Recovery in Executive Coaching -- What it is, and How It Makes you Unique

ICF  Global Executive Practice Community of Practice on 3 October, 2012, 12:00 p.m. (New York)

Recovery in Executive Coaching -- What it is, and How It Makes you Unique

Ram Ramanathan

Deborah Huisken and a panel will discuss 'Recovery in Executive Coaching and Uniqueness -- What's the Connection?' on 3 October First Wednesday at NOON ET USA.  Pl join 1-212-457-9879  PIN: 622186# 

There is a growing international body of coaches helping executives understand what misuse is, how that turns into addiction (or not), what recovery is, and why they should know about it, both for themselves and for the people around them. The recent International Recovery Coaching Conference (IRCC – Oct. 1 & 2) in London is one among many demonstrations of the worldwide interest in this topic.

This panel session will be moderated by UK-based business coach and consultant Deborah Huisken of Dancing Star International ("one must embrace the chaos within to give birth to a dancing star"), and will include UK/Italian-based Executive Recovery Coach / Trainer and Chair of the IRCC Anthony Eldredge-Rogers, as well as US-based sobriety and career coach Jess Dods. They will discuss:

1. What is addiction, and how useful is this label?
2. What does recovery coaching look like?
3. Does spirituality play a role in the process, and if so, what is that role?
4. Why should you as a coach understand these issues and how will learning about them increase your edge – your uniqueness – both as a coach and as a human being?

Deborah has participated in recovery-oriented initiatives since 1989.  She brings recovery principles into all of her work, as a way to help business clients deepen their understanding of themselves and their choices.  She founded her business coaching and consulting company, Dancing Star International (DSI) in 1994, in part to find a way to weave this experience into her work.  She serves as a thinking partner to small to medium-sized enterprises, helping leaders and their teams develop their businesses and themselves.  Her clients have held mid- to senior-level roles in consumer, business-to-business, science, and arts organizations, including Apple Computer, General Dynamics, Hewlett Packard, London School of Economics, SunTory, Philips, Pfizer, the British Government, and the United States Federal Government.  Deborah focuses on what makes her clients unique (e.g. giftedness, high sensitivity, eccentricity, being highly-talented or multi-talented, recovering from addiction or surviving trauma, being a right-brained engineer) to help them understand how to leverage that uniqueness in the work they do; work that their organizations and the world needs from them. Born in the United States, Deborah lived in the UK for most of the 1990s.  She returned to the UK in 2009 and currently divides her time between the southwestern USA, northeastern USA, and England.  In her corporate roles she has worked across Europe and in Israel; in addition she has worked with individual coaching and consulting clients from around the world including Canada, Europe, England, Japan, Sweden, Trinidad, Israel, Ghana, Korea, and the US.

Anthony Eldridge-Rogers has a lifetime of experience in recovery. He has spent over 30 years and thousands of hours learning about recovery and assisting people to achieve it. He is a trained coach, taking certification with CTI (the Coaches Training Institute), an ICF-accredited training organisation.  He has developed and presented workshops on Mastering Recovery from Addiction as well as developing Recovery Coach Training Programmes and approaches. He is also a recovery coaching programme design consultant. 2012 will see the publication of  his first book, An Introduction to Recovery Coaching, for coaches and others interested in the recovery field.  Anthony runs a private recovery coaching practice and consultancy covering the field of recovery coaching and works with clients across the world from the US, EU and Africa.  In 2010 he was invited to become a fellow of the RSA where he has recently founded the RSA Coaching & Mentoring Initiative.  He is a board member of RCI, (Recovery Coaches International), and founded the FRC (Foundation for Recovery Coaching) UK in 2011.  The primary objective of the FRC is to remove the economic barriers to entry for anyone wishing to become a recovery coach.  He lives in the UK and Italy with his wife Lehla and has three children, twin daughters Olive and Amari and son Jahli.

Jess Dods brings 26 years of continuous sobriety to his career coaching work. He holds an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.  He has held operations, business development and management positions with global energy companies and banks, as well as senior management consulting positions with Arthur D Little and Navigant Consulting.  Jess has lived in several countries around the world.  He began career transformation coaching full time in 2003, having added coaching training to his grounding in domestic and international business realities.   His clients include executives, managers and professionals from business, not-for-profits, academia, attorneys, government, international development, banking, finance, consultants, physical and social sciences.   Jess trained with the Coaches Training Institute and with Lee Hecht Harrison as Certified Career Transition Consultant. He is a Member of the Harvard Maclean Institute of Coaching Professional Association (ICPA).  He is experienced in a range of assessment tools and the application of positive psychology tools in coaching.

Ram S Ramanathan
Mentor Coach, PCC , BCC
Bangalore, India
+919845691920

Customers first

Customer Service Week is internationally recognized the first full week of October. For coaches, this is an opportune time to revisit your customer service strategies. Here are two specific ways you can commemorate Customer Service Week:

• Revisit your customer service policies. How do you handle potential clients? Your current clients? Future clients?
• Show gratitude to all existing clients. How do you show your appreciation?

 Next week, consider what you can do to make customers first!

 

Coaching the Distance: Bridging cultural gaps seamlessly with state of the art communication technology

Below is part of an occasional blog series highlighting the Catalysts and sessions of ICF Global 2012.

Ralf Wolter, ACC

State of the art Internet collaboration tools and high-definition video conferencing solutions are affordable and ready for use.

• How can you leverage these to make a virtual coaching experience for your client even better than an in-person meeting?
• Are you aware of coaching opportunities in the virtual world?
• Imagine a video coaching experience that is as ral as being in the same room: what would you do?
• Do you use group coaching to attract new clients?
• How can you make it easy and cost-effective for new clients to join your sessions?
• Do you have clients who do not want to travel and dislike audio coaching?
• Over 75% of Fortune 500 companies use HD video conferencing solutions.
• Are you ready to connect with them?
• Does using communication technology cause you panic?
• Are you familiar with cultural aspects of coaching globally?
• We will discuss practical approaches and practice latest collaboration tools. Join us to share your experience with virtual coaching across cultures and learn from others.



Patricia Weiland, PCC

Join this interactive session to experience "coaching the distance," including real-time demonstrations using the latest technology. The demonstration will show you how to leverage technology for better understanding in your coaching sessions. Learn how to create incredible brainstorming with a virtual white-board. Ensure accountability with the sharing of homework documents. In addition you can also connect with other coaches to be able to test, troubleshoot and tackle new technology in your own office. After the session at the ICF Conference join the online discussion from your office to test and update your virtual technology offerings.

 

Find more details and a presentation pre-view.

 

Join our LinkedIn and Facebook communities.

 

Ralf Wolter, ACC, and Patricia Weiland, PCC, are Catalysts at ICF Global 2012, October 3-6 in London, UK, where they will be presenting “Coaching the Distance: Bridging cultural gaps seamlessly with technology." Learn more.

Climb Higher with Customer Testimonials

It's human nature to want credit for our accomplishments. When we've made someone happy, we want that person to shout it from a mountaintop. But in the small business world, getting a satisfied client to scale that proverbial mountain can be tricky, and if potential customers aren't listening nearby, praises may go unheard. So how can a coach be sure positive feedback reaches their market? Whether gathered through surveys, comment cards, or focus groups, reviews must be recognized, acted upon, and shared to lift your business to the uppermost peak. How can you use testimonials to reach the summit?

Listen and understand feedback.
Both positive and negative comments can lay a path to the top. Pay attention to compliments to gain an understanding of what's important to customers -- you may uncover a new marketable strength. Complaints and suggestions should be relayed into smart changes to better serve your clients. For example, customers may be seeking additional services or prefer a payment plan over one bill. Just remember, when you implement a change based on a customer's feedback, tell that person. Letting a client know you're listening is one of the best ways to secure loyalty for the long haul.

Make strategic adjustments.
Organize your reviews into three categories: calls for immediate action, modifications affecting this year's revenue, and long-term game-changers. After deciding on needed adjustments, test ideas against your budget and resources, talk to your regular clients to assess their reactions to changes, and establish measurable benchmarks to gauge your plan's success over a set period.

Share your strengths.
Word of mouth is a small business's lifeline, but rather than shouts of praise from a mountaintop, encourage conversations in locations where the right people will hear your message. Direct mailers should always include a page or two of diverse, persuasive comments from your clients. And with much of today's social networking concentrated online, the Internet also makes an ideal environment for planting reviews. Place concise and specific customer quotes in highly visible, well-trafficked spots on your website. Leverage your Facebook page by encouraging clients to "like" your business, then asking pointed questions (i.e., "In what way has my coaching been most helpful to you?") with your status updates to encourage positive comments on your wall. Establish a YouTube or Vimeo channel and post video testimonials of satisfied clients sharing their experiences. And brainstorm incentives to persuade dedicated patrons to post their feedback on city-specific directories, search engines, and review websites like Ask City, Angie's List, Yelp, Judy's Book, and InsiderPages.com -- you can even simplify the process by linking directly to your listing on these sites from your own webpage. Such personalized, credible reviews not only help generate real interest from prospective clients, but also help you climb higher in local search rankings and, ultimately, surmount the competition.

Christopher Wallace

Christopher Wallace, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Amsterdam Printing, has more than 20 years experience in sales and marketing. At Amsterdam Printing, a leading provider of custom pens and other promotional items such as custom USB drives, Christopher is focused on providing quality marketing materials to small, mid-size and large businesses. He regularly contributes to Promo & Marketing Wall blog.

Say the word

Last month, in honor of the word ‘life coach’ being added to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, we asked our Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/icfhq) fans to answer the following question, “Coaches, what do you think this says about the professional coaching industry and its future?” Take a look below to see how our Facebook fans responded:

“Our work is global and significant.” (Kaylus Adams Vision-Coach)

“What is a life coach? Look it up!” (Keith Lawrence Miller)

“I think this signifies the relevance we as coaches have in today’s world. It validates what we have long known; that coaches are the gateway to professional success and personal happiness for people today.” (Inspired Heather Paris)

“This means that somewhoe, people recognize that hiring a coach to make better different areas of someone’s life is a great investment. I say investment and not expense because taking care of our well-being is key to our success and happiness. I would also add that taking care of the ‘life’ side of the human being will for benefit the ‘business’ side too. Everything is interlinked: career, health, happiness, spirituality, love life, etc.” (Ines Mahjoub)

“It should be a goal of all coaches to one day ‘life coach’ can be removed from Webster because our work will be done.” (Dean Miles)

“The protectors of our language, who manage new entries for our dictionaries, are not trendsetters. They reflect, rather than create new language. Thus, they rarely accept a new word until it is already mainstream. That the term Life Coach is recognized sufficiently to enter the permanent records says something about the legitimacy and acceptance of coaching. I am happy to hear it!” (Jim Smith)

“This is a huge acknowledgement of what we bring.” (Anouk Boering)

“How far we’ve come in awareness and understanding about coaching in the past 17 years!” (Diane Gard Brennan)

“I posted this on the Merriam-Webster page: Glad to see the profession listed but we never use the term ‘advisor’ to define a coach, as advice-giving is decidedly not the role of a coach, but rather, the role of a mentor. Professional coaches question, probe, prod, reflect, clarify, challenge, and many other things but virtually never do they advise, direct, instruct, or provide recommendations. I beg you to contact the ICF for perspective on this, since you are viewed as a definitive resource and you have inaccurately portrayed the very core of this new profession through the use of the word ‘advisor’.” (Christopher McCluskey)

“Woo hoo! We’ve come a long way, baby!” (Linda McCarrin)

“I believe the life (and business) coaching profession is at an embryo stage as people of this magnificent planet need so much more of being held as naturally creative, resourceful, and whole human beings! Coaching has come a long way and its domino-effect and therefore, impact, will be part of a transformative synergy in the future.” (Veronique Pigeon)

“Great achievement indeed! We are changing the world and this is the best proof. Way to go life coaches everywhere!” (Rawan Albina)

“Hats off to the pioneers of this field who believed in what they do and continued changing lives.” (Fatima Nakhjavanpur)

What about you? What does this mean for the coaching profession and our future? We’d love to know—leave a response below or join the conversation at Facebook.com/ICFHQ.