Chapter 4: Identifying What's Really Happening (D')

The Wrong Starting Point

"I want to be more confident."

Marcus sat across from me in the hotel lobby, laptop open, presentation deck ready. In two hours, he'd be addressing his company's global leadership team—three hundred senior executives from across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. He was the newly appointed VP of Digital Transformation, and this was his moment.

"Tell me more about this confidence you're looking for," I said.

"You know—confident. Authoritative. The kind of leader who commands a room. I've watched people like that my whole career. They walk in, everyone pays attention. I want that."

I could have worked with that. Many coaches would. Let's build your confidence. Let's work on your presence. Here are some power poses.

But I've learned to be suspicious of goals like "be more confident." They sound specific but they're not. They're aspirations floating in mid-air, disconnected from reality.

"Marcus, forget the confidence for a moment. What are you actually doing right now, when you're not being confident? What's the behaviour?"

He looked puzzled. "I suppose… I'm being unconfident?"

"That's not a behaviour. That's a label. What do you do? What would I see if I watched you?"

A long pause. Then, slowly: "I over-prepare. I rehearse everything multiple times. I anticipate every possible question and script my answers. I create backup slides for backup slides."

"What else?"

"I speak too fast. I rush through my material like I'm trying to get it over with. I don't pause. I don't make eye contact—I look at my slides instead of the audience."

Now we were getting somewhere.

"And after presentations?"

"I replay everything in my head. Every stumble, every pause that went on too long, every moment I think I lost the room. Sometimes for days."

This—this—is where transformation begins. Not with the aspiration, but with the reality. Not with where Marcus wants to go, but with where he actually is.

Why Starting Point Matters

In the Perry Approach, we call the current state D' (pronounced "D-prime"). It's the behaviour, pattern, or situation you want to change. And it's always where we begin.

This might seem obvious. Of course you start with where you are. But watch what most people do:

They start with where they want to be.

"I want to be confident."

"I want work-life balance."

"I want to delegate more."

"I want to stop procrastinating."

These are all future states—versions of D, not D'. And starting with them creates a subtle but devastating problem: it treats your current reality as simply wrong.

When Marcus says "I want to be confident," he's implicitly saying "my current way of being is a problem to be eliminated." But as we discovered in Chapter 1, your current behaviour isn't random. It's not weakness or failure. It's a solution—a sophisticated, intelligently-designed solution to needs you haven't fully acknowledged.

Starting with D' says something different. It says: Where I am makes sense. I've arrived here for good reasons. Now let's understand those reasons—so I can choose something different.

The Art of Seeing What's Actually There

Marcus didn't have a "confidence problem." He had a set of specific behaviours:

• Over-preparing to the point of exhaustion
• Speaking rapidly without pauses
• Avoiding eye contact with his audience
• Mentally rehearsing worst-case scenarios
• Ruminating on perceived failures afterward

Each of these is observable. Each is concrete. And each, as we'll discover, is serving a purpose.

This distinction matters enormously.

"Lack of confidence" is a judgement—it explains nothing and changes nothing. But "speaks rapidly without pauses" is a behaviour I can work with. I can ask: When did this start? What happens if you pause? What are you afraid will happen in that silence?

The first rule of identifying D' is this: Describe behaviour, not character.

Character labels feel true. They become part of our identity story. But they're useless for transformation because they're too abstract to change and too total to challenge. I'm unconfident applies to everything. I speak rapidly without pauses is something I can actually do differently.

The Three Questions

When helping someone identify their D', I ask three questions in sequence:

Question 1: "What would I see?"

If I followed you around with a camera, what behaviour would I observe? Not what you think, feel, or believe—what you do.

This forces concrete, observable description. "I'm anxious" becomes "I check my phone every few minutes." "I'm overwhelmed" becomes "I say yes to requests without checking my calendar." "I'm stuck" becomes "I open the document, stare at it for ten minutes, then switch to email."

Question 2: "When does it happen?"

Behaviours have contexts. Marcus doesn't speak rapidly all the time—he does it specifically in high-stakes presentations. Sarah from Chapter 3 doesn't stay quiet everywhere—she stays quiet in leadership meetings.

Understanding the context reveals the pattern. And patterns contain intelligence.

Question 3: "What's the pattern over time?"

Is this new, or have you been doing it for years? Is it consistent, or does it come and go? Does it happen more under certain conditions?

Marcus had been over-preparing since graduate school. The pattern intensified whenever the stakes felt high—new role, new audience, senior stakeholders. It decreased when he felt secure in his expertise and relationships.

These three questions transform vague dissatisfaction into precise description. And precise description is the foundation for everything that follows.

The Symptom Trap

Here's where many people go wrong: they mistake symptoms for D'.

A symptom is something you experience—a feeling, a result, a consequence. D' is something you do—a behaviour, an action, a pattern.

Consider these:

• "I'm exhausted" (symptom) vs. "I work until midnight most nights" (D')
• "I feel disconnected from my team" (symptom) vs. "I skip social events and eat lunch at my desk" (D')
• "My inbox is overwhelming" (symptom) vs. "I check email constantly and respond immediately to everything" (D')
• "I'm not getting promoted" (symptom) vs. "I don't share my achievements with senior leaders" (D')

Symptoms are useful—they signal that something needs attention. But they're not where you start the cloud. If you build your cloud around "I'm exhausted," you'll get nowhere. Build it around "I work until midnight" and suddenly you can ask: What does working late give me? What would I lose if I stopped?

Multiple Behaviours, One Cloud

Sometimes when I ask about D', people give me a list:

"I check email constantly. I say yes to everything. I don't take lunch breaks. I work weekends. I never fully switch off."

These aren't five separate problems. They're manifestations of the same underlying pattern. And we need to find the essence.

"If you could only pick one of these—the behaviour that's most central, most characteristic, most you—which would it be?"

Often, after reflection: "Saying yes to everything. That's where it all starts. The email checking is because I've said yes to too much. The weekends are catching up on what I've agreed to. The no-lunch is trying to fit it all in."

D': I say yes to requests without pausing to consider my capacity.

Now we have a cloud we can work with. The other behaviours aren't ignored—they'll show up as we explore benefits and assumptions. But we start with the core pattern.

This doesn't mean you can never work on multiple D's. But each cloud addresses one fundamental behaviour. If you truly have separate patterns serving different needs, build separate clouds. More often, what looks like multiple problems is one pattern expressing itself in different ways.

The Specificity Spectrum

D' needs to be specific enough to work with, but not so specific it misses the pattern.

Too vague: "I'm bad at setting boundaries"

• This is a character judgement, not a behaviour
• What specifically do you do (or not do)?

Too specific: "Last Tuesday I agreed to take on the Henderson project when Janet asked me in the corridor outside the third-floor meeting room"

• This is an incident, not a pattern
• What's the repeated behaviour this represents?

Just right: "I agree to take on additional projects when asked directly, even when I'm already at capacity"

• Observable behaviour ✓
• Repeated pattern ✓
• Specific enough to explore ✓
• General enough to represent other instances ✓

Finding this level takes practice. The test is simple: Does this description capture what you repeatedly do? Could you observe yourself doing this multiple times?

The Positive Phrasing Principle

Here's a subtlety that matters more than it seems: phrase D' as what you do, not what you don't do.

Consider the difference:

• "I don't speak up in meetings" vs. "I stay quiet in meetings"
• "I don't take breaks" vs. "I work continuously"
• "I don't set boundaries" vs. "I say yes to requests"
• "I don't delegate" vs. "I handle tasks myself"

Both versions describe the same reality. But "I stay quiet" is something you actively do. "I don't speak up" is an absence, a void, a failure.

This distinction matters because you can only explore benefits of something you're doing. What benefits does "not speaking up" provide? The question barely makes sense. What benefits does "staying quiet" provide? Now we can investigate.

Marcus didn't "fail to project confidence." He actively chose behaviours: rapid speech, script preparation, eye contact avoidance. Each of these choices made sense to some part of him. They weren't failures—they were strategies.

When you phrase D' positively, you're acknowledging: I am doing something. It's purposeful. It's intelligent. Now let's understand it.

Case Study: Finding the Real D'

Let me show you how this works in practice. Rachel came to me frustrated with her career progression.

Rachel's initial complaint: "I'm not being recognised for my work."

My first question: "What would I see if I followed you around with a camera?"

Rachel: "You'd see me working incredibly hard. Delivering great results. Making my boss look good."

Me: "And then what happens?"

Rachel: "The credit goes to the team, or to my boss. No one knows what I specifically contributed."

Me: "And what do you do when this happens?"

Rachel: "I... well, I don't say anything. I keep my head down and do more good work."

Me: "So the pattern is?"

Rachel: "I suppose... I do excellent work but then I don't let people know about it. I wait for others to notice and credit me."

D' (first attempt): I wait for others to notice my contributions.

Me: "What else? When your boss presents your work to leadership, what do you do?"

Rachel: "I sit there. I might add a technical detail if asked directly. But I let him tell the story."

Me: "And when there's an opportunity to present your work yourself?"

Rachel: "I usually suggest someone else should do it. Or I'll say my boss should present it because he has better relationships with the executives."

Now we're getting to the real pattern.

D' (refined): I defer credit and visibility opportunities to others.

This is behavioural, specific, repeated, and positively phrased. It captures what Rachel does, not what she fails to do. And it immediately invites the question we'll explore in Chapter 6: What benefits does deferring credit provide?

Your D' Discovery Process

Let's work through identifying your D'. Take a situation where you feel stuck—a pattern you've been trying to change without success.

Step 1: Name the Frustration

What's bothering you? What situation keeps recurring? What pattern are you tired of?

Write whatever comes to mind, even if it's vague or feeling-based. This is just the starting point.

Example: "I'm frustrated that I never have time for strategic work."

Step 2: Convert to Observable Behaviour

Apply the three questions:

• What would I see? What am I actually doing?
• When does it happen? In what contexts does this occur?
• What's the pattern over time? How long has this been going on? When is it better or worse?

Example: "I spend my days in meetings and responding to requests. This happens every day, but it's worse on days with back-to-back meetings. It's been this way since I got promoted eighteen months ago."

Step 3: Check for Symptoms vs. Behaviours

Is what you've written something you do, or something you experience?

If it's a symptom, dig deeper. What behaviour creates that symptom?

Example: "No time for strategic work" is a result, not a behaviour. The behaviour is: "I accept meeting invitations without evaluating priority" and "I respond to requests in the moment rather than batching."

Step 4: Find the Core Pattern

If you have multiple behaviours, which is most central? Which one, if changed, would shift the others?

Example: "I accept meeting invitations without evaluating priority" seems to be the core. Everything else follows from an over-full calendar.

Step 5: Phrase Positively and Test

State your D' as what you do (not what you don't do), and test: Is this specific enough to be observable? General enough to be a pattern?

Example:

D': I accept meeting invitations automatically without assessing their value against my priorities.

This is observable ✓, repeated ✓, specific ✓, and positive ✓.

Common D' Patterns

In my work, certain D' patterns appear again and again. Perhaps you'll recognise yourself:

The Over-Deliverer

D': I take on more work than I can sustain, delivering at high quality regardless of personal cost.

Symptoms: Exhaustion, resentment, health issues, deteriorating relationships

The Silent Expert

D': I keep my expertise and opinions to myself unless explicitly asked.

Symptoms: Feeling undervalued, watching less capable people get promoted, frustration

The Rescuer

D': I step in to solve problems before others have a chance to struggle.

Symptoms: Team dependency, resentment of being needed, inability to focus on strategic work

The Perfectionist

D': I revise and refine work repeatedly, delaying completion until it meets an internal standard.

Symptoms: Missed deadlines, last-minute stress, opportunities passing by

The Pleaser

D': I agree to requests and adjust my position to maintain harmony.

Symptoms: Losing sense of self, being walked over, quiet resentment

The Controller

D': I maintain oversight of details and decisions, even when others are capable.

Symptoms: Bottlenecks, underdeveloped team, exhaustion, inability to scale

The Avoider

D': I delay addressing difficult issues until they become unavoidable.

Symptoms: Problems escalating, crisis management, damaged relationships

If you see yourself in these patterns, you're not alone. They're common because they work—each protects something valuable. The question isn't whether the pattern is "bad," but whether it's still serving you. We'll explore that in Chapter 6.

What Marcus Discovered

Back to the hotel lobby. Marcus and I had two hours before his presentation.

His D' wasn't "lacking confidence." It was: I over-prepare extensively and deliver rapidly to minimize time when things could go wrong.

Notice how different this is from where we started. "Lacking confidence" was a self-criticism. This D' is a strategy—an intelligent response to perceived threat. Marcus had learned, probably very young, that thorough preparation protected him from failure. And rapid delivery minimised the window of vulnerability.

Understanding this shifted everything. We weren't trying to fix a broken person. We were exploring a sophisticated defence system that had served him well—but was now limiting his impact.

"What does all that preparation give you?" I asked.

"Control. I know exactly what I'm going to say. There are no surprises."

"And the rapid delivery?"

"Less time for things to go wrong. Less time to be judged."

"And what might you be missing because of it?"

He paused. "Connection, maybe. When I'm racing through material, I'm not really with the audience. I'm performing at them."

This was the beginning of Marcus's transformation. Not through more confidence, but through understanding what his current behaviours were protecting—and whether there might be another way to get that protection while also creating the connection he craved.

We'll see how that unfolds as we continue building the cloud in the chapters ahead.

Chapter Reflection

Before moving to Chapter 5, take time to identify your D':

1. What pattern or behaviour have you been trying to change without success? Write down the first answer that comes to mind, even if it's vague.
2. Apply the three questions:
• What would someone see if they watched you?
• When and where does this happen?
• What's the pattern over time?
3. Check your D':
• Is it a behaviour (what you do) or a symptom (what you experience)?
• Is it phrased positively (what you do, not what you don't do)?
• Is it specific enough to observe, general enough to be a pattern?
4. Write your D' statement:

"I [observable, repeated behaviour]..."

Don't worry about getting it perfect. D' often refines as you work through the cloud. What matters is starting with concrete behaviour rather than abstract aspiration.

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