What is Ontological Coaching?
The way in which we behave and take action is rooted in the way we perceive or observe our surroundings and ourselves. Our perceptions are based on our beliefs, on our physiology; on the conversations we have, on the emotions we experience, on the organizations we participate in, etc.
By stopping to take a look at ourselves and the way we observe or perceive our world, we have the tremendous possibility for revealing our potential and for modifying our recurrent patterns of behavior that limit our well being and the results we are able to produce. By becoming a new observer of ourselves and the systems in which we work, we can modify old interpretations that trap us in behaviors that don’t produce the outcomes we desire.
The SOAR Institute’s coaching programs widen your capacity to learn and to act by expanding the observer that you are in the world. The programs are an invitation to explore…to discover… and to revisit fundamental questions about how we take action in the systems we work and live in.
Our programs greatly enhance your capacity to manage and lead yourself and others. They give you the ability to generate environments full of creativity, confidence, respect and commitment. Additionally, they provide the practices that improve your effectiveness in action and communication. They enhance your ability to listen to the opportunities that are available and to coordinate action more effectively and efficiently with your work teams.
Coaches bring many different approaches to their work. When we examine how coaches go about coaching, we find they generally work at three levels:
- Setting goals and achieving tasks
- Developing new skills
- Developing a new way of being.
From an Ontological Coaching perspective, these three levels of coaching fit within each other. The first level is encompassed in the second level and both these levels then fit within the third.
Therefore an Ontological Coach works at all three levels whilst ensuring a collaborative approach to the coaching relationship:
Setting Goals And Achieving Tasks
At this level, we use our conversational skills and linguistic distinctions to engage the client in taking action to address specific breakdowns.
Developing new skills
At this level, we use our expertise in observing and intervening in the human condition and engaging in effective conversations. In this context, we work with the client to help them develop skills in these domains. The ultimate aim of the Ontological Coach should be to move his or her client to a stage where they can coach themselves.
Developing A New Way Of Being
An Ontological Coach’s competence in observing the human way of being allows them to work with their client at the level of his or her way of being. In doing so we look at the ways in which the client engages the world in terms of language, emotion and body and work with his or her client to examine these interpretations, their relevance to the client and how the client’s way of being might be impacting on the way they engage in living.
So where does this lead us in terms of Ontological Coaching? An Ontological Coach helps their client define and achieve their goals, teaches them new skills in the domain of observing and relating to themselves and others and, as Rafael Echeverria and Julio Olalla have said, “Ontological coaching involves an intervention that modifies the fundamental principle(s) of coherence that we are.” In other words, Ontological Coaching focuses on the limitations of what it is to be human and seeks to expand our capacity for action and in doing so enhance our life and reduce our suffering.
We specialize in individual Executive and Life coaching, person to person or via Skype, as well as organisational team or group coaching.