This essay complements “Conversations For Action” focusing on two particular “conversational moves”, assertions and assessments. It is considered to have produced a breakthrough in the world of coaching, teamwork, and leadership in organizations.  Those that practice “ontological coaching” utilize the framework Fernando Flores outlined here as the basis for much the work they peform.

The essay includes the  “Fundamental Elements of an Assertion” and “Fundamental Elements of an Assertion”.

We claim that information is not just a set of all facts. All information is ultimately derived from assertions about the world made by individual people. And people don’t make these assertions from a detached and objective perspective. People have different concerns and different backgrounds of experience, and they make assertions to support some future action. We also claim that making a decision is not a simple matter of choosing among predetermined outcomes. Instead we create the future in assessments that are both interpretations of emerging possibilities and commitments to a course of action for coping with and exploiting those possibilities.