such identity is ‘present’ at any time and the others ‘absent’, as well as the general assumption that there is a ‘true’ or ‘given’ identity existing prior to and independent of its transformation, is unrealistic.
IDeConstruct © facilitates this critical process of purposeful dismantling of established types of identity and preconceptions of self-images that people and organizations have taken for granted. It is a detailed process that helps them understand, cognitively redefine themselves and construct a new identity in order to achieve their true purpose. The acronym IDeConstruct © is a combination of the initials of the words that describe the 12 stages of the process of identity deconstructing, which is iterative and cyclical during personal and organizational transitions. Go to our Services section for examples of its practical application in goals and objectives that we can achieve together with our clients.
REFERENCES
DiLeo, J. R., (2003) Affiliations: Identity in Academic Culture. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.
Erikson, E. H. (1968) Identity, Youth, and Crisis. New York: Norton Press.
Derrida, J. (1968) Writing and Difference. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.