When I hear "WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT HAPPENED", I understand that you are wondering who was at fault or who made a mistake in something. And I also hear that "Someone is a responsible human being" applied as referring to being very compliant or obedient. Do coaches refer to these situations with the issue of responsibility?
That is, generally, culturally what is understood. Now, the interpretation that Ontological Coaching provides, as well as other disciplines, is that it is not guilt, it is not obedience, it is not a requirement. We are talking about a way of being, a full choice of the human being, a space for reflection, freedom and commitment. Responsibility = RESPONS (H) ABILITY = ability or ability to respond. Notice that it is far from looking for causes or culprits. It is the attitude that many mothers of young children, for example, tend to have. If you are invited to another house, and your child dirties the chair in that house, most likely the mother will choose to take charge of that situation and clean the chair, although it was not she who stained it but her son. So the responsibility in our Ability to respondIt is our choice of how to position ourselves in the face of the events that we live, it is our freedom to choose our own actions at all times, how to take charge. It has to do with asking yourself the reflective question: given what there is, what do I want regarding this situation, what am I going to take care of? What do I choose to do? What am I going to do? For example: A middle manager Juan tells his manager Oscar: "I'm sick of them continuing to give everything to me." And Juan gets sick, and reacts. How he reacts: arguing, getting angry, sometimes reproaching, sometimes keeping quiet, withdrawing. In other words, this is the way Oscar relates to this circumstance, it is his way of responding. And, if we talked to Oscar later, he would almost certainly tell us: "and what else was he going to do with what he answered?"And if Oscar is interested in having a good relationship with Juan, perhaps he would say "I am interested in having a good relationship with him, anyway as long as he continues like this, this is impossible." Precisely, when we talk about our interpretation of Responsibility, it has to do with how I relate to the circumstances, what I do with what happens. In this case, the manager Oscar feels bad, uncomfortable, aggrieved, he thinks that an injustice has been committed to him. We can say that this is a problem / discomfort / concern that Oscar has.In this case, the manager Oscar feels bad, uncomfortable, aggrieved, he thinks that an injustice has been committed to him. We can say that this is a problem / discomfort / concern that Oscar has.In this case, the manager Oscar feels bad, uncomfortable, aggrieved, he thinks that an injustice has been committed to him. We can say that this is a problem / discomfort / concern that Oscar has.
I want to bring an example first and then use it in this model.
If a brick falls from a 20th floor onto an anvil, nothing happens to the anvil. If it falls on a human being, it will most likely kill him. It is very important to note that what happens in a relationship, what determines the outcome, is fundamentally determined by who receives the stimulus. So we could recognize that not everyone would be upset by what Juan said, and that how I see or take things has to do with me. Perhaps another could calmly answer him: If we give everything to you, it is precisely because of how trustworthy and competent you are ”. And maybe this manager will not get bad and this is not a problem for him.
If I recognize this, instead of reacting, I can reflect on what I want from this situation. If, in Oscar's case, what he wants is to build a good relationship with Juan, feel good, etc., he can choose what else to do to start creating a path, a process for this to happen. It could be, tell Juan how you felt about this and ask him what he needs to be okay with Juan and with himself.
Every situation in life offers us the opportunity to respond, especially to choose how to respond, and how we respond determines how we feel, what kind of life we build for ourselves and what possibilities of results we will have.
And why is it so important to differentiate this from the responsible human being from this point of view?
One of the biggest problems of human beings has to do with the way they behave or respond to circumstances. Synthesizing, we say that there are two general forms of human behavior: that which acts as a victim and that which acts as responsible. There are two positions towards life, which will strongly impact my way of being, my possibilities, the results I can or cannot achieve, the relationships I can have, etc.
The philosophy of the victim has to do with seeking innocence, diminishing the possibilities of intervening and learning and, of course, this has its benefits and disadvantages. And for example those who say: "and… what do you want me to do if the other yelled at me". The benefits are: I put blame and responsibilities outside, I seek innocence. I'm not wrong either, since everything is done by others, I have nothing to do with this matter. And, of course, I can't have my own achievements either, since I have nothing to do with this matter. The disadvantage is that I am always depending on others, on circumstances, on the gaze of others, etc. etc., and this is practically a guarantee of dissatisfaction and frustration. Where do I appear in all this?What possibilities do I open to myself to do something different when I am unhappy with what is happening? It is a way of taking away all personal power. As I say, it is a way to put the handle of my own life on the outside.
On the other hand, it would be different to recognize that my reaction, my resignation, my devaluation does not exist, precisely without my being myself. And that my answers have to do with me, with the way I see things. The things that happen to me, life and the relationships I build, have to do with my way of responding, with my ability to respond. And this is what we mean responsibly. What happens to us, our way of living, does not have to do only with others or with circumstances. These are stimuli and our life, our well-being or discomfort, our achievements, will have to do with how I respond to those circumstances, with what I do with what happens. It has to do with putting a stop, reflecting and asking ourselves: what do I want, what am I going to take care of, what am I going to do.
I will give another example at the business level. A team of sellers of warm jackets, sales decreased significantly compared to the previous year. When asked why sales fell, they answer: because it was less cold. Now they are victims in this case of the weather. Something like that everything is independent of me. And this is what generates explanations of justifications and excuses for why the objective was not achieved. Innocence is sought and along with that there is much less opportunity for intervention and learning.
THE PRICE WE PAY FOR OUR INNOCENCE IS OUR IMPOTENCE.
On the other hand, from a responsible position, they might say "It was less cold, and we did not consider the weather or take different actions." And so perhaps they generate anticipation strategies, or learning after the experience with which they were not satisfied.
With these conversations that we call generative, we open up the possibility to reflect, to learn, to act differently. And this already impacts our capacity for action and achievement of objectives, not to mention our self-esteem, our well-being and our integrity. We feel better, not because we have 100% guarantees of achieving what we want, but because we ourselves are taking charge of generating, little by little, our own personal power, our own capacities to choose and act.
IT IS ABOUT, AND THE DIFFERENCE IS IN, HOW YOU WILL CHOOSE TO RESPOND TO THE CIRCUMSTANCES.
Eg I want my subordinate or my peer from another sector to present me a report once a week. And perhaps I am trapped in my own internal conversation: he should realize alone, we have been together 15 years, if it does not occur to him it does not work for me, etc. etc. And perhaps little by little he will come to talk to me: they are all the same, why am I always willing to collaborate, nobody thinks of me, they ignore me… And, without realizing it, this is the type of human being that we become and the type of suffering life that we are self-generating. If we could recognize that the one who wants a weekly report is me, that the one who has the concern / problem / dissatisfaction is me, then it is I myself who can choose to do different things to achieve this, other than to put outside the responsibilities of what I do not I have. And one way would be, e.g.:comment to the others involved, that this report is very important to me, that I need it. Could it be? What do you think? Do you need something from me?
I hear a lot from people in general, whether in families, in organizations, in clubs, in educational institutions, etc. that people often say: they hurt ME, what else would you want me to do if they left the meeting; I will only be happy if you give ME flowers every month; etc. I mean, I hear that a lot of responsibility is put outside. As well I also hear that by responsible they refer to the guilty or the cause of something. If being responsible or protagonist is so effective, why do people behave so much like victims?
Human beings, mainly in our childhood, we are transforming into coexistence with the adults that we have to live. And since we were children we hear our parents asking: who is responsible for this fight? Who is responsible for this disorder in the house? And from the I did not go, it was him, from the innocence it seems that we guarantee ourselves happiness, security, through the approval of others, through pleasing them. And we learned to separate ourselves from the problem. The downside to this is that we also separate ourselves from the solution, from doing something to fix it.
And the problem of eradicating oneself from the explanation of the problem is that one loses all possibility of positively influencing the situation and, it is we ourselves who, without realizing it, are denying ourselves, disappearing, ignoring (as they say in these times).
And what can we do to begin to reverse this of those who feel bad about their powerlessness, and go from victim to responsible behavior?
As I mentioned before, culturally we are very attached to the model of
Stimulus-reaction
The invitation is to reflect that what happens outside does not induce action, it simply influences it. And take those external facts, attitudes of others, as information.
And so move on to the model
Information => Awareness / reflection => Choice / decision => Response
It's about putting a stop, paying attention, noticing, deciding what I want, and finally choosing how to respond.
Those responsible or protagonists, although they do not always achieve the results they want, have great possibilities of having inner peace (integrity).
It is building ourselves a wonderful space of freedom. And FREEDOM does not mean doing what you want. Freedom means choosing, in the face of a certain circumstance, the answer most congruent with one's own values and interests.
I hear a lot, about couples, partners or business owners, friends, etc., that there are often many discussions about "whose responsibility is it to do something?"
In general, when I ask a couple, two partners, etc., how they consider their responsibilities are assigned, in what percentage to each one.
They usually answer
50% -50%.
This model seems equitable, however it usually leads to each of them saying that what they ask for is in 50% of the other. And it is a never ending story.
70% -30%; 40% -60%; …; they all bring the same drawback regarding defining exactly what is in each one's part.
100% -100%.
Oddly enough, the same questions appear here, sometimes due to overlapping tasks.
Our proposal, that of the ontological coaches, is to
100% -0%, that is, 100% me and 0% the others.
Precisely this has to do with the responsibility model that I have been referring to. It is about accepting the other, accepting the circumstances. What do I mean by accepting? Accept interpreted as "this is what there is", "I am with what I have today", "this is what is happening and what is happening to me". Stop fighting with this situation to open doors to the possibility of taking charge of taking action to generate the changes we want. Accepting is not agreeing, it is not that it seems fair to me or that I deserve it, but to focus on taking action to dissolve the situation that worries me, to do something different from what I have been doing.
Could you make us a closing of the topic?
The human being was not created to be a victim, this brings us impotence and dissatisfaction. Responsibility, the ability to respond, taking charge, has nothing to do with looking for causes or guilty. It has to do with our relationship with the world, with our history. It is a statement of "who am I under the circumstances." We are talking about a commitment to change something in our way of being. The attitude of responsibility has to do with our integrity, our dignity, our self-esteem, our way of relating to ourselves and our results. It has to do with choosing, with our freedom and with generating new possibilities for us to develop ourselves, to achieve our objectives and with well-being.
Entrevista realizada a Adriana Hercovich, coach ontológica, en Radio Romántica FM 99.5 de Pergamino, el 18 de Enero de 2011, con ejemplos adaptados para el ámbito empresarial.
