Two days ago, I attended an event hosted by Knowledge Resources, entitled Burning Issues on Coaching, where coaching experts Natalie Witthuhn, Director of Leadership Development Centre (LDC) at Wits Business School, and Sunny Stout Rostron, President of COMENSA and author of Business Coaching Wisdom and Practice, highlighted some of the principal issues around coaching in today’s society.

I thoroughly enjoyed both speakers and walked away with quite a few insights and some research to do. (And as usual came away with a couple more questions.)

First, I was surprised to discover that officially coaching as an industry is only approximately 10 years old and as a profession does not yet exist, which is why it is difficult to find any relevant information prior to that. Of course unofficially it has been around for centuries, with Socrates probably our first coach, but documentation and books on business, executive or any kind of specialized coaching have only recently become available for modern day coaching. It made me understand why when asked to choose a profession from drop-down boxes, coaching is only rarely listed.

It was also interesting to learn that currently there is no curricula available if a pre-matriculant should decide that they would want to go into coaching after passing their matric, although luckily this will be resolved by the time my 14 year old son leaves school, since the LDC is currently developing curriculum to cater to this emerging profession, where graduates are rewarded with a Business Executive Coaching Certificate (BECC) from WBS on completion of their training program, and in 2011 a Masters Degree in coaching will be available.

The program runs over a period of 6 months and includes 150 hours of classroom content and 40 hours of practical coaching, In addition to coaching competencies, the curriculum covers business acumen, handling change management and organizational theories as applied in a coaching environment.

For more details go to WBS is a member of GSAEC (Global School Alliance for Executive Coaching.)

In South Africa today, there appears to be only one coaching academy that has international accreditation and is also SETA accredited, which is the Consciousness Coaching International Training Academy (CCI). In fact the academy is one of only 50 academies worldwide to have received the ICF’ Accredited Coach Training Program (ACTP) certification. CCI is also currently looking at developing a coaching program specifically designed for teenagers and younger people, so my son has a double chance of pursing coaching as profession should he choose to do so.

Several coaching bodies, institutes and academies are collaborating around the world to create a charter and a code of practice, which will clearly define the requirements for coaching to become recognized as an established profession In addition to regular interaction to discuss matters pertaining to this changing world, these professionals of the coaching world will be meeting at the Global Coaching Convention to be held in Cape Town in 2010.

I found it exciting to be a part of something that will change the way coaching is viewed and applied worldwide. And it is seems very strange to me that this had not be done previously so as Natalie continued to speak my mind idly conversed,

“So what happened between the coaches of ancient Greece and today? Did humanity fall asleep? Of course it did!”

Back to Ms Witthuhn, (I probably missed some of this since my mind was busy playing with ancient coaches) who addressed five critical points, highlighting some of the steps required in order for coaching to become a profession:

1- Accreditation – Currently provided by the ICF and GASCE who are recognized in the coaching field to provide norms, measures and guidelines for coaches to follow in order to provide high quality standards of service to the client;

2- Duration – A predefined number of accountable hours must be completed by the coach, with a period of integration and competency assessments provided by an accredited third party;

3- Theoretical – What methods, knowledge, skills and attitudes are acquired by the coach which will support their partnership with their client in a professional manner;

4- What do coaches need to know –
a. How people learn
b. Understand change and change management
c. They must have some understanding of psychological literacy
d. They must be eclectic in their background knowledge

5- Supervision – How is the industry currently monitored? What happens if the coach is no longer coached, mentored or stimulated to continue their own growth

The key to successful coaching, is having a full understanding of the coaching environment and the manner in which we must constantly evolve in order to provide the best service for clients… Ms. Witthuhn outlined succinctly the principal foundations from which professional coaches can create a solid context in order to do just that…

What questions do you have around coaching that has not been answered? Maybe some of those were also raised as the morning session continued? Look out for Part 2 in the next few days to find out.

Joan Laine

Transformational Life & Business Coach

Social Media

Social Media has modified the way we communicate with each other in such a dramatic manner and it has actually revolutionized communication.

Previously, if I wanted to invite my family to my son’s wedding, I would have to spend a couple of months just getting everyone’s addresses, then a couple of days writing out the invites and then, spend a couple of months following up and making sure that I got my RSVP’s back in time so that I could confirm the number of guests attending.

Now, I could get onto Facebook, create a 200 word invite, invite all my guests and wait for them to get back to me, sending out a couple of reminders from time to time. The whole process would take me a few hours and the follow up a couple of minutes. I can send the invites 3 to 6 months before hand and final confirmations could be done two weeks prior to the wedding day. No matter where my family and friends are in the world, they would all get the invites at the same time and inform those that are not on FB.

I could begin building my own online album through Kodak online or Shutterfly and as my son leaves for his honeymoon, the whole world would have the video-clips of the wedding on You-Tube to watch immediately, in fact my family in the UK, France and Jamaica could participate in the wedding live, if we set up a webinar or a skype session☺.

With a simple click, I can then Tweet it and make sure that my blogs, personal and or business website is updated and Voila! Instant marriage, souvenirs and albums created all at once for the whole world to see.

The scenario that I have just projected is the reality of the changes that have happened so fast in the world of communications (though I am sure my son would be extremely unhappy if I did organize his wedding that way!). With a little Blackberry phone, I don’t even need to be anywhere close to my laptop or telephone line in order to share my world with you in an instant.

What are your thoughts on these changes? Do you like them, or do want to go back to the good old days? Well… actually, does it really matter if you do like it or not? I’d say yes! Best make friends with all this new technological stuff, because your kids use it, whether you want them to or not and it is far better to be conscious of what can and cannot be done using a communication platform such as MXIT, rather make the assumption that it must be this or it must be that only to find out later what your child has been up to with someone possibly halfway across the world.

By you choosing how to make the social media platforms work for you, you enter a world, where you are the owner and creator of your brand and your image. Understanding, how they work and to what great uses they can be used for, will make them your best friends, so you would be using MXIT to communicate with your kids when they were away from home instead of seeing it as something that has a mind of it’s own that can do all kinds of weird stuff! (Mmmmhhhh… sometimes I really wonder, when people blame objects for causing mischief!)

Social media has brought a change to the way we communicate in much the same way that the automobile changed the way we traveled. They both made people more accessible at a faster rate and allowed us to reach places that otherwise would have taken us so much longer to get to.

So what’s the next step. Since we can’t get rid of it, what do we do with it?

Have you decided to ignore it and be like those who pooh-poohed the noisy smelly automobile, and who were so sure that no-one in his right mind would every been seen dead in one of “dem darn contraptions”?

Or are you trying to figure out, how anyone can even get through all that information?

Maybe you are already using it in a positive, constructive manner to support your business or just to connect to friends around the world.

Please share how you are Consciously networking and how that is impacting on your life today.

Joan Laine
Transformational Life & Business Coach
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Networks have been used forever and a day to pass on news through word-of-mouth, that’s why I know what my Aunties and Grand-Parents are up to even if I have not seen them for 10 years! The difference is now, we have the “21st century automobile” version of networking, because with viral networking, information is spread at the click of a button from my phone, to my cousin in Jamaica, my whole family in France and actually the whole world in an instant. Then it can be circulated and circulated and circulated with out me knowing anything about it, lying dormant until it shows up somewhere. where now it impacts me and my life (good or bad) several years later.

By consciously networking, I am in control of the information that I put out there myself. I am aware of the effect that my interactions could have now and in the future and I take responsibility and ownership for what I put out there.

I am building my brand as a person who is passionate about change and transformation in all areas of my life and the lives of those around me and I consciously chose to use the social media platforms to promote yourself and expand my networks – why? Well, because I was starting up my business and did not have the means to invest in media campaigns and so had to look at a way of doing things differently. Figuring out how kids could afford to communicate with each other all the time on their phones, was what got me to look at social media and how it works.

Being from the older generation, my privacy was very important, so becoming highly aware as to what information was out there and what impact it has on others made me look further into how I could use social media effectively without revealing too much about me.

Overview
In these constantly changing times, has your mind shifted to accept that social media is here to stay and is one of the most effective and powerful tools for the 21st century?

It is the ultimate in narcissism, since we can plaster ourselves unashamedly all over the world and invade other people’s homes and personal space with inane nonsense and bits of totally useless information. Ah! But, wait a minute! Is it totally useless? Actually not at all, since every piece of information out there can be and will be interpreted in a certain manner, with or without your consent!

Whatever you intended, can and is often misinterpreted to mean something different. Even one word can mean totally something totally different to the reader i.e. the word “Hello”

“Hello” – Is there anyone out there? To the person feeling a bit lonely and reaching out but not wanting to show that they are vulnerable

“Hello” – Are you mad – what are you talking about – the same person in response to a wild statement the other person has said

“Hello” – You dunce, idiot etc.. – to someone who misunderstood or didn’t get what the originator of the dialogue was saying

The list can go on for quite a while – the additional issue is that, the written text can be totally out of sync with the frame of mind in which the receiver finds themselves because there could be delays of up to 24 hours before a response is received, which can then cause further room for confusion and people getting the wrong message, leading to friends falling out with each other and worse.

Social media can be a very painful world, where innocent words and images can be taken out of context and used to either intentionally or more often than not, unintentionally degrade another persons image. So always be aware, when posting something, that others will be reading or watching what you have posted.

And that’s what social media is about – Image! So if you choose consciously to use it to brand your public and private images, the use of the social media platforms, then become powerful allies for you in all aspects of your life.

Some may say, that then we are giving a false image of ourselves? Is that true? Do you act in the same manner in front of your parents, your friends, your boss and your children?

We all have several private and public personas – so why should portraying ourselves differently via the social media platforms be so different? As long as we are not creating our alter-egos, it is perfectly fine to create profiles, which portray us in the best light for the platform that we have chosen.

I have several profiles – business, social, spiritual and general profiles that say very little about the private me. On Facebook, I have my private profile and I also have my fan pages, which I use for professional reasons only.
Generally anyone can access all of my profiles but they don’t – (Unless they are stalkers ☺). They see different aspects of me and they will connect to that part of me that they need to, they may say oh and by the way, I didn’t know you were Jamaican for example – but their curiosity does not go beyond that. They also will pick up the essence of who I am through the different profiles and even if I wanted to hide that, I could not!

I found that people are happy to know the other side of you, that gets silly drunk and does something wild from time to time – they are reassured that you are only human after all. They are empathic when someone says – “Get better soon”, without prying they will also wish you a swift recovery and move on. Knowing that outside of being a total workaholic, you enjoy walking with the dogs on a Sunday after builds rapport that would not occur otherwise.

So how do we use it to our advantage? Actually, how do you use social media to your advantage?

Joan Laine
Transformational Life & Business Coach

Find me on HEAD START PBS

There is something poignantly beautiful about this poem http://htxt.it/edEB

I’ll smile again when I make friends with vodacom…mmhh.. think I better scrap that and just start smiling again now!

There is so much love in the world! Inexhaustible! And guess what? It’s free!

3D dreams… This is what happens, when we are in action towards our goals… Dreams Do Come True! Happy Tuesday everyone!

Today is the beginning of the rest of my life! I’d better get cracking in making it the best it can be, hey? Starting with fun, fun, fun!

Good morning everyone. Today I am busy making dreams tangible, coaching a group of very dynamic young people. Make your dreams real too.

How many people have touched you today and how people have you touched? If you have been touched by one or many or if you have touched one or many, then you have lived your life purpose for today.

Joan Laine on Facebook