IAC VOICE, Volume 4, Issue 6, September 2006,



Barbra

From the Editor

I have a
confession to make: I never deliberately set out to have a
theme for the VOICE. And yet I regularly receive
congratulatory emails that say "I loved the theme of x
this month" or "The x theme was very apparent". Although
I'm happy to take credit for being such a smart editor, I
must confess that the themes sort of just happen.

This month
is no exception. It wasn't until I read over the draft
issue that I realized that both the feature article and
the Coaching Moments column address the theme of
celebrating differences. Once again, a theme emerges
organically!

To start,
Margaret Lobenstine’s feature article on what she terms
"Renaissance Souls", helps us understand and make the most
of different personal styles. To learn about Renaissance
Souls and what makes these folks tick, be sure to read
Margaret's article below.

And in
Different Coaches, Different
Voices
, Janice Hunter shares how listening to
diverse coaching styles in classes helped her to recover
and celebrate her own unique voice.

Curious
about who's involved with running the IAC? This month our
President Natalie Tucker Miller, IAC-CC
introduces
Board of Governors member Heidi Holihan
Maye.
Heidi also serves as Chair of the Strategic Planning
Committee, and as such has the IAC's long term vision
clearly in her scope. Heidi's expertise in leading virtual
teams helps the IAC stay on course while taking on new
challenges at every turn.

Until next
month, enjoy!

Warmly,

Barbra Sundquist, IAC-CC
Editor, IAC Voice
Email: 

voice@certifiedcoach.org

Web:   www.becomeacertifiedcoach.com


 




Natalie

Answers
from the President

president@certifiedcoach.org

As part of her
ongoing series introducing the people that make the IAC the
vital organization that it is, this month President Natalie
Tucker Miller, IAC-CC asked Heidi Holihan Maye why she
serves on the IAC Board. Heidi writes:

I
am honored to be serving on the IAC board and as the Strategic Planning
Chair. My background is in high-stakes IT Customer Services at
DEC-Compaq-HP, and I have worked in virtual organizations since 1980.
My responsibilities included global rollouts of new software and
business processes to large groups of people in geographically
dispersed locations, but who were jointly responsible and depended on
each other to deliver seamless and exceptional customer service. It has
been refreshing to learn that the IAC is culturally and operationally
sensitive in a variety of ways to the needs of its global constituency.

I
am keenly interested in the patterns and dynamics that impact
productivity in leaders and teams operating under sustained pressure.
My business today helps shortcut the path to optimization of talent and
processes. We help leaders and managers quickly gain clarity and
embrace values-based decision-making, processes and related development
programs.

From
a strategic perspective, it’s an exciting time at the IAC. Our team of
industry thought leaders has been developing and polishing the IAC’s
new intellectual property that eventually will be used for IAC
certification instead of the 15 Proficiencies. These new standards
further define the measurable behaviors that are evident in masterful
coaching. Also on the drawing board, and in various stages of
implementation, are a number of other positive initiatives aimed at
positioning the IAC as a coaching thought leader and a preferred
organization from which to draw coaches, consultants, trainers, and
other professionals who have attained the IAC’s very rigorous
certification. The revamped website and the Voice reflect the IAC’s
commitment to deliver great value to our members and constituents.

Service
professionals with many years of experience are joining the IAC with a
view to achieving certification and using the “coach approach” in their
work. In addition to consultants, trainers and business managers, those
from the world of sports and academia are increasingly interested in
the IAC’s unique model of certification to complement their own areas
of expertise. We are fortunate to have so much dedicated talent in our
membership to apply to the organizational and personal development
objectives of both companies and individuals seeking coaching.

In
forming the IAC, Thomas Leonard had a mission of establishing a
coaching certification that was both independent and proficiency-based.
We are very grateful to those who have had a hand in carrying on that
mission over the past years, and aim to preserve, enhance and expand
that mission.

More
recently, Michael E. Gerber observed that coaching is an industry that
created capacity ahead of demand. Part of the IAC challenge is to
effectively stimulate the demand for coaching and enhance the public’s
perception of coaching. We are pleased to be implementing IAC
initiatives which aim to move coaching forward as an individual and
organizational imperative that will significantly increase productivity
and prosperity for all coaching stakeholders.

Heidi Holihan Maye
Board Member
Strategy Chair of the IAC
Founder, Assessment Technology Partners LCC


www.assesslink.com


And as always, don't hesitate to
contact us and
initiate a conversation.





Buy Now



Coaching Clients With "Too Many Interests" To Choose Just
One


by Margaret Lobenstine

In your
coaching practice, have you run across people who are:

  • totally gung
    ho about one idea. Yet, just when the coaching work gets
    them moving on some solid, specific first steps, they want
    to completely change direction?
     
  • bright,
    articulate managers who don't seem motivated by the
    vertical promotional opportunities put before them, and
    freeze-up when asked where they hope to be in five years?


     
  • business
    clients, successfully climbing their career ladders, who
    feel more bored, than pleased by the situation without
    knowing why?

If you've been nodding your head, you may be coaching
Renaissance Souls without realizing it. If so, here are
two very different possible outcomes:

  • Becoming well versed in the most effective ways to help
    such clients can add a very exciting group of Renaissance
    Souls to your coaching base. (And the word-of-mouth will
    be amazing!)
     
  • Not understanding the special issues Renaissance Souls
    face
    , especially in areas such as time management,
    self-esteem, and life design, can cause you to quickly
    lose such clients.

Who Are Renaissance Souls?


While there are many differences among them, Renaissance
Souls are people who share the following three
characteristics:


  1. They prefer variety and combination over choosing any
    one thing

  2. Their process involves widening their options rather
    than narrowing their choices, and correlating the task
    they're doing with the energy place they're in as much as
    possible.

  3. They have an unusual definition of success: upon
    reaching the point where they truly "get" something,
    Renaissance Souls opt for change rather than expansion.
    Even if others believe there's more to do, greater glories
    to achieve, more markets to conquer, Renaissance Souls get
    bored. "Been there, done that," could be their mantra.

What Renaissance Souls Are Not

  1. Renaissance Souls have no more need to be geniuses than
    people who follow one passion need to be child prodigies.
  2. Nor do all Renaissance Souls suffer from ADHD
    (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). That's a
    neurological disease that affects some people and not
    others across the spectrum of humankind: in fact,
    single-focus Mozart has been identified as having ADD.
  3. Job-hoppers
    are often thought to be Renaissance Souls. However,
    Renaissance Souls choose to change positions/fields
    because change feeds their spirit, while many job-hoppers
    prefer
    to stay put, but aren't given that opportunity,
    due to buy-outs, changes in the economy, and other factors
    beyond their control.

How to Know If A Potential Client is a Renaissance Soul

Keep your ears open for indicative early clues:

  • "I'm a mess. I
    can't ever stick with anything. I've done so many different
    things I can't even do a resume!"
  • "Everyone else
    sees me as successful, but I can't explain it: I just want
    out!"
  • "I have a
    million things going but I can't seem to finish any of them,
    which disappoints others and makes me feel so guilty!"
  • "I've enjoyed
    jumping around doing different things with my life, but I
    don't have a secure retirement package, so know it's time to
    get with it and pick a career!"

Things To Do Differently When Coaching a Renaissance Soul

Be conscious of the language you are using (e.g. avoid
using questions like "What do you find most
interesting/worthwhile/intriguing?" as a litmus test for
making decisions.) Also be aware of the assumptions you
may be making (e.g. that Renaissance Soul mission
statements will serve as a helpful guides for choosing a
direction.)

Do Renaissance Soul Clients Provide Special Challenges?

Yes, to effectively coach your Renaissance Soul clients,
you need to be equipped to answer profound questions such
as:

  • How on earth
    do I make a living if I keep pursuing different interests?
  • What about the
    fact that I never finish anything—I have all these half-done
    projects making me feel guilty
  • Can't I be
    considered an expert in anything?
  • Sometimes I
    wonder if it's just too overwhelming to be pursuing so many
    different things

A Special Plus to Remember

Many of you
may be Renaissance Souls, since coaching offers such
variety, and in

learning more about this area of coaching you may also be
inviting more kindred spirits into your practice. It's a
great gift to know the difference between
"Jack-of-all-trades, master of none" and Renaissance Souls!
It's also truly gratifying to help such clients understand
their special gift.


 
Margaret Lobenstine, M.A. is an internationally known
coach


and author of THE RENAISSANCE SOUL: Life Design for
People With Too Many Passions to Pick Just One (Random
House, 2006.) Her nine-CD set, COACHING THE RENAISSANCE
SOUL: The Guide to Working With Clients Who Have "Too Many
Interests" to Pick Just One, provides hours of detailed,
practical information and is available through her website
(www.RenaissanceSouls.com)

  

 


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

Different
Coaches, Different Voices

by Janice Hunter

I love hearing
silence used beautifully. The perfect pause that reaches out
like ripples around a pebble in a dark pool. A poem where
the unspoken word can say more than the most carefully
crafted chapter. The silence between the notes that makes
the music.

I went to a
Scottish folk concert last night and sat in awe as the
fiddles and pipes had a spirited conversation, the flute
became a voice, the guitar wrapped itself around them all
and the drumbeat turned into a heartbeat, a handclapping,
footstomping hall full of joy and applause. As I sat
listening to the band, watching the stage lights pick out
their foot tapping, swaying forms in beams of changing
coloured light on the dark stage, I remembered how I used to
feel performing my own songs in the heat of the lights,
savouring the silence between the fading of the last note
and the start of the clapping.

I sang my way
around Europe when I worked as a language teacher and
translator; my voice was a vital part of who I was and what
I did. After I had my kids, I moved back to Scotland and
slowly, imperceptibly, I stopped writing, stopped singing,
stopped playing the guitar and even stopped speaking the
foreign languages I was fluent in. Silence gently settled
around my soul like snow.

When I drifted
into life coaching, on my journey out of what I now realise
was low grade chronic depression, my passion to tell the
whole world about it bubbled up, spilled over and finally
gushed out in the torrent that helped me rediscover my
voice.

Meeting other
coaches in teleclasses and online was a bonus, like watching
a film with a cast of wonderful, colourful characters. I
have a colleague who coaches with the quiet, understated
elegance of a Grace Kelly. One coaching buddy has the gentle
strength and loving radiance of a spiritual leader – I've
never met her but I just know she has a twinkle in
her eye! Another has a voice like hot chocolate; her
coaching sessions are like a studio where you turn yourself
and your life into a work of art. And we all know someone
who coaches like Bette Davies on a bad day, right? So who
would you be?

I suspect I'd
be Maria from The Sound of Music, twirling around on a
mountain top, squashing innocent edelweiss underfoot,
tripping my way clumsily through cobbled streets and
coaching sessions oblivious to the fact that I was knocking
people over with my swinging guitar case as I sang "I have
confidence in sunshine…!"

It didn't
surprise me when I failed Step 2 of the IAC exam. I gush, I
interrupt inappropriately and I have this overwhelming urge
to fix things, to make children's clothes out of curtains
and get people singing about their favourite things.

Can I see
myself ever getting certified? Well, Maria never did make it
as a nun, although, thanks to her Mother Superior’s glorious
rendition of "Climb Every Mountain", she got the handsome
husband, the home full of happy kids and found her dream. Am
I glad to have my voice back, a spirited, life loving, world
worshipping voice? Oh yes. Oh, dear God, YES!!!

 

 
Janice
Hunter lives with her family in Scotland and is currently
working towards IAC certification. She particularly enjoys
supporting other coaches through her writing and can be
contacted at
ezinenewsletters@aol.com
.

 

 

 


IAC Certified Coaches


We would like to congratulate the following coaches who have
recently passed the IAC certification exam and achieved IAC-CC designation!

Kerri Laryea, IAC-CC (United States)
Sue Johnston, IAC-CC (Canada)



Announcements

We're planning
a new column in the VOICE called "Journey to Certification".
If you have submitted your Step 2 recordings, please
consider telling us about your journey. What did it take to
submit recordings? How did you prepare? How did you feel
when you got your results? What did you learn from the
process? What advice would you give others? We are just as
interested in hearing from people who did not pass as those
who did. If you’d be willing to be interviewed for this
project, please write to

voice@certifiedcoach.org
.


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