This is a question often asked when I deliver my PCM workshops. “What if I’m ‘missing’ one floor in my PCM Personality Structure? What does it mean?”
It is related to the energy we have on each of the six floors in our PCM Personality Condominium.
If you are new to PCM, you can find more information about the PCM Personality Structure and the six personality types in this series of short articles: CLICK HERE. After reading them, you’ll understand better the rest of this article.
The PCM Personality Structure
By the time we are seven, most of us will have the order of our floors, our unique PCM Personality Structure, set, and it is not likely to change in sequence throughout life.
In our PCM Personality Profile, each of the six floors (Personality Types) will have an associated score, which represents the relative amount of energy available on each personality floor. This score gives us an idea about how long we would be able to desire or tolerate a situation or person requiring the dynamics of that Personality Type.
As a rule of thumb, we say that an energy over 40 percent on a floor indicates that we can access it with relative ease. The “resources” of that Personality Type, i.e. the character strengths, the language, (Channel and Perception), the currency, the personality parts (verbal and non-verbal elements of communication), interaction/management style, etc. are then resources we can access with relative ease in our communication and ability to connect.
If we have less than 20 percent on a floor, we cannot easily spend time on that floor and accessing its resources is more difficult for us. We experience that floor as draining, we won’t easily understand the perspective of that Personality Type and might even find ourselves being biased against them. Thus, we’ll experience some unease with people who are well-energised in that Personality Type or with people for whom it is their Base.
Our case study
In the image above, this person’s order, then, is Thinker, Harmoniser, Persister, Rebel, Promoter, and Imaginer. This particular order (one of 720 possible combinations) lets us know that this person is able to experience the world and demonstrate the behaviours of a Thinker intuitively or with a conscious decision quite easily. With Harmoniser second and with an energy reserve of about ninety percent, this person can easily and quickly move up into the Harmoniser frame of reference to experience the situation or person in his or her foreground. Imaginer is found on the sixth floor with a potential energy reserve of less than ten percent. They may find it difficult to experience the world in the way that a person with Imaginer Base. Note, we each have all six floors and even with only 10 percent we will still occasionally demonstrate some of the traits of our top floor.
Coming back to the structure and the “missing” floor. What does that mean? Well, in the example above they have only a little energy on their last floor – it looks like less than ten percent. However, the floor is not missing, it is just not very active.
Therefore, in PCM we don’t use the expression of “missing” floor. We would normally say that we have little energy on a certain floor.
So this indicates that this person seldom experiences the Imaginer perceptions, strengths, motivations, skills and behaviours. We naturally tend to spend more time on the bottom floors of our PCM Personality Structure, and less on the upper floors. Even more, in this case, this person will naturally try to avoid spending time on their last floor. I explain this by asking participants to experiment with visiting their top floor, i.e. doing something requiring the type of resources on that floor. Next, to visit their Base, and experience how little energy it takes to do that.
What does this mean?
Consequently, this person is not likely to identify with or perhaps even spend a lot of time with people with an Imaginer Base and they might even experience distress if they must be around people who use their Imaginer floor a lot. Thus, they might tend to avoid people who have a strong Imaginer floor.
If they need to adopt the behaviour of Imaginer for a long time, expressing themselves with the perception of Inactions/Reflections, being calm, reflective, imaginative, or in solitude; or if they have the responsibility to help or supervise people with this personality type, they might experience this as stressful, miscommunicate, and show mask behaviours.
What can they do in this case?
They can learn to deal better with this personality type by “activating” the character strengths of the Imaginer: being calm, reflective and imaginative, by using the “language” of imagination and reflections. this is how they will, slowly but surely, energise that floor in their Personality Condominium.
This will require, the desire and the energy to do so. If they are ready to commit to helping themselves improve their communication and be more successful, then they can make a conscious decision to open up to the personality diversity in themselves. This will facilitate understanding that they might have a bias against people with Imaginer Base (in this example), and work with themselves to access their top floor more often. In this way, they will become more comfortable accessing their top floor and appreciate it more in others.
Remember:
Remember that these floors in our PCM Personality Structure are like muscles. We are able to exercise and strengthen them with practice when we use the “resources” found on each floor. It takes time to energise our low-energy floors, but it is really worth it in the long run.
So, if you notice that you have one Personality Type that is lower in energy than you would want it, make sure you keep your batteries charged and take your time and start “building” that floor.
The more we know about ourselves and our needs, the more ways and means we have to generate positive energy.
As our PCM Profiles say: “It is a knowledgeable person who knows his or her strengths. It is a wise person who knows his or her weaknesses and what to do about them”.
One last word, we are all OK just the way we are. PCM is not a growth model, it does not say that you must change. Rather it helps us to understand ourselves and others, and develop as we decide, should we want to.
I hope you found this article insightful and useful. Feel free to share with me what other PCM-related questions you have and I will try to answer them.
Interested in finding out your PCM Personality Structure?
If you are interested in discovering your own PCM Profile, know that twice a year, I am organizing Open PCM Workshops – one in English, one in Romanian – and the next cohorts are starting in mid-October 2023. Find out more and join me by clicking on the image below.
PS: A big reason I write is to meet people so feel free to say Hi! on Linkedin here or follow my Instagram here, as I’d love to learn more about you.
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