We offer the following academic and applied research for your review and examination.
Turning Toward Being: The Journal of Ontological Inquiry in Education (JOIE)
This journal explores and illuminates ontological inquiry in its various forms, methodologies, theoretical approaches, and practical applications within academia and beyond.
Philosophy of Coaching: An International Journal
The Philosophy of Coaching is a forum for academic researchers, educators and coach practitioners to share their knowledge and expertise with the international coaching community, engage in rigorous, reflective dialogue, and build their reputations as thought leaders and influencers.
We offer the following introduction to the next 3 papers.
Alan Sieler demonstrates a nuanced knowledge of ontology that integrates emotions, body, and language. An expert in cultivating this mindset, he has authored a four-book series: Coaching to the Human Soul.
Sage Chapter 4th ed: Ontological Coaching.
By Alan Sieler
This chapter discusses an ontological approach to coaching
Ontology as a Theoretical Basis for Professional Coaching
By Alan Sieler
Working in the domain of the body to facilitate transformation is one of the hallmarks of Ontological Coaching. Inviting people to experiment with adopting small changes in aspects of their posture and muscle tension can lead to profound changes in perception (including self perception) and behavior that previously were not thought possible.
Why Moods Matter in Business
By Alan Sieler
The themes of conversations, coordination and commitments as being central to business operations and business improvement were covered, part of which included the centrality of moods in the way people perceive, think, communicate and behave.
Communities of Commitment: The Heart of Learning Organizations
By Fred Kofman and Peter Senge (originally in 1993)
This academic paper reconstitutes possibilities for human beings in organizations once we recover “the memory of the whole,” discover the “community nature of the self” and see the “poetic power of language,” Together these changes represent a new social “Theory of Relativity,” which integrates the “Fifth Discipline” principles into an alternative perspective on management, organizations and human beings.
The Future of Leadership for Conscious Capitalism
by Barrett C. Brown, Ph.D.
This white paper first discusses the new science of vertical learning and its central role in scaling and embed-ding Conscious Capitalism. The second half of the paper describes the practices and perspectives of organizational leaders who have accomplished considerable growth through vertical learning. The paper concludes with 14 evidence-based and experimental practices you can do to accelerate your own and others’ deep development, and provides considerable support resources to do so.
The Power of Presence: What Actors can Teach Leaders
by Christopher von Baeyter
Christopher von Baeyter is a professional actor, consultant and presence coach who has designed and delivered programming for the Ariel Group and Boston Consulting Group since 1996.
Transformational Leadership
by Dr. John Hinchcliff
This article explores transformational leadership as a vast topic that covers everything we want to imagine as being changed for the better, and as our capacity to dream different dreams and see different visions.
The Integral Approach
by Ken Wilber
This article explores integral thinking and the four-quadrant model as developed by Ken Wilber.
Creating Quality Communities
by Peter M. Senge
We are losing ourselves as fields of dreams. To regain our balance, we must create alternative ways of working and living together.
Lifework of David Bohm — River of Truth
by Will Keepin, Ph.D
This paper details the work of one of the world’s greatest contemporary physicists, David Bohm. His profound contributions to science and philosophy have yet to be fully recognized and integrated on the grand scale that they deserve. This review attempts to summarize the fascinating contributions that emerged from Bohm’s passionate quest for truth and to outline their growing impact on other fields. In what follows, it is not necessary to have a background in physics, although a basic familiarity with science will be helpful.
The Opening of the Western Mind
by Julio Olalla
There are many signs that a major shift in consciousness is already under way, pointing to what we might call the opening of the western mind. In this paper, Master Coach and ontological designer, Julio Olalla explores philosophy from thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Willis Harman, and Ken Wilber, to reveal a new brand of thinking that is emerging.
The Blind Spot of Leadership: Presencing as a Social Technology of Freedom
By Otto Scharmer
In the process of conducting our daily business and social lives, we are usually well aware of what we do and what others do; we also have some understanding of the process: how we do things, the processes we and others use when we act. And yet there is a blind spot. If we were to ask the question, “Where does our action come from?” most of us would be unable to provide an answer. The blind spot concerns the (inner) source from which we operate when we do what we do—the quality of attention that we use to relate to and bring forth the world.
Integral Spiritual Intelligence: Integral Theory (also called AQAL Theory) and Its Relationship to Spiritual Intelligence (SQ21™ Assessment)
By Cindy Wigglesworth, President, Deep Change, Inc.
Why do we need to understand Spiritual Intelligence? Cindy defines Spiritual Intelligence as “The ability to behave with Wisdom and Compassion while maintaining inner and outer peace (equanimity) regardless of the circumstances.” Wisdom and Compassion compose the two pieces of loving behavior (more on this below).
Spiritual Intelligence: Definitions and Measurements
Barry Smith, Fielding Graduate University
Spiritual intelligence is a new concept first discussed in 1999 by Robert Emmons and Zohar & Marshall. The concept has gained momentum and now several instruments have been developed to measure it. The instruments available today are listed and recommendations given based upon evaluation. Spiritual intelligence can be developed and is shown to be very beneficial for leadership and organizational performance.
Theory U: Leading From The Future as It Emerges – Summary Overview
A 2-page summary overview of Otto Scharmer’s book, Leading from the Future as It Emerges. Using his experience working with some of the world’s most accomplished leaders and innovators, Scharmer shows in Theory U how groups and organizations can develop seven leadership capacities in order to create a future that would not otherwise be possible.
Theory U: Addressing The Blind Spot of Our Time
A 19-page executive summary of Otto Scharmer’s book, Leading from the Future as It Emerges. Otto Scharmer introduces readers to the theory and practice of the U process, based on a concept he calls “presencing.” A blend of the words “presence” and “sensing,” presencing signifies a heightened state of attention that allows individuals and groups to shift the inner place from which they function. When that shift happens, people begin to operate from a future space of possibility that they feel wants to emerge. Being able to facilitate that shift is, according to Scharmer, the essence of leadership today. At the end of this Executive Summary you will find more complete coverage of how Theory U is being used by numerous stakeholders and corporate innovators, and information on how you might become involved with the Presencing Institute.
Moving Beyond Mindfulness: Defining Equanimity as an Outcome Measure in Meditation and Contemplative Research
Equanimity can be defined as an even-minded mental state or dispositional tendency toward all experiences or objects, regardless of their origin or their affective valence (pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral). This article proposes that equanimity be used as an outcome measure in contemplative research.
The Transformations of Mindfulness
Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi
Published in Handbook of Mindfulness: Culture, Context, and Social Engagement (Mindfulness in Behavioral Health); Edited by Ronald E. Purser, David Forbes, and Adam Burke Springer International Publishing, Switzerland, 2016.
Mindfulness Revisited: A Buddhist-Based Conceptualization
Ronald E. Purser and Joseph Milillo
Recent scholarship on mindfulness has narrowly focused on attention enhancement, present-moment awareness, and its stress reduction effects. Moreover, current operational definitions of mindfulness in the literature differ considerably from those derived from classic Buddhist canonical sources. This article revisits the meaning, function, and purpose of Buddhist mindfulness by proposing a triadic model of “right mindfulness.” It argues that a denatured mindfulness divorced from its soteriological context reduces it to a self-help technique that is easily misappropriated for reproducing corporate and institutional power, employee pacification, and maintenance of toxic organizational cultures.
We offer the following introduction to the next 6 papers.
Jeffrey D. Ford, Ph.D. is Professor Emeritus of Management of the Max M. Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University. Laurie Ford, Ph.D. is president of Critical Path Consultants, Inc., a business management consulting firm. As thinkers and authors, Jeffrey and Laurie Ford have provided intellectual material to Zampella Group since 2001 to describe and distinguish the foundations of our ontological learning and coaching model as applied in an organizational context.
Several of their papers have been published in academic journals, presented at academic conferences, and won awards. In 2009, Jeffrey and Laurie Ford authored the book “The Four Conversations,” which we recommend as an essential leadership development text.
The Core Elements of Leadership: Commitment, Courage, and Conversation
by Jeffrey D. Ford, College of Agriculture, The Ohio State University, Summer, 1998
This is the first of two articles by ontological thinker Jeffrey Ford to explore leadership.
The Challenge of Leadership
by Jeffrey D. Ford and Laurie W. Ford, “The Leadership Challenge” in Models in Nursing and Dietetic Leadership: What Can We Learn from Each Other?, Ross Laboratories, Columbus, OH, 1993.
This second article by Jeffrey and Laurie Ford delves deeper into the ontological factors of leadership.
Organizational Change as Shifting Conversations
by Jeffrey D. Ford, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 12 (1999), 480-504.
This paper explores producing and managing change within conversationally constructed realities. Conversations are proposed as both the medium and product of reality construction, within which change is a process of shifting conversations in the network of conversations that constitute organizations.
Resistance and The Background Conversations of Change
by Jeffrey D. Ford, Laurie W. Ford and Randall T. McNamara, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 15 Issue: 2, pp.105-121, 2002
Conversations and The Authoring of Change
by Jeffrey D. Ford and Laurie W. Ford, Management and Language: The Manager as a Practical Author, 2002
Reconstructing Resistance to Change: From Individual to Relationship
by Jeffrey D. Ford. Paper presented at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, Anaheim, CA.
We offer the following introduction to the next 2 papers.
Wiley W. Souba Jr, MD, MBA, ScD, has been regularly ranked as one of The Best Doctors in America by his peers and has been recognized for his clinical expertise by Boston Magazine. He has published more than 500 peer-reviewed articles, abstracts, and book chapters and has served as Editorial Chair of American College of Surgeons Surgery and Co-editor of the Journal of Surgical Research. Dr. Souba is recognized for his innovative approaches to developing leaders and leadership. His work in these papers offers an ontological framework for leadership. This contextual framework distinguishes being a leader as the ontological basis for what leaders know, have, and do – as central to safeguarding medicine’s ethical foundation.
The Being of Leadership
By Wiley W Souba
This article constitutes a leadership framework – that distinguishes the “being” of a leader as the ontological foundation for what leaders know, do and experience – as necessary to safeguarding medicine’s ethical foundation. It proposes four ontological pillars of leadership – awareness, commitment, integrity, and authenticity – as fundamental elements that anchor this foundation and the basic tenets of professionalism.
The Science of Leading Yourself
Wiley W. Souba, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, USA
Integrating research from the language sciences, phenomenology, psychology and neurobiology, this article reviews leading oneself as applied to the healthcare industry. Because this “inward” journey can be alien and disorienting, the Language Leadership Performance Model is helpful in illustrating the relationship between the circumstances the leader is dealing with (the leadership challenge), the context (point of view) the leader brings to that challenge, and the leader’s way of being and acting (the definitive source of the leader’s performance). Using language, effective leaders reframe their leadership challenges such that their naturally correlated ways of being and acting provide them with new opportunity sets for exercising exemplary leadership. Finally, A Heuristic for Leading Oneself is offered as a useful guide as one embarks on this inward journey. Leading oneself is a uniquely human activity— studying it and how it works is a vital piece in solving the health care transformation puzzle.
