Declarations

With Assertions, first comes the world, then the word. With declarations, the word comes first, and the world follows.

Declarations are a speech act where the speaker creates new possibilities and a new way of seeing things from nothingness. They don’t depend on the existing world but bring a new world into existence. Declarations generate our reality. E.g, my reality is “I had a bad day”.

Declarations are also highly connected to moods and emotions. E.g, the PM of Singapore declaring that “Singapore is behind all foreign workers” would have been political suicide usually, but the declaration landed very well in Covid19. Leaders may need to wait for the appropriate time for the right mood / emotion so that their declaration lands.

We take 4 primary actions with declarations:

Open or initiate: e.g declaring a country into being, creating a new organization, initiating a new relationship by introducing yourself, “i don’t know” opens a space for learning to happen, “I’m grateful for” makes joy and contentment possible
Close or conclude: an apology closes a chapter and opens a new one, “I forgive you” concludes an event and closes the accompanying resentment. “Thank you” declares satisfaction with your fulfillment of a promise to me, “You’re fired”, “this relationship is over”
Resolve: judgments from a judge or jury resolves questions of guilt or innocence (regardless of what actually happened), yes/no (every decision is a declaration)
Evaluate (with assessments): Assessments are a type of declaration.

Declarations can be valid or invalid. Whether it is valid depends on whether the person making the declaration has authority granted by the community to do so. E.g, a priest declaring someone married changes the world in a way that a random person on the street going through the same motions cannot.

Socially, the expectations around declarations are:

The speaker does have the authority to make that declaration (i.e, Power and Trust)
The speaker acts in a way consistent with their declaration

Declarations Create Context

Context is that that surrounds the text, or the environment against which something is interpreted.

Declarations also create context which affects how future events are interpreted. E.g watching TV at 10PM (the content / event / fact) after your parents created context by declaring “no more TV after 9PM” causes that event to be interpreted differently.

It is powerful to notice and do this consciously.

Creating the right context is also critical for leadership. When declarations create this nonphysical environment, this environment is the mood or culture of a relationship, family, organization or nation. Hence, successful leadership requires creating and sustaining a certain context (and not another).

Successful relationships are built on conversations where we share our views, come to mutual understanding and make mutual declarations about we we’re committed to bring forth and how we’re committed to be with each other.

Conversations for setting and sharing contexts are often missing in personal and professional situations.

Key Declarations

Yes and No

Saying yes commits you to an action, opening new possibilities and closing others. Likewise with saying no.

Every decision is a declaration.

Saying no can often be difficult, because we often equate no with rejection of the other person. Likewise, others saying no to you is often seen as a rejection of you.

The inability to say no is connected to our power and dignity. This is an example where not being able to say a certain thing (“No”) = not being able to be a certain way (assertive, designing my life, with dignity).

Not being able to say no likely leads to being overcommitted (committing to do doing 10 things when you’ve already agreed to do 15 other tasks). This leads to feeling overwhelmed and stressed.

A more powerful interpretation to adopt is saying no is simply declining a request - the person and the request are separate. Saying no is just a decline of the request, not a rejection of you.

I Don’t know

I don’t know is often interpreted as I am stupid / don’t care / don’t want to know etc.

Another interpretation is that I’m available for learning. Ignorance is not the opposite of learning, it is where learning starts.

I don’t know creates a new context for learning. How much learning happens when teaching someone who already thought they knew it?

Conversations about learning could be missing - granting ourselves and others to be a beginner at something and how to bring learning about.

I apologize

Linguistically takes care of a relationship by acknowledging mistakes and broken commitments. It closes a chapter and opens a new one and heals the relationship.

When promises have not been kept and no apologies are issued, that has an effect on the relationship moving forward. E.g, leaders in organizations who do this create a mood of resentment and cynicism.

Everyone makes mistakes, so this declaration can surely serve us personally and professionally.

I Forgive You

See Forgiveness.

Thank you

Thank you is an acknowledgement of another’s kindness or contribution. Can be seen as a declaration of acceptance that closes a transaction (usually a promise or an agreement)

Thank you can also greatly influence mood. The mood of joy is connected to the mood of gratitude. E.g, try imagining someone who is joyful not being grateful for something.

Hence, we can consciously move towards joy by learning how to declare Gratitude.

I Love You

One of the most interesting ways of looking at love that I’ve ever heard is from Humberto Maturana, the pioneering Chilean neurobiologist. His definition of love is: The radical acceptance of the other as a legitimate other in co-existence with me.
The focus is on our declaration of acceptance and of legitimacy. We declare our acceptance of another human being as being “legitimate” in his or her co-existence with us. To me, the words “true and equal partner” come to mind. Think about the implications of such a declaration. Declaring such a context, to me, immediately brings about a space of mutual respect and acceptance. It also allows space for us to make requests of each other, and maintain flexibility and openness in designing how we do what we do together.

Consider a relationship where “I love you” is never said. Thinking it is very different from saying it. Saying it builds the relationship and sets context.

Who are the loved ones in your life who you’ve not said this to? Why not?

I Am …

This is a declaration of who we say are in the world (our identity). This is a primary declaration and is at the heart of ontological coaching.

A lot of suffering is caused by operating out of primary declarations that aren’t conducive to the actions and moods needed to achieving the results we want.

These root declarations are usually invisible and hard to see. We see ourselves repeating the same mistakes over and over again. This is where a coach comes in and helps the coachee see these underlying interpretations for what they are (not the truth) and how that influences their actions. The coachee can then invent and declare new ones.

For example, “I am shy”. If this is viewed as a permanent fixture of who you are, then change is unlikely. For example, at a dance it is unlikely someone who says they’re shy would ask someone for a dance. If the declaration is held as the truth, it paralyzes and limits possibilities for designing something different.

But if shy is viewed as an assessment and you declare yourself a beginner at dancing, you can learn and through practice, build competence.

We tend to make up stories which disempowers us.

This Is Not Working…

Here’s a great way to understand whether or not a breakdown has occurred: If you hear yourself suddenly say “oh shit,” rest assured that in almost every case, a breakdown is present! Not all breakdowns begin with such a salute, but many do.

This points to a breakdown - an unexpected break in the normal flow of our lives. Breakdowns are unexpected interruptions in the fulfillment of a commitment. Almost everything we do is related to the fulfillment of a commitment - we live in a web of commitments.

When breakdowns happen, we no longer operate in transparency - e.g, being on “autopilot” when driving home. The break in transparency is a moment of choice, to consciously choose how to proceed towards the desired result.

The universe doesn’t have breakdowns, people do. Different observers have different breakdowns. A huge breakdown by one person may pass unnoticed by another due to each having different distinctions
Breakdowns just are - they are not good or bad
Breakdowns may happen to us, or we can declare breakdowns into being
We can declare the status quo to be a breakdown. In organizations, this depends on the type of breakdown and our authority. We can declare any aspect of our personal lives a breakdown, which is often the first step for change or learning
Declaring a breakdown sets a new context for action
Breakdowns are inevitable, the point is not to avoid them. it is to gain competency and ability to deal effectively with the breakdowns which occur, as well as to gain practice in declaring breakdowns proactively as a way of moving ourselves toward the results we say we want
We address our breakdowns through conversations. Conversations need to move beyond assessing what happened to a promise or commitment to take new action to resolve the breakdown.