Irene Yu is the founder of Rizing, a Berlin-based coaching platform for career, founder and leadership coaching that began as Female Entrepreneur Me. She has more than a decade of experience in AI and blockchain startups and scale-ups.
Past talks
Leveraging PCM For Effective Teamwork In Freelance Projects
May 15, 2024 10:00
Irene Yu is a leadership and career coach who works with a communication model called PCM, the Process Communication Model. At Freelance Unlocked 2024 she presents it as a tool for freelancers: when you know someone's style, she says, you can approach clients and team members better and settle conflicts. She traces the model to a psychologist working with NASA in 1978.
**What the talk covers**
- The six styles, in her words. Thinkers are logical and want data and facts. Persisters are value-driven and speak in opinions ("I believe"). Harmonizers are empathy-driven and respond to inclusive language and appreciation. Promoters are action-driven, energetic and charismatic. Imaginers are inward and visual and need time and clear instructions. Rebels are creative and playful, and she says many freelancers are rebels.
- How to work with each: give thinkers accurate information, persisters clear expectations and goals, harmonizers listening and "we", promoters success stories, imaginers space to reflect, and rebels fun and room to improvise.
- Everyone has all six styles with one or two dominant. She says a style can shift over a career. She herself is a persister who learned to act like a thinker to lead engineers.
- An example conflict: a promoter manager focused on the big picture and a thinker who wants details. She suggests that the promoter brings data and the thinker shares success stories, and that both listen without interrupting and look for common ground.
- Stress changes behaviour, she says: a stressed thinker turns critical, a stressed promoter focuses even more on themselves. Learning this takes practice or a course.
**From the Q&A**
She does not call any style a hindrance for freelancers, and sees the more flexible communicator as the better leader. She worked mostly in Germany and sees differences in directness more than in style by culture.
**Who it's for**
Freelancers who work in teams and want a simple framework for communication.