Holonomy is the practice of bringing the parts to the whole through a deep abiding belief that wholeness is the fundamental path to organizational success.  The concept of Holonomy is the organizing principle of the consulting work we do; centering our work to facilitate teamwork. 

Holonomy 

Pronounced  ‘Ho-la-no-mee

Holonomy, according to the Garmston and Costa from Cognitive Coaching is, “the combination of two Greek words, halos, or whole and on meaning part.”  In their book describing the term Garmston describes the dance between the part and the whole with the analogy of the heart.  A heart has the autonomous job of pumping blood through the body using patterned muscular activity.  And yet, the heart doesn’t work in a vacuum, it is influenced by hormones and autonomic nervous systems which alter the pattern of the beating to meet the myriad needs of all the other body systems.  Similarly, teachers, while autonomous to teach children specific subject knowledge, are not operating in a vacuum.  School policy, parental interests, school cultures, and the needs of each individual child all influence the work of the teacher, just as the work of the teacher exerts influence on the student and school.  This part to whole is also true within organizational teams outside of school systems, where one team member has their own autonomous role and function area that influences others while simultaneously being influenced by the culture, systems, and work of their colleagues.

Holonomy Consulting situates itself within this nexus of individual and collective. We believe that organizations and schools can best achieve their mission and goals when there is synergy between all the individual players in a team.  It is the core work of Holonomy Consulting to work both with individuals and groups, to study and understand what each person’s strengths and contribution is within the larger system.  Then as a facilitator and coach, we work to strengthen both the individual’s autonomous work while bringing the team together to improve their interdependence.  Here are two short examples of how this has played out with clients:

  • A nonprofit organization was struggling through deep relational and culture divides that were undermining the ability for the organization to achieve its goals.  Holonomy Consulting interviewed every team member to understand two things:  How did each person experience the team’s dysfunction?  And how was the individual contributing to the dysfunction of the team?  Holonomy consulting brought the team together to share out the themes and trends found in empathy interviews.  Together we worked first on quick hit improvements like new norms (ex. not interrupting), then dug into deeper work to uncover root causes of team dysfunction.  We collaboratively solved these more complex problems.  Through coaching individual staff members on their working relationships and autonomous work the team worked through its differences, created key organizational documents and processes, and the health of their meetings and their work improved.
  • At a school, the student data showed critical improvement of teaching and learning was needed.  When using the Design for Leading Tool to assess the school, it became clear that there were two central problems, 1. Teachers and students needed stronger cultural routines inside and outside of the classroom and 2. Teachers needed support to learn and use their newly adopted curriculum.  Both the leaders of the school were new to school leadership, and so through our coaching work they were able to prioritize and plan their leadership moves and teacher training for both a culture reset and roll-out of Intellectual Preparation (a lesson planning approach).   

Holonomy Consulting brings the parts together to strengthen the whole.  We focus on the individual, to increase their personal capacity towards the whole.  We focus on team dynamics to strengthen the norms, processes, and relationships that can harness individual strengths.  We do this with the goal of working towards organizational wholeness. Through empathy interviews, assessments, identifying key problems, facilitated group sessions, coaching, strategic planning, Holonomy Consulting uses multiple methodologies to leverage the parts and strengthen the whole.

1  Costa A. L. (2016). Cognitive coaching : developing self-directed leaders and learners (Third). Rowman & Littlefield.

2   More about the structure of empathy interviews in a future post, ask if you can’t wait!