Tag: first person AI

How to do first person Action Inquiry

Previously, I wrote about what Action Inquiry is, and some of its aims.

I’ve also written about some of the practices that help you notice how you feel and the main check-in (naming how you feel).

Action Inquiry (AI) can work in 3 different arenas:

  • First person: where you increase your personal integrity by inquiring into your own actions and results.
  • Second person: where you increase mutuality in relationships with another person.
  • Third person: where you increase sustainability by inquiring into organizational strategies and actions. (This is a larger We, not to be confused with third person in grammatical rules, where it refers to They.)

Each of these has its own approach, and although each approach is related to the other approaches, they look and feel essentially different.

Today I’m going to share how you can do the First Person AI. Remember, the aim of First Person AI is to increase your personal integrity. Integrity grows by means of regular dynamic evaluations into the gaps between what you plan and what you do, or between how you feel and what you say that you feel, or between what you value and what your actions create. All those sorts of things.

We begin by stretching the limits of our attention into all of the Four Territories of experience. (Inspired by Bill Torbert’s 2004 book, Action Inquiry.)

  1. First territory – the results, outcomes or consequences you observe. This might be your own feelings about what’s happened. We’re quite accustomed to being aware of this, but it still can be challenging when the results are so different from what we wanted.
  2. Second territory – the actions you take, deeds you perform, behaviors, skills, patterns. Essentially, what you DO that leads to your result. Some of this are aware of ourselves in this way. But many of us don’t habitually inquire into what we did to get the outcome we didn’t want.
  3. Third territory – the strategy you’re employing, the overall approach you’re using. Game plans, ploys, your plan about how you’re going to achieve your aims. I think too few of us give any thought to this at all. How many times do you actually sit down and figure out a plan for getting the result you want? (This may be why life coaching is a booming profession!)
  4. Fourth territory – your intention, or vision. Where you place your attention. Your aims. Sadly, we seldom focus our attention here. But doing so is probably the single most powerful things we can do to begin to live a more fulfilled life. How can you get what you want if you spend zero time envisioning your future?

It sort of works in reverse within us. First you have an intention or a vision or a goal (the fourth territory), even if it’s below the level of awareness. Then you decide your strategy for achieving it (the third territory), even if you aren’t aware that you’re doing this. Too often these two territories are below the level of conscious awareness; we give little or no thought at all to what we really really want, or the best way to make it happen. But we act as if we DO know what we’re doing. No wonder then that we end up with what we don’t what and didn’t intend!

From your strategy (the third territory), you determine the action or actions you’re going to take (the second territory), and you have an expectation that this will bring about a certain result or outcome (the first territory).

Overall, the plot unfolds something like this (in a personal example):

  1. My intention was to learn to do Action Inquiry myself, and to become skillful and competent enough that I could teach others how to do it. (That was my fourth territory – my intention or vision or goal.)
  2. I decided that the best way for me to approach this was to form and participate in a regular Action Inquiry group, where members would work together to understand the technique and make the practices habitual. (This was my third territory – my strategy.) My strategy was, more specifically, to find a few like-minded people, people interested in personal development (integral style) and who would be open to learning this new way of being in the world, this new way of deliberately expanding their awareness in their lives with a mind to personal development.
  3. The first action I decided to take was to approach some other coach-consultant colleagues I’d met at a Bill Torbert event, who lived sort of near me, and see if they were interested in setting up such a group. (This was my second territory – the actions I took).
  4. And they WERE interested! Yay! A result! (My fourth territory – the outcome.)

The saga continued from there, and some of the outcomes were NOT what I wanted, so it was an opportunity to inquire into my actions to see what I needed to change. This is where the single-, double- and triple-loop learning comes into play, which I wrote about previously.

We’ll have more about my learning experience later.

So here’s one possible beginning script that you can try right now. Maybe think of a recent situation that didn’t turn out as you wanted it to.

When I first encountered <the situation>, the intention  I formed was <what was your main aim?>. In order to realize this intention, I decided the best approach to take would be <what strategy did you decide on?>. From that strategy, I decided the  best action for me to take was <what did you DO?>. The result I got was <what was your outcome?>.

If you got what you intended, Well Done!!! If you didn’t, well, a learning opportunity had presented itself to you. Please read about that in Learning Loops.

Related reading: please check out all my articles about Action Inquiry.