Overview

This chapter takes on topics that are foundational to coaching yet are almost always ignored in other texts. I m attempting to concisely present what can be philosophically said about people in a way that s useful for coaching and for understanding ourselves. My point is to show you a deep grounded view of human life without reference to psychology. Although psychology may be familiar territory for many of us, its application to coaching has several drawbacks. First, psychological methods may require personal disclosure beyond what the client is willing to do, and they are too subject to trivialization and clich s. My alternative, based in twentieth-century philosophy, takes work because it s new to many of us but it will, I trust, serve you well as you coach.

Remember that existence consists solely in its possibility for relationships.

Medard Boss

What Is a Human Being?

The heart of my coaching with Bob could be summarized by the quote that opens this chapter. He had to develop new relationships in order to be promoted. The first relationship that had to be addressed was, of course, Bob s relationship with himself. He had to discover the degree of congruence between the relationship he was having with himself and the relationship others were having with him at work. Lack of congruence here would lead him either to feelings of grandiosity in which he felt superior to everyone and beyond the power of their opinion to affect him, or to feelings that he was inept and unworthy...