Give these online resources a whirl!

The Internet is full of all sorts of resources and tools that offer marketing and public relations suggestions and solutions. Below you will find links to pages we find useful—perhaps you will find one or two beneficial to your practice!

• Mashable: This online news site is dedicated to covering digital culture, social media, and technology. Mashable is an excellent source for articles and infographics, including these recent reads: like Which social network should you use – and when? and How to Perfect Your Elevator Pitch.
• Social Mention: This website allows for real time social media search and analysis. Conduct real time searches to see where/when your brand (or any other search term you choose) is used in social media. You can also set alerts when your search terms are picked up across social media channels. This tool is an excellent means of tracking your brand on the web.
• Hootsuite: This online source is the leading social media dashboard used to manage and measure your social networks. If you post messages across multiple social media channels, this is an excellent source for scheduling posts in a single, easy-to-use location.

What online tools and resources do you find beneficial? Share them with us here or over on Facebook!

Three things ICF members should be doing

Membership renewal season is the perfect opportunity to review available member benefits so you may utilize all that is offered. This occasional topic series will highlight those things you can do to ensure you are making the most of your connection to the ICF.

• Access global coaching research. ICF members have access (or monetary discounts) to ICF industry research. Coaching research can easily be worked into your marketing and business plans and works in advertising your practice. Spend some time perusing the ICF Research Portal, and download the Executive Summary of the 2012 ICF Global Coaching Study.
• Leadership development. ICF members are exposed to numerous opportunities for leadership development at both the local (chapter) level and global level.
• Discounts on applying for an ICF Credential. If you are planning to apply for or renew an ICF Credential in the future, ICF members receive valuable discounts! The ICF Credential is recognized as the gold standard for the coaching profession.

Not yet an ICF member? Join our borderless community of 20,000+ coaches  for only $195 USD today. Current ICF members who need to renew their membership may do so here.

Do not save time...you already have it

"Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein." H. Jackson Brown.

The most valuable resource a manager or employee can have is none other than time. As a famous English writer once said, better three hours early than one minute late, more and more business people with important leadership roles in organizations tend to compromise their relationship with other employees around them just for the sake of saving time. I believe it is a situation you are familiar with: unanswered e-mails, inefficient communication, confused employees etc. Basically, while trying to save more time, we alter our relationships with people around us, by forgetting to approve certain meetings, answer questions or finish a certain task. But how can we earn our business partners’ respect if we are constantly blinded by this “I need to save more time” hypnosis?

- Or how can you earn your own respect by finishing everything you have to do on time?

Radu is one of the key employees in the construction business he works. He was responsible for organizing the entire sales process and the business connection with the clients. He knew how to handle his job and many could’ve learned from his work experience. However, Radu had one major flaw: he was easily influenced by his lack of time – meaning he was always in a hurry. If he wanted to delegate a task for another employee, then everything had to be well understood from the very beginning, because he never had or thought he could find the time to give further explanations. His priority were always his clients, which sometimes, made him forget that he was part of a team and that they all worked for the same goal. If a colleague wanted to ask him something or require his assistance for a particular task, he would have had to wait for a long time because Radu was not willing to waste his time on things that “could wait.” However, things got worse in time, because while trying to save more time, he spent too little with his colleagues, sometimes even speaking too directly to them, using harsh words like “ You must finish this right now” or “Bring me the latest chart on our monthly profit.”

Nobody could properly talk to Radu because he was always on the go. He thought that he needed to do things faster so that he could make sure he would finish everything on time. Because if he didn’t finish the job, another company would, thus making him loses his clients.

The department was run in this manner for a while, until one evening, when everyone left the office, Radu overheard a conversation between two of his colleagues. They complained that they didn’t understand a thing from the past few months in this company and that they couldn’t find a solution because Radu was never there to help them. This conversation wouldn’t have been a problem for Radu if the ones who took part to it were simple employees in the company; however, these two individuals were Radu’s key partners. This was the first feedback that made him realize that there are far more important things than time. After this, he started to work with a coach.

Sometimes, when we feel we don’t have enough time, we tend to become irresponsible with the people around us. But the problem is not our lack of time, but our impression that we don’t have enough time. I have met numerous business people who were always needed at the office, but despite their busy schedule they were the ones who answered to e-mails or who maintained a direct communication with their clients, without complaining they don’t have enough time.

Because there is no such thing as “lack of time,” but a lack of collaboration and delegation with the people around you; a lack of trust in yourself and your ability to finish things on time and a lack of trust in others, because you don’t believe they could finish the job properly.

Rodica Obancea, ACC

Every manager values his time and it is ok not to waste your time with irrelevant activities. The challenge, however, is to trust yourself and believe you can finish on time, while collaborating with others. This is what a team really is.

Rodica Obancea, ACC is passionate about change, emergence, living systems. She works within business environment, with managers, teams for achieving ambitious results. For more information, visit www.successcoaching.ro.

Create a better conversation…next week and beyond

Next week, November 21-27, is Better Conversation Week. This week is set aside to create better conversations with those in your life (from your significant other or your best friend to a client or acquaintance). Even those who converse constantly can use a simple reminder to consider their own conversations. [Non-meaningful conversing is an unfortunately simple thing to do…and we are all guilty of it in some form or another.]

If you add up how many different conversations you have in a given day, the number for many would be pretty significant. But how many of those conversations are “good?” I know what you are thinking... “What is a good conversation?” I think most people would agree that a good conversation is one in which both parties are genuinely interested, both parties listen, and both parties allow the other to speak.

Now consider your daily interactions. How many of those conversations would fall into that category? Probably less than you realize.

Not only that, but consider what your conversations are about. Is it small talk? Is it practical conversation (around whose turn it is to do the dishes, who let the dog out, etc.)? Is it substantial (where you walk away feeling fulfilled)? All of these forms of communication can be good…but your entire day’s worth of conversations should not fall under a single category. Like everything else in life, there needs to be balance. A really good article I came across on The New York Times website, though almost two years old, is a really interesting look at the correlation between the kinds of conversations you are having and how happy you are: Talk deeply, be happy?

So my thought for Better Conversation Week is to not only focus on creating better conversations…but really pay attention to the kinds of conversations that dominate my talk life. What about you? Share your thoughts below in the comments field, over on our Facebook page or via Twitter.

Words to live by…

Taking a cue from ICF guest blogger Laurie Lawson, we asked our Facebook fans the following question in September: “coaches, what is your favorite quote?”

The response was tremendous! If you are a collector of quotes, the below pool will serve as an excellent source.

“As long as you are going to be thinking anyway, think big.”—Donald Trump (Sinead Moffatt)

“Do, or do not. There is no try.”—Yoda (Vickie Gray)

“If you love what you do you will be successful.”—Albert Schweitzer (Jurgen Domacassee)

“I care not what the others do, but I care very much about what I think I do!”—Theodore Roosevelt (Elina Giachali)

“You can have anything you want if you want it desperately enough. You must want it with an exhuberance that erupts through the skin and joins the energy that created the world.”—Sheila Graham (Christa Lynn Colletti)

“Be where you are right now.” (Demyan Rossouw)

“Don’t ask yourself what the words needs. Ask what makes you come alive…and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” (Robben Salyers)

“Whether you think you can, and if you think that you can’t, are correct.”—Henry Ford (Germán Portilla Vallejo)

“No individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving behind him distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it.”—George Washington Carver (Jeremy Flagg)

“The point is to understand, not judge.” (Cynthia Grinfield)

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”—Jung (Mine Kobal Ok)

“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”—Lao Tzu (Susanne Cordes-Hoelterhoff)

“Screw it, let’s do it!”—Richard Branson (Katerina Kanelidou)

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”—Albert Einstein (Gildardo Aguilar)

“Sometimes you have to lose your mind to come to your senses.” (Christel Seierø)

“Forget the failures. Keep the lessons.”—Dalaï Lama (Zohra Dali)

“A maior conquista do homem, é vencer a si mesmo.”—Platão (Joana Darc A. Silva)

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”—Robert Frost (Karim Fayad)

“What you reap today is a result of what you sow yesterday. So what are you sowing today for tomorrow?” (Simon Yap)

“When you really want something, the whole universe conspires helping you achieve it.”—Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist (Christine Haugseth Andersen)

“Coaching begins with trusting that the coachee is ‘capable’.” (Bhaskar Bhattacharya)

“Live to make your lifetime a statement of who you are—not what you feared.” (Marcus Milukas)

“Spontaneity must be well planned!” (Wolfgang Spenke)

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”—Mary Oliver (Merle Rockwell)

“If you can dream it, you can do it!”—Walt Disney (Elisabeth Piene Espenes)

“Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” (Deborah Higgs)

“My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of Man.”—John F. Kennedy (Mattia Rossi)

“Aerodynamically, the bumblebee shouldn’t be able to fly. But the bumblebee doesn’t know what, so it goes on flying anyway.”—Mary Kay Ash (Caroline Charron Stolzy)

“No regrets.”—S. Waugh (Wayne Timms)

“It is never too late to be what you should have become.”—George Eliot (Pierina Curties)

“Get the best people and train them well.”—Scott McNealy (Paul Morrall)

“A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.”—Max Lucado (Paul Morrall)

“Leaders grasp nettles.”—David Oglivy (Paul Morrall)

“Use your life to change the world.”—Oprah Winfrey (Elvira Hopper)

“Accomplishment and success are often the result of commitment and perseverance rather than skill or talent.”—George V. Valkenburg (Elaine Tong)

“The harder you work and the more focused you are…the luckier you become.” (Paul Morrall)

“You can’t ask for a commitment greater than the size of your relationship.” (Clare Sauttner)

What about you? Do you have a favorite quote or words you live by? We’d love to know—share it with us on at Facebook.com/ICFHQ.

Dreaming IS Good For you!

If I asked you what you dream of, how much time would you give to describe it, before jumping into determining how you’re going to make it happen?

Nurture your dream

By dreaming, I don’t mean the REM variety either, or for that matter, aimless fantasizing. I mean dreaming about what’s purposeful to you and about what you would love. This sort of dreaming requires distillation and focus.

I've been observing lately in my coaching practice and when talking with other women that often the dream (or vision) in our life is overlooked in favor of 'how' it’s going to happen. And this is where we get caught out. If your emphasis is on the 'how', you ultimately start to compromise on what you believe is possible, because you haven’t spent time stepping into the ‘impossible’. The 'how' can also be challenging and out of our comfort zone (especially when we bring money into the equation) - so much so that we give up on the dream before we’ve even started.

The key message I want to share with you today about dreaming is how dreams need the time, attention and clarity before you go anywhere near the 'how'.

Having a dream and then manifesting that dream utilises both feminine and masculine principles. The anima and animus are two terms used by psychologist Carl Jung to describe the feminine and masculine halves of the personality. The dreaming part (the 'what') is all about the feminine - it's the visionary, it's about being open and receptive, it’s about what you love and it's about stepping into the unknown, into the seemingly impossible, into your imagination.

The 'how' part is all about the masculine – it’s the strategy, it’s the next steps, it’s about the action, it's about engaging your will. In order to have a dream and then to manifest that dream, you need to utilise both your masculine and feminine. If you have a clear vision of the life you want, but don't take the necessary action, then your dream is just a mere fantasy. And if you have the action, but aren’t clear on the dream, then any action you take will be counterproductive.

The dreaming part is such an important part of the equation. If you have a dream in your life, spend time on it – no, actually spend ‘loads’ of time on it. Nurture your dream, write about it, draw pictures about it, have some still time to sit with it, envisage it, imagine it and play with it.

Big dreams die when we focus on the big to do list. Do you want your dream to die or do you want to be an example of an inspiring woman who 'had a dream and made it happen'?

This post was written by Anne Loyd and previously appeared at http://anneloyd.blogspot.com/.

Coaching’s knowledge base: who needs it?

Leni Wildflower, PhD, PCC

As an academic and the designer of an evidence-based coaching program, I’ve given a lot of the thought to the coaching component we call “the knowledge base”—the rich body of theoretical material on which coaching is built, the fields of study out of which it has grown—theories of psychology, adult learning, change, leadership, culture and gender, to name a few. Over the years, I’ve invested a great deal of time in studying this body of knowledge, and I have an attachment to it. There’s a lot of intellectual pleasure to be had from exploring its various dimensions and interconnections, and as a practitioner I like to know where I stand in relation to an extensive field of theory and research.

But is it important? What if we don’t need this theoretical background? What if we just invent creative coaching protocols on the basis of personal insight and experience? Some of us have done this already – and with interesting and positive results. What if we simply rely on a capacity for self-reflection, an openness to others, an individual gift for listening, intuiting, creating space for the client’s self-discovery? Some individuals simply have a gift for coaching. So why bother with learning the knowledge base? I would love to know your thoughts!

Leni Wildflower Consulting
leniwildflower@gmail.com
The handbook of knowledge-based coaching: From theory to practice.
Edited by Leni Wildflower and Diane Brennan
Jossey Bass, 2011.