Keeping up with Coaching Trends Q: Trying to keep up with so many of the coaching trends and human development trends is overwhelming, especially while investing time in becoming a great coach and getting certified with the Masteries. Any ideas? You didn’t mention specific trends, but here are few that are often included in coaching conversations: Positive Psychology, Positive Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence, Social Intelligence, Gamification, Ontological Coaching. Biology of belief, molecules of emotions, neural network pathways. As coaches we are never at a loss for material to read up on, train with, play around with and incorporate into our practice and our own development. The thing that excites me as an IAC coach is how all of these things, not matter how you look at them, lead back to the Masteries. Let’s start with a quote I found about Gamification: "Gamification is exciting because it can make the hard stuff in life fun." Before jumping into that assumption, something to determine is your client’s definition of some of those terms. Hard? Fun? Exciting? Go to the Common Mistakes section of Mastery #6 of the Ebook to find this little nugget: “Thinking the coach knows the right answer or what is best for the client.” An effect that could emerge from this might be “Uncovering the unknown”, as well as a better understanding of the answer to those questions. Here is an explanation of Positive Intelligence: “Positive Intelligence can be measured as the percentage of the time your mind works for you instead of against you.” Oh my, isn’t that what we are discovering all the time as coaches? Mastery #2 invites us to “challenge limiting beliefs” that our client may be expressing. Mastery #4 helps us “expand the client’s awareness of different levels of knowing”, allowing the client to become attuned to their own blocks and unhelpful behaviors. And that is just scaling the surface of these concepts! In Mastery #8, “the coach helps the client transcend barriers”, thought barriers that could very well be working against the client. When I look into the philosophy of Ontological Coaching and its roots in the way of being (and in coaching specifically) I see how several Masteries support “based on a grounded and practical understanding of language, moods and conversations for behavioral and cultural transformation.” Although Mastery #4 Processing in the Present might seem the most obvious partner when you think of ontology, there are other Masteries that are unlikely allies. For example, how about Mastery #9, where too often coaches focus on just the “tangible” or “doing”, yet one way it asks us to go deeper is by “eliciting and use the client’s values and or sense of self to ensure sustainability”? It’s all in there. Wherever your coaching interests take you or whatever trends attract you, I can guarantee you will be supported in your expansion by keeping the Masteries close by. Let us know some of the connections you make with the Masteries to new coaching approaches, models, and trends.
Natalie Tucker Miller, MMC, is the Lead Certifier and a certifying examiner at the IAC, as well as Past-President. Natalie is founder of Ageless-Sages.com Publishing (www.ageless-sages.com), and creator of the literary genre, Picture Books for Elders™
Do you have a question that you’d like to ask the certifiers? Submit your questions here: http://certifiedcoachblog.typepad.com/blog/ask-the-certifiers.html. Please send your questions on the IAC Coaching Masteries® and the certification process to certification@certifiedcoach.org. |
