Our values and our ethical code constitute the fundamental basis of our professional practice. Our principles
for action are guided by three objectives. Firstly, efficiency, an ecological practice of coaching (acting
where action is relevant and strategic); secondly, facilitating the emergence of the qualities needed for the
evolution, transition or transformation of all the systems we support (individuals, teams and organisations),
including the ability to learn from experience; and finally, action, the purpose of all companies and the
fundamental channel for all operational, organisational or interpersonal resolutions or
transformations.
These principles are as follows :
In the eyes of the humanist movement, people are not slaves to their impulses (psychoanalysis) or the
playthings of prior conditioning (behaviourism). The very basis of coaching takes inspiration from a
humanist, constructivist understanding of the individual (presumption of competence, ability to learn and
potential to develop) as a person seeking self-realisation, keen to achieve autonomy and take
responsibility for their choices.
Though a systemic approach to coaching might appear to contradict a
theory of individual functioning, non-directiveness, empathy and unconditional acceptance are tools
constantly used by coaches, regardless of their allegiance.
The concept of change management has come a long way since Kurt Lewin's sociological model of the 1940s,
and while Elisabeth Kanter's instrumental model and John Kotter's managerial model, which followed it,
have provided the basis for major IT transformation projects, a more agile approach to change has now
taken hold – this is the experiential model.
Unlike the previous models, sometimes referred to as
discourse rhetoric or injunction to change, the experiential model favours the experimentation, shared
construction and dialogue necessary to understand change and implement it operationally.
Between its creation and its optimum level of performance, a team evolves through three stages of maturity
(inclusion, affirmation and cooperation). The last stage describes a learning team, emerging from an
organisational culture targeting continuous improvement in efficiency, operation and performance.
It
encourages dialogue and favours synergies, shared construction and experimentation, but also collaboration
with all the elements of the system in order to share a vision, including defining and implementing
processes for operations and decision-making – in other words, a healthy, agile organisation.
In his day, Heraclitus was already emphasising the importance of the "whole" or "holos". In the systemic
approach, we talk about emergent properties when certain elements of a system evolve in a self-organised
way towards a higher level of organisation. Resulting from reflection, commitment and alignment between
the different elements of a team, this is much more than the sum of the individual contributions.
At
the heart of any system, company or team, the dynamic of collective intelligence can enable strategic
plans to be conceived jointly, new economic models to be imagined or innovative solutions to emerge.