STUDY BOOK The power of language and actions, the basis for

COACHING: El poder del lenguaje y las acciones

2. COORDINATION OF ACTIONS

One of the most recent historical discoveries is that human action has a universal recurrent structure, observable in all epochs of human civilization, in all cultures and languages, and in all areas of social endeavor. The Basic Cycle of Action captures this universal structure of action and offers the possibility of designing complex processes of coordinating actions effectively with levels of rigor, quality, flexibility and efficiency far beyond what was previously possible.

Two human beings can only generate a new action by making a request or an offer: there is no other way to initiate a new activity.

In order for a coordination of actions to take place, four linguistic acts are necessary to ensure the desired results. We call these acts the commitment, the request , the offer , the declaration of compliance and the declaration of satisfaction . And this happens in four possible phases: Preparation, Negotiation, Execution and Evaluation.

It is therefore interesting to understand, in a very general way, what is involved in each of the four phases.

Commitments versus requests, offers and promises. 2.1.

Commitments: Both the one who commits and the one who receives the promise have a vision of the future based on the agreement. Problems arise when these commitments are not fulfilled or when there are other expectations, which is why communication quality is so important, as it will enable effective action.

21

European Open Business School