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Ontological Coaching
Ontological Coaching is an approach to exploring the coachee’s way of being. Who is this person who has coped successfully until now yet has run into areas where help is needed?
An ontological coach helps the client to consider who she is by the language she uses, the emotions and moods she lives, and in the way her body supports her in living the life she strives for. We do have the ability to change and grow and much of that depends on her choices.
There is no denying that clients are looking for the tools, skills, and processes to be more effective in their lives. In other words, they seek new behaviors to help them achieve a higher order of satisfaction both professionally and personally. These are necessary ingredients of the coaching toolkit.
These behaviors can be found in many books or modeled by others they know or taught in leadership and management programs. They are available.
What prevents people from incorporating the beneficial behaviors is how they see the world. For instance, if you see the world as hostile, you would become equipped for battle. If you see yourself as incompetent, you are less likely to promote yourself.
While language has for eons been considered a tool to define the world so we share a common vocabulary, it is also a tool for crafting the life we wish to lead. We need the distinctions language gives us so we understand our universe better.
Language also creates new worlds. There are 5 categories of speech that we examine. These are requests, offers, promises, assertions, and declarations. Briefly, requests make it possible for us to gain support. Offers are ways to extend our contributions to others and the world. Promises are commitments to take action. Assertions are facts and evidence to ground our statements. Declarations set the context for future action. “You’re hired” shifts the world for both the manager and the new person coming on board.
One huge area for exploration are our assessments (rather than facts) of a situation, a person, or ourself. We often just plain make stuff up about what a person meant or what caliber of individual someone is. We just might be wrong. If we assess that someone is not dependable based on limited information, we might bypass an opportunity to work with someone who really is just the person you needed for a project.
Clients, and me too, benefit from exploring which we do too much of, to little of, or too poorly.
Emotions and moods determine what we are motivated to do or to avoid. We can change those moods. We need not be at the affect of them.
Leaders must pay attention to others’ moods and address them in order have more motivated people on the job.
Our body either works for or against us as we broadcast our moods or emotions, our intentions, our ideas, our confidence, our credibility, our caring. Try telling someone how excited and enthused you are sitting slumped in a chair with your eyes looking down. You can’t. People are stumped. Should they believe the message in the words or in the body? They’ll choose the one they want to believe and be disappointed later.
Once the body, language, and emotions are congruent, then the tools and new behaviors, tools, or skills can be incorporated easily. Otherwise they are only spray paint that makes you look good temporarily. The structure has not been prepared to maintain the new paing.
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