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Angela |
From the Editor
We're throwing
open our doors and expanding this month at the IAC.
Will you enter and join
us?
In this issue,
we're launching some new ways to get involved that we think
you will find enticing.
-
Tara Rodden Robinson announces the IAC's first
Community Outreach Group (COG) and describes how you can get involved and what's in it for you.
-
Kerri Laryea
reports on the first meeting of the first
local IAC chapter
and encourages us to get involved.
Again this month we've got
some words from our certified members. If you've achieved IAC certification and you'd like to share with other members how you
did it and what it means to you, please
drop me a line. I'd like to see your face in the VOICE while encouraging others to achieve certification.
And, of course, the
Coaching Moments piece never fails to touch me with a reminder of what coaching is really all about.
Cheers,
Angela Spaxman
Editor, IAC VOICE
Email: voice@certifiedcoach.org
Web: www.spaxman.com.hk
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Natalie |
Answers
from the President
by Natalie
Tucker Miller, IAC-CC
president@certifiedcoach.org
March is proving to be a very exciting month for the IAC with Kerri Laryea and Tara Rodden Robinson launching live and virtual communities and Angela Spaxman expanding her editorial team to include Susan Korb and Kathleen Richardson. Andrea J. Lee, Diane Krause-Stetson and I are preparing for the IAC’s first annual telesummit scheduled for National Coaching Week in February 2008.
The
Certification
Board has been creating the process and policy for expanding the department to include international certifications. We’re fortunate to have such devoted and professional certifiers. Sali Taylor, Barbra Sundquist, Karen VanCleve and Nina East consistently go above and beyond the call of duty in the interest of serving coaching globally. The devotion they share for the coaching profession
and their commitment to masterful coaching, the IAC, its subscribers and
its members is extraordinary. The board continually marvels at their sincerity and integrity.
These are
just some of the important people and projects that make up
the IAC. Your IAC.
Community Outreach Groups: Ready for Take-off
by Tara Rodden
Robinson
Back in the
January '07 issue of the IAC VOICE, IAC President Natalie Tucker Miller introduced me as the "test pilot" for the COGs. I am happy to report that the first COG is ready for a test flight!
The first
Community Outreach Group will come together to train COG
leaders. Members who would like to lead a virtual group of
IAC coaches are invited to join the first COG. We are
specifically looking for people who would like to lead one
or more COGs on the following topics:
-
Certification
-
The Masteries
(as a whole and individually)
-
Ethics and
Risk Management
-
Transition
between the Proficiencies and the Masteries
Here are some
of the features you can expect from the COGs:
-
Specific:
Each COG will take on a particular topic so that
participants will have the opportunity to go deeper in their
learning with the goal of achieving mastery. This means that
each COG will have a project focus with specific outcomes
toward which participants will work.
-
Collaborate: COGs meet for the purpose of constructing
new knowledge or creating new products. COGs can be formed
around the needs of the IAC, its membership or the
profession at large. For example, a COG might be created as
an ethics sounding board for specific issues that arise in
practice or to act as an organizing committee for a
conference. The possibilities are nearly limitless.
-
Discrete:
Each COG will meet for a specific length of time. The COGs
will be scheduled in advance so that community members can
plan ahead to fit COG participation into their schedules.
-
Flexible:
The web setting will allow group participants to log on at
any time, from anywhere, to read material, listen to podcasts and post questions or comments. COGs may also include
live chats, whiteboards, and other real-time features so
that coaches will get to interact with each other and the
expert COG leaders who will serve as hosts and facilitators
for each COG.
-
Accessible:
The BaseCamp messaging format is much like a blog. Blog
posts are typically short, easy to read and conversational.
The BaseCamp format also allows participants to subscribe to
the RSS feed as for any other blog. Participants can comment and engage in conversation. (By the
way, if you don't know what RSS feed is, don't worry, we'll
explain all this in the
first COG.)
-
Individual
attention: Each group will be limited in size so that
everyone will have the opportunity to participate in a
meaningful way by contributing to the fruitful discussion of
the topic. Participants will enroll in each COG separately.
-
Professional: The COGs will be moderated and monitored
to keep discussions on track and held to the highest
standards of professional discourse. Coaches will be able to
learn how to disagree without acrimony and how to discuss
contentious issues with courtesy.
-
Personal
and professional growth: Both group members and
facilitators will be able to take on new challenges and
acquire skills in new teaching methods and subjects.
And here are
some of the benefits of getting involved:
-
Connecting
with other like-minded professionals, particularly important
for this "virtual" profession
-
Staying
current with the coaching profession; helping define and
contribute to its needs and growth
-
Finding other
coaches to collaborate with to enhance coaching skills, grow
practices and share resources
-
Learning how
to collaborate with other professionals (sounds silly, but
this takes practice)
-
Contributing
to the coaching community for the greater good
COG 1:
Learning How to Create and Run an IAC COG will run from
Monday, March 19 until Friday, March 23, 2007. To sign up,
or if you have further questions,
click here.
I look forward to hearing from you!
 Peace be with
you,
Tara Rodden Robinson
tara@zugunruhecoaching.com
www.zugunruhecoaching.com
Tara Rodden Robinson
PhD is a coach, educator, and writer working toward IAC certification.
She teaches genetics, hikes, and walks her dog in Corvallis,
Oregon.
History in the Making - The First Local IAC Chapter Launch
by Kerri Laryea, IAC-CC
My IAC
certification journey provided a rich, distinctive texture
to the fabric of my coaching and my life. If I hadn't worked
so hard at mastering the proficiencies, I
wouldn't have experienced the same level of personal growth
and professional confidence. I might even have missed out on
friendships I expect will last a lifetime. I've noticed that
when coaches on this certification journey get together,
exchange stories and celebrate the moment, we embroider
beautiful accents into our "coaching" fabric. My inspiration
for starting the first IAC local chapter was to weave an
even richer brocade of connections into my life.
This month we
launched the first ever IAC sanctioned chapter meeting here
in Phoenix, Arizona. Invitations were sent out to all
Arizona coaches in the IAC database. I looked forward to
many eager coaching souls from every part of the state
flocking to a function that promised, above all,
face-to-face connections, fun and celebration.
We were a
smaller group than I'd hoped for, but those who did attend
brought with them the excitement, enthusiasm and energy so
often found when people connect in meaningful, soulful ways.
We shared visions for local collaboration and ways of
promoting excellence in coaching; we traded stories about
our coaching professions and we basked in the pleasure of
each other's company.
Here's what
Pat Beck of Phoenix, Arizona commented: "It is so nice to
make face-to-face connections with coaches who are really
serious about our profession. I'm looking forward to the
next meeting!"
For those of
you IAC members interested in starting your own local
chapter, I'd like to support you. Let's work together to
strengthen our membership on a local level, connect on an
international level, and support the IAC's mission to
inspire the on-going evolution and application of universal
coaching standards. If you think you're ready to start a
chapter, ask yourself these
questions (questions asked of me by my coach in Scotland):
-
Why do you
want to start a chapter?
-
What is your
motivation?
-
What would be
the benefits to chapter members?
-
What would be
the defining characteristics of your local chapter?
Please let me
know how I can support you.
Kerri Laryea,
MPA, IAC-CC
www.thecoachingweb.com,
kerri@thecoachingweb.com.
Kerri is a coach,
mentor, wife and mother living in Scottsdale, AZ. Her passion
is spinning a web of connections - threads that connect clients
to coaches, employers to employees, collaborators to projects,
and resources to seekers.
Members' Voices
Of the
thousands of ways a coach can become credentialed, the
process of becoming an IAC Certified Coach made the most
sense for me. To me, the key questions are: Can you coach?
Do you know what's ethically appropriate and what's not?
Are you accountable? My IAC Certification says "Yes" to
those questions.
I became an
IAC Volunteer because the organization runs on volunteer
labor. Always has. Even though I know the IAC is a very
lean machine, it costs money to serve thousands of
members. I'm pleased to support the organization with my
membership.
Ruth Ann Harnisch, IAC-CC
www.thrillionaires.org/w/bio.php
President, The Harnisch Family Foundation
I strongly
believe in the power of coaching. I dedicate 100% of my
professional time to coaching. For me, having a coaching
certification is very important.
My training
is from diverse sources and institutions, but I don't have
one "certificate", therefore the certification for me was
aligned with IAC's philosophy. IAC looks for people who
master the proficiencies (great fundamentals for coaching),
regardless of the way they acquire them (as long as they
are able to pass the exam) and who show that they
can coach. So that was perfect. A good coach is someone
who has a strong foundation and can show that he/she knows
how to coach.
I have also
been involved in the process of creating the Masteries,
where I came across the great people leading the
institution and their faith and strong belief in coaching,
a belief I completely share with them.
Zuno Kristal, IAC-CC
kc@kristalcoaching.com
www.kristalcoaching.com
Coaching Moments
"Coaching Moments" takes a
thoughtful, and sometimes lighthearted, look at how coaching
can be interwoven into our daily lives.
by Janice Hunter
The
Gunless Game
The woods
were made for the hunters of dreams
The brooks for the fishers of song
To the hunters who hunt for the gunless game
The streams and the woods belong.
- Sam Walter Foss
A few weeks
ago, my widowed mother-in-law phoned to tell us she'd got
engaged on a dance floor to the lovely man she's been
seeing for a long time. I was delighted!
One of my
biggest coaching challenges over the past few years has
been trying to improve the fragile relationship I have
with her. Fortunately for both of us, the more I evolve as
a coach, the easier it gets. Twenty years down the line, I
no longer feel the urge to slam the door and storm off
cursing. At best, we've enjoyed an uneasy truce spanning
two decades but I really want to make our relationship the
best it can be for all our sakes.
I've tried
to do the work on why I let her affect me so much,
constantly asking myself what my feelings say about me.
What am I scared of? What do I dislike about myself? How
can I get rid of the shoulds, accept what is and change my
thoughts? She is, after all, a decent woman, a good woman
who in addition to raising a family, has had a challenging
life, devotedly looking after her wheelchair-bound husband
until he died. I keep coming up with the same answers; the
sad truth is we're both judgemental and I can't be my best
self, my authentic, creative self with her. We simply
wouldn't have chosen each other even though we both love
the same man - my husband, her son.
It's a
drizzly, damp, grey day today and I've been daydreaming at
the kitchen sink, remembering one of my mother-in-law's
visits a while ago.
She'd
travelled the length of the country to visit us. As I
couldn't do any coaching, I'd decided it was a chance to
practise at home instead, getting rid of old stories and
any stuff of my own that had been stopping me from moving
forward. Here was my chance to communicate from a clean
place, relish her as the woman who gave birth to my
wonderful husband, respect her humanity, her limits and
the difficult, stressful life she's had. I decided to say
less, listen well and use my intuition to hone in on her
needs.
If the first
few hours had been a coaching session, I suspect I would
have excelled at silently relishing the truth about
fraught relationships with in-laws, but not much else. I
would have failed Step 2 of the IAC exam miserably, and
not just for having an agenda and trying too hard!
So my
husband decided we should all spend the day at a deer and
falconry park. His reasoning? Plenty of open space to
wander around in, lots of things to see and do and game
wardens with tranquiliser guns close at hand.
After some hot
Scotch broth in a café with tartan tablecloths, I found
myself relaxing as we strolled around and encountered all kinds
of deer.  In
one enclosure, I sprinkled some dried food pellets on the ground
for a small Muntjak deer and couldn't resist stroking her rough
coat as she ate. Suddenly, she stopped eating and reached her
head up towards me. As I stood there stroking the soft, beige
fur under her ear, the world stood still. Nothing mattered
except two creatures gently breathing - connecting silently
on a grey day in a damp Scottish field. I have no idea how
long we stood like that until, startled by the arrival of another
family, she bounded off.
I smiled
gently to myself and the whole weekend took on a warmth
and connection I would never have dreamt possible. The
universe always makes sure we get what we really need. All
we have to do is reach out and trust that we'll find
perfection in the silences.
Janice Hunter is a writer, teacher and IAC certified coach
who currently specialises in homelife coaching - helping people
create authentic, spirit filled lives and homes they love -
and in supporting coaches on their certification journeys.
She lives in Scotland with her husband and two children.
contact
Janice@LovingtheDetails.com
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