Personal-Systemic-Inter-Personal

In Short

Diagnose issues at the right level before intervening
Best for: Three-level diagnostic framework
Personal-Systemic-Inter-Personal is a structured tool for coaching and facilitation. Diagnose issues at the right level before intervening. It provides a repeatable framework that can be adapted to individual, team, and leadership development contexts.
Type of tool: Three-level diagnostic framework
Expected outcomes:
- Improved ability to diagnose issues at the right level before intervening
- A concrete action or development plan to take forward from the Personal-Systemic-Inter-Personal process

In Detail

Personal-Systemic-Inter-Personal is a structured framework designed to help coaches, leaders, and facilitators diagnose issues at the right level before intervening. It sits within the category of Three-level diagnostic framework, making it particularly useful for practitioners working on capability development, team performance, and individual growth in organisational settings.

In practice, Personal-Systemic-Inter-Personal is delivered as a 5-step process. The process begins by introduce the three lenses: Personal (what is happening inside the individual -- emotions, beliefs, patterns), Interpers. The session closes by design a response that integrates all three perspectives. The structured approach ensures that participants move through a consistent experience while leaving room for the facilitator to adapt pacing and depth to the group's needs.

Personal-Systemic-Inter-Personal provides a shared vocabulary that persists beyond the session itself. When team members reference the same model in day-to-day work, coaching outcomes become embedded in practice rather than remaining as isolated insights from a single workshop.

How to Use

1. Introduce the three lenses: Personal (what is happening inside the individual -- emotions, beliefs, patterns), Interpersonal (what is happening between people -- relationships, power), Systemic (what is happening in the wider system -- structures, culture, history). 2. Examine a presenting challenge through each lens in turn. 3. Ask: what would a purely personal intervention look like? What would a purely systemic one look like? 4. Identify which lens has been underused. 5. Design a response that integrates all three perspectives.

Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Provides a shared vocabulary that persists after the session and supports ongoing conversations Structured approach ensures consistent application across different cohorts and contexts Directly addresses the challenge of diagnose issues at the right level before intervening through a proven conceptual structure	Risk of over-applying the model — not all situations fit neatly into any single framework Conceptual frameworks require skilled facilitation to connect theory to participants' actual work Some models have limited research evidence; practitioners should be transparent about this

Created by Various (systemic coaching tradition)

When to Use

This tool is suited to the following coaching and facilitation contexts:

Context	Relevant
Individual Coaching	✓
Team Coaching	✓
Leadership Development
Facilitation / Workshop
Online / Virtual

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