Time is ticking…we still want to hear from you!

Your last chance to be a part of coaching research history is coming! The 2011 Global Coaching Study will officially close on November 15, after being open nearly six months collecting the viewpoints of coaching professionals from across the world.

As the greatly anticipated follow-up to the 2006 ICF Global Coaching Study, the 2011 study will bring the current global landscape of coaching into clearer focus. Independent research firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is conducting the survey.

The study is open to all coaching professionals. To reach an even wider audience, the study has been offered in nine languages (English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, and Spanish) and was compatible across several modes of mobile technology, including smart phones and tablet computers.

Once the study closes in mid-November, the data collected will lead to the creation of a robust “state of the industry” report that will provide coaches, organizations, and the media with an opportunity to learn more about today’s coaching industry. Final reports are expected to be available in early 2012.

PwC has advised that any country which delivers more than 100 survey respondents will be entitled to receive nation-specific data tables drawn from the study. To date, several countries have already surpassed this threshold! Do your part and participate so you too can benefit from more detailed findings about coaching in your country.

These findings will be beneficial when it comes to marketing your coaching practice in 2012 and beyond! You too can take advantage of these statistical findings by participating in this research.

If you haven’t already lent your voice to this research initiative—take a few minutes this weekend to do so! Participate in the study. Learn more about the study.

Evaluate Your Life

Today, some people will celebrate a lesser known “holiday” known as Evaluate Your Life day. October 19 is a day to STOP and really consider your life—where you are and where you’re headed.

The day can be as simple or as detailed as you want it to be. The entire point of acknowledging this “holiday” is to take an inventory of your life—and to make decisions and goals to supplement what you discover about yourself.

Some people will focus on a single aspect of their life. Be it work life, love life, family life, social life, etc. And others may focus on more tangible subjects, such as appearance, home, etc. Whatever area of your life you feel could use an inventory, take time today to stop and think. Find a quiet place where you can be alone with your thoughts. Pull out a journal and take a few notes. Determine those adjustments your own life can use. And put them to work!

If you need a nudge, a simple Internet search turned up a listing of these 35 questions that you could use to evaluate your life.

Other questions to get you started include:

• Where are you?
• Describe your current situation in three words.
• Think back to who you were five years ago. Are you (today) where you thought you would be?
• Where are you headed? Is it where you want to be? (If it isn’t, how can you get on the path you want to be on?)
• What adjustments must you make?

The bottom line? You have one chance at life. Make it the best you can while you can!

Keeping your own counsel

Last night I was flicking through a book of mine which discussed that people join groups as they have a need or a want to be lead. One thing that struck me in this book was that because humans have an unrelenting need to belong to a group, these very groups (like church, self help groups etc) can begin to act as cults. Cults typically have a negative connotation so I looked at its meaning on the trusty Webster’s Online Dictionary:
 
Cult - “Attentive care; homage; worship”, “A system of religious belief and worship”.

I don’t want to get into the whole cult debacle because that could be a subject for another day, but my book stated that essentially (and this is in my own words) groups become a cult when we stop seeing our own greatness or brilliance and rely on the person or thing we worship or pay homage to, to give us answers or direction. In other words, we choose to follow a leader rather than follow our own soul. It was at this moment in the book that I sat up and took notice – not because of cults and what they mean because I have certainly experienced them in my lifetime (my brother belonged to a cult along with a very close friend) – but because we can often seek out others to give us answers rather than rely on our own inherent wisdom.

So let me pose a question to you. When you have a decision to make, what’s the first thing you do? Do you discuss it with all your friends and family to get their opinion (and sometimes feel even more confused) and eventually make a decision after you have heard all their advice? Or do you keep your own counsel and go within for the answer with the belief that you know what feels true or right for you?

Women are always willing to help friends and love ones with decisions and it is usually done with the best intentions. However, this ‘advice’ can often be fraught with projection, judgment and a very personal take on the world. By asking everyone’s advice on a pressing decision we inadvertently end up giving away our own power, our own sense of worth, because we think they have the answer, or the wisdom, not us. We want to be told, or lead to the answer. As well, the more we discuss the decision or issue with our friends and family or work colleagues, the more entangled we become in the ‘drama’ of it rather than the solution.

A great deal of research has been done on ‘paralysis by analysis’ which means that the more choice we are given, the harder it is to make a decision. Supermarkets experiment with this all the time. When they offer customers too much choice, sales go down, but when the choice is more limited, sales go up. Malcolm Gladwell illustrates this point beautifully in his book 'Blink' and states that your first initial gut feeling, or intuitive feeling is often correct and that too much choice hinders that initial knowing.

Perhaps one of the greatest things I love about coaching is that as a coach my job is simply to extract the knowledge, the wisdom, the experience and the intuition which already resides within the client. And I can tell you, when the answer they need suddenly breaks forth, it ALWAYS feels true to them and they walk away with a greater sense of ownership.

So next time you have a pressing decision or are unsure which path to take, before you go anywhere near your girlfriends, your family, your work colleagues or whoever you go to, try and go within for your answer as that’s where it resides. You may well need to do research; you may need to speak to experts, but start getting used to using your own counsel and trusting your own inherent wisdom and knowledge. As you get used to trusting yourself, you will most likely find the decision making process a whole lot easier. And that can only be a good thing.

This blog post first appeared on Anne Loyd's Professional and Personal Coaching Blog.

Anne Loyd

About Anne Loyd: As a coach working specifically with women, I am committed to helping women define and create their vision of a life they would love - in and out of the workplace. Creating a vision is the most passionate and wondrous way to live life. I help women reveal what they want to be, to do, to create, without the limitations of time, education, background and money that we shackle ourselves with. As a New Zealander living in London, I work with women all around the world who have the courage to make a change and who want to be an ordinary woman like you and I, doing something extraordinary. Learn more at www.anneloyd.com.

2011 ICF Award Overview

The ICF annually awards individual members, chapters and organizations that have demonstrated remarkable commitment to advancing the art, science and practice of professional coaching in their community and beyond. These awards, embodied by the ICF President’s Award, ICF Chapter Awards, and International Prism Awards, are presented each year during the Annual International Conference.
This year, these awards were presented in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA during two special ceremonies.

During the Appreciation and Recognition Luncheon for ICF leadership on September 24, six chapters were recognized in two awards categories for their local marketing and community outreach efforts. The recipients of the 2011 ICF Chapter Awards were:

Chapter Award winners. Not pictured: ICF Spain.

Local Spirit, Global Presence—Community Activism Award

• Heartland Coaches Association—Greater Kansas City: for its partnership with the Heartland Habitat for Humanity (HHFH), a local nonprofit group, to provide professional coaching services to the HHFH team.
• ICF Gauteng Chapter: for implementing its Coaching Caravan, which enabled the South African coaching community to offer free coaching, training and facilitation skills/services to individuals and community groups who would not normally have the opportunity to experience and benefit from these services.
• ICF Metro DC: for its aggressive community outreach agenda which included partnerships with: Leadership Arlington (LA), Capital Youth Empowerment Program (CYEP), and Homeward Deployed.

Finding our Voice—Marketing/PR Award

• ICF Uruguay: for organizing the first International Coaching Workshop (which drew over 100 participants), and for creating the first local association (AUCOP)—all during their first year as an ICF Chapter.
• ICF Brazil: for the successful implementation of a cross channel advertising campaign, as well as the creation of a local website to facilitate the call for services and advertising of the ICF brand.
• ICF Spain: for organizing the eighth ICF European Coaching Conference held in Madrid, Spain in 2011—an event attended by more than 450 participants from 29 countries.

During the Annual Business Meeting on September 26, two individuals were honored with the ICF President’s Award: Peter Goryalov and Irina Goryalova of Bulgaria.

2011 ICF President Ed Modell, PCC, selected Peter and Irina, a married couple, for the great contributions they have made in the name of coaching over the last several years. They formed the first coaching company in Bulgaria in 2006 and subsequently founded the ICF Bulgaria Chapter.


Peter Goryalov and Irina Goryalova

In the year since the chapter opened for business, membership has increased to 22 (including seven coaches trained through ICF approved coach training programs and two who hold an ICF Associate Certified Coach credential) and they have begun providing a series of masterclasses using the most modern video conferencing technology to bring top notch speakers “into” Bulgaria.

Also during the Annual Business Meeting, the ICF awarded two organizations with the International Prism Award. ICF has been issuing the international award since 2005 as a way to recognize those organizations that have enhanced excellence and business achievement through their commitment to coaching as a leadership strategy. The 2011 award winners are BC Housing and JOEY RESTAURANT GROUOP, both of Canada.

BC Housing
In 2007, BC Housing partnered with MICA (now Knightsbridge) to create its Leadership Development Program in an effort to develop its leadership talent and create a coaching for performance culture as part of its overall people strategy.

The initiative was first introduced at the executive level and was launched with senior level leader participation. Following a successful pilot, the program was expanded to include all leaders throughout the organization.

BC Housing’s commitment to coaching has helped transform the culture internally by closing the leadership gap, increasing the pool of competent leaders and creating a coaching culture. And overall, they have experienced better performance results.

It has been calculated that BC Housing has experienced a 70 percent return on investment!

BC Housing continues to invest in coaching and most recently launched ‘Coach2Coach’ for its senior leaders to deepen their coaching skills, broaden their leadership perspectives and build a community of practice.


On site to accept the award on behalf of BC Housing was Agnes Ross and Dian Patterson. And from Knightsbridge: Julie Jones, Senior Consultant of Leadership Solutions.

JOEY RESTAURANT GROUP Armed with the knowledge that coaching can benefit leadership in virtually any area of an organization, the JOEY RESTAURANT GROUP began its coaching initiative as the rest of the restaurant industry was faced with recession-related dilemmas.

The coaching initiative began with the strategic selection of the most senior leaders in the organization, essentially so they could be coached and be trained as internal coaches, all while running their restaurant regions! Since then, numerous coaching strategies and processes have been used with employees across the organization for leadership development, conflict management and personal growth.

In the last 30 months, they have experienced more than 30 percent revenue growth, reduced turnover and made the Top 100 employers list for the first time ever. Not only that, but JOEY calculates a 682 percent return on investment from their coaching initiative!

JOEY believes in coaching as a key development tool and an integral part of supporting growth at all levels in the organization—particularly so they will have an abundance of talent ready to step up to the next level of leadership when needed.

On site to accept the award on behalf of JOEY RESTAURANT GROUP was Andrew Martin and Al Jessa. And from Essential Impact: Marjorie Busse, MCC; Dave Busse, PCC; and Carollyne Conlinn, MCC.

Stay tuned: the videos from the 2011 award winners will be posted to the ICF channel on YouTube shortly. Learn more about ICF Awards at Coachfederation.org/awards.

Integrating Our Private and Public Selves

SIG Energy Work and Coaching: The Next Wave
Presenter: Rhona Post MCC
When: Third Monday of Every Month, Monday October 17th, 11:00am ET
Telephone: 1-212-457-9879
Pin: 622186#

In the mid 80’s, when I first studied coaching with James Flaherty, CEO of New Ventures West, he asserted that we all wanted the same things for ourselves. More love. More joy. More peace.

Although we adored, even loved our clients, we did not sell love, peace and joy in business environments. We designed our communication to address business issues, like increased effectiveness and efficiency. Our corporate packages aligned with clients’ hopes, goals and concerns.

Some of us shelved the desire to address a person’s deeper concerns, about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as we sought to keep what’s personal separate from what’s professional. Like our clients, we had private and public identities. Oftentimes, there were great disparities between our internal lives and what we showed the world. What kinds of examples come to mind for you when you think about private and public identities?

After more than 25 years in this profession, I’m circling back around the concepts of peace, love and joy, because I’ve observed that being more effective does not produce greater love, peace or joy.

How does this relate to Energy Work and Coaching? Since I incorporated the energy healing protocols in my coaching, I can more easily assist clients to face and bridge their personal and public identities. The goal of healer coaching is to help folks integrate the head and heart reducing the compartmentalization upon which we have effectively shaped our existence.


Rhona Post, MCC



During our October call we will explore how we create and work from two identities. Do you have two selves? Is the self you show the world in better shape than the self you keep private? Or vice versa? Would you like to heal the rift or sense of separateness you experience even as you extend yourself to others?

Please join us on Monday, October 17th, 11am ET for our monthly SIG call.

For more information contact Rhona Post, MCC by telephone +1.941.554.8466 or by email rhona@thehealercoach.com.