September 28, 2004

Action, Being and Kehila

Ontological Coaching as a learning tool.

By F. Grosman for JCCenters.org

“ Decisiveness is action. For him whose knowledge is greater than his actions is like a many-branched tree the roots of which are few; the wind comes along and uproots him and overthrows him.” Hillel

ACTION allows us to go beyond our suppositions in order to transcend not only the frontiers of our BEING but also those of the COMMUNITIES in which we participate and thus LEARN and enrich our BEING.

The results which we obtain in life depend on the actions we can –-or can’t— carry out. If we enlarge our understanding of ourselves, that which surrounds us, the relationships we establish; we can favorably modify our manner of acting.


Ontological Coaching

The Term “coaching comes from the field of sports. Sport “coaches” work with individuals and teams, helping them to maximize their skills. In the last few decades, this process has been transferred to every type of organization and has been transformed into a development tool. Coaching is a process of aiding and guiding another person or team – the coachee— to develop his capacities in an effective way. The coach is the person who aides individuals, teams and organization to take advantage of their skills and competencies through supervision of distinct types. The supervision which the coaches carry out may have different approaches. The spotlight which I briefly introduce here takes its elements from Ontology, the branch of philosophy which prompts us to learn about what it means to be a “human being.” For more than twenty centuries Cartesian-type philosophy has dominated the manner of defining humans as rational beings. René Descartes postulated that thought and reason are what makes us human. “I think, therefore I am” is from the Latin “Cogito ergo sum;” as I think, I am assured that I exist. Less than one-half a century ago, new theories developed about the “linguistic phrase;” with that, it is not reason but language –above all— which converts us into what we are, human beings. The Ontology of Language –together with contributions from the field of philosophy (Heidegger, Buber and Nietzsche) and from biology (Humberto Maturana)—supplied Rafael Echevarría and Fernando Flores with this new approach: Ontological Coaching.


The notion of the Observer

We act in conjunction with the type of observer that we are. If we tend to believe that things are according to how we perceive them; the form in which we see things is simply that; this form must relate with how we ourselves are.
Make the following experiment: show an image of some complexity to a group of people and permit them to go over it for a few seconds. Then hide it and ask each one to prepare a list of five elements that grabbed their attention.
Compare the list from observer to observer. You will note that perception is a totally selective process and that the overall vision (if that is possible) should be formed from the observers’ collective observations. Asking ourselves what type of observer we are takes on importance in understanding how we are and how we relate with those around us.

The three dimensions which constitute an observer are our bodies, our emotions and our language. On the one hand, we can only observe that which our particular biological make-up allows; on the other, different emotions –such as happiness and anger— predispose us to screen, to observe certain events and to ignore others and lastly, language is the dimension in which we encounter the greatest individual differences. According to ontology, the factors which constitute the richness of our spoken expression are distinctions, judgments and narratives.

Human beings, beyond perceiving through our senses, have --thanks to language— the capacity to distinguish one thing from another, separate it from the background and place it into the focus of our observation. This is the manner in which we introduce order into chaos, in which we put in order the various stimuli we’re receiving. This situation itself is observed from different angles, according to the distinctions which each makes.

Moreover, language permits us take up positions relative to the entities we observe: to issue judgments. According to what those judgments are, we constitute different observers.
For example, each job, each profession represents a mastery, conforming to that of a specific group of distinctions and judgments. Let’s think about the persons with whom we interact on a day-to-day basis in an organization –professional or voluntary. What position does each one take at the hour of making a decision? Each individual as a distinct observer makes different decisions. If in place of disallowing some points of view according out own lights –or prejudices— we should take a moment to listen to different observers: surely the decision taken in collective form may be more constructive and interesting and, doubtlessly, will satisfy better and a greater number of people who are part of the community.
Language also allows us to construct narratives, explanations, histories of what is happening to us in accordance with the meaning and connotations which we attribute to them, according to the type of observer we are. As a function of the stories that we relate, we define different plans of action.
Also we relate “tales’ to ourselves which contribute to our collective being and to what type of collective observers we are within the community. Each human group constructs origin myths, in order to respond to certain always uncertain questions about where we came from; it organizes the daily routine as a function of group time. What difference is there between the sacred and the profane? Above all we use the functions of language to create an OTHER which strengthens us in our “self-awareness.” In Judaism, the chronicles of Genesis or the Bestowing of the Torah on Mt. Sinai are narratives which socialize and educate the individual to look at the world through that prism.
To be part of one community or another makes us into different observers.

Consensus and Efficiency

When our point of view coincides with one or more other persons, we tend to think that things are just like we observe them. Nevertheless, this only indicates consensus; i.e., we are the same type of observers. To feel that consensus guarantees truth –-considered as the knowledge of things as they are— makes us act in a determined way. This form of action allows us to maintain a balance until someone appears with a new viewpoint, who will be seen and treated thusly as a dissident.

If we have to confront the fact that cultural boundaries are ever more in a state of dissolution, we must live together with observers different from ourselves; we cannot consider the others as “erring beings.” To lose sight of the fact that THE truth does not exist and that “there are as many worlds as observers” are both fundamental when the time comes to establish relationships which should be solid and lasting.
Also we believe that “we possess the truth” when our actions are efficient. But this does not demonstrate truth; it only reflects the fact that there exist different approaches or modes of perception, capable of generating actions which other modes can’t generate. Efficiency is not truth.

Why do we speak about the theme of truth? The presumption of truth always makes us step back; it delays our learning capacity; it ties us to our suppositions and ends up impoverishing us. In the history of civilizations, different conceptions of the world were considered valid –and everything which was done was part of that conception of truth. Some of those conceptions were perceived by others or in another time as aberrations.

Disquiet

We relate to the world through compromise. That which happens around us, affects us, matters to us and upsets us. According to the scale and mode by which we are affected by a given situation and according to our observer type, we undertake one or another form of action –or inaction.

Our Communities

I propose that we stop the lecture here and try to remember a situation through which we have lived in your community. What happened? Who took part? How did you feel? Who did what? Did you think about what others would think? Did you think about what others would feel? Did you ask? Did you listen to them? Did you take it into consideration? What did you do in consequence?

We should admit –as individuals— how much we are conditioned by our surroundings, the community, the organizations we form a part of. We should take charge of the capacity of each one of ourselves to change them.