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Self-esteem and consultant’s toolkits

August 31st, 2008 in Books, I'm an idiot

I recently had to brush off my self-esteem toolkit, and I couldn’t remember everything in it. I would normally turn to More Secrets of Consulting: The Consultant’s Tool Kit for the details, but I never seem to be at home when I need to remember all of them. So, I figured I’d list them out here with some links.

The self-esteem toolkit comes from Virginia Satir. There’s a good article describing it’s elements here . The basic elements are:

  • The golden key
  • The detective hat
  • The courage stick
  • The wishing wand
  • The wisdom box
  • The yes-no medallion
  • The heart

In More Secrets of Consulting: The Consultant’s Tool Kit, Weinberg adds the following:

  • The mirror
  • The telescope
  • The fish-eye lens
  • The gyroscope
  • The egg
  • The carabiner
  • The feather
  • The hourglass
  • The oxygen mask

He describes them all ever-so-briefly here . The mirror, telescope, and fish-eye lens all have to do with Satir’s congruence model (self, other, context) which Rick Brenner shows some applications of here .

4 Responses to “Self-esteem and consultant’s toolkits”

  • Shrini
    September 4th, 2008 at 1:23 pm

    May be I am new to consulting but not certainly new to Jerry’s writing … I am puzzled as why one needs to jump to "Self Esteem" from consulting? What is the connection?

    Why can not this kit be simply called as "Consulting Kit". I know self esteem is important in general leave alone consulting - but what that has to do with consulting?

    Help me with some insights about Satir’s work and how that was sucked into Jerry’s work?

    Shrini

  • Mike Kelly
    September 5th, 2008 at 10:15 am

    Satir’s self-esteem toolkit was intended to help the user create congruent choices for greater balance in your personal and professional life. Jerry has all of Virginia’s items in his consultant’s toolkit, and while I probably could have just referenced “More secrets of consulting,” it felt more appropriate to reference where the first seven items came from.

    I know that as a consultant, I use my heart, wishing wand, courage stick, and yes-no medallion all the time.

  • Shrini
    September 11th, 2008 at 3:46 am

    Thanks Mike –

    I think my original question of \\\\"why self esteem\\\\" (why not \\\\"self confidence or \\\\"Attitude\\\\") is not answered …

    Can you please help me with the answer?

    Shrini

  • Mike Kelly
    September 11th, 2008 at 7:49 am

    Well, I’m not sure I /can/ answer it. Virgina decided to call it her self-esteem toolkit. Jerry decided to write a book based on it and call it his consultant’s toolkit. They aren’t my labels, they are the author’s labels.