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Linda |
From the Editor
Welcome to the May 2011 issue of the IAC VOICE!
We are so excited to announce the launch of the new IAC website—Bob Tschannen-Moran has more details in his President's Message. Please visit soon and let us know what you think of the site.
(And congratulations to Bob, who was recently in Costa Rica celebrating the wedding of his daughter.)
Our featured member benefit this month is Bullseye Coaching, with the story of a very satisfied customer who achieved some extraordinary results using coaching to evaluate a management development program.
Alison Davis will be back next month with another instalment of Living the Masteries.
Some long-time IAC-certified coaches are wondering how the Learning Agreements will apply to them if the IAC Coaching Masteries™ were developed after these coaches were already certified. Lead Certifier Natalie Tucker Miller has the answer in today's Inside Scoop.
Our feature coaching article this month is from another member of the Certification team, Karen Van Cleve. Listen closely as she counts us in and leads us through the masterful dance of coaching.
Jason Westlake provided our business building article this month. He urges coaches to stop bumbling their way through the business of getting clients.
Our 2011 submission guidelines for the VOICE are available on the website. Submissions are welcome anytime through the month.
Please contact me with your article ideas and your feedback about this issue. Enjoy!
Warm wishes,
Linda
Linda Dessau, CPCC
Editor, IAC VOICE
Email: voice@certifiedcoach.org
www.contentmasteryguide.com
P.S. Are you on Twitter? You can follow our VOICE authors and columnists as well as some of the IAC BOG members. Simply visit http://twitter.com/lindadessau/iac-voice-contributors or subscribe to the list from your Twitter account.
From the President
by Bob Tschannen-Moran, IAC-CC
president@certifiedcoach.org
The IAC: Online Enhancements
The first discussions on record about upgrading the IAC website, back-end databases, and e-commerce capabilities go back to January 2008—more than three years ago. At that time, the IAC Board of Governors (BOG) budgeted money for basic upgrades.
By April 2009 it was clear that the IAC website needed more than basic upgrades. It was time for a new host with new capabilities and a new design. Given the work involved and the complexity of the task, it is amusing now to think that we ever talked about handling this with volunteers. Hope springs eternal that passion alone will get things done!
Fortunately, the IAC had the wisdom to go shopping for a professional and creative web media company with experience in e-commerce. After clarifying organizational requirements and putting out an RFP, a special task force including BOG members Sue Brundege and Des Walsh reviewed scores of proposals, interviewed the final few candidates, and settled on Ripe Media based in Los Angeles, California. An agreement was signed on January 6, 2010.
Here were just some of the statements in the Ripe Media proposal that led the taskforce to select them for the job:
…Our vision for the new IAC web site is that it be a hub for camaraderie, resources and interaction among members as well as a portal for attracting new members.
…Ripe Media’s approach and philosophy enable close and productive collaborations with our clients…
Ripe has very high standards for quality assurance. …We understand that your web site is an extension of your company, and the site’s appearance, usability and reliability affect visitors’ perception of your brand.
Those were exactly the characteristics the IAC was looking for from a web media company. The other thing that attracted the IAC to the Ripe Media proposal was a timeline of eight weeks from start to finish. Hah! Little did anyone know just how challenging it would be to import, convert and integrate the IAC’s many different legacy databases and systems. Those complications were not even considered at the time of the proposal. The IAC BOG also took longer than expected to complete its strategic plan, to settle on its new slogan (“Expanding the Path to Coaching Mastery”), and to approve its new logo.
As the timeline extended from eight weeks to eight months, the IAC project then ran into other projects that Ripe Media was working on—delaying completion even further. In the end, an 8-week timeline turned into a 15-month timeline that has now, finally and at long last become reality.
If you haven’t visited the IAC website in the past week, then I encourage you to do so today. The URL is the same as always, www.certifiedcoach.org, but everything else is fresh, new and different. The look, the social media integration, the navigation and much of the content have all been revised to reflect the priorities and program of the IAC today. Here is just some of what you can do:
- Become an IAC-Practitioner or an IAC-Certified Coach
- Find an IAC Coach for yourself or your organization
- Find and participate in an IAC Chapter (local, regional, and virtual)
- Become or find an Authorized IAC Licensee for coach training using the IAC Coaching Masteries®
- Advance your own Learning and Development as a coach through Learning Agreements and Coaching Research, as well as Mentoring and Supervision
The IAC is so committed to coaching as a learning profession that the new website announces an exciting new IAC member benefit: participation in a round of ReciproCoach coaching, mentoring and supervision. This $50 value, which includes 16 coaching sessions (8 as coach and 8 as coachee), is now included with every IAC membership. It is a great way for coaches to give and receive coaching through reciprocal coaching relationships.
If this sounds like the kind of association that you want to be associated with, an association that is continuously expanding the path to coaching mastery, then I encourage you to join the IAC today. The IAC Board of Governors is growing and making exciting plans for the future, including the development of multilingual certification pathways. Be on the lookout for that exciting announcement in a coming issue of the IAC VOICE.
May you be filled with goodness, peace and joy,
Bob
Bob Tschannen-Moran, IAC-CC, is CEO & Co-Founder of the Center for School Transformation and President of LifeTrek Coaching International. Bob has co-authored a new book, titled Evocative Coaching, which incorporates the IAC Coaching Masteries® in a coaching model designed for leaders and coaches in K-12 schools. www.SchoolTransformation.com
Featured IAC Member Benefit: Bullseye Coaching
How a Talent Manager Used Coaching to Evaluate Development Programmes
by Greg Whiting
At the close of her latest management development program, Sharon was absolutely delighted. She had used coaching to support these programmes before but this had usually been restricted to providing feedback on psychometric questionnaires/360° feedback surveys and one-to-one support on overcoming personal barriers to completing the programme.
This time, however, she had also used the coaching input to ensure that the programme content was correctly matched to her participants’ learning objectives and to evaluate the programme’s outcomes and successes.
She’d done this by asking her coaches to:
- Help her participants set development goals, both for the programme itself and for their wider personal future, prior to the programme start;
- Feed emerging development themes back into the programme design so that the content could be tailored to meet them;
- Help the participants track and assess progress against their goals; and
- Evaluate the impact of both the wider programme and their individual coaching input.
The evaluation process had worked exceptionally well, proving to be:
- Comprehensive. The four quadrants of the evaluation model were ideally suited to capturing the full outcomes of a development programme—personal achievements, business performance improvements, impact on wider life and well-being and future steps focused on sustainability and long-term growth.
- Rich. The data from the evaluation was markedly richer and more complete than any other methodology because it was founded on long-term relationships with the evaluators and was the result of an in-depth, focused evaluation discussion. Questionnaires, however cleverly designed, had never been able to provide this.
- Sustainable. Each participant had been left with a personal Scorecard detailing what they had achieved and recording what they had committed to do in the future to maintain it.
- Measurable. Collating the Scorecard data into an Evaluation Report that included a sound, verified Return on Investment (ROI) element had been easy and incredibly persuasive in securing support for further programmes.
- Valuable. The evaluation had added almost nothing to the programme costs. The training manuals had been free to coaches and the Scorecards had only cost £25 each. The only other cost had been one additional coaching session per participant.
Greg Whiting is a Coach at OD Compass. Bullseye Coaching enables coaches to fully evaluate and record the outcomes and results of their coaching, including its value/return on investment. Coaches also get direct, personal performance and benchmarking data. Register at www.bullseye-coaching.com and pay just £25 for your first Coaching Scorecard.
IAC Member Benefit: IAC Members receive an additional Coaching Scorecard credit worth £25 upon registration (use the Referral Code on the IAC Membership Privileges page).
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.
