IAC VOICE, Volume 4, Issue 37, July 2009, Circulation: 13,071

Linda

From the
Editor

We made the Top 10! Our VOICE blog was a
winner in IAC licensee School of Coaching Mastery's Best Coaching Blogs competition. I know I mentioned last month that we hadn't made the next
round of voting, but since then there was a glitch that led to the contest
starting all over again. Thank you to Julia Stewart and the School of Coaching
Mastery for this wonderful opportunity to share our work with the greater
coaching community, and others who want to learn about coaching.

In July's President's
Message
, Angela Spaxman explores another one of the IAC's primary values –
collaboration – and she introduces a wonderful
opportunity
for both IAC members and VOICE subscribers to collaborate in
determining the very future of the coaching profession.

UK Coach Richard Fox presents a creative tool for working with clients who are dealing
with an issue that has multiple components.

Pamela Slim, author of Escape from
Cubicle Nation
, has a special question for part-time coaches or anyone
taking the leap from a full-time job to a dream career. Whether it's for you or
a client, this article is sure to spark some entrepreneurial
ideas
.

Andrea Lee is back at the helm of our Tools for Coaching Mastery column this month, with her unique
ponderings on the passage of time.

For today's Inside
Scoop – Lessons from the Certifiers
, Nina East partnered up with another
veteran IAC certifier, Karen Van Cleve, and they co-wrote an article that
presents the simple (but not easy), straightforward (but not quick) route to
becoming a masterful coach.

I love watching crime drama on television,
and some of my favourite scenes occur in the courtroom. But a courtroom is the
last place I would expect to find any Coaching
Moments
. Leave it to our Janice Hunter to bring her insights and integrity
to a challenging situation like jury duty.

Submission
guidelines
for the VOICE are available on the website, including submission
dates for our upcoming issues. I would love to receive your article submissions
by July 20th for the August issue, or August 17th for the September
issue.

Please contact me with your article
ideas and your feedback about this
issue.

Warm wishes,
Linda

Linda Dessau, CPCC
Editor, IAC® VOICE
Email: voice@certifiedcoach.org

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Angela

From the
President

by Angela
Spaxman
president@certifiedcoach.org

The future of coaching – how will it be?
And how do you want it to be?

Last month I described the IAC's values of
diversity and innovation, and this month I want to mention another one:
collaboration. Collaboration means working together towards common goals. It is
a cornerstone of coaching and a gift for our field because upholding this value
allows us to create a diversity of strong, specialized organizations to provide
for everything we need as an industry.

Over the past few years, the creativity of
coaches has produced professional organizations, schools, research institutes,
local community groups, online forums, specialty services tailored to coaches,
volunteer groups, and more. All of these groups have a unique place and value.

As our whole industry grows organically,
the IAC will collaborate with those groups who share our values while we
continue to tread the unique path that is our special contribution to the world
of coaching. How can you collaborate with us to bring the gift of masterful
coaching further into the world? Well, let me tell you!

In August we will kick-off the IAC's Strategic Planning process with a series of
webinars where we will envision together what we want for the future of our
profession and association. This is the first time we have initiated a
conversation on this scale. I can hardly wait to get started in the fascinating conversations we are going to create
together.

In the first six years of the IAC, we have
created a sustainable membership association with the foundational systems and
standards that express our values for mastery, ethics, diversity and innovation.
Now we are inviting you, our members and subscribers, to share your ideals for
the future of the IAC. As the whole world both struggles in adversity and
reaches new heights of cooperation and compassion, it is appropriate and even
imperative that coaches also join together to envision our best possible future.
We will be looking at the whole industry first, before we turn our attention
specifically to the IAC and the part we can best play in the world of
coaching.

Please don’t delay to mark your calendars and register for the time slots that
suit you. I am so eager to hear your voices!

Cheers,
Angela Spaxman
President, IAC®
Email:
president@certifiedcoach.org

Web: www.lovingworkandleading.com

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New IAC Coaching
Masteries® licensed schools and mentors

NameCityStateCountryIAC-CC 
Deborah Williamson CoachingKohler WIUS United StatesNoView Details

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IAC certified
coaches

Congratulations to
Lorraine Lee from Central Hong Kong and Jacqueline Dunkle from
Greensburg, PA, USA who recently passed their Step 2 Exams and became IAC
Certified Coaches!

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Please help create the
future of IAC

As the International Association of
Coaching® moves into a deep strategic planning process, we invite you
to participate in answering questions about the future of the coaching
profession
, and IAC’s role in creating that
future.

With the assistance of Dave Ellis
(internationally respected leadership coach, author, educator, and
philanthropist), IAC invites its members to participate in a teleconference
series. During three 90-minute phone calls Ellis will explain the process of
multi-decade visioning, and assist you to think and say what you have never
thought or said about the future of coaching. These calls are scheduled
throughout our strategic planning process so that you can learn and provide
feedback about what other IAC groups have created.

When was the last time you asked yourself
Where will I be in 25 years? What will I have created? Who will
have benefited? What is now possible for those who have received my
services?

Of course, we can not predict or control
the future, but we are much more likely to influence our future when we know
what we want and are clear about our dreams, visions, and desires.

As a valued subscriber to the
VOICE, we would love to include you in our first call in August. You have your
choice of two different call times.

Please
click here
to sign up for our visioning process and participate in
a stimulating dialogue with your peers, to discuss:

  • Where do we want the coaching
    profession be in 25-50 years?
  • What will we want to have
    created?
  • Who do we want to have benefited?
  • What is possible for those who have
    received coaching services?
  • Which unlikely alliances have proved most
    widely successful?
  • … and many more questions to expand our
    thinking, go beyond our current ideas, and take control of the future of our
    profession.

You can find out more about Dave Ellis at
www.daveellisleadership.com and www.brandefoundation.org.

An opportunity like this doesn’t come
around often. Not only will our conversation benefit from your creative mind, we
know you’ll be enriched by your participation as well.

Join us! It will be fun!

Call #1
(All VOICE subscribers welcome):
Aug 13, 1:00-2:30
p.m. Eastern Time
(08/13/2009) OR
Aug 17, 8:00-9:30 p.m. Eastern Time (08/17/2009)
 
Call #2
(IAC members only):
Sept 24, 1:00-2:30
p.m. Eastern Time
(09/24/2009) OR
Sept 21, 8:00-9:00 p.m. Eastern Time (09/21/2009)
 
Call #3
(IAC members only):

Oct 14, 2:00-3:30
p.m. Eastern Time
(10/14/2009) OR
Oct 22, 9:00-10:30 p.m. Eastern Time (10/22/2009)

P.S. The results of these meetings will
feed directly into the IAC’s strategic planning process through its vision,
mission and strategic goal setting and beyond this into actions
that create the future of our profession.

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Using objects as an aid in
a coaching conversation
by Richard Fox

In a coaching session where the coachee's
topic contains several distinct elements, simple everyday objects such as a
pencil, pen, cup, saucer or spoon can be used to great effect. Using objects in
coaching can help to regain momentum with a fresh perspective or help a client
who is a more creative thinker.

Benefits of using objects in
coaching

  1. An opportunity to unravel a problem,
    identify its separate parts and to see the relationship between them (spatial
    sorting)
  2. The ability to look at the whole
    system
  3. A way to get the issue or problem out of
    the coachee’s head and onto the table. This usually helps the coachee look, see
    and feel the situation more objectively and as an observer (disassociation
    and/or 3rd position)
  4. More scope for the coach to detach and to
    play
  5. The ability for the coachee to see how the
    situation is now, and how he or she wants it to be
  6. A process that should appeal to people
    with a strong visual or spatial preference or a strong bodily (tangible)
    kinaesthetic preference.
  7. A method for the coachee to reveal the
    root cause of an issue on a deeper level. The objects can represent intangible
    as well as tangible things, e.g., the component pieces regarding an issue around
    using time effectively might be: (i) love of variety, (ii) No time for myself
    and (iii) I never do anything properly.
  8. An emphasis on awareness and insight,
    gathering and testing data or unblocking an issue, rather than on creating an
    action plan.

Process

The coach needs to start with some
coaching questions focussing on the issue before inviting the coachee to work
with the objects. Until you become experienced in using objects, I suggest that
you restrict the total number of objects to between three and five. For example,
one object could represent a work team, rather than having individual objects
that represent each member of that team.

You can use the process at a variety of
levels, and an object does not have to represent a tangible person or situation.
For example, the coachee could use one object to represent his or her diary and,
at a deeper level another object(s) could represent a fear, guilt, a belief,
lack of self confidence.

Suggest to the coachee that they be open
to anything that shows up and assure them that they can end the process at any
stage.

As in any coaching situation, use your
intuition and sense where the energy is flowing and what is working or not
working. Also give the coachee the space and time to think and feel into the
issue.

Suggested
steps

  1. Clear a table and sit opposite, alongside
    or at 90 degrees to the coachee, whatever is more comfortable for the coachee.
    The coach should not touch the objects on the table at any stage in the
    process.
  2. Ask the coachee to focus on the current
    situation. Let the coachee choose the first object from what’s already in the
    room, e.g., a pencil. Ask the coachee to place the object thoughtfully on the
    table.
  3. Ask the coachee the following type of
    questions as appropriate:

    1. In which direction is the future, the past?

    2. In which direction do you want your object to face?
    3. Is there anything that springs to mind?
  4. Repeat the above process with the other
    components or objects. With each object the coach should check what the object
    represents, e.g., my boss or my low self-esteem and ask questions like:

    1. Where do you want to place [the object] in relation to the existing
      objects?
    2. How far apart?
    3. Which way is it facing?
    4. What’s happening in that space?
    5. What, if anything, is missing in regard to your issue or question?

  5. Once the current reality is in place check
    that the coachee is happy with how the issue is represented.
  6. Now ask the coachee to "let each of the
    objects have a voice and an emotion and let each piece talk to you and to each
    other." Ask the coachee to take each object in turn. For example, a work project
    might say, "I would like to benefit more from X’s expertise."
  7. Ask the coachee questions like: What is
    the overall system telling you? What are you experiencing in your body? What do
    you notice that you were unaware of before?

The coach may comment on anything that may
be significant to the coachee, e.g., "I notice that your deputy is standing in
front of you and is facing you. What are the messages regarding
this?"

  1. The next stage is to ask the coachee one
    or both of the following types of questions:

    1. What object(s) would you like to move to help shift your
      perception/feelings about the current situation?
    2. How would the objects need to be arranged for the situation to be
      more satisfactory to you?

The coach could then deepen what this
might mean in terms of the steps she or he could take, and then end by asking
questions like: How do you now see, feel, or think about the issue? What has
changed for you? What insights have you had? To what extent has this process
been helpful?

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank and acknowledge
Meike Buegler, Constellator and Organizational Development Consultant at
Syngenta Crop Protection AG, for introducing me to Organizational
Constellations, using people as well as objects. Thank you also to Lesley Pugh,
an executive coach and NLP colleague, for contributing to this paper and to the
case study.

 

Richard Fox, ACC, qualified as a coach in 2001 to complement
his role as an experienced business mentor. He works mainly with executive,
middle management and team leaders, helping them create and sustain an
environment in which they can express themselves, optimise their potential, and
lead purposeful lives and purposeful organisations. For more information or to
review a related case study, you may contact him at rjfox@tlc.eu.com or www.tlc.eu.com.

 

 

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Are you ingredients looking
for a recipe?
by Pamela Slim

As a career and business coach, I spend a
lot of my time working with people who are trying to figure out what to do for a
living.

I usually start by sending them on an
internal expedition, examining the nuances, thoughts and feelings of their body,
mind and spirit for clues about what interests them.

They carry around notebooks in which they
furiously scribble insights, they create vision boards, they bookmark websites
like crazy, they make spreadsheets and they stuff files with pictures and
magazine clippings.

Then they get back in touch with me,
feeling a bit perplexed and overwhelmed, sharing a summary list that looks
something like this:

My interests:
old rugs
The
Pittsburgh Steelers
organic farming
my family
writing code
drag
racing
web 2.0
speaking Russian
salsa dancing
small business
marketing
space travel
old episodes of
Friends
yoga
photography

They say “I sure love all these things,
but how in the world can I make a business out of them?”

To which I reply:

You are ingredients in search of a
recipe.

Or perhaps many recipes.

A common misconception about the process
of entrepreneurship, and specifically a coaching business, is that you have to
fit all your interests into one neatly tied up and integrated business which
will allow you to express all of your passions.

Instead, I like to think of skills and
interests as ingredients to use selectively in different business models,
depending on the opportunities and market.

So you could help your clients formulate a
plan like this:

“I think I want to use salsa dancing as
the main staple for my next venture. I will round out the flavor with a bit of
coding, by creating a killer website that hosts great instructional videos for
novice dancers, and will sprinkle in a little bit of photography so I can take
stunning photos of professional dancers that they can use in their promotional
materials.”

or

“I would love to spend some time in
Pittsburgh so I can catch all the Steeler home games live. I think I will focus
on organic farming in the northeast, using a few cups of marketing to help local
farmers expand their offerings in the slow winter season. I hear that there are
some amazing rug dealers in the area, so when not doing small business
marketing, I will try to find some great pieces and sell them on
eBay.”

Using this simple framework, you can help
your clients see that they don’t have to use all their “ingredients” at once, in
the same measure, in the same recipe.

All they need to do is to continually
refine their list of ingredients, and combine them in ways that interest them
and taste great.

As for your own coaching practice, when
you feel like something is lacking in your business model, experiment with
adding shakes of ingredients to liven things up.

“My coaching business is really boring at
the moment. How could I add a touch of Burning Man to the mix and make it more
interesting?”

“My clients seem to be getting really
stuck and bored with phone sessions. How might I combine my love of art and
children’s camps to make a unique coaching retreat?

“I love working with clients but am bored
to tears in my small town. What would happen if I added some location
independent to the mix and did my coaching from Burkina Faso?”

Try it!

What is your list of
ingredients?

 
 
Pamela Slim is a business coach and author of Escape from
Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur
(Portfolio
May 2009). Download a free chapter of the book at www.escapefromcubiclenation.com.
 

 

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The calendar
as a coaching structure
by Andrea Lee

Though a lot is made of the end or
beginning of a calendar year, funnily enough not much is made of the halfway
point, where we are right now. And yet, isn’t that one of the trickiest spots
along the trajectory of any project, or even life? That big fat middle of the
bell curve, where the data is the least clear. Perhaps the dreaded sophomore
year at college, where the going gets tough, and many students drop out. Or
even, of course, the mid-life crisis, now said to span as early as the thirties
– "early middle" – to the fifties – "late bloomers."

Perhaps it’s a rather unorthodox tool for
coaching mastery, but I’m of the opinion that sometimes the best things are the
simple ones staring us in the face. As the poet Rumi puts it, it is troublesome
to ask a fish about the existence of the sea. Perhaps one of the most simple and
abiding tools that Mentor Coach Barbra Sundquist helped me learn was the power
of the calendar, and even the seasons, to become a dynamic force in my life – a
support environment that buoys me up like the salt in the sea. And of course, as
soon as I learned that, I was happy to pass it along to my clients.

It’s no surprise then to notice that
Barbra also leverages support structures like membership sites to support
coaches to achieve Certified Coach status, or that she so carefully crafted a
structured home-study program that takes each mastery one step at a time, ever
supportive.

Truth be told, out of all of them, I find
IAC Coaching Mastery #9 the most difficult to manifest. Is "Helping the client
create and use supportive systems and structures" the last mastery for a reason?
I can’t say. But I do know that focussing on it has helped.

As of July 1, 2009, we have an opportunity
to raise the grain on the mid-point of the year with our clients, and perhaps
choose to highlight the calendar as a support system.

Is the middle a challenging spot in the
lives of you or your clients? How or how not?

In what way might you be leveraging key
moments on the calendar into coaching conversations, programs, or
products?

Are you confident in your ability to speak
to supportive structures? Just because it’s the last mastery, let's not leave it
to last to mastery, alright?

 

 

The Coaching By Example 9-CD Series
features 55 audio tracks of demo coaching and commentary with Mentor Coach and
former IAC certifying examiner Barbra Sundquist. To find out more about how the
CD series can be a support structure on your journey to IAC-CC certification,
click here: http://www.learncoachingbyexample.com. And for your IAC member
discount, log
into
your IAC member page and scroll down to the new member
benefit.

 

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by Nina East,
IAC-CC and Karen Van Cleve, IAC-CC

How do coaches really become
masterful?

It’s often said that when you hear
masterful coaching, you’ll know it. When you listen to truly great coaches, they
seem to sense what is going on with the client before the client even knows.
They come up with the perfect question or perfect exercise, seemingly out of
thin air. They help the client shift their entire perspective, and it seems so
easy for them.

Because it appears to be so effortless for
the masterful coach, you might get the impression that coaching is easy, and
therefore should be easy for everyone. But that would be wrong. The truth is
that masterful coaches have done things quite differently than those who do not
reach the masterful level.

In the book Outliers, Malcolm
Gladwell studied what it takes to become masterful – at anything. What is
surprising is how little talent and luck have to do with whether someone becomes
a world class expert, regardless of the field they are in.

While natural talent or affinity affects
whether you end up being drawn to a particular field –if you have a natural
talent for engaged listening you may have been drawn to coaching without
thinking about it –it will not determine whether you are a “success” as a coach
or become masterful. And though opportunity and luck play a role in your journey
toward mastery, they are not reliable indicators either. Talent and luck are not
enough.

The key distinction, according to
Gladwell, is that world-class experts have already put in 10,000 hours of
practice BEFORE they “burst on the scene.” Yes, you read that right. Ten
thousand hours. Gladwell provides many examples in his book, but here are just
two we think you will be familiar with.

When The Beatles “burst on the American
scene,” they had already banked more than 10,000 hours of performance time.
Performance time, not just practice time. They credit those hours –
which sometimes came in the form of 8-hour performances – as perhaps the most
important factor in their success. Playing those long sets required them to
improvise and entertain at a level far different than if they were playing a
couple of one-hour sets. Long hours of being on the spot and having to do their
best forced them to get better.

Another example is Bill Gates, founder of
Microsoft and clearly a world-class expert in computers and programming. He was
lucky that he attended a high school that invested in computer access – but so
was every other student who attended that school. He was fortunate that the
university he went to kept their computer center open 24-hours a day – but every
other student also had that same access.

What set Bill Gates apart is that he USED
that opportunity and access to log hours and hours of computer experience. In
one 7-month period he logged 1,575 hours working on programming. That comes out
to 8 hours a day, 7 days a week. There’s no doubt Bill Gates was blessed with a
great mind and some great opportunities. But the real difference is that he put
in tens of thousands of hours “practicing” before he “made it.”

Now think about your own expectations of
mastery. If you are new to coaching and you think that taking a couple hundred
hours worth of classes will bring you to mastery, you will to be disappointed.

Members, continue reading here.

To join the IAC, click here.

 

Nina East, IAC-CC, is the IAC’s Lead
Certifier and the founder of www.PersonalGrowthPrincess.com, a site for women professionals
and business owners who are enthusiastic about personal growth but don’t have
the time to read all the books they buy.

 

 

Karen Van Cleve, IAC-CC, ACC, has been an IAC Certifier since 2005.
She is also a Results Coach for the Anthony Robbins coaching organization. She
speaks on a variety of coaching topics and provides personal coaching for a wide
range of clients. Her website is www.KarenVanCleve.com

   

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

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

Journals and Juries  

by Janice
Hunter, IAC-CC

All things and all men, so to speak,
call on us with small or loud voices. They want us to listen. They want us to
understand their intrinsic claims, their justice of being. But we can only give
it to them through the love that listens. ~Paul Tillich

The day I received it, I let out a
despairing, wailing “No!” My husband rushed in and asked what was wrong. I
handed him the summons to jury duty, my third in three years.

I’d been allowed exemptions in the past
because of my health and my children’s ages, but this time there was no escape;
it had to be done. The letter warned of possible overnight stays. Friends told
me of the nightmares they still had after hearing evidence at murder, rape and
child abuse trials. I believe in democracy, but every day that passed, I grew
more and more anxious, dreading the prospect of being separated from my family
or having to sit in judgement on another human being, perhaps after listening to
harrowing details I would never be able to forget.

The day came, and I arrived at an
imposing, Victorian building, its entrance flanked with columns. I walked up a
flight of stone steps, crossed the cold, echoing floor of a musty foyer and
announced my arrival to a grim-faced receptionist, barricaded behind a high
reception desk of polished dark wood. I smiled and asked for help and
directions. He barked at me that I wasn’t needed but would have to come back the
next day. I stood there stunned, not knowing if I felt angry or relieved. How
much vitriol had this man been subjected to for this to be his default?

I drove home, hugged my family, told them
it wasn’t over.

Another sleepless night. A morning of
strained goodbyes, the children wondering if I’d be home that night. Once again,
I drove through the hills to our nearest big town, barely registering the rain
clouds hanging heavy in an inky sky. This might be an innocent person’s last day
of freedom. I might be about to set a murderer free. I’d deliberately arrived
early, and decided to clear my mind by doing some writing in my favourite French
café in the cobbled square next to the old church, just round the corner from
the County Court.

As I sat, sipping strong black coffee and
listening to French accordion music, I visualised the proceedings, mentally
preparing myself to tap into every single one of the Proficiencies™ (and any
relevant Clarifiers™, Stylepoints™ and Frameworks™) to make sure I was my best
self in court, with my fellow jurors and with any court officials I was expected
to co-operate and communicate with. Here's what I was aiming for:

  • To go in with all my own stuff cleaned
    up.
  • Not to judge or assume or be forced into
    any tricky lawyer's manipulation of paradigms while in court listening.
  • To listen well and carefully.
  • To respect everyone's humanity.
  • To relish truth – in many different
    ways.
  • To enjoy my fellow jurors
    immensely.
  • To ask very good clarifying questions, if
    necessary, while deliberating with other jurors.
  • To remind myself, constantly, that
    everyone's doing the best they can with what they've got.
  • To recognise the perfection in it
    all.

This is what emerged in my
notebook:

1) If you’ve been invited to do jury duty, it means you’re alive.

2) That letter you were sent means you have an address, a home.
3) You’re
not the victim.
4) You’re not the accused.
5) You’re anxious because you
care.
6) You’re eligible because you can see, you can hear and you’re
healthy.
7) Like it or not, you’ll learn something about your legal
system.
8) You live in a country that has a legal system.
9) It’s a
perfect chance to listen, really listen, without prejudice, assumptions or
malice.
10) You’re not in this alone.

I finished my coffee, put my notebook
away, paid, and crossed the square to the County Court, feeling stronger and
more serene than I had for months.

I heard and learned a lot that day, but it
was those café thoughts that turned my jury moments into coaching moments.

Janice Hunter is an IAC certified homelife
coach who lives in Scotland with her husband and two children. She created and
co-wrote Sharing the Certification Journey: Six IAC Coaches Talk About
Their Journeys
, and her blogsite, www.sharingthejourney.co.uk, provides soul food and support
for coaches, writers, parents and home-based workers.

Janice has compiled all of her Coaching
Moments pieces from the last two years into a free 46-page ebook, 'Coaching
Moments: A Collection of Articles about Coaching in Everyday Life' which can be
downloaded here or from her site.

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Your Feedback

We'd love to get your feedback on any
issue related to the IAC. Do you have any questions, concerns, encouragement or
ideas for improvement regarding membership benefits, certification, the VOICE,
the direction of the organization or anything else at all? Please send an email
to feedback@certifiedcoach.org.
Please help us improve.


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