» First At the heart and essence of Pat Grove Coaching Academy's interpretation is that human beings live in language and that language is both passive and generative--apart from being a code that names things it creates or generates the reality we experience. Much of PGCA's foundational thinking is based in what is called the Ontology of Language. Through declarations, requests, promises, offers, assessments and assertions, people produce or don't produce the results they are intending. Shift the way you speak, improve your competency in having conversations, and you will shift the results you are able to produce for yourself and for your organization.

» Second, PGCA integrates evolutionary theories proposed by contemporary philosopher, Ken Wilber called Integral Psychology. This world view offers an interpretation that Communities, Organisations, individuals, groups, teams, etc. operate around different value centres that inform and influence the actions that are available to them and the results they seek to produce.

» Third, PGCA claims that the non-verbal also contributes and constitutes the way someone ”observes” and takes action in their world. In different body dispositions, we experience different worlds. For example, If you wake up on a Saturday morning and have the intention and determination to complete something you have been putting off you pull that determination into the body and through this you can easily accomplish certain results. However, if you are a leader sitting around a table having a conversation for possibilities with your subordinates, the mood you use for determination may not serve your purpose in that moment. If you, as the leader, are unaware and blind to that you may not get the results you are seeking. In our modern approach to learning, we have discounted the domains of body and movement, disconnecting them from what we consider important, the mind, concepts, thinking and analysis. However, if we reflect and examine how we learn, we will discover that true learning is embodied learning; i.e., learning in the body. This is obvious through the learning to play a guitar where the body learns or in learning to ride a bicycle or learning to swim.

» Fourth, we claim the results you produce are either restricted or enhanced by the moods and emotions you come from. Your moods and emotions predispose you to take certain actions and to not take other actions. Your moods influence what you say and cannot say, what you say and how you say it. Your moods are always reflected in the way you move, the way you stand, the and way you sit. In that way your conversations, moods and movement form a coherency that predispose you to a specific way/habit of taking action. Our programs create in participants, new coherencies or habits, through practices, that serve what the participants are trying to achieve in life.

» Fifth, PGCA opens, recognizes and teaches about the tremendous influence that culture plays in the way you see things and the results you produce. Your culture, history, race, religion, gender, etc. all influence and shape the thoughts, intentions and emotions you have and don’t have.

It the PGCA Approach to Learning  that sets us apart

The learning environment we create in our coach training / transformational programs, our leadership programs and our personal emergence programs ,are unique and powerful. The instructional design of the programs incorporate individual, dyads, small group and large group activities to foster learning. It incorporates movement and dance as a distinguishing and integrating opportunity. The pace of learning through assignments is rapid; performance standards are set high. More importantly, the program not only develops skills, but also produces personal transformation which re-contextualises both the past and the future. As a participant you will leave the program with more actions available to you and a likely increased sense of well-being and empowerment. This is what sets us apart from a program designed only to transfer skills or qualities to participants.

The learning is well grounded in many disciplines of thought and philosophies and taught in an experiential environment that is both rigorous and fun. Our work stands on years of study and research into such disciplines as Flores's Ontology of Language, Heideggers phenomenology, Wilbers Integral thinking, and the Existentialism of Kierkegaard, Linguistics of Wittgenstien and Hermeneutics of Habermas, Somaticsof Strozzi Heckler with body movement studies, Maturana's Biology of Cognition, and emotional intelligence, just to name a few. The delivery of this research and its application to leading and coaching is done with rigor, lightness and fun. No other learning programs integrate so many fields of learning into a practical application for their participants.

Our approach to learning is a ‘holistic’ one - by virtue of the fact that we explore what it is to be human from a perspective of the ‘whole’. We believe that the moods and emotions you live and lead from, along with the way you physically move in life, along with the way you generate your reality in language, along with your value systems, all influence and inform the action you take and the results you get.

Our program materials are extensive – we include our own white papers, plus relevant articles and guides to illustrate key distinctions and foster reflection and discussion. The materials acknowledge and demonstrate the importance and interrelatedness of culture/language, body and mood/emotion for understanding and working with the human experience.

We have an ongoing and active community of graduates all over the world. As a graduate, you are connected to a larger constellation of colleagues all over the world, who are applying their learning to different specialties and fields…executive coaching, organizational design and change, health care, capacity building, politics, etc.