At Limbic Solutions we use the ontological methodology in coaching and facilitation.
Ontology means ‘way of being’ and the ontological approach is concerned with helping people change at a deep level. This is more than just behavioural change at the surface level.
The ontological approach focuses on the way that someone interacts (is “being”) with their challenge or issue, and not just on the issue itself. This is done through exploring how the person engages with their challenge using an integration of their language, their moods and emotions, and their physiology.
Ontological practitioners help people access more resourceful mindsets, attitudes or even postural configurations so they can make transformative shifts at deep levels (their “way of being”) rather than merely surface change.
Language, moods and emotions, and physiology
- Language is core to how people interact with the world and to how well things get done. With the ontological approach, we help people learn how to observe their use of six Basic Linguistic Acts that underpin communication and language. This can be very helpful for people in unblocking barriers and overcoming challenges. Language is about listening as well as speaking so we help people develop deeper listening skills.
- We are always in some sort of mood. Sometimes that mood is helpful and sometimes it hinders. Moods and emotions are integral to the way we understand ourselves and our drivers. Because moods are predispositions to act, they are also fundamental to the way that we engage with others. Working with people in this domain helps them to enrich their emotional intelligence so that they can understand and regulate their emotional responses to situations. This is a foundation for learning how to be forward-focused with constructive attitudes when faced with barriers.
- Recent research demonstrates the important role that physiology (including postures and body language) plays in human behaviour. Physiology is intricately connected with our moods, the way we communicate and how we show up by embodying behaviour. An ontological awareness can bring powerful insights in this somatic domain.
The role of the ontological coach or facilitator
The essential goal of the coach or facilitator is to be a catalyst for change by respectfully and constructively triggering a shift in someone’s way of being to enable him or her to develop perceptions and behaviours that were previously unavailable, all of which are consistent with what the person wants to gain from coaching or the facilitated session.
Humans are self-referencing beings: how the world is viewed and engaged with is always relative to what is important or deeply matters in the world of the individual, i.e. his or her concerns. Furthermore, people are relational and conversational beings interacting with the world from their existential domains to take care of concerns.
This means that a critical task for the coach or facilitator is to create a safe environment for inquiry, learning and discovery through a deeply respectful professional relationship with coachees or session participants. The coachee or participant is regarded as a legitimate other with their own specific concerns and way of being. We take a respectful or permission-based approach when initiating different and potentially sensitive directions in conversations. We are also careful about not being too attached to our own ideas of where a conversation “should” go.
This ontological approach generates deep-seated learning by producing major shifts in perception and behaviour. The methods and frameworks are readily applicable in a wide range of situations beyond any specific issue or challenge. People who learn how to use these are going to be more resourceful, resilient and therefore behaviourally flexible in the face of a constant flow of challenges.
Ontology in business
Business success depends on the effectiveness of the interactions between the people with some sort of stake in the organisation – the staff, the customers, suppliers and so on. We call these interactions conversations and there are many conversations – some of which are not happening well and some of which are not happening at all. Where things are not going well, all sorts of mess or waste shows up such as:
- Waste that comes from mistrust and the extra work that results when surprises occur because of the organising style and historical design of a company’s processes.
- Waste from the view that financial and operational functions can be managed like separate businesses.
- Waste that arises from the mistrust between ‘bosses’ and ‘staff’ often resulting from ineffective conversations between them about what the company is doing.
- Waste in that shows up from resignation, lack of commitment to deliver what was promised, lack of commitment to innovate, and from the view that what operations does is irrelevant because in the end management will adjust everything anyway.
- Waste from managing in a bureaucratic rather than entrepreneurial style.
- Waste arising from continuous review, re-recording, recalculation, and re-forecasting that comes from not treating commitments as commitments.
- Waste from attempting to manage human commitments through practices that are designed for managing data, information and forecasts.
- Waste from making decisions without the right people in the right conversations at the right time.
Using the distinctions from the ontological approach we can offer diagnostics about where waste is occurring. We can also support people through traditional development channels to help them shift to more resourceful and resilient ways of engaging with the root causes of waste.
These methodologies derive from the work of Fernando Flores, Chauncey Bell, Alan Sieler and others.