The Core Quality Model

Recently, I finished the website for Viam Vestram Online Coaching and thus completed one of the first steps to set up my own business. However, having a website is not enough and it obviously takes more than just SEO to make people visit your site. For this reason, I decided to start writing a blog, which again raised another question: What should I write about?
  

I then remembered my own first sessions with a coach, and suddenly there it was, the topic for my first article: I would write about the Core Quality Model by Daniel Ofman. It is a simple but amazing model, and it was one of the first tools I came across in coaching, so I think it is a good topic to start with.   
  

Have you ever thought about why certain people trigger a somewhat negative reaction in you? Even though you hardly know them? But still, there is something about their behavior that makes you react…
  

The Core Quality Model can help you identify these allergies, along with your core qualities, pitfalls and challenges. Basically, it is a four quadrant model consisting of one horizontal and one vertical axis.
 

The upper left quadrant shows your core quality, for example being humble.

In the next quadrant, that is, the upper right one, you fill in your pitfall. This is what too much of your core quality would lead to, something that you must be careful of not to do. Being too humble, for example, could result in being self-deprecating.
 

After you have identified the pitfall that relates to the core quality, you can find your challenge. A challenge is something which takes an effort and which does not come quite natural to you, but which is very important to do and which you should develop. Think of the positive opposite of your pitfall and write this in the lower right quadrant. For example, the positive opposite of self-deprecating is being self-confident.
 

The last step in the model is to identify your allergy, and it goes into the lower left quadrant. An allergy is a person’s characteristic that triggers a negative reaction in you. Think about what too much of your challenge would lead to. For example, too much self-confidence leads to boastfulness or arrogance.
 

If you want, you can start from any of the four quadrants and this way identify your core qualities, pitfalls, challenges or allergies.
  

So next time another person triggers an allergic reaction in you, ask yourself what you can actually learn from this. For the unpleasant characteristic of another person also disguises a quality that can be considered as your area of development, that is, your challenge. This means that you are indirectly being "criticized" by another person’s behavior, although he or she is not even aware of it. But through your allergic reaction and by applying the Core Quality Model, you can discover your area of development and it is now up to you to work on it.
  

I hope you enjoyed reading my first article. If so, join me again next time!