Language of Leadership - Zampellazampellagroup.com/wp-content/uploads/Language-Guide.2004.pdf · All speaking and listening in this domain in ... Martin Heidegger and John Searle;

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Language Guide.2004.doc - 1 -

Language of Leadership By Anthony V. Zampella

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LANGUAGEOFLEADERSHIP---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1CHANGEVS.TRANSFORMATION--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4STAGESOFTRANSFORMATION:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4THECONSTRUCTIONIST’SMODEL/VIEW:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5TRANSFORMATIONDISTINCTION-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6

ThreeTransformationalTools------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6SUMMARYOFONTOLOGYDYNAMICS-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7TYPOLOGYOFCONVERSATIONS--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8CONVERSATIONSFORCOMMITMENT--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8CONVERSATIONFORCOMPLAINING----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------9WHATTHECOACHLOOKSFOR----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------9

DISTINCTIONS--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------10AUTHENTICITY--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------10BEINGPRESENT------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------10LISTENING------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------11POWER---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------12RACKET:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------13WINNINGSTRATEGIES-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------14CONTEXT:------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------15RESPONSIBLE---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------15ACCOUNTABLE-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------16INTEGRITY------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------17“ONTHECOURT”----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------18CHOICE:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------18TIME------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------19

CONVERSATIONASDISTINCTIONS-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------20ENROLLMENTCONVERSATION---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------21POSSIBILITY&"NOTHINGNESS"-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------21

SPEECH-ACTS---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------22ONTOLOGICALELEMENTSOFEACHSPEECH-ACT:------------------------------------------------------------------------------------22REQUESTS------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------22PROMISES------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------23OFFERS---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------25ASSERTIONS----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------26DECLARATIONS-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------26ASSESSMENTS:-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------26

COMMUNICATIONS-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------27COMMUNICATIONS:SELF-EXPRESSIONMODELBEINGCOMPLETE------------------------------------------------------------------28STAGESOFCOMPLETION:EXPANDINGNOW-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------30THEBREAKDOWNPARADIGM---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------31

Dynamicofabreakdown-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------32Howweoperateinbreakdown.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------33Questioningtounearthabreakdown-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------34

COACHING:-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------35CoachingScript:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------36

LEADERSHIPPRACTICES-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------37PRACTICECOMMITTEDLISTENING----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------37PRACTICECOMMITTEDSPEAKING-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------37PRACTICEACTINGWITHINTENTION---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------38PRACTICEGENEROSITYTHROUGHCOMPLETION--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------38

THECOMMUNITYNATUREOFTHESELF----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------39

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LANGUAGE OF LEADERSHIP: The MSOL Program immerses students in language from a particular mindset. This mindset holds a particular relationship to language, which we refer to as the Language of Leadership or “generative language.” Proficiency in the use of language in this manner requires more than a command of a new set of words or a vocabulary; that would make it just one more jargon, inflexible and therefore not very useful. Leaders use language in a manner that develops one’s mind as a “system of meaning and thought.” Once proficient in this “practice,” and relationship to language, individuals can apply it to any discipline, situation or circumstance. We present this language as distinctions, which are continually being developed in an effort to make them more accessible.

Effective leaders use the distinctions presented in this section to generate action, through relationship and trust. Fundamentally, the critical difference between leaders and others is the way leaders create reality in their speaking; the way leaders speak. For them Language is action. Not action alone, but the capacity to recognize those opportunities to act and forward action. In every field, discipline, artistic endeavor and business, leaders act while others observe, evaluate, explain, assess, complain, etc. Without the ability to act, leaders cannot serve. The language of leadership is creative and generative -- spoken from the depths of responsibility/accountability. It cannot be spoken by those with a weak relationship to their “word.” All speaking and listening in this domain in grounded in an action mindset, and is intentional. Here, even the responsible choice not to act forwards action. Indeed, in this mindset even a leaders' ability to think, reflect and observe, removes obstacles to action, enabling leaders to act. This paradigm shift fundamentally alters the way we speak, listen and operate. The action orientation is designed to use speaking and listening to generate and create new realities within new realms of possibility for action. The MSOL Program engages its students in these empowering distinctions, which, when tested and distinguished in one’s life, can alter the observer one is, thereby altering one’s individual context, or view of the world. In addition, the program develops specific conversational models in an inquiry to develop one’s capacity to act and perform, individually and as team. Acknowledgements: This later edition of the original product is continually being developed and modified, designed to be make it more accessible. The first edition of this Language Guide, authored by Anthony V. Zampella (2004), includes valuable and profound contributions by Devorah Gilbert. References include work by philosopher, Martin Heidegger and John Searle; author Tracy Goss (Last Word on Power, 1996); scholars Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores (Understanding Computers and Cognition, 1986). Special recognition goes to scholars Jeffrey Ford, Ph.D, and Laurie Ford Ph.D. for their original work on conversational inquiry. Finally, we owe special acknowledgement to Landmark Education, Inc., WEA & Associates, and Newfield Network for beginning and sustaining dialogue on many of these techniques.

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Ontology: THE NATURE OF REALITY, EXISTENCE, BEING. Change vs. Transformation 1. Transformation is distinct from our understanding of change as follows:

1.1. Change: An alteration in the arena of Process. To anticipate the predictable, possible future. An improved future that was already going to occur, developed, incrementally, from actions based on the past.

1.2. Transformation: An alteration in the arena of Context. Fundamental shifts in events, which occur as non-linear or discontinuous progression. They cannot be predicted as extrapolations from an existing past. Transformation creates a new realm of possibilities, and thereby, access to different futures.

2. In the above statement, transformation is understood as follows: 2.1. Transformation processes are generated, intentionally, in the

medium of language. These processes differ from theories of objective reality; rather, reality is viewed as socially constructed in language.

2.2. This is a constructivist model, which views social order, at any given point, as the product of broad social agreement (tacit or explicit). Historical narratives and theories govern what is taken to be true or valid, including even what scientists are able to see. All observation, therefore, is filtered through conventional stories, belief systems, and theoretical lenses.

2.3. To the extent that action is predicated on the stories, ideas, beliefs, meanings, and theories embedded in language, transformations occur by changing patterns of narration, in the form of new language, which alters historical narratives. Alterations in linguistic practices, therefore, hold profound implications for change in social practice.

Stages of Transformation: AWAKEN à TRANSITION à INTEGRATION ¨ Awaken: ability to see what before was unseen ¨ Transition: Stages in which one creates from what's now seen, "real," in

front of them. ¨ Integration: Distinguish the past; integrate what's seen into who you're

being.

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The Constructionist’s model/view: 1) Social order is a product of broad social agreement – tacit or explicit

2) Social organization is not fixed by nature; most of social conduct is virtually stimulus-free, capable of infinite conceptual variation.

3) Social action is open to multiple interpretations – with no one objectified truth.

4) Historical theories and narratives govern what is taken to be true or valid – and what we are then able to “see,” including even what scientists are able to view.

5) Observation, therefore, is filtered through conventional stories, belief systems, and theoretical lenses.

6) Action is then predicated on those stories, ideas, beliefs, meanings and theories embedded in language. Transformation occurs when the patterns of narration are changed.

7) Alterations in linguistic practices, therefore, hold profound implications for change in social practice.

à Language is the tool with which to transform, and in which transformation occurs.

à Language is the house of being.1 It is the bridge between the

uncreated and created worlds.

à Language is BOTH the ultimate reality AND the instrument through which reality is brought forth.

1 Martin Heidegger

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Transformation Distinction Transformation is the genesis of a new realm of possibilities for yourself and your life. • A new realm of possibilities is not simply a new possibility, but an opening inside which a

completely new set or world of possibilities exists. Access to this realm of possibilities occurs through: § A SHIFT IN VIEW: The constraints the past imposes on your view of life disappear. A new

view of life emerges. § A SHIFT IN BEING: New Possibilities for being call you powerfully into being. § NEW ACTION: New openings for action call you powerfully into action. § NEW CONTEXT: The experience of being alive (fully self-expressed), transforms. FOUNDATION is integrity: Without integrity, no transformation is possible. Operate inside either:

1) Stand for possibility, a conversation from a possible future. 2) Something’s wrong as your Racket; and the need to fix-it, as your Winning Strategy.

Three Transformational Tools

a) Transform a complaint into a request (1) Through listening to complaints for hidden requests (2) Through speaking requests out of complaints.

b) Transform blame into responsibility. (1) Through listening to your cause in the matter of your circumstances (2) Through bringing yourself to the level required to respond (act) to your

cause in the matter of your circumstances.

c) Transform Being Stuck (breakdown) into Action (breakthrough). (1) Declare the breakdown. (2) Identify the commitment related to the breakdown. (3) Distinguish between what's missing and what seems to be wrong. (4) What possibilities does the breakdown open up? (5) What actions are appropriate to the commitment? (6) Where can I direct a request for coaching?

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Summary of Ontology Dynamics

Way of Being

Language Body

Emotions Way of Being (Observer)

Action

Results

Language Categories 1.Declarations à Assessments 2.Assertions 3.Requests 4.Promises 5.Offers

Conditions for Requests, Promises

and Offers

1. Speaker and Listener

2. Shared obviousness

3. Future action/something’s missing

4. Competence

5. Conditions of Satisfaction

(COS)

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Typology of Conversations 1. Coordinating actions with others 2. Making sense of generating meaning 3. Inventing the future 4. Producing opportunities 5. Creating shared understanding 6. Becoming a possibility for others 7. Developing and Improving relationships Conversations for: 1) Stories and personal assessments 2) Clarity; being Clear 3) Possible action

a) Coordination of action b) Conversations for commitment c) Conversations for completion d) Declaring Appreciation e) Complaining

4) Completion a) Accomplishment b) Recreation c) Declaration

Conversations for Commitment 1. Setting the context • Being clear about the breakdown and what is to be done about it • Assertion about what has or has not happened • An assessment that something is missing • Concerns are not being addressed • Dealing with issue will be expedited with assistance from others • Declaration to do something • To call upon someone for assistance 2. Gaining commitment • Effectively making a request and gaining a commitment to action • Making an effective request and knowing the responses to requests • This is a conversation for clarity insuring mutual understanding 3. Performance: managing the commitment and indicating completion of the task 4. Assessment: finished result compared with original agreement; expression of satisfaction (appreciation) or dissatisfaction (complaint)

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Conversation for complaining 1. Check your understanding of the original agreement 2. Establish the fact that what was agreed to has not been done 3. State the damage that has been done 4. Restate the request

What the coach looks for

q Assessments being treated as assertions q Assessments that are not grounded q The debilitating role of negative self assessments q Requests not being made or being made ineffectively q That requests are being listened to as declarations q Offers that are not being made q How declarations are not being utilized q “sloppy” promises” that have occurred q that elements for trust are absent q different types of conversations are not being used q cultural historical narrative that may be operating q How the learner is either not making request and or making ineffective

requests q How learner is operating from core assessments which are being lived as

assertions q How the learner has given away their personal authority and is granting

enormous weight to the opinion of others. q Declarations the learner is not making

Language Generates: Relationship – it is relational Trust – as a moral obligation

Performance – through commitment and action

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DISTINCTIONS Authenticity

a) A continuum of existence, inauthentically, as originally coined by Søren Kierkegard, and developed by Martin Heidegger.

b) Being authentic is owning where, at any moment, one exists on the continuum. The moment of authenticity exists when one can see the degree to which one is inauthentic.

c) Access to authenticity: i) Accurately seeing your state of being through pretenses. “Unconceal”

your pretense. ii) Being present to inauthenticity. Being present to the impact of our

inauthenticity on ourselves and others iii) Share inauthenticity, and its impact on one’s life..

Being Present

a) Fully aware and conscious, moment to moment, of the self: i) The emotional self ii) The feeling self iii) The thinking self iv) The self with thoughts v) The reacting self vi) The acting self vii) The presence of an unconscious self; viii) The self through connecting to the senses

b) being aware of mind/body relationship c) being aware of Levels of Consciousness d) being aware of impact on environment.

Notes on these Distinctions

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Listening • The process through which we receive and are present to and observe

ourselves, others, about others, to others about ourselves. • Listening creates the conditions for speaking; we either create the

listening for others about us, or we create listening in others as the conditions for our speaking.

LISTENING DYNAMIC: HOW LISTENING DEFINES US:

1.à

Listening is The Structure through which we interpret the world

2. à It Shapes how we speak.

3. And then Shapes the actions we take

. Notes on this Distinction

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Power Power is a function of velocity; that is to say, your power is a function of the rate at which you translate intention into reality. Most of us disempower ourselves by finding a way to slow, impede or make more complex than necessary the process of translating intention into reality. There are two factors worth examining in how we impair our velocity and disempower ourselves. a. Reasonableness When we act to realize our intentions from reasonableness, we are in the realm of all that is slow and complicated. Story, the narrative, explanation and justifications, we so readily espouse, offers no velocity, thus no power. In life, results are black and white: one either has the results or one has the story -- the reasons and justifications -- for no results. The person of power does not deal in explanations. The person of power manages himself or herself by results -- not for results -- and creates a space or mood of results in which to interact with others. b. Time Considerations Now never seems to be the right time to act. The “right time” is always in the future in the guise of after so-and-so it will be the right time; or when we have gathered all the facts; or as soon as we’ve got the plan down; or we’re still getting ready, still figuring it out. Now is the only real time you have. Given that the right time will never come, acting now is at least decisive. Even when you don’t get to be right; you will have acted powerfully. To break through in this area, one must train oneself in acting now. Expect breakdowns as you raise the bar on yourself. Power is Not Force Dominating another is not power at all; that is force, and force is the negation of power. “Power struggle” is an oxymoron -- but you will find control struggles are everywhere. Power exercises human faculties to the fullest -- openness, the ability to appreciate and respond to others, to listen to music, to receive love -- that is power. Adapted by Leadership Innovations, Inc.(Zampella Group, Inc) from WEA Associates and Charles Reich Notes on this Distinction

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Racket: A persistent Complaint coupled with a fixed way of being. Payoffs • Being right/making others

wrong • Dominating others/Avoiding

Domination • Justifying oneself/

invalidating another • Playing it Safe/Avoiding

Risk.

Costs • Love or Infinity with others • Self-expression • Health and vitality • Fulfillment and satisfaction

à à Why we do it: TO AVOID RESPONSIBILITY: WE SAY WE WANT TO CHANGE BUT THE PAYOFF IS FAR TOO GREAT! Looking Good: LOOKING GOOD -- NOT LOOKING BAD Self as: In Order to . . . Surviving & Fixing You are in this model when you are … in order to … or to fix something (or yourself).1. Changing 2. Strategizing 3. Controlling 4. Forcing

Outcomes 5. Preventing

6. Defending 7. Manipulating 8. Prevailing 9. Making it 10. Resisting 11. Solving

12. Avoiding 13. Handling 14. Getting certainty 15. Getting what you

want 16. WITHHOLDING

• Comparable: Defense Mechanisms (Psychology) Defensive strategies designed

unconsciously to deal directly with the anxiety itself rather than the source.

Notes on this Distinction

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Winning Strategies • Compensating Power Principle; How you survive, win, fix, get ahead. To "unconceal" our context, we must uncover our Winning Strategy: A lifelong, unconscious formula for achieving success, which, unknown to you, has designed you as a human being and as a leader. It is the source of your success and at the same time the source of your limitations. It defines your reality, your way of being and your way of thinking. Your winning strategy focuses your attention and shapes your attention (listening, through listening filters) which shapes your action. Your Winning Strategy is a conversation that consists of three elements:

¨ "listening for": the filter through which you interpret; ¨ "so as to act by": Your modus operandi (MO); ¨ And "in order to": your measure for knowing that life work out -- this is what's

possible for you inside the Universal Human Paradigm. You have a strategy that that works for you. It allows you to WIN -- so much so -- that your are listening for it, so as to act or engage it, in order to "accomplish something, fix something or be someone." Compensating Power Principle: This occurs inside your Winning Strategy. Your individual formula for winning (surviving) in life -- is designed to compensate for what's not possible -- for what you can't ever be. As your Winning Strategy gets stronger and stronger and you expand what is possible -- what you can be -- at the same time, what also expands with it, is what's not possible -- what can't ever be.

• Comparable: Coping Strategies (Psychology) Conscious, rational ways for dealing with the anxieties in life. Strategies, which deal with the source of the anxiety.


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Context: v Generally, those events and processes (physical or mental) that characterize a

particular situation or human environment and have an impact on human actions (overt or covert).

v The human environment that determines the limitations of any process, and the scope of the results it can produce.

v To generate context: Ø 1) from future: commitments and inside declarations; Ø 2) from past as reactions to mood or specific situation or circumstance.

Responsible

a) Exists in the domain of who we are being. It is a private stand. b) Who you are being that you are “able” to (own) “respond” to your life. c) Access through awareness:

i) How much of oneself one is conscious to and able to use to act. ii) All aspects of self: This is who I am; this is who I have been; this is

who I will become. iii) The degree to which you leave your life to chance is the degree to

which you are not prepared, are “unable” to respond, or that which you cannot be responsible.

iv) You cannot be responsible for that which you are unaware. Once aware, you cannot, not respond, only avoid being responsible.


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Accountable a) Accountability is standing publicly with your word as senior to your,

opinion, mood, emotions, feelings, thoughts, and other events. i) How you can be counted on for yourself as your word, promises, and

as a conversation. ii) Accountability occurs as a public stand as one’s word: committed

speaking, listening, promises and declarations. b) Accountability is your word as action (intention to reality) rather than an

idea you have. i) The opportunity to live “at choice” rather than leave life to chance, and

have it happen to you.


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Integrity a) Whole and complete: You are either “in” integrity or “out” integrity. b) Acting in-integrity is being whole and complete, in choosing; in being

responsible for workability in our lives. c) Inside learning, leaders move out-integrity.

i) Learning means creating gaps in one’s knowledge to stretch beyond what one knows.

ii) In the gap one finds what’s missing, what’s not whole or complete. d) Moving out of integrity requires breaking (not keeping) our word.

i) Keeping our word may not always be possible. ii) It is always possible to honor our word in the way we communicate

breaking our word. iii) (Hint: always keeping our word, finds us living a small, predictable,

safe life; living in the drift of life. Learning and stretching ourselves finds us breaking our word with facility such that we honoring our word.)

e) When out-integrity, leaders are first to see their own out-integrity and are first to respond with integrity. i) Even the tiniest part that is out-integrity unravels the whole; it is just a

matter of time. ii) A four-legged stool must have four complete legs to remain integral.

Any leg that is incomplete, even a little, threatens the integrity of the entire stool.

f) Byproduct #1: integrity is measured by workability or being reliably inexistence, consistently as one’s word.

g) Byproduct #2: Integrity is the personal foundation upon which one’s life rests. Without a strong foundation, one is not free to grow, expand, develop, and learn.


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“On the Court” a) Being in Action: engaged in life, not constrained by our past. b) Choosing moment by moment, intentionally, to forward action inside

commitment. c) “In the Stands”: Not in action as speculating, guessing, judging,

evaluating, and waiting for someday, for something to happen “in order to” act.


Choice: a) Time: when we choose reflects, consistently, who we are, as constrained

by past, or as informed by past to create future. b) Unconscious choices: patterns, behaviors, habits, automatic reflexes. c) Conscious choice occurs as:

i) “freedom to choose.” Freedom to choose is power, moment by moment, as being intentional, with purpose from commitment. Dynamic: Being à Doing à Knowing.

ii) Without freedom, choice occurs inside Wants/Needs; inside concern for knowing or being right. Dynamic: Knowing à Doing à Being.


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Time All of the world is occurring; how it occurs is in time. You only get to BE (exist) in time. We made up time so that we could BE. We are productive because of time. We have a life because of time. Opportunities exist as a product of time. Even “no time” exists because of time. All that exists, exists in time. Over time, everything reveals itself. Your integrity is based on a consistency that reveals itself over time. Over time you can see what is consistent in your life and that that – not some hope or good intention – is who you are. This insight can only be observed over time. A child has no time, no language to capture the past or the future. Once a child begins to interpret who they are, they develop a relationship to time. Soon one develops a language to talk about time. Byproducts of strong relationship to time: 1. Strong, reliable word; 2. Abel to predict with accuracy (truthfulness: see clearly) and able to

manage predictions. 3. Items exist as ready at-hand; 4. The capacity to act in the moment.


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CONVERSATION AS DISTINCTIONS Language in this mindset of a leader is action. We refer to study of this relationship to language as Speech-act theory. This relationship to language represents a shift from language as representative (descriptive, to describe events, reality) to language as action (generative, to create events, reality), which emphasizes the act of language rather than its representative role. In this model we view no distinctions between word and deed. One’s word is action. We view this through a particular mindset called the action mindset, which represents a system of thought and meaning to generate action, as follows

a) Distinction uncollapses the way we distinguish events, providing us with the opportunity to distinguish an opening from its background. We view existing parts through a more powerful lens that enables disclosing worlds beyond what’s obvious.

b) In our action mindset, distinctions create a new relationship to language (not words or vocabulary): A system of meaning and thought to view and act.

c) Creating a new distinction in an old world also creates a new opening, or new action, allowing individuals to use language to view the world and oneself differently, and to recreate oneself.

d) Constructivists: construction of reality through interaction, reconstituting the world as language, symbols, words and actions

e) Ontological: construction of reality through inquiry into nature, function and quality of being as arising in the world.


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Enrollment conversation Enrollment is a conversation, disclosing who you are being; it has little to do with what we say, how we say it. It is what lands in another's listening. Enrollment occurs when the benefit of owning your speaking occurs in another’s listening. The owning as possessing that possibility lives in yours and another’s listening not in speaking. When the Buddha first emerged as awakened or enlightened his first followers said I like the way you walk. I want to walk like you. They “knew” nothing about his insights, yet saw and experienced what he possessed. Enrollment is not convincing, manipulating, and persuading one to your position. It is who you are as a conversation, your commitment, seen as a possibility inside another. Possibility & "nothingness" • A declaration, creates possibility, an opening form emptiness of a future that

does not yet exist. • A creation of “nothingness,” a space from which anything is possible. • Recreation, acknowledgement and completion empty meaning to create

enough “nothingness” for possibility. Notes on this Distinction

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SPEECH-ACTS Ontological Elements of each Speech-Act:

Requests I request that you do x by y time. à Context Matters (ID Context for each element)

1. Speaker 2. Hearer 3. Future action 4. Presupposition of ability or competence 5. Background of share obviousness (assumptions) 6. Something is missing (needed) 7. Specific conditions of satisfaction 8. Sincerity

Example(s):

• Context: Employer/employee - Everyone guessing what s/he wants but afraid to ask

• Context: Dinner table - How many ways can we talk about “passing the salt” at dinner without it really being a request

• Explore #1: examine domains of your life to see where requests need to be made.

• Explore #2: Inquire - If I were ten times braver what request would I be making?

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Promises (vow, assure you, swear, pledge) I promise that I will do x by y time. Reality shifts in conversation about promises. Our financial life is filled with promises. Promises are directly related to trust. Trust is a linguistic and emotional phenomenon: Linguistically, it is comprised of, sincerity, competence and reliability, and emotionally it includes “involvement.” All speech acts require trust; promises are directly related to trust. There is always possibility that promise can’t be met, can be renegotiated. There are the same elements for promises as requests à Context Matters

1. Speaker 2. Hearer 3. Future action 4. Presupposition of ability or competence 5. Background of share obviousness (assumptions) 6. Something is missing (needed) 7. Specific conditions of satisfaction 8. Sincerity

Challenges:

§ Some use weasel language such as: I will try, I will do my best, I will try to do my best.

§ People have ways of promising that take away the ability of another to complain. This is a way of avoiding clarity. Promises without clear C of S.

§ These ways of promising enable the promiser to avoid begin held accountable for their word. Some make promises because of being afraid to say no.

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Note: Promises and Requests

Distinction: Whining or gossip, and complaint.

Whining = something one cannot do anything about or generate anything from. It allows

the status quo to remain and the speaker gets to be right:

Example: I am always out of time. (No broken promise, no request). There is nothing to

do about time, since there is no broken promise, and the speaker gets to be right.

Complaint = legitimate complaints result from a broken promise: Identify broken promise

à speak it as your complaint à make request.

legitimate complaint results from a lack of clarity from a an element of promise: Identify

the element from the promise à speak is as your complaint à make request.

Example: You stated that we would meet at 3:00 pm and didn’t arrive until 3:30

(promise). Since I did not know what was happening, I ended up being late for my next

appointment and also worried that something might have happened to you (complaint).

Next time if you see you are running late, please contact me on my cell phone. My

number is 917/923-7044 (request).

Distinction: declaration, promise, request.

To distinguish between declaration and promise: “I need to lose weight,” (declaration).

No listener, no COS. This is a declaration not a promise.

To distinguish between declaration and request: “We need to get clear about our

priorities,” (declaration). No listener, no COS. This declaration alters the future, but does

not make request. No one can do anything, yet the declaration makes it clear that the

future about priorities will exist altered.

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Offers 1. Request for someone to accept a promise that you are willing to fulfill. 2. Listen for concerns and breakdowns of others. There is a skill in anticipation 3. Your identity (reputation) is the assessment others have of you based on the

promises you have fulfilled. 4. Be seductive in making an offer and the conclusion of an offer is a promise. Exercise

Who are you? What promises are you committed to make and fulfill? What promises do others assess you capable of fulfilling or not. What is the offer that I want to make? A request, offer, or promise is the language of action. Working with them plus the 9 elements (each as part of a relationship to the whole and to the breakdown) is a great place for the coach to go when there is a breakdown.

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Grounding Assessments: Step-by-step

1. For the sake of what future action?

2. In which domain of action 3. According to what

standards 4. What true assertions

support the assessment? 5. What true assertions are

there against the assessment?

Assertions (Examples: I know, assert, calculate, hunch, think, deduce) 1. Aim of speaker is to distinguish truth versus false. Some with evidence and some with no

evidence. It creates in speaker an obligation to produce evidence. 2. Many communities make assertions. Some evidence is accepted and some is not accepted. 3. Evidence is an agreement between the speaker and the listener. 4. I assert that x is so 5. An Assertion’s truth are a function of evidence rather than language. We determine what’s

true based on the evidence. Declarations • Toward completion- thank you. Your welcome, etc, • It creates a new reality/context in language; they produce a shift in reality • Declaration is the language space of leadership • Declarations are never true or false • Declarations are invalid or valid; they are connected to authority. • We live declaring and don’t know the power it has • We are full of declarations from others (parents)

1. Initiate (I will, hello) 2. Complete (thank you) 3. Resolve (end to conflict) 4. Assessment, (speaker is a judge) à Defined below. Identifying and grounding

assessments is critical for working with learners. Assessments: Assessments are a sub-set of declarations; they alter the future. 1. Assessments are critical in our daily lives. We assess

everything: ourselves, others, events, and other assessments.

2. We live with our self-assessments, and our assessment of others. Assessments are declarations not assertions. That is, they are valid or invalid, based on the authority of the speaker; not the evidence or what’s true or false.

3. Assessments are expectations of future behavior (for the sake of some future)

4. Assessments lead to assessments and to the assessment of the assessments (which can be either positive or negative)

5. If you hold an assessment as an assertion you are in trouble. To avoid this, get beyond the assessment (or see it as dynamic) and you will find a completely different reality.

6. Transferring assessments into another domain is a trap. You are always at choice as to who you give the authority to assess you, and in which domain.

7. Assessments must be grounded (see box to right).

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COMMUNICATIONS Old Model: Survive & Fix New Model: Breakthrough

Paradigm Scarcity, to survive Abundance, to generate

Access to Success

Opportunity to fix, to be right

Giving something up. Completion. Being vulnerable

Context Fear Love

Motivation Surviving enough to fix self & others

Win-Win, relatedness

Assumption Life is dangerous; one must be guarded, protective; not let others hurt you.

Life is opportunity to create and contribute. Must be aware, responsible and act appropriate to create intimacy.

Operating Premise

Something’s wrong All is well.

Need Prove self by fixing self and others

Operate from commitment, relationship.

Reason for Communication

Tool to prove self, to fix and survive dangerous world.

Tool to create intimacy, to create relationship, be related.

Communication based on

Bringing something to each conversation.

Integrity, generosity, being responsible to create nothing and space for everything in to each conversation.

Listen for Being right; what is there to fix (in me and others).

Nothingness, commitment, being related

Practices & Habits

Changing, Strategizing, Forcing Outcomes, Controlling, Preventing, Defending, Manipulating, Prevailing, Making it, Resisting, Solving, Avoiding, Handling, Getting certainty, Getting what you want à Withholding.

Acknowledgment, daily quiet time with yourself. Experience your experience. Forgiving, Accepting, Dancing in the conversation; Being of use/service. Bringing everything and nothing to each conversation.

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Communications: Self-Expression Model

OUTCOME

INTENTION MESSAGE

Own It Full Permission

Truth

Be Clear

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Being Complete Being complete is being present and available for what's here, now -- to the extent that we're incomplete with the past, our commitments will be constrained (shaped) by the past. Normally we think that being complete means being at the end of something. Being complete is available all along the way. You are not complete with anything you can't allow to be just the way it is (anything you can't recreate). 1. Being complete as accepting is accepting what is and what is not à who one

is and who one is not. 2. Completion is being whole. We become whole by honoring the entirety of our being;

owning who we wound up being, who we are, and who are becoming – as worthy and sufficient.

3. Completion means having no impediment to empower or being empowered. 4. Whatever you can't hear or can't listen to you are incomplete about. 5. Whatever is in the way of total respect and dignity between you and another human

being is incomplete

Recreation, Declaration and Acknowledgment create Completion Notes on this Distinction

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Stages of Completion: EXPANDING NOW A concern is from the future, worry is from the past. State #1; Fully Complete -- is when:

1. Concern ceases to exists; or

2. Concern is transparent to fulfilling your concern; and

3. Fallout of completion must be put “reliably into existence."

Example: For a proficient typist, a keyboard ceases to exist as a concern and becomes transparent to typing a letter. State #2: Provisionally Complete: Something that can't be fully complete NOW or in the foreseeable future is nonetheless complete when: 1. Everything that can be done NOW is done NOW; and,

2 What cannot be done NOW is put reliably "into existence."

State #3: Automatedley Complete

1. Everything that can be done NOW is done NOW.

2. Everything that cannot be done now is reliably put into existence

3. And everything that is repetitive is repetitively put reliably into existence.

à à When automated, concerns disappear. Example. When bills are paid automatically, the bills do not disappear, but the concern about paying bills does. Disappearing concerns creates more space in your mind for being present and acting, now, in the moment.


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The Breakdown Paradigm The "Breakdown" paradigm and related language is introduced to break the grip that "having problems" holds over us; it is intended to transform the way we relate to problems. (Notice we'd rather have no relationship to problems, we believe problems shouldn't be.) Breakdowns/breakthroughs: we don't want to avoid, ignore or suppress them; we need to grow in our ability to listen for them, have the guts to declare them, to embrace (or at least engage) the breakdown/breakthrough process as the access to innovation and transformation. Breakdowns are the gap — what's missing — between circumstances and commitment. ¨ What's missing is an expression of having 'upped' your commitment. ¨ What's missing is what is possible, what is next -- not what's wrong. ¨ Breakdowns don't get in the way of my job-- they are my job. ¨ My job is to address breakdowns; also to generate them. ¨ Breakdowns are an opportunity to recommit. ¨ Breakdowns are an opportunity to restore integrity.

What to do. 1. Declare the breakdown. 2. Identify the commitment related to the breakdown. 3. Distinguish between what's missing and what seems to be wrong. 4. What possibilities does the breakdown open up? 5. What actions are appropriate to the commitment? 6. Where can I direct a request for coaching?

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Dynamic of a breakdown Concept of transparency. …We are on with many things we are not aware of. A break in transparency makes what was once invisible to us evident and present. It separate the subject fro the object, and creates a gap that didn’t exist before. It reflects awareness on the action that we are performing. They make the world emerge in all its complexity and they interrupt our future action. What was previously invisible becomes visible.

Break Down Occurs

An interruption occurs –

separation of object and subject

A world of Automatic Assessments.

Who did it? (blame) Why Me? We go on automatic assessment (racket). The more you are on automatic assessment the more you remain in breakdown.

Network of Help

Seek out network of conversations &

support.

Requests, Promises, Offers.

(formal and informal) i.e. hospitals, gas stations,

diners; helping hand, request for coaching

Tools in Breakdown

Object shifts relationships

Generates Creativity.

Breakdowns surface

commitments

Gives an opportunity to recommit, to strengthen my

resolve.

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How we operate in breakdown. We go on automatic assessment. Who did it (blame)? The more you remain on automatic assessment the more you are in breakdown.

Note: if a learner is in automatic assessment it is likely the result of a break-in transparency; an interruption.

There is a consistent pattern with most of us that when we experience a breakdown we have an inability to ask for help. Question for learners: What is the way we are in asking for help? When breakdown…look at tools and technology and seek a network of help Breakdowns surface commitments It also causes us to see things (objects…i.e. knives folks, tents) differently creatively to solve problems. When people hide breakdowns, it kills creativity when there is a lack of trust First way to build trust is to talk about it. Must have the ability to declare a breakdown. Key is the ability to ask for help. Huge area for coaching Exercise on breakdowns

1. Bring to mind a breakdown now or in recent past 2. What assessment(s) came to you? 3. What request did you make? 4. What tools/technology emerged? 5. What commitments can’t be fulfilled because of the breakdown?

Insights: • Is this your style in breakdowns in your life? • If we focus on our historical discourses…. interpretations have us.

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Questioning to unearth a breakdown Breakdowns: The essence of coaching. To end suffering. Suffering is a linguistic phenomenon. • “Why” Questions: leads to story, rationale and explaining away. “Why” can lead to

commitment with intervention but habitually it’s all about reasons.

• “How” Questions: Gets into actions (Premature)

• “What” Questions: (Important to begin) Questions about concerns.

Begin with open-ended questions.

Reflective Questions: What occurred, thought provoking, prevailing thoughts. May be

philosophical: (Where are you around abundance as opposed to scarcity.) Get into the

experience: Cultural discourses. What might be the assessments of the worldview the

person is holding.

Probing questions: Gentle irreverence. To interrogate to dig deeper: to the facts. “Can

you tell me more about what happened, what you’re feeling?” What’s your body doing?

When have you experienced that in that past (not the story, the experience)

Clarifying questions: get to assertions. To understand the facts: What happened?

Circumstances.

Explorative questions: To identify a path; “What if” questions. Work with element of

curiosity.

Analytical questions: To take you down a logical path: Beyond logical, to other

domains. Leading to more closed-ended questions.

Understanding emotional triggers: Being Mad: Unmet expectations. Requests not met. Undeclared satisfaction.

Being Sad: Experience a Loss.

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Coaching: WHAT IS A COACH? "One day, though, I finally got it. 'I'm a coach,' l thought. What is a coach? To me, a coach is a person who is your friend, someone who really cares about you. A coach is committed to helping you be the best that you can be. A coach will challenge you, not let you off the hook. Coaches have knowledge and experience because they've been there before. They aren't any better than the people they are coaching (‘this took away my need to have to be perfect for the people I was teaching'). In fact, the people they coach may have natural abilities superior to their own. But because a coach has concentrated their power in a particular area for years, they can teach you one or two distinctions that can immediately transform your performance in a matter of moments. "Sometimes coaches can teach you new information, new strategies and skills; they show you how to get measurable results. Sometimes a coach doesn't even teach you something new, but they remind you of what you need to do at just the right moment, and they push you to do it. I thought, 'What I truly am is a success coach.' I help to coach people on how to achieve what they really want more quickly and more easily.' And everyone needs a coach, whether it's a top level executive, a graduate student, a home-maker, a homeless person, or the president of the United States!"

— Anthony Robbins, Awaken The Giant Within C 1993, Vak* Smith & Associates, Inc 70 WEST 36TH STREET, SUITE 1402, NEW YORK, N.Y. 10018 TEL: (212) 695-2562 FAX: (212) 564-8524 Notes on this Distinction

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Coaching Script: LANGUAGE FOR “GETTING STUCK.” You get stuck when things do not go your way, based on your view of the world. 1) ASK YOURSELF: WHAT HAPPENED? – What Occurred à What’s so.

Answer to question What Happened is always that a conversation took place. Someone made a request or a promise.

What occurred to get you stuck must be brought inside your original commitment that brought you to be in this situation.

à See ALL interpretations as simply something that you have, not who you are. You are senior to all that makes up your Point of View (POV).

2) ASK YOURSELF: WHAT’S MISSING – What (who) does not yet exist – who do you need to be -- that is essential for your designated possibility to become a reality in the game you are playing.

This is not inside, What should be or shouldn’t be? Instead, ask yourself, What does my commitment want: What is essential for your designated possibility or commitment – for your new game.

3) THEN, ASK YOURSELF: WHAT’S NEXT – This answer is always answered from the future; likely a new promise, request to forward the conversation to the next level à to forward action – in the present.

Make a promise and/or request, and when they are accepted, declined, or countered, make another. And another. And another. Until the invented future, the possibility that you are being, occurs in the world as a reality, for you and for others.

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Language Guide.2004.doc Page 37

LEADERSHIP PRACTICES à Be more, do less. Practice Committed Listening 1) Pause: connect to the senses and open your attention to the matter at hand. 2) Be present in the moment; only in the moment do you have the CHANCE to

choose. Choice exists at no other time. 3) Assumptions à Drop assumptions: Choose to listen w/o “automatic” meaning;

listen for possibility. à Choose Assumptions: Be responsible for assumptions, then expectations, then resulting circumstances.

4) Listening Filters à Be present to the conversation in your listening.

5) Pause between activities: Bring your entire self to NOW; leave prior events in the past.

6) Do not take things personally: Drop any ideas you have about self or others à Connect fully w/senses à give full attention to the matter at hand. à When you view (expect) people a certain way, they will comply, and show up that way on YOUR PATH. 7) Nothingness: Bring nothing to your conversations. Bringing something means that

only something is possible; bringing nothing means that anything is possible in your listening.

Practice Committed Speaking 1) Speak with intention: Choose meaning and context in which you speak: Say what

you mean and mean what you say. à There are no idle conversations; what you demonstrate, say and choose reflects who you are, creating a listening for you in others.

2) Complete incomplete conversations: If you generate crap, clean it up. 3) Be present to automatic speech; if it is not complete, clean it up. 4) Speak inside Declarations through promises and requests. 5) Own your own conversation: listen conversation about yourself; “see” how you

created it: own it, use it and/or disappear it by creating a new listening for you in others.

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Practice Acting with intention 1) Be present to who you are being in the moment; “see” automatic actions. Act in the

NOW in the “present” from the future – your possibility – and inside your commitment. 2) Feed what you want to grow: Where do you place your time & energy? à Feed anger;

anger grows. à Feed possibility; possibility grows. 3) “See” your Racket & Winning Strategy: Be aware of how Racket and WS show up in

your life; use them to get present to what’s so, and then and get off it!!! 4) Be present to the action dynamic: Action à forward action à STUCK. Notice where

you are stuck, that you are stuck and then be a request for coaching. 5) Feedback: Do not “expect” feedback a certain way, accept it as offered. Feedback is a

gift for your growth and development. If you cannot receive it, people will stop giving it.

6) Declare breakdowns inside conversation: what’s so à what’s missing à what’s next. 7) Time: Be aware of time as a critical indicator of how you “exist” in the world.

a. See how you exist “in time”; your relationship to your word, commitment, purpose and your declared being.

b. Use time to track your progress. See what you can predict in time. c. Do not cheat yourself or deprive yourself of this growth and development.

Powerful leaders can see a result in time and can accurately predict its outcome. d. Use time to “see” what’s missing. If your commitments, and the life you love, are

not located in time, they will never exist.

Practice Generosity through Completion 1. Results with love: You cannot produce powerful results without being related to others.

Others will pull for you if you let them. Focus on them and their environment and the result will be the byproduct.

2. Be generous with yourself. Be with yourself for a quiet period EVERY SINGLE DAY. See your gifts and use them every single day. à How you view yourself recreates itself on your path.

3. Be generous with others: share yourself with others; begin to enroll others in who you’re being as your future possibility. Use your time, listening and your entire being to make yourself available to others.

4. Complete, complete, complete: If you cannot be with things the way they are and the way they are not, you are incomplete.

a. Making others wrong -- your instructors, homework, boss, colleagues, the MSOL program, parents, spouse -- are interpretations you have. Have your interpretations but do not become them.

b. Remember, you get to be right when it or others are wrong. You also create distance. When you see this dynamic, complete it.

5. Forgive others for yourself. Opt to forgive rather than being right or looking good. à Give up your racket and winning strategy in favor of relationship. à Give up your right to anger, upset and frustration; forgiving is for you, not them. Each time you forgive, you remove a brick from your bag and lighten your load; you will begin to live life effortlessly with ease and at peace.

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THE COMMUNITY NATURE OF THE SELF Adapted from Peter Senge, "Communities of Commitment" Nothing happens without personal transformation; and the only safe space to allow for this "transformation of the self" is in a learning community. — J. Edwards Deming When somebody asks us to talk about ourselves, we talk about family, work, school, sports-- all about our affiliations. In all this talk where is the 'self'? The answer is 'nowhere.' Consider this: the self is not a 'thing', but a point of view that unifies the flow of experience into coherency. In our culture, the self is a "myself" isolated from other selves. You turn the self into a thing when you allow personality traits and behaviors to become identified as your ego and reified as yourself. In this process a primary value is assigned to the ego and a secondary value to community. When we reify the self, we set ourselves up as objects for use. We then treat encounters with others as transactions that can add or subtract to the possessions of the ego. In this process we treat community as nothing more than a network of contractual commitments for symbolic and economic exchanges. Community is much more than that. Community supports certain ways of being and constrains others. Community as context ultimately determines what it is to be a person. Constitution of the self can only happen in community. As we remember together that the self is never a thing, and is always being transformed, we create an opening in which others appear as legitimate beings. Only then can we engage with one another in particular interactions that can open new possibilities for our being. Said another way by a Native American Elder:

Community. Somewhere there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength to join our strength to do the work that needs to be done.

—Starhawk

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Language of Leadership - Zampellazampellagroup.com/wp-content/uploads/Language-Guide.2004.pdf · All speaking and listening in this domain in ... Martin Heidegger and John Searle;