Our Approach
At In Depth Coaching & Development, we subscribe to a particular philosophy of how human development happens. This philosophy influences everything we do with our clients as they develop wisdom in action.
In fact, we chose a nautilus shell as our logo because this element of nature symbolizes core developmental truths that inspire our work.
The Nautilus Shell: A Biology Lesson
The sea creature known as the nautilus, one of the oldest species on the planet, hatches from its egg with a shell that already contains several chambers of graduating size.
As the nautilus grows, it OUTGROWS its current chamber, moves into the next-largest chamber, and seals off the smaller chamber it no longer fits in. However, nothing is wasted, as the nautilus continues using these smaller chambers to control its buoyancy, filling the chambers up with gas or water in order to float higher or sink deeper.
The nautilus can continue growing new chambers – up to 30 in the span of its lifetime! Here’s the mind-blowing part. The chambers of the nautilus shell form a beautiful spiral conforming to the geometric dimensions of the Golden Ratio, a mathematical pattern found throughout the natural world, including DNA, growth patterns of plants, human and animal skeletons, stars, galaxies, and much more. Plato called this mathematical pattern the “key to the physics of the cosmos”, architects and artists have been incorporating the Golden Ratio into their work for millennia, and spiritual teachers have long studied this “sacred geometry” in search of ultimate reality.
The bottom line: nature can unfold in predictable, repeating, expanding patterns. What seems random may actually be an ordered part of the greater whole.
The Nautilus:
A Symbol of Human Development
The nautilus symbolizes the process of how consciousness evolves and leads us to these core principles of human development:
Development unfolds in predictable, repeating, expanding patterns. It is not a random process. The more we understand these predictable patterns, the more we can make use of them for transformational growth.
Development transcends and includes the past. We can still use chambers we’ve outgrown as needed, such as former ways of seeing the world, understanding ourselves, relating to others, and behaving.
We already contain within us the potential for expansive growth. Future chambers await us. Within our reach lie expanded ways of being we can’t yet imagine.
The spiraling nature of development means we may never stop growing. While it may feel at times like we’re circling back to things we thought we’d overcome, we may actually be coming at them from a higher, expanded perspective, like climbing a spiral staircase. Spiraling back around may mean we’re ready for the next level of transformation.
We must go to the surface…and to the depths. Development can be intense!
Our 3 core methodologies - Vertical Development, Leadership Circle Profile, and the Enneagram - honor these developmental principles and provide us with powerful tools to fuel our clients’ growth and transformation. We feature these 3 core methodologies throughout all our services.
Vertical Development
Traditional development approaches focus on horizontal development, or adding skills and tools to your bucket. Vertical Development helps leaders get a bigger bucket, or shift to more expansive ways of thinking, being, relating, and leading so they can hold more in their bucket. Said differently, we help leaders upgrade their operating system so they can navigate more complexity and meet the increasing demands of our rapidly evolving world. We don’t have to be done “growing up” when we reach adulthood. Vertical Development provides a map to help us navigate the terrain of adult development, which unfolds in a predictable, repeating, expanding pattern like the nautilus.
To learn more about Vertical Development, we recommend the following resources: Understanding Vertical Development whitepaper, Nick Petrie’s website, and Jan Rybeck’s resources. In addition, feel free to Contact Us to go deeper.
Leadership Circle
Our favorite 360 assessment tool for individual coaching and for high-impact team development is The Leadership Circle Profile (LCP). Rooted in Vertical Development, this assessment illuminates not just WHAT leaders are doing (effective and ineffective leadership behaviors) but also WHY (root cause of behaviors), and reveals a path for radical growth. Based on a thoroughly-researched Universal Model of Leadership, we’ve seen this tool work wonders time and again, unlocking unprecedented levels of insight and catalyzing transformational action in leaders. We believe this is because the LCP recognizes the patterned ways that leaders get stuck and the patterned ways they can evolve and provides data-driven insight to guide leaders towards growth. We use Leadership Circle Profile 360 with individuals and teams, and the related product, Collective Leadership Assessment, measures the leadership culture of an organization.
To learn more about Leadership Circle Profile and Collective Leadership Assessment, check out the Leadership Circle website or Contact Us.
Enneagram
The Enneagram is an incredibly dynamic personal development system that describes 9 personality types, explains how we get stuck in unhelpful personality patterns, and guides us to outgrow those patterns by “coming home" to our true nature. We provide Typing Interviews to help clients find their type and then use the Enneagram’s wisdom to unlock revolutionary shifts for individuals and teams. Once again, we love the way the Enneagram helps clients find themselves in the repeating patterns found in human nature…and how it helps them expand beyond the limitations of those patterns. And best of all, this system syncs up seamlessly with Vertical Development and the Leadership Circle Profile, completing our trifecta of Core Methodologies at In Depth Coaching & Development.
To learn more about the Enneagram, please visit the website of our Enneagram teachers Beatrice Chestnut and Uranio Paes, Chestnut-Paes Enneagram Academy, or Contact Us