International Association of Coaching Blog

IAC Learning Agreements – One Member's Experience

Editor's Note: Following up on Natalie Tucker Miller's Inside Scoop column about the IAC's new Learning Agreements, I sat down with Angela Spaxman, Past President of the IAC, who just completed her first Learning Agreement Proposal.

Linda: What was your role in creating the Learning Agreement process?

Angela: I was a witness and a conversational partner in creating the concept of the Learning Agreement process. We (the IAC Executive Committee and Strategy Committee) had been searching for years for a way to have a truly progressive system for encouraging, supporting and accounting for continuous learning among our professional members. We knew that the conventional process of awarding Continuing Education Points had too many limitations to make us feel proud of our system. One day, current IAC President, Bob Tschannen-Moran brought up the concept of "giving yourself an 'A'," which comes from Benjamin Zander's book. It was a very exciting moment when we realized the potential and advantages of this idea and the idea continued to develop over the next few days into something we absolutely loved.

Linda: What was your experience in submitting a Learning Agreement Proposal?

Angela: Even though I was one of the designers of the Learning Agreement concept, I still felt a little nervous about having the review meeting with Natalie, one of the Certifiers. I guess we are all so deeply programmed to assume we will be judged, that I also was unconsciously holding several unconstructive beliefs about the whole process. I thought I would have to defend my proposal, whereas in fact I was encouraged, supported and guided in how to make it meet my needs even better. I thought I would have to prove myself to an assessor, but actually it was a very enjoyable and empowering process. It felt like a masterful coaching session, and as a result, I was very pleased with the value I received compared to the money I paid.

Linda: What are some of the activities you designated in your proposal?

Angela: Actually, the activities I designed were quite conventional …taking some yoga and meditation courses and participating in a ReciproCoach mentoring round. Natalie, my reviewer, helped me realize I could be a lot more creative next time in finding many different and perhaps more subtle and less expensive (!) ways to meet my objectives.

Linda: What will you measure or track over the year in preparation for submitting your Completed Learning Agreement?

Angela: It really is useful to have a written record of what I am trying to develop in myself as a coach. I have reviewed my objectives about once per quarter and I've noticed several new ways that I can work towards them. When I submit my Completed Learning Agreement, I will be reflecting on the whole past year and making some notes about what I have achieved.

Linda: What are some suggestions for coaches who are designing their own Learning Agreement?

Angela: I have two suggestions:

1) Try to be as practical as you can with your learning agreement activities. Be inventive to find activities that truly fit your needs and will have a real impact on you, rather than focusing on what can be measured, or what are the standard ways of learning. You don't need to attend a course, hire a coach or read a book, although those are excellent ways to meet many objectives. You don't need to have evidence like a piece of paper or a certificate to prove your learning. The best evidence is really in the behaviour and attitude changes that you will witness in yourself, or that others will see in you.

Natalie and I laughed over the example that if you want to improve your ability in Mastery #4, Processing in the Present, you could commit to scrubbing your kitchen floor mindfully, once per month, and then do a self-assessment of your progress in being present and aware. Now that is efficient!

2) Connect your learning objectives clearly to the Masteries. There are many ways to do this. Virtually all of your true learning objectives as a coach can be aligned with the Masteries, since they really do cover everything that a masterful coach does. For example, if you're going to take a course on assessments, you could connect that to Mastery #9 if your intention is to offer those assessments as a new system or structure that is relevant to your clients' needs. Or, if you're going to start a regular meditation practice, you could connect that to Mastery #4 if you intend to use that practice to help you be more clear and aware in the present moment. If you're going to work with your own coach this year, you could use that relationship as a model for Mastery #1, and by experiencing a deeply trustful coaching relationship, improve your own ability to form such relationships.

It's okay to work backwards from the learning you are already intending to do. The Learning Agreement is meant to strengthen your clarity and commitment for your learning goals as a coach.

It's essential that your learning objectives are connected to the Masteries, because that's how we know that your objectives, no matter how diverse they may be, actually are connected to your effectiveness as a coach.

Linda: What did you appreciate about the process?

Angela: My favorite thing about the process is the implied trust and respect I feel from being empowered to determine freely what I most want and need to develop in myself and how I am going to do it. To me, this is one of the highest values of coaching that is expressed directly through this process.

Linda: How do you hope the process will evolve?

Angela: I hope over time we can communicate more clearly what this process is really about. Some of the wording in the descriptions can be improved for this purpose. For example, perhaps we should call the Review Session a Coaching Session, which is more accurate and less likely to make people fear the process.

I'm sure that as more people go through the process, we will have many more examples to help members create Learning Agreements that are personally enticing and effective. After the first experience, we will learn to approach the process with positive anticipation rather than dread!

 

Angela Spaxman was the Founding President of the Hong Kong International Coaching Community and is the Immediate Past President of the IAC. Angela has been coaching for 10 years. She is a Career and Leadership Coach for managers, professionals, business people and coaches. You may contact her at http://www.lovingworkandleading.com.

 

 

  

 

Linda Dessau, CPCC, is the author of Write Your Way to More Clients Online. She offers ghostwriting, editing, training and consulting. If you want better results from your online writing, visit www.ContentMasteryGift.com to discover Linda's content marketing secrets.

Lessons from the Certifiers

 

Are the IAC Learning Agreements a Good Idea?
by Natalie Tucker Miller, IAC-CC

There has been quite a bit of discussion about the IAC Learning Agreements, some of it thanks to Barbra Sundquist's great question on some coaching networks, "Are the IAC Learning Agreements a good idea?"

The response has been amazing! Amidst many misconceptions, I invited coaches to contact me directly, which they did. I have been spending time emailing and talking with people who want to offer their opinions, find answers to their questions, and contribute to the ongoing process of coaching evolution. Have I mentioned that I love being part of this organization? I’m sure I have in previous columns, and let me tell you, connecting with members in this meaningful way is one of the best perks I could imagine.

Last year, when I first heard of the learning agreement concept that arose from the member-driven strategic planning process, I recognized that I had some firsthand experience with this type of approach.

In addition to reminding me of the wonderful philosophy of Ben Zander as outlined in The Art of Possibility, my family had embraced a similar philosophy years earlier. A fan of autonomy and self-directed learning, I wanted to give my children options as to how and on what they focused their learning attentions. We decided on home schooling. It was delightful to watch my children direct their own education, rather than the other way around. They created their own "learning agreements" and as a result, the learning was profoundly meaningful for each of them. The activities they chose made sense and aligned with their innate gifts, preferences and life purpose.

This is the philosophy upon which the IAC Learning Agreements stand: Coaches at the helm of their own continuing coach education, extracting meaning and purpose as is applies to the individual coach.

So how might one go about determining how to extract the powerful concepts of the Masteries from their own coach-related activities? (Members, continue reading here)

To join the IAC, click here.

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Do you have a question that you’d like to ask the certifiers? Submit your questions here: http://certifiedcoachblog.typepad.com/blog/ask-the-certifiers.html.

 
Natalie Tucker Miller, IAC-CC, is the Lead Certifier and a certifying examiner at the IAC, as well as Past-President. Natalie is founder of Ageless-Sages.com Publishing (www.ageless-sages.com), and creator of the literary genre, Picture Books for Elders™.

 

Please send your questions on the IAC Coaching Masteries^® and the certification process to certification@certifiedcoach.org.

Living the Masteries

Living the Masteries is a regular column where we invite coaches to share their experiences of Living the Masteries in their everyday lives. As we become aware of the Masteries and really understand and use them, we realise just how powerful they are and how, used effectively, they can truly make a lasting difference to the world.

This month we shine the spotlight on Mastery #5 – Expressing

Expressing is all about how we communicate, how we communicate our commitment, intent and ideas to others. It’s about asking ourselves, "Just how effective is my communication?"

I have often been frustrated and irritated by my interactions with others. I’ve felt unheard, misunderstood and bored. In fact this has happened to me a lot. Studying Mastery #5 has helped me to understand what these people were mirroring to me. It’s given me the opportunity to clean up my communication and express myself much more effectively. This benefits me as well as those I speak to, whether professionally as a coach or in all the other areas of my life. This is what I have learnt:

Good listening isn't enough

In order to express myself effectively, I need to listen well. However, even if I am an effective listener, I don’t automatically add value to a conversation through my words. Good communication helps put others at ease and helps them to trust. When I express myself well, I also leave room for others to ask questions and interact with me.

Communicate FOR not TO

The Masteries e-book encourages us to communicate FOR the client not TO the client. What does this mean?

When I choose to share information or interact with another person, I find it helpful to ask myself, "What is my motive for saying this? Am I just sharing this information to make myself seem knowledgeable or will this information enhance the exchange and serve as a springboard for further discovery? Am I speaking just to fill the gaps or would a moment of silence here enable us both to deepen our understanding of what is going on?"

Communication is collaboration

Effective communication with another person is collaborative when we both feel heard and respected. I find it helpful to pause from time to time and to make sure that I give ample opportunity to the other person to share with me and to express themselves. If I interrupt I make sure it is in the interest of clear communication between us versus just to get my point across or to have my say. My experience has taught me that when I am mindful of all of the above, I am more authentic in my communication too.

When we become able to express ourselves masterfully, we add value to all our exchanges not only by what we say, but also by what we don’t say. Conversations expand our relationships and the way we say things can be a springboard for more open, meaningful and satisfying discussions.

I’d now like to invite Alberto J. Calderón to tell us about some of his experience of using Mastery #5 with clients.

Having effective, clear and friendly exchanges with my clients, or with others in my life, has entailed commitment, focus and deep self-awareness. Learning how to express myself has invited me to become more attentive to others and to appreciate all of who they are. With my clients it has meant that they feel the freedom to be themselves. I have noticed that they then begin to assign new meanings and interpretations to their experiences and move forward at their own pace. I invite my clients to design respectful communication spaces in their lives, focused on who they are and what they want, according to the different situations they find themselves in. Interactions become more confident and exciting and ideas flow freely.

Expressing is a special Mastery that enables the coach to adapt to the client’s rhythm, using his own resources to help him move forward, without imposing anything on the client.

Effective expressing helps me to look for the best in myself and to offer it to my clients. It invites me to study, know myself, transcend, and cultivate inner virtues and qualities and to develop new abilities. It is a permanent invitation to move my own excellence forward. Each client provides a new opportunity to serve, enabling me to contribute to creating a better world.

I invite you to think about your conversations. Do you impose your ideas or opinions, or do you help open up new possibilities and synergies, where the ideas of your clients flow freely?

 
 

Alberto J. Calderón, MCS, PCC, OC, MBA, doctorate (Social Anthropology) is the President of MORE Global, CCS-Comunidad de Coaching Sistémico and the IAC Chapter of Mexico. Alberto is a coach, consultant, teacher, trainer, researcher and life learner, seeking to improve personal evolution, the productivity of organizations and quality of life. www.morecoach.com

 

This is your column, it can only continue if you share your experiences of Living the Masteries. Would you be willing to share how you were inspired to see new possibilities for yourself and your life or how you helped others do this? Please send us your stories—you will inspire others by your sharing, and by talking about the Masteries, we create an echo chamber where their power takes on new meaning in the world.

Send your contributions to Alison Davis at Alison@foundationsforliving.com, so she can share them for you in the Living the Masteries column in the VOICE each month.

 
 
Alison Davis, IAC-CC, is a certifying examiner at the IAC, coach, mentor coach and founder of the IAC–licensed virtual coaching school Foundations for Living. Discover more at www.foundationsforliving.com. 

From the Editor

Linda

Welcome to the July 2011 issue of the IAC VOICE!

There is a lot to celebrate about IAC membership today. In his President's Message, Bob Tschannen-Moran reveals the details of a powerful new membership benefit that is the helping the IAC express one of its core values. Curious? Check it out!

We also feature another member benefit with an article by Confident Coach Connection's Doris Helge, who presents her tips for confident business building.

In IAC Chapter News, IAC Coaches in Hong Kong announced the birth of their new IAC Masteries^® book. Find out more and join the party!

In the second part of her series on coaching the Higher Being, IAC Licensee Deborah Williams explores how the yogic concept of the koshas (layers of self) can lead you and your clients to a state of Higher Being.

Want the Inside Scoop on what our IAC Certifiers find most challenging about coaching? Natalie Tucker Miller tells all.

Finally, if you ever struggle with the length of your to do list, professional organizer Claire Tompkins returns to the VOICE this month to ask: "Is that task really urgent or does it just seem that way?"

Alison Davis will be back soon with her column, Living the Masteries. In the meantime, you can browse previous entries here.

Our 2011 submission guidelines for the VOICE are available on the website. Submissions are welcome anytime through the month.

Please contact me with your article ideas and your feedback about this issue. Enjoy!

Warm wishes,
Linda

Linda Dessau, CPCC
Editor, IAC^® VOICE
Email: voice@certifiedcoach.org
www.contentmasteryguide.com

P.S. Are you on Twitter? You can follow the IAC at http://twitter.com/IACCoachMastery. There is also a list of VOICE authors, columnists and IAC BOG members at http://twitter.com/lindadessau/iac-voice-contributors.

From the President

by Bob Tschannen-Moran, IAC-CC
president@certifiedcoach.org

The IAC: A Coaching Organization

The title of this month’s President’s message may seem a bit odd since "IAC" stands for the "International Association of Coaching," but not every professional association of coaches is itself a "coaching organization." What’s the difference? Some organizations support the work of coaching without actually engaging in the experience of coaching itself. There’s nothing wrong with that, but that’s not the way the IAC chooses to go about its business.

From its inception, the IAC has understood and lifted up the importance of a simple principle: be a coach, have a coach. Coaches who have never had the experience of being coached, or who have not been in a coaching relationship for many years, lack something kind of crucial. It’s a matter of walking the talk. That’s especially true for those coaches who aspire to coaching mastery. Mastery is gained incrementally over time, as we coach and experience coaching across many hours of professional practice.

That principle is certainly widespread in the coaching industry. Indeed, there are those who criticize some coaching associations because of how they have linked the requirement of being coached to coach certification. It can come across as a racket, where the requirement of being coached for certification fills the practices of those who hold the keys to certification. For all their developmental value, such arrangements can drain the pure "love of learning for learning’s sake" out of coaching relationships.

The IAC has avoided these conflicts by not specifying a particular path of development for those who would seek coach certification. Although the IAC acknowledges and affirms the value of mentor coaching, coach training, supervision and other forms of coach preparation, even licensing mentors and training programs to use the IAC Coaching Masteries^® in their work, the IAC does not specify how to prepare for certification. Coaches are free to choose the preparation path that suits them best, demonstrating their mastery through the IAC certification process when they are ready.

Since the IAC does not require coaching for certification, the IAC has been seeking other ways to express and live into its commitment to the "be a coach, have a coach" principle. As with all young organizations, it has taken a while for the IAC to figure out how to do that. Just as it took time for the IAC to develop the Learning Agreement Process as a way of adding rigor and integrity to the Practitioner and Certified Coach designations, so has it taken time for the IAC to become a coaching organization in which every member is not only encouraged but also empowered to experience coaching for themselves.

That time has now arrived. Through a strategic partnership with ReciproCoach, a global "match-making" service for professional coaches founded in 2005 by IAC Board of Governors’ member Kerryn Griffiths, the IAC is now offering every IAC member a way to not only "be a coach," but also to "have a coach," absolutely free of charge, for up to eight sessions each on an annual basis. This $55 USD value is now included in every IAC membership. It is an exciting opportunity that holds great potential for elevating the coaching game of every IAC member. Here is how the service works:

1. When people join or renew their membership in the IAC, they have the ability to receive a voucher code, as a Member Benefit, for one round of reciprocal coaching, mentoring or supervision through ReciproCoach.
2. The voucher code makes signing up and participating with ReciproCoach completely free of charge to the IAC member.
3. By signing up, coaches are agreeing to provide up to 8 hours of coaching or 3 hours of mentoring or supervision and to receive a like number of coaching, mentoring or supervision hours in return.
4. Coaches do not coach and receive coaching from the same individuals. This is not "buddy coaching" (you coach me and I coach you). Instead, ReciproCoach serves as the "match maker," based upon your pre-identified criteria, to make sure that the right coaches find each other in order to optimize their professional learning, growth and development.

What’s the difference between coaching, mentoring and supervision? ReciproCoach has defined each category rather clearly. Coaching is coaching: a transformative process for personal and professional awareness, discovery and growth. Mentoring is listening to another person coach in order to provide constructive feedback and coaching on that. Supervision is a process for accelerating client progress through talking with other coaches about the process, theory and practice of coaching.

All that and more is now available to IAC members, absolutely free of charge, with no strings attached. If you are a current IAC member and you have not yet taken advantage of this exciting new opportunity, then I encourage you to do so immediately. Once you log into the member area at the new IAC website, click on Continuing Development and then click on the ReciproCoach link to find out more and to generate your own ReciproCoach voucher code.

If you are not yet an IAC member, then this opportunity provides you with one more reason to join. By investing in your continued growth and development as a coach through our strategic partnership with ReciproCoach, the IAC has added a $55 USD bonus (the cost for one round in ReciproCoach) to your membership, at no extra cost to you. It's hard to find a better bargain in the coaching world. And don't forget about the $10 USD discount for early-bird renewal for current members!

Ask yourself: In what ways do you support your own professional development and growth as a coach? When was the last time that you actually received coaching in a formal coaching relationship? What’s stopping you from getting more coaching right now? How could participation in ReciproCoach assist you to become the best coach you can possibly be?

May you be filled with goodness, peace and joy,
Bob

 
 
Bob Tschannen-Moran, IAC-CC, is CEO & Co-Founder of the Center for School Transformation and President of LifeTrek Coaching International. Bob has co-authored a new book, titled Evocative Coaching, which incorporates the IAC Coaching Masteries^® in a coaching model designed for leaders and coaches in schools.