The second cornerstone of four cornerstones in co-active model is “Focus on the whole person”. People are usually focus on solving issues that they are facing, not only in the business but also in usual life. Especially in the business, leaders and managers have to focus on the problems or issues that they should solve realizing the required outcome. Under enormous pressure, first task they take on is to identify the problem to be solved. This is quite understandable, and of course solving problem is important. However, leaders manage people, not just problem. Developing talent and creating a more resourceful and effective organization accomplishes sustainable results, long after the presenting problem is solved. Even under organization stress, this whole-person mind set sees opportunity not to be overlooked.
The person does have a problem to solve: a change to make, a dream to fulfill, a task to accomplish, a goal to reach. All of these are true. But this person is more than the problem at hand, or the dream, the task, the goal. This is a whole person: heart, mind, body, and spirit. And this issue, whatever it is, is not neatly isolated. It is inexorably entwined in the person’s whole life.
The “focus” here should be a soft and broad focus, an attentive focus that includes the whole person and the whole life, listening on many levels. It is not a hard, tight and concentrated focus on the whole person. We should not be focusing on heart, mind, body, and spirit as independent elements. Then a coach or anyone in a co-active conversation ought to be tuned in to the influences that are present in these different dimensions.
Obviously, a focus on the whole person also means that we are aware of all the ways the issue or topic before us is interwoven in the person’s life. The key is increased awareness that the single and narrow subject should be connected to the possible broader or deeper conversations for the person’s whole life. Although a coach or a leader can work with someone on a very narrow topic, in the co-active way there is a larger picture of the whole person and the person’s whole life.
Jun-Spade 