Acceptance means that you “facing facts” and acknowledging the way things are. You are prepared to let go of your personal feelings and take action to fulfil a commitment or care about the needs of others without getting too attached emotionally. There is compassionate detachment, of the type adpted by doctors and judges. There is also a mood of humility that there are things we do not need to change to move on.

And assessment is a statement of the valuation opinion or judgement it’s not true or false, as it can be grounded by supporting or ungrounded if it’s just an opinion. There has to be a speaker and listener, which can happen in an internal conversation. The way you listen to an assessment will determine the action you take and what impact it will have on the desired outcome.

Awareness happens when we sense or see something that we then pay attention to. Putting it into language we can check it out with others. To be unaware as to be blind. When we are aware, we can choose our response. We can only be aware of what our nervous system has been trained to look for. More distinctions increase our awareness to find possibilities that will serve our intentions and discover new insights.

Blending is an experience of “being on the same page” or having a rapport with someone. This does not mean you are agreeing, surrendering or copying. You are able to get alongside, aligning yourself through deeper listening to find common ground and new possibilities for shared action. It is also a somatic skill where body posture and gestures produce a feeling of connection, engaging in a relaxed physical state without pressure or resistance. 

This is an interruption in a well-established flow of events. You become aware of of the presence of something that you were previously unaware of. It was “transparent” to you. It leads to a different assessment of what is going on or assumed to be happening, which brings new thoughts and possibilities to mind.

We are centred when “being” in a physical, mental and emotional state where we can choose our actions.  Our mind is alert and connected to what we care about, our mood is calm and open, and we are physically balanced. If not, we are “off centre” and unable to be quiet, accepting or self-aware.

A conversation allows us to create action, meaning, listening, moods and emotions that enable us to consider future relationships and actions. They are not just words. They involve the whole body and a range of linguistic and cultural factors that can be improved with practice.

To bring about the result we want to happen in the future we need to clarify and make certain who is committed to doing what and by when. This requires us to collaborate in coordinating our actions and commit to them as promises to deliver on an offer or request.

Conversations for possibilities shape the way we see the future and the actions we need to take today to generate the results we want in the future. They are “what if” conversations to explore a proposal, conducted in the mood of speculation, without judgements or commitments.  The purpose is to generate a range of possible outcomes, including many that are not initially obvious and then declare a new future.

To get a meaningful and productive outcome from a relationship requires it to be open and trusting. This creates a foundation for getting an agreement where people are free to express their concerns and requests of each other. The focus is on finding a shared interest, something that matters and can commit to delivering as agreed.

A declaration is an act of speech with which a person brings to the outside world a vision of a new future that they want to make happen. This breaks the flow of normal existence by imaging a prefered future that they are committed to bringing about. It generates the ownership of a new mood and energy level that will bring forth new actions. It produces a new “life movie” that takes events in a new direction with a new script and a new way of being in the world. It can help to resolve or end things.

Communication is not just about describing things or transferring information it’s also generative they can generate action and thereby result in generating possibilities, meaning, value and satisfaction for us and others, even generate moods and emotions. A generative way of speaking and listening helps to produce a commitment to act and bring about a new future. We do this when we make a promise as we use requests and offers to shift the future in a new direction.

 They don’t answer questions as they require clarification before they can be accepted. It involves making assessments of assertions. You are looking for evidence and a logical argument that it is a good assessment for the purpose of achieving a desired future result. What verifiable standard or public endorsement supports the assessment?

If you cannot observe or get the results you want, you are missing possible actions or conversations to reveal them. You first need to have generative conversations with others and yourself to find what is missing or what you’ve been blind to. Think creatively and counterintuitively. In a calm and relaxed setting with someone you feel in rapport with, some new insights can emerge that will prompt you to look for what you have been missing.

From an ontological perspective, a possibility is not a thing that may happen, it’s a creation of your own thinking, and insight that empowers you at this moment to take new action to bring your desired future into the present. You feel a surge of energy that puts you into a mood for taking action. You know you can make it happen. Possibiities are like problems, they are created in your mind from what you sense “out there”. They are a product of how you choose to see things around you. We can listen for them in conversations, revealed through what we are aware of and care about.

When you are present you have a choice to commit to what you care about.  To have a presence is to live in the moment, the here and now, not in past assertions or future declarations. It’s about being alert and aware of your emotional state and its impact on how you see the world and how others see you. You are continuously asking the question: For the sake of what am I doing this?  How does it connect with my purpose and how do I need to act in order to fulfil my purpose?

When something happens that you don’t want, or should not “be” happening, then “it” becomes a problem. Events are neutral. They only become problems when we make them so. Problems are thought created. They result from the interpretations you make of your experiences. They emerge from how you choose to observe and interpret how you make sense in the world “out there”. They are stories that reflect your values and beliefs.

Think of a relationship is a promise. For example, you may not be a biological father, but you choose to be in a father relationship. Society has a set of expectations of you as a father that you promise to fulfil. You may be the biological father, but not be in a father relationship. See all other relationships as promises and they foster greater commitment, responsibility and accountability for your actions.

“Structural Coupling” is the recurring interaction between a living system and its environment. They are interdependent and impact each other through the medium of senses. It is the source of learning and adaptation, mediated through the nervous system. When they are both aligned and coherent the result is well-coordinated behaviour.

Your concerns are often expressed in language, yet driven by emotion. The language just reveals the concerns but making an emotional commitment to act on them is what ultimately matters. Leadership involves finding emotional insight to get others to care about what you care about. Emotion is a powerful motivator of both effective and poor action.

Most people listen for ideas they can agree or disagree with. Effective listening requires us to listen with a purpose. For example, listening for assertions that can be verified and ungrounded assessments. We can listen for what people care about to connect and respond to their needs. We could also listen for possibilities that we could build on. To listen we have to observe in order to assess intentions in what we are hearing and sensing in the words, emotions and body language.

They are composed of two sub-classes of constraint.  Perceptual Constraints which involve our worldview (model of reality) and our frames of reference (mindset) act as perceptual constraints. They limit and shape our way of being and how the world occurs to us. Functional Constraints represent threats to our identity which trigger reactions where we either fight (to defend) or give flight (to avoid) and in so doing suppress our rational functioning. 

Reflexivity is a process that enables us to think about our own thoughts and use language to assess our use of language. It’s as if we are standing outside ourselves to observe our observations in order to describe and explain them. We can then learn and generate new distinctions. Using the reflexive power of language (the process of languaging) we can make distinctions, to: observe the reality we live in – the different descriptions and explanations we use. We Question and change our “Way of Being” to generate more constructive realities.

A promise is a kind of declaration, that we make to be in action for the sake of producing a specified result. They are also a sequence of actions for coordinating promises between people. We are taking a stand to deliver something we have taken responsibility for on behalf of someone else or a commitment made to ourselves. A promise is not to do the best we can, but to agree a detailed outcome that has standards for satisfaction and a timescale for delivery. The implicit expectations of the client are the coach’s promise.

When productivity drops or fails to grow, the focus for change tends to go on measuring and incentivising performance. What is not often understood, is that efforts to improve performance come from personal motivation and leaders fail to value or appreciate the innate capacity that human beings have for learning and committing to what they care about. If we appreciate others we seek to take care of what they care about.

The way we turn up for others is a result of the way we interpret what we see, hear and feel.

How we observe our Way of Being shapes the values and beliefs that underpin our behaviour. As actors, we need to be clear about the mindset we are using to assess our performance. This involves the thoughts of our Inner Scriptwriter, dictating the emotions and assessments that we then act on.

Our Inner Director visualises what’s needed to guide and rehearse the performance that our Inner Actor must perform. To grow as a leader we need to practice how we observe and adjust our ‘way of being’ to deliver what we promised ourselves and others. This requires your Inner Actor and Inner Director to align what you know to be important and give it an authentic interpretation to demonstrate accountability.