Make a mission yours

Last month, we asked our Facebook fans, “What is your mission?” Take a look below to see how our Facebook fans responded:

“Shortly: to saw grains of acceptance and peace in teams and coachees: being a ‘peace instigator’.” (Martin Jessen)

“Changing lives through Opening minds.” (Joe Cross)

“Manasa Vaacha Karmana – synergy of vision, word and the feed to make things better, by rising above myself and prevailing situations.” (Anil Santhapuri)

“A-ha moments that bring about positive changes.” (Jennifer Bridge)

“Helping people become better communicators in business and in life.” (Effective Connecting)

What about you? What is your mission? We’d love to know—leave a response below or join the conversation at Facebook.com/ICFHQ. If you don’t have a mission…now is the perfect time to do some brainstorming!

ICF Hungary provides free outplacement coaching for the employees of the bankrupt national airlines

Almost fifty coaches are contributing to a joint project run by the Hungarian Chartered Chapter International Coach Federation (ICF) and MALÉV F.A. (the Hungarian national airline company, under liquidation). The massive CSR project involves providing pro bono outplacement coaching to former MALÉV employees in order to help them overcome the loss of their jobs and to ensure them a better chance for a career change.

MALÉV went bankrupt in February 2012, leaving a thousand people unemployed and the whole country in shock. The grounding of the company brought an end to 66 years of almost continuous service and to many life-long careers.

The pro-bono outplacement coaching project of the Hungarian Chartered Chapter of ICF involves 50 percent of our members. We provide coaching on a voluntary basis in our spare time. The coaches are supported by ten mentor coaches and supervisors. Former MALÉV staff members were offered a 3-months outplacement coaching process and 90 employees grabbed the opportunity. As a result of the coaching, some of them have already been hired by new employers; many others are attending job interviews with higher awareness, equipped with an updated CV, strengthened self-confidence and refined interviewing techniques. Some of them decided to start their own business.

The real challenge lies in the fact that some of the careers cut short by the liquidation of the company had been specifically connected to the airline industry. Competencies, skills and strengths have been identified during coaching, beside their special knowledge and experience connected to the airline industry. All ICF volunteers are working on supporting these valuable people to find their places in the world again and are using the power of coaching to identify and learn the strengths that will serve as a solid base for their future.

Dismissed employees found themselves in an emotionally difficult situation, a real grief, since many of them had been working at the airline almost as family member since their high school graduation or the completion of their college degrees. They were forced to enter the labour market, in many cases for the very first time in their life. Most of them were disappointed, depressed. The coaching focused on dealing with the shock of accepting a final change and overcoming the fear of a new job.

The most frequent results of the coaching are growing self-awareness and self-esteem, and the ability to deal with the grief consciously. 

The project involving 140 people is managed by Dóra Hegedűs, past president and member of board and Beáta Schäffer, CSR responsible of ICF Hungary. This project is an excellent professional challenge for the chapter that builds a strong cohesion among its members and increases the sense of belonging – resulting in a renewal ratio of 91 percent.

Read the full story.

The importance of owning your goals

This is an article about client- centered goal setting and not about health care. However, spending 25 years in the health care business taught me something about the importance of setting  goals in collaboration with a client. For openers, in the absence of a measurable goal, you didn’t get paid by the insurance company. More importantly though, it helped a client and his or her family, navigate the waters of recovery. Even if the individual had sustained a severe brain trauma, it was still beneficial to engage the family, and the client as much as possible, in the goal setting process. It always improved motivation, sometimes a lot, and sometimes a little depending on the level of injury, but it was always important.

Proper goal setting translated hopes such as, “I want him to get better” to actual steps that would bring about change. “I want him to get better” became “I want him to be able to eat at his favorite restaurant." From there, the steps to reach that vision could be constructed. 

Perhaps the client needed to be able to get in and out of a car. Or maybe he had to practice reading a menu so he could successfully order food at the restaurant. Those activities became the steps toward making the hope a reality.

My new career as a coach draws on some of these same principles of goal setting. The idea and the vision are always important but the more specific you can be about what you want, the easier it is to get there. Equally critical is the motivation piece.  The motivation can be intrinsic or extrinsic or a combination of both. Usually, the more the goal resonates with one’s personal values or internal visions, the more powerful the motivation to reach a goal will be. That isn’t to say that every task will be a joy but if it can get bundled into the framework of an overall goal that a client owns, the unpleasant nature of certain tasks can be minimized.

One the hardest parts about making a vision a reality is that visions feel so good. Ideas and dreams are energizing. Getting specific about the dream and setting forth goals to make the dreams come true can be a bit more difficult. Where do you start? Why do you want to do it?  What strategies and activities will lead you to successfully completing the goal? How will I know I have accomplished the goal successfully? These are the questions that a coach can help you answer. The coach is a collaborative partner that helps lead you to greater insight, improved motivation, and ultimately success.

Ann Holm is an ICF certified coach with a lifelong interest in brain science. For 25 years, she coached brain injured clients toward cognitive recovery with an emphasis toward optimal functioning in the community. In 2009, she started a coaching practice in order to serve any client who wishes to uncover personal potential through increased awareness of how the brain works, and knowledge of psychological type preferences. .Ann holds a B.A. in Psychology, Speech and Hearing Sciences (1983) and a M.S. in Speech and Language Pathology (1986), both from the University of Michigan. She received Life Coach training from the Coaches Training Institute in 2008.  She is also an MBTI Master Practitioner and currently one of less than 100 MBTI practitioners worldwide certified to administer the newly released MBTI Step III.  Her website is www.annholm.net/

Is your ICF Chapter doing great things?

We want to hear about it! Nominations are being accepted for the 2012 ICF Chapter Award through August 1, 2012. This is your Chapter’s opportunity to share recent best practices, contributions, and accomplishments with the larger coaching community.

Up to six Chapters (categorized by small, medium, and large) are annually recognized for their exceptional work in their local communities.

Award categories have changed in 2012: I Care For – Pro Bono Coaching Award and Breaking Barrier Award. Read more about these award categories at Coachfederation.org.

Download the application.

What can your Chapter do over the next year to be eligible for a 2013 ICF Chapter Award?

Step-By-Step Guide to Getting PR (Public Relations), Publicity, Blogger and Traditional Media Exposure for your Coaching Business

This guide is based on Owen McGab Enaohwo’s interview with Jason Womack.
While he was a high school teacher, Jason Womack started offering a class once a month to teach students about other aspects of life they wouldn’t find in books such as how to study for a test or how to organize their work space. This glimpse into helping people lead more productive lives made Jason decide to become a coach.

Today, Jason is an Executive Coach, the CEO and co-founder of The Womack Company, a personal development firm that presents techniques to enhance personal productivity and team effectiveness, and he’s the author of the book, “You’re Best Just Got Better: Work Smarter, Think Bigger, Make More”. He’s been featured on CBS and Fox News and has been published in magazines like Inc. and Entrepreneur.

Jason believes that most people these days treat their PR like a transaction instead of like a relationship. In this interview he offered some very valuable tips to help you stop making transactions and start building relationships.

Here are the actionable highlights from the video:

1. Find the journalists and authors who write about what you’re working on so you can start building relationships with them.

Jason talked about how he goes about finding the journalists and authors he wants to build relationships with. He does two specific things that help him do this.

Action Step 1 – Make a list of the magazines, newspapers, blogs, radio shows, and television shows where you would like to be mentioned or have your material offered. Then set Google Alerts for all the journalists who write in your domain. When one of them writes something, read it and send them the thank you email using the 4-step process above

Action Step 2 - Do a Twitter Search

1. Save searches with certain keywords then check in to see who has typed sentences with those key phrases in them
2. Jump into the conversation if and when appropriate
3. Follow them
4. Tweet at them if you can
5. Add something to their post and tag them
6. Then, find out which journalists are tweeting, blogging, Facebooking, LinkedIn-ing about that subject and find a way you can join the conversation

2. Write to the journalists and authors of the articles and books you read to start building a relationship with them.

Jason was at a conference listening to a lady on a panel speak. While he was listening, he made a list of six different article ideas for the magazine she worked for which happened to be Entrepreneur. When the discussion was over, he walked up to the lady and used the following formula to start building a relationship with her:

• Thank You – He thanked her for what she contributed to the discussion
• Here’s Why – He went on to tell her about one specific thing he really enjoyed hearing about
• Here’s Someone Similar – He brought up another article or book he had read that related to what the lady was talking about
• Here’s what I would like to add – He showed her his list of ideas
• The lady took the list and eventually contacted Jason to write an article for Entrepreneur.

Action Step – For the next five days, read an article or blog post and write to the journalist or author who wrote that article. Use Jason’s formula:            

• Thank You – Thank them for taking the time to write the article.
• Here’s Why – Tell them what you learned and why it matters to you.
• Here’s Someone Similar – Provide the name of someone who’s writing something similar
• Here’s What I Would Like to Add – Let them know your idea and make sure the collateral you send them outlines the idea fully without giving away too much for free.

3. Create a piece of collateral to give to the journalist or author so they can see that you do have good ideas to contribute.

Jason says there are two reasons most journalists delete most of the stuff people send them; people send ideas that are only half though out and they send the information without first building a relationship with the journalists.A good example of this type of collateral is a press release. Jason has a five-step formula he uses to write his press releases. The formula is:

I. Problem
II. Significance
III. Statistics
IV. Solution
V. Case Study

Action Step – Construct a press release using Jason’s formula that addresses a problem and then shows the journalist the solution

4. Define the success of your PR campaign so you’ll know what to do and what not to do next time.

Are people calling or emailing you and saying that they enjoyed your piece and telling you why or how it helped them? Are they leaving comments on your blog post?

Action Step – Find a blog post or article you wrote that didn’t get any feedback. Reread the piece and see if there’s something you can change that will make people comment.

5. Make a “So That” list so you know why you’re doing the things you do.

Jason says that once you know why you’re doing the things you’re doing to get PR, you can better assess whether those things are worth doing or not.

Action Step – Make a list of all of the things you do to get PR for yourself and after each one write “so that” and then write the reason why you’re doing each thing. This will give you a better idea of whether or not what you’re doing is a good idea or not.

Want to make sure you get the same results with you PR Campaigns?

Watch the full interview now by clicking on this link and when you are done share other PR or Publicity getting ideas on this blog by using the commenting form below.

Owen McGab Enaohwo provides time-strapped coaches with Virtual Assistants at H.Y.V.A.™ and he is the host of The Coach Blueprint™ a video interview series where successful and proven coaches come to teach tips, strategies and ideas that are currently working for them.