I chose this piece to share with you from the Sympoiesis Community blog archives at TheGoodCoach.Online.
I chose this piece to share with you from the Sympoiesis Community blog archives at TheGoodCoach.Online.
Excerpts from a seminar held in San Francisco on September 21 and 22nd 1991.
© Newfield Network 1991 — Used with permission
Dr. Humberto Maturana (1928–2021) was a Chilean biologist, neuroscientist, and philosopher best known for his groundbreaking work in the biology of cognition. He co-developed the concept of autopoiesis—the idea that living systems are self-creating and self-maintaining—alongside Francisco Varela. This concept reshaped thinking in fields like biology, cognitive science, systems theory, and education.
Maturana’s central insight was that cognition is not a representation of an objective world but a biological process rooted in the organism’s interactions with its environment. He proposed that we bring forth our worlds through our living, emphasizing the relational nature of perception and understanding.
His work laid the foundation for ontological coaching, which explores how our ways of being shape our actions and relationships.
One of Maturana’s most prominent students and collaborators was Julio Olalla, a former lawyer and government official in Chile who later became a coach and educator. Olalla expanded Maturana’s ideas into the field of personal and professional development. Through their collaboration, Maturana influenced Olalla’s founding of Newfield Network, a global coaching organization.
Together, they helped frame coaching not as a tool for fixing problems, but as a practice of shifting how people see and engage with the world. Maturana’s emphasis on love, language, and emotion as core to human understanding deeply shaped Olalla’s approach to leadership and transformation.
Maturana’s legacy lives on in the fields of education, leadership, and coaching—where his ideas continue to challenge and inspire new ways of seeing and being.