In the last fifty years, the contribution of new scientific approaches such as quantum physics, knowledge biology, systems theory and certain philosophical currents, have contributed to the emergence of new interpretations of the phenomenon of human beings working together.
In this context and since 1991 Julio Olalla and Rafael Echeverría proposed to train ontological coaches as a new profession that would make it possible to intervene in the ways of observing and observing people in order to facilitate the connection with their aspirations.
In this drift we formed a group of Latin Americans who later became close collaborators of these Chileans until the roads were opened, which included even the separation of these great teachers in 1997.
That is why in this work we will propose what we understand as ontological coaching and Ontological Coaching Consulting by Dr. Olga Suárez and who writes from our specific experience as ontological coaching consultants.
To start the word "Coaching" means "Training". «Ontology the Language» is the study of the Human Being from the understanding that it is the language that constitutes us and distinguishes us as humans.
The word coaching is well known in the field of sports where the coach is the technical director who tells the player or the players what they have to do.
The ontological coach does not tell people what to do. Rather, it explores, asks questions, offers interpretations that it releases if they do not make contact with the world of interests of the apprentice and considers, if the latter validates them in order to respectfully challenge the mental and emotional models that hinder the apprentice. to the objectives that it intends to jointly design actions with which to sustain over time the new vision developed.
In this context, we want to offer our understanding of ontological coaching and then expand on what we understand as ontological coaching consulting.
Ontological coaching is a type of conversation held by an apprentice with an ontological coach based on an express request from the first who considers that there are certain results that matter to him and is not being able to find the resources to achieve them, which enables him to respectfully challenge their ways. to think, act and interact with the people with whom you interact daily (clients, collaborators, employees, suppliers, etc.) in order to facilitate access to extraordinary results.
For many years, those of us who were training in ontological coaching had difficulties defining what we were doing, and even today many professionals continue to have them.
We are interested in this work to show that after an ontological coaching conversation a person can perform actions that were not available to them before and that these actions do not come as a result of induction, advice and / or recommendation of the ontological coach, but arise from exploration and joint intervention.
At this time we were observing that the individual approach both in a face-to-face ontological coaching conversation and in a room was very powerful and what we did was develop an "ontological coaching architecture" or a "generic roadmap" that would enable learners distinguish when they were ontologically coaching from any other conversation.
However, it seemed to us (and still seems to us) that the greatest challenge at this time is not in individual intervention but in the approach of collective learners such as teams, organizations and communities.
- How to make a team learn? How to generate collective innovation in a company? How to contribute so that a community is transformed?
Although we agreed with Deming that "nothing will happen without personal transformation" we realized that personal transformation was a necessary condition for the transformation of organizations, although not sufficient.
This is where we meet the challenge of building a model of intervention in collective apprentices that would take care of the internal inconsistencies that arose in parallel with the issues that individual people could bring up. The teams, organizations and communities had a life of their own !!!
The Ontological Coaching Consultancy includes everything said and developed for an Individual Ontological Coaching Conversation and adds a whole series of other elements that make the complexity of more than two human beings coordinating actions to achieve joint results.
This approach allows us to understand from a privileged perspective some dilemmas that are experienced in organizations every day: we often see, for example, the case of excellent executives forming teams that achieve results that are not in line with the quality of the individualities.
There are even others who, while being very effective in their own, have difficulties in coordinating actions with their peers in other sectors… Or companies in processes of change that stumble over certain attitudes of their members…
In this way it is possible for us to intervene in territories that until now remained as "black boxes" and that have to do with the linking aspect of management that is the support of all management. If relationships are precarious, management will be too.
We therefore believe that it is vital for companies and the people who inhabit them to have managers and bosses who are at the same time leaders from the ontological coaching approach (respectful of the times, elections and commitments of their own and others), who know not only do well what they have to do but also coordinate effectively, show the way to their peers and their people in charge, align and inspire them, generating confidence, sense of responsibility, commitment and capacity for lifelong learning.
As we have said, the Ontological Coaching Consultancy establishes its roots in an in-depth review of what it means to be Human and basically the contribution of the Chilean biologist Humberto Maturana who, like other exponents such as David Bohm and Fritjof Capra, from quantum physics show that it is not possible for human beings to access what we call "reality" because we do not have the biological mechanisms of perception to do so.
What we do have access to is our interpretations of the results or facts that we perceive.
In this sense, Language Ontology, Ontological Coaching and Ontological Coaching Consulting are approaches that question twenty-five centuries of common sense in which human beings took for granted that our way of seeing the world was The way of being of things.
The consequences of this new scenario jeopardize what has been traditional education, training and consulting, as we are saying that no expert can assure that his sayings reflect "what really happens"…
In any case, you will find more or less effective interpretations of a phenomenon but no longer a diagnosis that evokes "Reality"
In this context, we distinguish ontological coaching consulting as the approach that allows organizations in general and their executives in particular, to observe the ways of articulating the interpretations of their problems with a view to maintaining them, partially modifying them and / or releasing them definitively to give rise to to others that make it possible to achieve the desired results.
From the Ontological Coaching Consultancy we interpret the organization's diagnoses as an expression of its own way of perceiving and not as a description of "what actually happens".
Our job as Ontological Coaching Consultants is not to give recipes but to provide new settings in which people, teams, organizations and communities with their own resources and those who enable their new ways of being in interrelation, can invent ways of coordinate actions that facilitate access to the results that your organization and themselves seek.
It seems essential to us that teams, organizations and communities have spaces where they can speak while being listened to with respect and where they can experience the power to converse with others who are experiencing similar situations.
The challenge is great and we will not be able to tackle it individually. That is why we are training ontological coaches from different Argentine provinces to intervene as External Consultants or as Internal Consultants in their companies, in addition to offering a second-level program for ontological coaches from different schools and branches that want to continue to be nurtured in a network of collaboration, autonomy and lifelong learning.
Hence our gratitude to the promoters of this Puentes magazine that allow us to bring this gaze to you and at the same time have the possibility of receiving your feedback and continuing to learn.
From now on we aspire to install this unprecedented and powerful vision of Consulting in our country with the firm commitment to align ourselves in win-win games with professionals, teams, organizations and / or communities that understand the importance of this move in Argentina and the There is an urgent need to review the ways in which we are understanding the phenomenon of joint work in general and of doing business in particular.
Copyright 2002 Marcelo Krynski This is an unpublished work of authorship and protected by the laws of intellectual property rights of the Argentine Republic. It may not be reproduced, copied, published, or loaned to other persons or entities without the express written permission of Marcelo Krynski.
