Coach Express

By Bronwyn Bowery-Ireland

I have been working with my coach to take my leadership skills to the next level. This week we looked at an emotional intelligence framework to better understand leadership.

The grid, as outlined below, has four quadrants. To demonstrate great emotional intelligence the aim is to be highly skilled in all four quadrants. My coach began to outline that I was fantastic in three areas but one area was greatly missing. I began to wonder what could it be. I thought I had a pretty high emotional intelligence, well at least that is what all the assessments had reported.

-> Self Awareness
-> Social Awareness
-> Self Management
-> Relationship Management

Then I realised it was self management. Now you would think that we all get the importance of managing ourselves first, or at least equally, to all the other areas above. But this is not the case. I spend great amounts of time everyday managing people at work, socialising with them and developing our relationships. What I often notice is that at the end of the day I feel a little all talked out.

Over time, this feeling moves into a general flattening of my batteries and then eventually the batteries get rusty and need to be charged or changed. Now if we don’t identify the need for recharging or changing then all that is left is the ‘need’. The need grows and we become needy and then resentful and then blaming and then generally all round negative about most things. We cycle down into the space of negative energy, allowing our self talk to exacerbate this feeling until we feel very disempowered to move out of it. Slowly we spiral down into complete darkness, action is not part of our life and we have stalled everything. It really is a pretty bad picture when you think about it and we have all been here.

So what to do:

1. Put in place a self management plan and ask your coach, friends and family to support you in achieving it.
2. Take one step at a time. Introduce one new self management technique at a time. Give yourself one month to practice this every day and then introduce another technique.
3. Ensure your day is balanced between each of the four quadrants. Too much relationship development and no self awareness is not good.
4. Recognise what you look like when you aren’t self managing. Identify the early signals and act upon them.
5. Stay in action, whether it be thoughts, plans or doing. Keep moving forward.

After all this you will feel great as you are not needy and can openly express what your needs are and have them met. Your emotional intelligence will be rocking off the scales and you will feel invigorated and able to give more generously.

I am off to enrol in a yoga class. I will keep you posted to let you know how it is going in a month’s time.

By Robyn Logan

Hey lady, you lady, cursing at your life
You’re a discontented mother and a regimented wife
I’ve no doubt you dream about the things you’ll never do
But, I wish someone had talked to me
Like I wanna talk to you

Artist: Charlene
Song: I’ve Never Been To Me

Do you remember that song? The one that went like this “I’ve been to Paradise, but I’ve never been to me?” Well, I am happy to say that, I’ve just been to Paradise AND I’ve been to me!

I have just come back from a ten day trip to London without my children. Let me just repeat that in case you didn’t get it the first time. My partner and I went on a holiday and our kids went to their cousin’s house for an adventure. Not only that - but I also went off by myself to Portugal for three days out of the ten.

Now I must say this decision wasn’t made easily and even after I made it I still had to deal with that devil-guilt-mother on my shoulder saying things like “What sort of mother are you leaving your kids just to go off and enjoy yourself?”

Well, now I can answer that devil with “I am the sort of Mother who knows that if I take care of myself I can take even better care of my kids!” It’s sort of like the oxygen mask theory, you know the one.. on airplanes when the flight attendant tells mothers to put the oxygen mask on themselves first and then their children. Makes sense really… if you pass out, you can’t take care of your kids.

This 10 day trip was like one great big oxygen mask. I got to do a lot of things that having a 5 yr old and a 3yr old (and a business) don’t enable you to do.

I got to spend long hours just walking.
I walked for miles through the streets of London and then later I walked fro miles along the beach in Portugal (from Espinho to Aguda to be exact!). That sort of long, lazy walking doesn’t happen very often, which means that the sort of thinking that happens on long walks doesn’t happen very often.

I got to read.
And not just business, marketing or coaching books, but an actual novel. And quite a dense one (Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong).

I spent quality time with Deb (my partner).
We actually had conversations that weren’t about who was picking up what kid from which activity at what time (can you relate?) And we had absolutely carefree fun, something that also doesn’t happen that often with both of us working full time.

I spent quality time by myself.
I have always loved holidaying by myself and I did a lot of it in my 20’s. I used to book a place for a week or a weekend and just go away and read and walk and be with myself. To have the opportunity to do this again was pure magic.The result of these activities is that I got to step away from my “normal life” for a few days. I got to be “not a mother”, “not a partner” and “not a business woman”, I got to be “me”. It sounds corny I know. In fact I can hear the chorus of “I’ve been to Paradise” in my head as I type.

On the way home on the plane (bumped up to Business Class just to top off a perfect vacation) Deb and I had a mini strategic planning session for our lives and our family. We talked about our vision for ourselves personally, our vision for our kids and our vision for our family as a whole. We then looked at practical strategies we could put into place to make that happen. It occurred to me while we were dong this that what we had done was really no different to corporate planning retreats.

It is common in business for whole teams to go away for a week or so and do some strategic planning and maybe a touch of team building. Business owners recognise the value in getting people “away from the office” and they recognise the value in taking time out periodically to evaluate where you have been, work out where you are going and identify how you are going to get there.

I think it’s a shame that a practice that is very common in business is not so common in our personal lives. In a way I do this sort of activity with my coach every week, but it is not the same as taking out a block of concentrated time. I know for me this is now the first of many. Deb and I have committed to taking three days off a year and going away by ourselves. Our kids will hardly notice, our work will go on as always, but for us the value is immense.

What do you do to find the time to “just be you” and to reflect on your life and plan for your future? Post to the blog and tell us, I’m interested to see how people configure this into their lives.

by Robyn Logan

Are you interested in a career in coaching? Do you want to know more about niche coaching opportunities?

During our recent ‘Discovering Your Niche’ teleseminar, I interviewed a parent coach (Rob Stringer), sex coach (Jacqueline Hellier), career success coac (John M McKee) and inter-cultural coach (Gudrun Kittel-Thong). All shared valuable, first hand experiences, surrounding how they chose their niche, who they coach and how they coach.

If you are interested in becoming a coach this teleseminar will give you a heads up on the whole process of “niching”

‘Discover Your Niche’ Audio

If you would like information regarding ICA’s coach training, or our niche specific communities of practice please contact us directly via training@icoachacademy.com

by Bronwyn Bowery-Ireland

Last week, 81 students graduated from ICA’s Certified Professional Coach Program. The graduation ceremony was an opportunity to not only celebrate our graduates success, but acknowledge their enthusiasm for lifelong learning, and contribution to the coaching profession.

Kurt Stewart, ICA’s Global Strategy Manager, spoke on behalf of ICA as I was traveling from China to Australia. I wanted to include his speech in this newsletter as it so perfectly summarises our global vision and how the notion of expansion relates to ICA, our students, and our graduates.

————————————————-
Graduation Speech
————————————————-
by Kurt Stewart

Bronwyn, our CEO, is on a plane to Australia as we speak and so regrettably will not be able to be with us today. But she wanted me to offer her congratulations to each and every one of you and to let you know that we all have high hopes for you in your coaching careers.

I’m Kurt Stewart and part of the ICA management team. My role here, simply put, is to help ICA expand its training program across cultures, in different languages, so that students who don’t speak English can access our programs in their language. Already the CPCP has been translated into Chinese and we have ongoing projects for other languages.

So as ICA expands across borders, all of you too, as professional coaches are “expanding”, going beyond your own borders, and traveling into new territories. As you may have found for yourselves, coaching is very much about EXPANSION – expansion of the soul, heart, mind and vision of the self. Expansion of our innate capacities and the skills we are learning

(more…)

by Robyn Logan

Last newsletter I wrote about some problems my son Ryder was having at his school. He perceived his teacher as very ‘angry’, he often cried when it was time to go to school and he had a complete aversion to reading and writing.

As unbelievable as it seems, we have seen a full 180 degree shift in Ryder over the past 4 weeks. He is now happy in the mornings, likes his teacher and – amazingly – has started to enjoy writing! Last weekend I found him practicing writing in his special writing book our friend had given him. It was 9pm at night, he was hanging out his bed using the light from the hallway when he should have been sleeping, but hey, there he was writing a whole page of “b’s” all by himself. I was so happy I turned the hallway light up more and told him he could stay up a bit later if he wanted to practice more.

So, how did this happen?
(more…)

by Augustine Chow

Beginning in September 2008, ICA will launch a Chinese CPCP (Certified Professional Coach Program), to Chinese speaking coaches, from mainland China as well as Chinese speaking coaches living overseas.

“The program will be identical to our English program in every single aspect, except it will be conducted in Chinese putonghua language. For the existing ICA Chinese speaking coaches, this means that you can now choose to post your learning to the Chinese learning site, and conduct your peer coaching and supervised coaching in Chinese. To the mainland Chinese or the overseas Chinese, this will be one of the first internationally accredited coach training programs for Chinese speaking coaches,” said Bronwyn Bowery-Ireland.

(more…)

- Are you interested in a career in coaching?
- Thinking about your area of specialty?
- Are you curious about the growing number of niches?

In this call you will find out exactly why four successful coaches chose four very different niches.

1. The Parent Coach (Rob Stringer)
2. The Sex Coach (Jacqueline Hellier)
3. The Career Success Coach (John M McKee)
4. The Inter-Cultural Coach (Gudrun Kittel-Thong)

Find out how they chose their niche, who they coach and how they coach.

These are all real coaches with very real clients. If you are interested in becoming a coach this teleseminar will give you a heads up on the whole process of “niching”

*************
Date and Time
*************

New York: Wednesday, 14th May at 8.30pm
Los Angeles: Wednesday, 14th May at 5.30pm
Brasillia: Wednesday, 14th May at 9.30pm
Auckland: Thursday, 15th May at 12.30pm
Beijing: Thursday, 15th May at 8.30am
Sydney: Thursday, 15th May at 10.30am

For further time conversions, please visit http://www.timeanddate.com

To Register  –> http://tinyurl.com/4ty4zo

Do you know how much it costs to set up a coaching business?

Should you keep your day job or make a clean break?

Where will you find your clients?

Last week Robyn Logan interviewed three successful coaches and got the answers to these questions and more.

We had a great turn out for the ‘Spotlight on Coaching’ Teleseminar and for those that were unable to make it - we audioed it!

You can download the MP3 for listening in the car, or experience the streaming option through your computer.

Listen here

by Bronwyn Bowery-Ireland

I have just taken on a new coach. I finished up with my last coach two months ago and it has taken me a while to get back on track. Getting a new coach started to become a matter of urgency. I just find that I can’t do without one. It is like breathing. For me having a coach supports me in everything that I do. It is the one person in the world who is there to support me, care for me and basically bat for me. Mind you I do have quite a lot of people who also do that so why is my coach special or different?

I think the answer to this question comes back to understanding what coaching is about. Coaching is a unique relationship between a coach and a client where the coach creates a safe, trusting space for the client to develop in. It is a once a week conversation, in my case, where I get to explore how I want to grow, develop or change. It is a time to reflect, it is a time for me, a time about just me. No wonder I love the luxury of coaching.

However coaching shouldn’t be a luxury - it should be a way of life. This will only be the case if you value life-long learning. Experiencing coaching is about self-directed learning. You as the client path the way, discuss your needs and explore the learning you desire at that moment in time. As the client, you create your dream, pursue your goals, get results and build your confidence. So who wouldn’t want a rather large serving of self-esteem? Bring it on I say.

So let me ask you three questions.

Do you value life-long learning?

Do you want to be the greatest you can be?

Do you have a coach?

If you answered YES to all the above then yippee! If there was a “no” anywhere present in your answers then I encourage you to not wait a moment longer. Move forward and be the best you can be, get yourself a coach today.

My son Ryder recently started school.  It was an exiting time for all of us as he walked off on day one with his new uniform and new school bag.  However, sadly for all of us, this excitement lasted exactly one week.

At the start of the second week Ryder came home in tears.  His teacher had “growled” at him for not finishing his work.  According to Ryder she told him he had “done it wrong”.  I must say I found this hard to believe and figured Ryder’s own desire to please and to “get it right” was the problem.  I mean surely no self-respecting teacher would tell a 5 year old in his first week of school that he had “done it wrong”?

So I went to see the teacher - she assured me this was not the case and we all put it down to Ryder’s anxiety about starting a new school and wanting to please.  Three weeks later though when he came home again in tears and said that his teacher told him he was “too slow”, I started to take a bit more notice.

Over the next few weeks I have listened carefully to Ryder and I have noticed that when he talks to me about his teacher he calls her “angry” and he says he hates school because he gets into trouble for being too slow.  I also noticed that he is increasingly afraid to try anything in case he “gets it wrong”.

I started volunteering at the school to listen to the kids reading in his grade.  I partly did this to contribute and partly to “observe” (which is a much nicer word than “spy”).  After just one week I was appalled.  I observed Ryder’s teacher doing absolutely everything I believe you DON’T do if you want to create a good environment for learning.  And really, isn’t that what it is all about?  He is not going to learn to read and write in his first six weeks at school, but he might learn that school is fun and that learning is enjoyable and that making mistakes is OK and that everyone is different and that there is no right or wrong way to approach something etc.

A couple of days ago our CEO here at ICA sent me a book that listed the Eight Elements of Learning.  The book is called Quality Teaching in a Culture of Coaching and it is by Stephen G. Barkly.

The Eight Elements of Learning

1. Absence of threat
2. Meaningful content
3. Choices
4. Adequate time
5. Enriched environment
6. Collaboration
7. Immediate feedback
8. Mastery

The first element “Absence of Threat” really resonated with me.  It is not rocket science that as humans we find it difficult to learn when we are in a threatening environment.

At ICA it is one of our core values - “create a safe learning environment”.  As an adult training company we know that in order to learn adults need to feel safe.  We have deliberate policy of small class sizes and we employ trainers who are committed to adult learning principles.  It is common to hear our graduates talk about the fact that they feel safe enough to speak when uncertain and to try new things in front of their peers.

What I realized over the last six weeks while dealing wiht my son’s problems at school is that adult learning principles should not be reserved for adults.  Those very same things that create positive and lasting experiences for adults also apply to children.

*Adults require a safe learning environment - they need to be able to try new things without looking or feeling foolish.

*Adult’s have a wealth of experience when they come to a new learning situation (i.e. they are not just empty vessels to be filled up with knowledge)

*Adults learn best when the learning has relevance for them or is situated in a context.

*Adults like to control their learning environment which includes the pace at which they work and the areas they choose to work on.

All of these things apply to children.  Plus they also have a natural sense of curiosity about the world and a natural desire to please, both of which can be put to good use inside the classroom.

I have an appointment with the Principal tomorrow morning - I’ll let you know how I go!