IAC VOICE, Volume 4, Issue 23, February 2008, Circulation: 12,063


Angela

From the Editor

Wishing you happiness and good fortune
for the Year of the Rat! Since I live in
China, I can wish you happy New Year twice
every year.

For the IAC, I wish to evoke the rat’s
vitality: its strong reproductive capacity
and high survival rate. I predict we will
have a year of strong growth in membership
which will greatly enhance the sustainability
and effectiveness of our organization. The
year is certainly getting off to a good
start, as we had a lot of new members joining
in January and many people applying for
certification.

Some of you are waiting to get
started with our new IAC Masteries Step One exam. We're now doing the final
tests on the system and will send out a special announcement as soon as it is
released.

In the Voice this month we have some special
features to enhance the vitality of your
coaching and your coaching business.

I’m very pleased and excited that
the IAC’s Lead Certifier, Nina East,
will write a regular column called IAC Certification
Tidbits
. Nina will share tips and advice
for completing and submitting high quality
coaching session recordings as you work
towards your IAC Certified Coach designation.
We certainly couldn’t have a more
qualified advisor.

Although Nina is a very important member
of the IAC team, she has been working largely
behind the scenes. So, at last you’ll
have a chance to get to know her better
through my interview with Nina.

We also have a special article called
Seven
Core Principles of Marketing for Coaches
.
For those of you still developing your coaching
practice, Tara Rodden Robinson has written
an excellent primer. For those who already
have a successful marketing strategy, you’ll
want to read these essential principles
to ensure you are marketing as effectively
as possible.

Finally,
Coaching Moments is full of love,
especially for Valentine's Day.

Cheers,

Angela Spaxman
Editor, IAC VOICE
Email: voice@certifiedcoach.org
Web:
www.lovingworkandleading.com






Natalie

Answers
from the President


by Natalie
Tucker Miller


president@certifiedcoach.org

In addition to any and all February holidays
across the globe we’re also celebrating
some upcoming changes on the IAC Board of
Governors.

We will be voting in a new President within
the next couple of months as well as a Vice
President and Secretary. Jean Gran remains
as Treasurer, and although I am passing
the presidential torch, I will remain on
the executive team as Immediate Past President
until year’s end. Diane Krause-Stetson
and Parker Anderson will continue as Board
Members, much to our delight!

The IAC has grown and changed over the
past two years, creating a solid foundation
that will allow the successors to propel
the organization through the next natural
progression. It’s truly a celebratory
time for the IAC. The strength that comes
from the Board of Governors, the Certifying
Board, the volunteer teams, the IAC local
chapters and the membership is what allows
us to continue our mission: to advance coaching
to the highest standards of universal excellence.
Go, us (that includes YOU)!

Let’s take a moment to let Diane
and Parker know how much they are appreciated
for the time and expertise they have contributed
to our member organization. Diane’s
leadership and ability to take all the components
of a situation, consider each consequence
and make recommendations has been an invaluable
asset to the executive team. Parker’s
dedication to not just the coaching profession,
but the coaches who are directly affected
by the changes and growth in the coaching
industry, is a heart skill that guides her
every step. Thank you for your service!

Appreciatively,
Natalie
www.ageless-sages.com


IAC Certified Coaches

Congratulations to
Marco Iafrate
from
Calgary, AB, Canada who recently passed his Step 2 Exam and became
an IAC Certified Coach!




Meet Nina East, IAC Lead Certifier


by Angela
Spaxman

How and why did you get involved
with the IAC?

I joined the IAC way back at the beginning.
I agreed with Thomas Leonard, the founder,
that there are many experiences and trainings
that can prepare someone for becoming a
coach and that the true standard for certification
should be the ability to coach masterfully.
I wanted to support that philosophy and honor the value of work, life and training
experiences coaches had that fell outside
the official coach-training realm. I was
also closely involved with the Coaching
Proficiencies from the beginning, crafting
the learning guides, as well as teaching
teleclasses and live seminars. Since the
Proficiencies were the original standards
used for IAC Certification, it made sense
to be involved. So, when Shirley Anderson,
the first Lead Certifier, invited me to
become a Certifier, I didn’t hesitate
to say yes.

So, if you were so involved with
the Proficiencies, what do you think about
the IAC Coaching Masteries™?

I think they are great. If not, I never
would have accepted the role as Lead Certifier!
My role with the Masteries was in the initial
conversations, and then in testing and evaluating
their application in order to refine them.
To be quite honest, that means I missed
the bulk of the creation work. The team
that developed the Masteries did an impressive
job and an immense amount of work. What
excites me most about the Masteries is the
elegance of their simplicity and ease of
understanding. I’m not saying the
Masteries are easier than the Proficiencies
or that it’s easier to demonstrate
the Masteries. They definitely represent
an advanced coaching ability. The difference
is that the language of the Masteries is
very straightforward and concrete. Even
the more abstract concepts within the Masteries
are described in concrete language with
specific effective and ineffective behaviors
identified. This means it should be easier
for people to grasp the concepts. My hope
is that if they are easier to understand,
they’ll be easier to practice–and
hopefully easier for coaches to self-evaluate.

The other thing that stands out to me about
the Masteries is their attention to international
cultures and nuances. As a former diversity
trainer, this is very important to me. This
approach in the Masteries makes them truly
applicable on the international coach certification
scene.

What do you enjoy most about being
a Certifier?

It means a lot to me that I’m helping
the coaching industry by upholding high
standards. By being an advocate for excellence
in coaching, I know the work we do helps
coaches coach better, and it helps clients
because they can be more confident about
their coaches’ abilities. I also have
to say that working with the other Certifying
Examiners is great. They are tremendously
talented, insightful and committed – I know
I’m a better coach because of the
work we do together.

Tell us a bit about your coaching
practice.

My business has gone through many transitions
– and it’s in the process of
making another! I used to do a lot of business
coaching, particularly around marketing.
That was fun, and definitely lucrative,
but I was ready for something different.
Recently I took a long sabbatical to “rediscover”
myself. What I realized is that
in addition to helping coaches master the
art of coaching, my passion and experience
falls in two main areas – personal growth
and helping college students. I’ve
been embracing this and finding lots of
rewarding opportunities.

On the personal growth side, I work with
personal growth professionals – counselors,
trainers, authors, body workers, coaches,
etc. – helping them with their own
personal and professional development through
the Association of Personal Growth Professionals.
Plus, in a sister project, I get to champion
the people like me who relish personal growth
opportunities. That’s done through
writing the blog at www.PersonalGrowthEnthusiast.com.
It’s new, and I’m really excited
about it.

For the college student side of my business,
I work with students and their families
who are doing college planning – or
who ought to be doing it. I do
this through a blend of seminars and family
coaching. It’s been a great adventure.
Since my last traditional job, eons ago,
was as a faculty member and Dean of Students
at a university, it’s a natural blend
of my work experience and coaching skills.

Nina can be contacted through www.NinaEast.com.




Seven Core Principles of Marketing for Coaches


by Tara Rodden
Robinson, PhD

For lots of coaches, marketing is viewed
as something to avoid. Almost everyone seems
to know that they need to do marketing,
but almost no one understands how. Marketing
is perceived as cheesy, underhanded or worse.
Because coaches resist marketing, they never
learn how to create an effective marketing
plan.

When coaches do create some sort of marketing
strategy, the plan is often to look at what
other coaches are doing and emulate someone
else’s approach. This sort of marketing–being
a copycat–is born of the belief that if
someone else is doing “xyz,”
it must be because “xyz” works.
When the clients don’t show up, the
coach is left to wonder, “Is it me?”

No, it’s your marketing.

One shortcoming of the way most coaches
approach marketing is that they don’t
allow the potential client to see any noticeable
difference between them and any other coach
in the same field. That leaves the client
to base his or her decision on just one
thing: price. And that is very bad news.

When you start competing on price alone,
you’re on a slippery slope. There
will always be someone who is willing to
price his or her services cheaper than yours.
So what is the coach to do? Marketing can’t
be an afterthought. Everything you do relies
on your ability to market your practice
effectively, allow potential clients to
see your value, and be willing to pay a
decent price for what you have to offer.

In this article, you can learn seven key
steps to successful marketing. These principles
form the basis of a real marketing plan.
Not some copycat approach, but a means of
distinguishing the true value of your practice
and attracting all the clients you need
and want.

To
read on,
click here. (Members only)

————————–



 

Tara Rodden Robinson, PhD is the founder
of Zugunruhe [zoog.un.roo.ee] (www.zugunruhe.com),
a coaching firm dedicated to helping great
people get [good] things done. In her work with small business owners
and non-profits, Tara uses Duct Tape Marketing®, an award winning and
super-practical system for small business marketing success.

 

 



Every
so often we get questions about certification,
the Masteries, and in particular, how coaches
can improve their coaching in order to pass
certification. While the IAC is not a training
organization per se, we do want to support
coaches in being the best they can be and
we want them to have the best opportunities to demonstrate
that for certification. In this new column
I’ll attempt to de-mystify the certification
process by answering common questions, reviewing
the Masteries and sharing an insider’s
look at what the Certifiers look for when
reviewing a coaching session. Obviously
I can’t do all that in one swoop,
so we’ll be running this column frequently.
Think of it as tidbits to clarify your thinking
and jumpstart your coaching innovation.
And please let me know of any questions
you have so we can answer them for everyone.
Send questions to certification@certifiedcoach.org.

Telling
vs. Listening

One of the important distinctions between
masterful coaching and not-so-masterful
coaching is the distinction of telling vs.
listening. Coaching is about eliciting the
client’s wisdom and truth, discovering
what’s best for them, and engaging
the client fully in the process. It is important
that the coach not be in “telling”
or “instructing” mode for the
coaching session. That doesn’t mean
the coach can’t tell the client what
they are thinking or share relevant information.
Certainly, that’s fine.

Where the coaching becomes less than masterful
is when the coach spends too much time in
this mode. The coach often feels as if he
or she needs to be the expert, or perhaps
thinks he or she is the expert, and so tells
the client what to do, what the client is
feeling (or ought to be feeling), and why
it is important. The coach’s heart
is in the right place. We know a coach genuinely
wants to help the client make progress.
But when this happens, the coaching is no
longer client-centered. It’s become
all about the coach, his/her performance,
or thinking he/she knows best. In coaching
sessions where there is a lot of telling
going on, the certifiers have noticed the
coach misses critical clues from the client
about what is really most important or what
the underlying source is, and therefore,
the coach and the coaching are less effective.

Interestingly, this often happens in a
session where part of the client’s
challenge is in standing up for themselves,
making their own decisions, speaking their
truth, or having confidence about their
own abilities or inner knowing. So, even
though the coach’s heart is in the
right place, the coach is actually exacerbating
the problem, and the client doesn’t
get what she or he really needs.

Engaged Listening, Coaching Mastery #3,
means giving space (silence) for the client
to think and respond. It means asking questions…and
then giving the client time to respond (even
when they need to think about it a bit).
It means not interrupting or talking over
the client in order to have your idea considered.
(Though there are ways to interrupt appropriately
if the client is on a rant or “stuck
in their story”.)

Engaged Listening also means picking up
on the nuances in the client’s communication.
If you’re in “telling”
mode, you are thinking more about what you
are saying than what you are hearing, and
it’s virtually impossible to pick
up on all the nuances and signals the client
is sending.

Some questions to ask yourself:

When you are coaching, who is doing most
of the talking – you or your client?
(Listen to your own recordings to get an
honest assessment.)

What is most important to you – getting
the client to do something (anything!) or
getting to the source of what’s really
going on?

Is what you are telling the client really
for them or is any teensy part of it really
for you?

————————–

 

Nina East is the IAC’s
Lead Certifier and the author of PersonalGrowthEnthusiast.com.
As a coach she works with personal growth
professionals, helps coaches master the
art of coaching, and coaches students through
the transition into college. www.NinaEast.com

Please
send your questions on the IAC Coaching
Masteries and the certification process
to certification@certifiedcoach.org.

 




A Member's Voice

"The IAC has been very supportive
and helpful to me as I learn and grow as
a coach. Since coaching is a fairly young
industry, it's so nice to have an established
group like the IAC to establish a set of
standards to help focus my efforts to become
a better coach. There are so many people
out there calling themselves coaches, and
not everyone has the same idea of what being
a masterful coach means. I have witnessed
firsthand how the simple application of
the IAC Masteries can help people unlock
potential, break through barriers and get
empowered to change their lives. It's great
to know that I'm part of this growing trend
in society, and the IAC provides the most
effective and efficient way for me to learn
the craft and make a difference."



Art Gangel, IAC-CC
www.groundworkcoaching.com

Vocational Coach, Mentor Coach and IAC Certified
Life Coach

 

 




"Coaching Moments" takes a
thoughtful, and sometimes lighthearted, look at how coaching
can be interwoven into our daily lives. 

loving letters
by Janice Hunter

“We
lay aside letters never to read them again,
and at last we destroy them out of discretion,
and so disappears the most beautiful, the
most immediate breath of life, irrecoverable
for ourselves and for others.” ~ Goethe

I’d like to start this month’s
article by begging you, pleading with you
not to take a moment of your life for granted
today, no matter how creatively in the flow
you are or how jam packed, bogged down or
productive your day is. Don’t let
one single breath slip by unappreciated,
not a smile, or a phonecall, or a scrap
of paper from a friend, or a coffee date
that you’re considering cancelling
because of work. If you’ve drifted
away from a loved one because of busy-ness
and stress, head for home and find a safe
harbour before it’s too late. Say
thank you, say sorry, say something.

It all started in the attic. I went up
to find a map for my son’s homework
and while I was rooting around among teetering
piles of cardboard boxes, I found an old
plastic bag with Portuguese writing on it
and I knew it must contain something from
the time my husband and I spent teaching
there twenty years ago. I carried the dusty,
musty smelling thing down to my bedroom,
spilled the contents onto the bed then gasped
with my hand to my face as I saw piles of
envelopes covered in my mother’s handwriting.

Guilt came first; here were all the letters
she’d written to me in my years abroad.
So many letters. Most of the time, beween
brief phonecalls, all I sent my folks were
scrawled postcards and clichéd tourist
gifts. She ended every letter with “We
love you” and every letter was an
expression of unconditonal love. If she
was saddened by the self-obsessed way I
neglected my family or anxious about me
living alone in foreign countries, she never
showed it.

Tears streaming down my face, I realised,
for the first time, that my mother had a
gift for fresh, immediate writing. I savoured,
in a way I’m sure I didn’t back
then, the details of her everyday life as
she described, with a canny eye and gentle
humour, the simple goings-on in our Scottish
mining village.

I felt her presence wrap itself around
me as I laid them to the side, knowing I
would keep and treasure them but I had to
read the others now. A window to my past,
to another world, to another self had been
opened. Like an archaeologist, a time traveller,
I kept reading.

I found cards and letters of love and support
from friends I’d written to before
I went into surgery to have a tumour removed.
I suddenly remembered sitting by the hospital
bed, writing ‘thank you’ and
‘I love you’ letters to everyone
in my address book – just in case. How I
wish I could turn back the clock now and
thank them again, with an older, wiser understanding
of how powerful and authentic their messages
were. There is deep, raw strength in the
honesty that brings us closer together in
situations where we feel the wings of death
brush past our shoulders.

A pile of flimsy blue air mail envelopes
with their red and white striped edging,
letters from my best friend in his beautiful
Greek script, teasing me and loving me,
unaware that in a few short years his life
would be tragically cut short by cancer.

A
funny postcard in what we called Portuguenglish
from a linguistically brilliant student
of mine who’d become a good friend;
he threw away his lonely young life with
a heroin needle a few years later.

A bundle of fat envelopes addressed in
the small, shy handwriting of a Scottish
friend I’d been at university with,
envelopes bursting with beautiful, expressive,
heartfelt letters to cheer me up and keep
me company during many a painful, lonely
time abroad before I met my husband. He
wrote to me about music, art, books, life
and love and it didn’t dawn on me
until today – so selfish and self-centred
was I then – that he was in love with
me. My heart stumbled and I wiped my wet
face on the back of my hand as I realised
that he saw then the very best of me, a
glimpse of my real self, my soul, the part
of me that has been rediscovered and nurtured
by my marriage, my children and my coaching
journey. He let me go eventually, “getting
rid of dead wood” he called it, and
the pain I felt then was excruciating because
I didn’t realise why he was doing
it. I do now, but I can’t apologise,
can’t thank him, can’t start
again and show him pictures of my kids.
And I wouldn’t wish this feeling on
anyone.

As I sat shredding letters for reycling,
letting go of all but a precious few and
whispering silent apologies and gratitude
for the memories that made me the person
I am today, I decided I’m going to
write some real letters and notes to the
folk I love, something they can hold and
choose to keep in a ribbon-tied bundle if
they want to; real letters in unique handwriting
on scented notepaper or carefully chosen
postcards like we sent back then, when people
left a part of themselves on paper and thank
God they did.

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
lovingthedetails@aol.com




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