“Authentix group sessions are truly stimulating and enjoyable ways to become more clearly aware of each others’ needs and wants. Becoming consciously aware of my emotions or moods can be very helpful in certain circumstances, and practising IHXENs has helped me become aware that my feelings often originate in my emotions or moods. A conscientious practitioner of Adlerian psychology in the classroom would be able to use IHXENs, I believe, to empower certain children to become consciously aware of their emotions, which would save them having to learn this lesson much later in life when it becomes more difficult to undo earlier acquired habits whose existence and dysfunctionality had escaped their notice. Now that Angus has given us an overview of the entire Eye-Zen suite of Rational Emoto-Linguistics and their synergistic relationships one to another, I look forward to discovering more of the power of the Eye-Zen process to solve both individual and inter-personal problems. Following Angus' suggestions for use of Eye-Zen English in composing my narratives of recent family history, I have come to quite a few new insights. Moreover, after feeling safe with Angus to express feelings of rage, or intense anger, or abject grief, or exasperation in the carrying out my material responsibilities, I am learning to channel the energy of such socially incorrect emotions to state what I don't like and suggest what might satisfy me. I have also been motivated to improve my diet. Angus' book should be a bestseller!” -- Apr - Oct 2009 "Having meditated regularly for many years, I was suspicious at first of IHXENs. But the fact is I cannot meditate just when I have strong emotions, which often arise when I am in public. So now I continue regularly meditating and also practise IHXENs occasionally with a partner. This is resulting in my experiencing virtually complete relief from having inadvertently let other people rely too much on my natural sympathies for whatever plight they describe to me. I have hope this will, in due course, facilitate the emergence in conversation of creative possibilities for putting the talents, skills, and relationship assets of a small group to good use. I am also enjoying using the Eye-Zen English Starter Kit to refresh my knowledge and stimulate my thinking". -- Feb-Mar 2012 "In a session this month with Angus, I became specifically conscious that when I ‘find myself’ saying “I don’t want to ……..”, I then risk behaving obstinately for potentially spurious/false reasons. I can therefore now look forward to becoming increasingly conscious of what healthy and vitalizing options will be emerging from my pursuit, through Eye-Zen English principles, of equanimity". -- Jan 2013 |
"Angus' book is something I'll be watching out for. Workplace conflict arises because individuals, especially leaders, are either too reactionary with their emotions, or stuff their emotions such that they leak out in covert, indirect and insidious ways. Good executive coaches help our clients understand themselves better through reflective dialogue. We also help our clients develop the skill of discovering more and more accurately the honest subtleties of our emotions. This helps everyone concerned to be better prepared to express the parts of their emotions that need to be expressed in ways appropriate for everyone in a conversation, which is to say without triggering hopelessly divisive fight-flight-freeze reactions. The 'Eye-Zen' process Angus is presenting in his book has the potential to be one of the most powerful frameworks in a coach's repertoire. I look forward to learning more about this potent, practical, and essential tool. I predict many students of management and leadership will be learning for a long time from Angus' process". – Mar-Apr 2015 |
| Angus & Emma, his daughter, enjoy a moment of "father and daughter well-being": |
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“Angus and I have been working together with IHXENs (Eye-Zens) for nearly two years. I was not at first at all sure that these psycho-linguistics are of much practical use, at least in isolation, but gradually I came to understand that they are extremely useful in two direct ways for me. First, I now have a presumption-free way to determine whether I am poised to act from equanimity and communicate authentically or would be acting from haste, excitement, anxiety, or unnecessary uncertainty. Second, I now know that the information held in my emotions – both the strongest and most painful ones and also the ones so mild that I wouldn’t have noticed them had I not practised IHXENs – always proves, when I examine and evaluate it with Eye-Zen English psycho-linguistics, to be very valuable. More than that, Eye-Zen English has proved to be a practical tool in creating an appropriate environment within which disputes can be resolved constructively. For example, it has proved to be extremely useful to me in developing a constructive and creative environment in mediations and in ensuring that all aspects of a dispute are fully and fairly explored in an Arbitration. I have found that Eye-Zen English can enhance the process of Non-Violent Communication (NVC) (see note 1 below) in each of its 4 sequential steps: 1. Observations: establish datums, or best presumptive facts; 2. Feelings: determine the respective feelings or emotions of all parties; 3. Needs: establish the respective values and/or needs; and only then 4. Requests and proposals: suggest needed beginning to an otherwise ‘open’ solution. IHXENs enlarge one's perspective in regard to the first step, provide a systematic process for the second step, enable the third step to be fully explored, and help in creative verbalization of the fourth step. I hear that Eye-Zen linguistics can be applied in other language cultures. If so, it could add a significant component to the evolving theory of "Just Peacemaking" (see note 2 below), and would thereby contribute significantly to the international programs and negotiations that form the basis for developing sustainable peaceful settlements around the globe. Such disputes can only become more urgent, complex and intractable as the full effects of Climate Change emerge and large populations need to move in order to survive. I have enjoyed Angus’ shining intelligence and empathy. I find his courage, creativity, and persistence in bringing the value of proficiency in Eye-Zen English to our attention formidable. I feel his IHXEN-related aims are thoroughly honest, and I believe the world needs them realized. I wish him all success in developing, promoting and implementing these insightful and valuable practices. Anyone can benefit from association with Angus, and his work merits responsible people’s attention and support.” -- Nov 2007 to Aug 2009 1: "Nonviolent Communication, A Language of Life", by Marshall Rosenberg, Puddle Dancer Press (2003) 2: "Just Peacemaking: The New Paradigm for the Ethics of Peace and War", Glen H. Stassen, Editor, The Pilgrim Press (2008) |
“Continuously raising productivity while meeting escalating standards of quality assurance is continuously demanding. To avoid becoming workaholic heroes requires uncommon increments in leadership capacities to fuel steadily rising team productivity at all levels, and we must accomplish this amongst skilled people who come from many different cultural backgrounds and technical disciplines. Eight months ago we hired Authentix Coach Angus Cunningham. Attending weekly or bi-weekly sessions with Angus, my senior people have maintained impressive growth in monthly shipment volume and per-person productivity, and also gained insights into the meaning and practice of high-performance teamwork. Our progress is an inspiration to me personally, and in particular has enabled me to recognize more accurately the latent talent that, once evoked, enables each of us to enjoy growing. We no longer have to keep twisting ourselves into conventional psychological prescriptions for personal change. Our culture is transitioning organically to a more trustingly and prudently constructive and empathic one and I believe the best is yet to come. Angus’ approach, in which vital truth is simultaneously an enlightening beacon and a practical objective in all our conversations, is helping the senior people to tap the capacities we have as leaders to evoke more of the potential for present initiative and productivity in every Dishonian. Despite the difficult market conditions facing Ontario manufacturers, our team is moving ahead to double our floor space this year” -- Feb 2008 "Having recently added staff to strengthen our AS9100 Quality Assurance program and purchasing capability, Dishon now has a superb leadership team that I can trust to make excellent short-term operating decisions in medium-term and long-term planning frameworks that I and our sales leadership keep adjusting and articulating" -- December 2008 |
“Our Authentix program has resulted in the reversal of a long-standing profit decline. After developing excellent relationships with our senior people, our coach, Angus Cunningham, has helped bring us together by virtue of a style of reliably honest, accurate, consistent, empathic, and clear communications and a vision that has shaken out, sometimes painfully, the myths upon which we had, for many years, been basing our decisions. He has also contributed professional management know-how, and modeled rational out-of-the-box thinking in our increasingly concerted problem solving. Today we have an attractive and inspirational new corporate self-image and a series of researched new directions in which to invest our energies. Although our customers expect severe turbulence as GTA manufacturing continues to cope with inroads from the developing world, we feel poised to renew our growth in a market that once only triggered our anxieties. Moreover, we continue to benefit from our coach’s concise emails to help us maintain our focus” — August 2004 |
“Combining corporate productivity with personal well-being has always been more art than science, and hence a seemingly inaccessible goal to many. We began our quest for work nirvana 7 years ago knowing that an Employee Share Ownership Plan (ESOP) would be a part of it. Having helped my corporate team reach and communicate the balance among interests that a successful ESOP requires, Authentix Coaches’ Angus Cunningham is now helping us realize larger aims through the growing of an organically constructive culture, in which the values we bring from our home, workplace and marketplace experiences are refined into an equitable, coherent and vital whole. Having a 2-hour coaching session each week with Angus is to find one turning the relentless pressure of today’s working world into clarifying insights, intriguing intuitions, and focused initiatives in which one feels a welcome degree of inner confidence, and often renewed energy. Each session enables me to reframe my sense of what is occurring in my world with such accuracy that my setting of priorities and decision-making is not only making my own life, and those of my family members, less workaholic, but also beginning to make the working lives of all our employees more productive and enjoyable. Having Angus coach us through the many transitions we know we now both must and want to make is giving us, when the going gets tough, confidence that we “have it in ourselves” to realize shockingly excellent success!” – Feb 2007 |
“I very much like your rejection of "change" in favor of "growth". "Change" implies that something is wrong and needs change. "Growth" just means reaching out to fulfill one's potential. A friend of mine, who has a PhD and is the author of ”Something in the Air” and “The Choosing Tree”, and I are writing a book for teenagers to be called "Your Life, Your Choice". It is for kids who are trapped in a dysfunctional family, especially one in which they are being seriously abused. We just had a discussion on the difficulty of writing a book whose purpose is to enable kids in such situations to learn new skills to extricate themselves from their hellish circumstance. The trick is to avoid any language which tends to blame the kid himself. Molly doesn't like me to say that certain ways of thinking are "irrational" or "inappropriate" because for her these reactions are what she calls "spontaneous". Well, I know all this, and I understand that those "spontaneous" reactions are really produced by irrational thinking. But I agree with her that we need to discover a way of introducing that important idea without the kid's feeling blamed or devalued. Maybe this is something you have discovered how to do! If so, the more I can hear about it the better I'll like it! In any case, your discussion of balancing independence and dependence is brilliant! I'm going to use it in my discussion with my nephew. I think that both the helper and the helpee can benefit from both NVC and the IHXEN linguistic. Practice of the IHXEN linguistic empowers people to say 'I have anger' instead of 'I am angry'. The latter way of describing one's situation implies that one's emotional state is some kind of permanent property, rather than something that one can acquire some ability to choose.” -- Sep 2008 to Nov 2009 Every now and then I think there may be some hope for the human race on this planet. Usually doesn't last long. But efforts like yours may actually turn the tide. - Aug 2010 |
“For some years now Authentix Coaches’ concise manuscript “Vital and Thriving Truths (VTT)” has been guiding us to pinpoint, and inspiring us to let go of, the accumulating pretences, pretexts, postures, power plays, and political feints by which we were unwittingly undermining our efforts to earn deeper trust in our relationships with both clients and colleagues. The result is that cooperative interdependence is now a growing feature of almost all our relationships. An ever-ready reference on my desk, VTT is also helping us create and practice habits of living that are yielding noticeably higher levels of balanced personal energy. We are now working systematically with VTT suggestions to elaborate into practically meaningful ethics the values we have come consciously to know, through intermittent experiences with an Authentix coach, are the true guarantors of durable success in our field. Having meals or coffee with Angus when he follows up on our abiding friendship is always something I look forward to” -- Feb 2003 - Oct 2009 |
For more on the approach Authentix Coaches took with Dishon, click here. |
For more on the approach Authentix Coaches took with National Hydraulics, click here. |
(Shortly after this testimonial was received, we learned that Chant's ESOP launch offering had been taken up by 90% of its permanent employees. This figure compares with an average figure of 30 to 40% for ESOP launch take-ups in the United States. Three years in the making, it finally was launched with an undertaking by senior people to engender a dynamic culture to be achieved through attention to "aspirational value disciplines" designed in consultation with Authentix Coaches). For more on the approach Authentix Coaches took with Chant Construction, click here. |
| Project Management & Dispute Resolution |
| Manufacturing Productivity |
| Distribution & Technical Service Delivery |
| Organization Leadership & Employee Share Ownership |
| Public Service Website Leadership |
| IHXEN Partnering Session Facilitation |
| Financial Services Franchise Leadership |
| The ten testimonials below are evidence from clients, some pro-bono, of the quality of coaching and writing provided by Angus to leaders confronting a wide range of unique and difficult problems. Before reviewing these testimonials, you may wish first to read a summary narrative of the return, in hard dollar figures, from investment in time and money (ROI) of one Authentix client who, after acquiring proficiency in working with "I have X emotion now" statements (IHXENs), had ASTOUNDINGLY successful measurable results. (IHXENs are the self-monitoring, centering, self-revelatory, safe, and trust-building observations foundational to Eye-Zen English). If so, please click here. Using the IHXEN syntactical structure honestly leads to unique, and initially unexpectedly relevant and practical, insights). Contact information for reference verification, where not provided below, is available on a need-to-know basis on application to Authentix Coaches. Testimonials are available in each of a variety of client fields of activity. Please scroll down to find the field of activity closest to the one of most interest to you: .. |
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| Dishon Limited is a Toronto-based manufacturer of component parts for mission-critical equipment such as undersea oil rigs, nuclear reactors, and spacecraft. Its customers include such global design and manufacturing leaders as AECL, McDonald Dettwiler, GE, and Cameron Controls. Its productivity and quality levels are, and must be, world competitive in its field. Says Ilan Dishy, second-generation owner, and President, now building an additional plant in Mexico: |
| Ian D. Richards, Founder and President of an 8-person financial services firm. Says Ian: |
| Some Testimonials on the quality of coaching and/or writing provided by Angus Cunningham Principal, Authentix Coaches |
| National Hydraulics and Dazit (now Tech Serv TSI div. of Matcom Inc.) serve the uptime assurance needs of industrial automation operators in the western and northern sectors of the Greater Toronto Area. Competing with larger distributors in components and parts supply, it has had to distinguish itself by creating extra value through custom engineering and safety design and project management, and by more accurate and resourceful 24/7/365 repair services. The effort caused a 3-year decline in profits. But in early 2004 Bill Boyko, spearhead of its extra-value development program (and now Director of Technical Service & Sales of Tech Serv TSI), hired an Authentix Coach as a 2-day-a-week interim president with the mandate to create a market-driven strategic vision and coach the top group into a professional organization. Says Bill: |
| Chant Construction Limited is a 45-employee company committed to sustainable electrical energy development through superlative project planning and a humanly energizing approach to contractual and organizational productivity and individual well-being. It has established a reputation for shockingly excellent service to power utilities in both Canada and the US. Chant is now engaged in a long-range plan to grow a culture in a way that its leadership knows will focus employees on realizing sustained prosperity for the company as much as for themselves. Says Founder and CEO Ted Chant: |
| Thomas R. (Bob) Scott PhD is a retired Chief of Clinical Psychology at a U.S. Veteran’s Hospital, former President of the Columbia Association for Rational Thinking, and Proprietor of the Truthtree website for rational and scientific debate. The Truthtree website, one of Angus Cunningham's favourites, is now growing rapidly in visitor traffic and the quality of visitors' debates. Says Bob: |
| Executive Coaching |
| Christopher Walker is a Chartered Arbitrator (C.Arb.) with the Alternative Dispute Resolution Institute and holds a PEng designation in both Canada and the UK. He was the Founder and First President of the International Cost Engineering Council, Past President of the (American) Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering , and has been involved in engineering projects across Canada and internationally, ranging from $1 million to $20 billion. He has worked at different times on behalf of each of the major parties involved – owners, consultants and contractors. A significant part of this work has been helping to resolve disputes between all the stakeholders involved in any enterprise – owners, backers, suppliers, workers, customers and society. Says Christopher: |
"Reading the Preface, I think it provides exactly the right flags to the reader to engage his/her interest in the unconscious and incomplete truth, and just how universally damaging a lack of such interest can be. It really gives your work traction and opens up receptiveness to practice of the psycho- linguistic “This is my emotion now: …………..” This is a practice I find very powerful and revealing. It is indeed one of the most important insights of our time, and it is not intuitively obvious". -- May-Oct 2014 |
| John A. Webb Ph D FSB, recently retired – after 41 years in the field of agriculture and food processing – as Director of Emerging Science for Maple Leaf Foods: |
| International Finance |
| Per Kurowski, a former executive director (2002-4) of the World Bank and now an independent consultant with expertise in energy and other fields of international finance, including regulation, based in Washington, DC. Having conversed and dialogued with Angus for 5 years, Per says: |
“In situations in which we've learned that neither withdrawing nor fighting to eliminate those who disagree with us are practical options for us, I've sometimes tried to take advantage of Angus' broad experience in honesty-based problem-solving linguistics. Honest 'Eye-Zens' are at the root of his ability to verbalize accurately in virtually all circumstances. Even with only little trials so far of Eye- Zens, I feel sure his book is going to open doors to adventures in which readers will learn a way to solve problems in real life at least as promising as a Gary Kasparov move is in a chess game. I'm looking forward over the next few months (between now and February when I shall see Angus again) to trying IHXENs not only with my intimates and allies but even with people I find obtuse because they seem addicted to ideologies I know to be demonstrably false.” – Oct-Nov 2014 |
| Book Writing |
| Mike Grogan has, since 2004, been a business coach serving small and medium sized organizations as well as executives and managers of Fortune 500 companies. A skilled facilitator, having worked with the Chief Executive Network and the Helzberg Entrepreneurial Mentoring Program, he leads strategic planning retreats, mediates conflict, and leads workshops on leadership, management, selling and accountability. Says Mike: |
| Joan Pennings has retired from elementary school teaching in the Ontario Catholic School Board. Mother of three successful children, grandmother to four more beautiful people, and the owner, and generous lender of a small library of books written by many wise moderns. Says Joan: |
