Seeing Ourselves, Seeing the System

Integrating Individual Awareness and Systemic Insight in Coaching

Coaching practice often rests on the assumption that meaningful change begins with the individual. Yet within organisational psychology—and particularly within Organisational Transactional Analysis (OTA)—there is an equally compelling insight: individual behaviour is profoundly shaped by the structures, cultures, and histories of the systems in which people operate. A useful bridge between these perspectives is captured in a now-familiar systemic refrain:

“Stop blaming the people for what the structure creates.”

This idea echoes the work of Rosemary Napper, an Organisational Training and Supervising Transactional Analyst (TSTA‑O), whose contributions have consistently highlighted the psychological power of organisational systems. Napper describes organisations as having an “energy of their own” that impacts people psychologically. From this perspective, many workplace difficulties attributed to individuals are better understood as systemic phenomena—emerging from organisational structure, culture, and historical patterning rather than from personal deficit.

This systemic lens aligns closely with the foundational work of Eric Berne, the founder of Transactional Analysis. In The Structure and Dynamics of Organizations and Groups (1963), Berne set out to offer “a systematic framework for the therapy of ailing groups and organisations.” He conceptualised organisations as living systems whose structures, roles, rituals, leadership patterns, and external pressures shape behaviour long before individual psychology comes into view.

Together, Napper and Berne offer a powerful framework for understanding organisational life. Coaching, however, traditionally begins not with the system—but with the individual. This article argues that these approaches are not in conflict. Rather, effective coaching requires an integration of self‑awareness and system‑awareness: recognising that systems shape people, and that people, in turn, shape systems.

Systems and Individuals: Two Necessary Perspectives

The System’s Influence

From a systemic TA perspective, individuals operate within contextual fields shaped by:

• organisational culture and history
• inherited expectations and implicit rules
• unconscious norms and taboos
• structural power dynamics
• unspoken psychological and relational “contracts”

These forces influence behaviour regardless of individual intent. When someone speaks up, challenges a norm, or names a difficulty, the organisational response often reveals the culture that had previously been out of awareness. Sometimes this takes the form of curiosity and dialogue; more often it shows up as defensiveness, minimisation, or punishment. Napper describes such moments as the organisation “showing its hand”—making visible the underlying dynamics that sustain the system.

Importantly, these reactions are not personal. They are expressions of system‑maintenance behaviour. This mirrors Berne’s concept of the organisational imago: predictable patterns of relating that arise from structure and culture rather than from the psychology of any one individual.

The Individual’s Awareness

A purely systemic focus, however, risks erasing the individual’s capacity for reflection, choice, and responsibility. Here, classical Transactional Analysis and coaching offer a vital counterbalance.

TA proposes that autonomy emerges through three interrelated capacities: awareness, spontaneity, and intimacy. When behaviour is driven by unexamined assumptions, introjected cultural messages, or inherited organisational “Parent” rules, individuals operate script‑bound rather than autonomously. Schiff’s theory of discounting further explains how individuals and groups minimise, ignore, or distort information that would otherwise prompt change—thereby sustaining dysfunctional patterns.

From this perspective:

• people perpetuate systemic norms when awareness is limited
• unconscious adaptation reinforces organisational culture
• failure to reality‑test inherited assumptions sustains problematic dynamics

Coaching therefore begins by helping individuals see themselves more clearly. This increased awareness interrupts unconscious collusion with systemic patterns and restores the possibility of choice.

Where the Two Perspectives Meet: Individuals Reveal Systems

Individual action and systemic reaction are inseparable. When people act with greater awareness—by speaking up, setting boundaries, or making conscious choices—the system is revealed.

When individuals challenge the status quo:

• they may be heard, leading to learning and change, or
• leadership may react defensively, attempting to silence or marginalise dissent.

In both cases, the individual’s action exposes the system.

This reflects principles from general systems theory: even small shifts in one part of a system initiate responses throughout the whole. When individuals act with clarity, the system is forced to respond—not necessarily from insight, but from necessity. As patterns accumulate—through disengagement, turnover, or resistance—the system must adapt in order to survive.

From this viewpoint, individual agency does not undermine systemic thinking; it is one of the primary drivers of systemic evolution.

Discounting, Culture, and the Transmission of Patterns

Organisational cultures perpetuate themselves in ways strikingly similar to the transmission of Parent ego states across generations. Norms, beliefs, and ways of relating are passed on not because they are examined and chosen, but because they are absorbed and repeated.

In TA terms:

• organisational cultures function like intergenerational Parent ego states
• employees introject and replicate norms unconsciously
• systems remain stable through collective discounting
• lack of reassessment prevents reality‑testing and renewal

Coaching disrupts this process by increasing awareness. When individuals begin to question what they have taken for granted, discounting loses its grip—and with it, one of the key mechanisms that holds dysfunctional systems in place.

An Integrated Coaching Stance: Self First, System Always

An integrated coaching philosophy emerges from this synthesis:

1. Prioritise self‑awareness
   Individuals must recognise their own patterns, ego states, assumptions, and scripts.
2. Develop system‑awareness
   With greater clarity, individuals can distinguish what belongs to them from what belongs to the system.
3. Support conscious adaptation
   Adaptation is autonomous when chosen consciously and script‑bound when unconscious.
4. Recognise the systemic impact of individual clarity
   When individuals stop colluding with organisational norms through discounting, systems lose a key stabilising force.
5. Frame individual action as systemic contribution
   Change does not require “coaching the system”; it requires coaching people in relation to the system.

In this model, coaching is both deeply personal and inescapably systemic.

Conclusion

The apparent tension between individual coaching and systemic understanding dissolves when we recognise their interdependence. Systems shape people, and people enact—and potentially transform—systems. Napper’s organisational insights, alongside Berne’s foundational work on group dynamics, illuminate the powerful forces influencing behaviour at work. Coaching plays a distinctive role by helping individuals develop the awareness needed to navigate these forces consciously rather than unconsciously.

In summary:

• Systems create patterns.
• Individuals enact them.
• Awareness interrupts them.
• Conscious action transforms them.

Coaching becomes the bridge that helps people see both themselves and their systems more clearly—supporting choice, integrity, and meaningful impact.

References

Berne, E. (1963). The structure and dynamics of organizations and groups. Grove Press.

Napper, R. (2025). Understanding Organisational TA: Structures, Systems & Culture. Transactional Analysis Podcast.

Schiff, J. et al. (1975). The Cathexis Reader: Transactional Analysis Treatment of Psychosis. Harper & Row.