Language and the World

LEXICON OF LEADERSHIP IN ACTION

© 2007 by ParaComm Partners International. All rights reserved.

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The objective of the Leadership in Action program is to generate a “different observer.” As leaders and coaches, we are suggesting that human beings not only describe an objective world in language, but also are simultaneously and continuously creating “how the world occurs for us” in language. From the perspective of leadership, this is because the distinctions we have learned in our lives are what allow something to “show up” for us as comprehensible. A distinction is not a definition or description. Once we acquire a distinction, it “opens up” a new domain or arena for observation, inquiry and action. For example, when we learned “balance” as children, we acquired a distinction that we could describe, but the description was not the same as having the ability to balance.

The following is a list of words that we distinguish in the course of our work together. We offe brief descriptions or definitions of these terms below. However, the value of these descriptions is not in understanding the meaning of the words, but in engaging in conversations with the course leader in one of our programs to acquire the distinctions.

NOTE: This list of distinctions should not be regarded as complete and is not intended to explain or fully develop what we are attempting to convey in the terminology.

Basic “Repertoire” of Distinctions for Leadership in Action

Already Listening
Human beings are always already listening in every moment and in every situation for whatever is relevant and important to their concerns and commitments. We filter what is happening or bring our “models” of how the world is to a situation. This is a shared or cultural “background” interpretation which is learned and which can be changed. Its primary characteristic, however, is that it is “transparent.” It occurs as our unexamined assessments of the “way things are" or the "way people are” and, thereby, as a practical matter becomes “the way it is.”

Background / Foreground
Distinguishes the domains of conscious awareness from the transparency within which all human beings exist. Reveals the permanent human condition of cognitive blindness.

The “Box”
An epistomological interpretation for distinguishing the domains of "knowing" (for example, what we know, what we don't know, and what we don't know we don't know). We are unaware and unthinking about what we don’t know we don’t know, yet this is the domain that appears to have the greatest impact upon our future. See Background.

Breakdown / Problem
Problems are generally viewed as existing independent of an observer, like the facts of the circumstances. Breakdowns are declared by the observer. They refer to anything that the observer sees as blocking the fulfillment of a commitment or anything that is missing without which the commitment cannot be fulfilled.

Breaking Out of the "Box"
A way of distinguishing the paradigmatic paradox through which the egoic mind and cultures persist. How can we escape a construct that is closed to any possibility outside itself or external to itself? Leaders distinguish this from “creating” a new interpretation that includes the box but which is not constrained by it.

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Commitment
Action. Since all communication and coordination is occurring in conversations between human beings, commitment can best be understood as intentional action in language. See Speech Actions - Requests and Promises below.

Conversations FOR
Coaches distinguish conversations in terms of their intention and outcomes.

• No Possibility
  Conversations that are either intentional or habitual and have the effect of closing possibilities through being spoken as truth.
  
• Possibility
  Speculative conversations that open a possibility and shift the relationship with the future.
  
• Opportunity
  Conversations that ground possibilities and provide a “structure for fulfillment” of the possibility.
  
• Action
  Conversations comprised of requests and promises that are coordinated for bringing about something specific in the future. Conversations which ground commitments in time.
  
• Relationship
  Conversations having the intention to alter the quality of relationship in terms of possibility, moods, the future or the past.
  
• Completion/Breakdowns
  Conversations that interrupt or stop the action for the purpose of either creating a “new game” or starting another dialogue about what is missing.

Distinctions
A linguistic phenomenon that creates or opens a domain in which something can be observed. Declarative in nature, the distinctions we have constitute the structure of interpretation we have of the world.

Enrollment
The process of engaging others with a focus on obtaining their commitment to a proposal or offer. Distinct from “selling,” it is grounded in the commitments of those being enrolled.

Generated Listening
The possibility of becoming a new observer begins when we can “generate” a new interpretation, which is only possible when our listening is opened. We can listen critically for example, or we can listen generously as a function of our commitment in a particular situation. There are many different ways we can listen if we are aware of the phenomenon and “present” in a conversation.

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Historically Determined Future
Any action generated in a response to a source outside the scope of one’s personal responsibility will in effect be a “reaction” and become part of the cultural mechanism for perpetuating the status quo.

How Behavior is Connected to How the “World Occurs”
A central claim in our investigation is that human beings always respond according to how the “world occurs or shows up” for them. If something appears to be a threat, we will behave however we behave when threatened. How we respond may vary depending upon our competence and experience, but leaders observe that there is always a correlation between what we are doing and how we see our reality. This opens the possibility for changing our actions or behavior by first changing our interpretation of the world.

How We See the Future
Leaders and coaches show us that we normally look at the future as something that can be predicted based on our past experience and that most of us will organize our actions and strategies to cope with or succeed given the future we anticipate. Leaders and coaches allow us to see that we have choices in how we interpret and relate to the world, including the future.

Internal Conversations
Talking to oneself. The “little voice” in the back of our heads.

Interpretations
Our interpretation of the world occurs as the narrative we have to account for what we are observing and experiencing. This is necessary for there to be a historical reality. If genuine change is to occur, leaders must develop the capacity for creating new interpretations of everyday events that, while consistent with the past, are not limited by it.

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Listening / Hearing
Listening is the human capacity for interpreting a “world.” Hearing is a biological phenomenon. We can all hear the same words in a conversation, but have different interpretations of what is meant and respond differently depending upon what is “listened” in a conversation. Listening involves much more than processing information (not just hearing).

Moods
Common, everyday and universal phenomena that are “triggered” background conversations that, among other things, automatically form a predisposition to the future. Moods are a context for observing and experiencing the world.

Paradigms
Paradigms are usually designed as our models of the world. More specifically, these are background phenomena that are linguistic in nature and are transparent. Paradigms are background interpretations of the world that form the boundaries of our thinking. Consider the distinctions between the models we can think and the structures of thinking that are doing the modeling.

Possibility
A possibility can be anything we can imagine and commit to as possible that is outside our reality. If it can be proven, it is not a possibility: it is an example (and, therefore, an option). Possibilities are created. A powerful place to stand from which to observe what's missing in our world.

Relationship
Whether between two people or a team or an entire organization, coaches distinguish relationship as the foundation for all social accomplishment.

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Resistance
The means by which we cause the persistence of something. The primary factor blocking creativity and blinding us to "what is". Consequence of self-referentiality.

Speaking and Listening
Leaders and coaches distinguish speaking and listening as the medium in which we exist and function as human beings. This means more than simply speaking and listening to words, but the phenomenon of cognition from the point of view of language. We are using language in the broadest sense. We are “languaging” beings and are blind to anything that does not occur for us in the context of some linguistic distinction and interpretation.

Speech Actions
Originally distinguished by Austin in the 1940s, performative verbs constitute actions that alter how we create reality in language. These are distinct from verbs that describe action.

• Assessments
  A point of view that is neither true nor false. Commitment to provide grounding or rationale if requested to do so.
  
• Assertions
  A statement that may be “true or false.” Commitment that what is asserted can be witnessed and measured by a third-party observer.
  
• Declarations
  Commitment that something is the case because I say so. Some declarations require social agreement or authority, others do not. Assessments are a particular kind of declaration.

• Promises
  Commitment to satisfy some condition of satisfaction by a specific time in the future.
  
• Requests
  Commitment to receive (accept) some conditions of satisfaction by a specific time in the future.

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