New Book - The Power of Trama

I am pleased to let you know about the publication of a colleague and friend's new book: "The Power of Trauma: From the Darkness of Despair to a Life Filled with Light" by Ute Lawrence. I had the privilege of reading the final draft and look forward to purchasing my own copy. The book is on Amazon worldwide and the chain store Target from the US has picked Ute's book and they are pre-selling it on line. Here is a brief description of the book:

On September 3, 1999, Ute Lawrence was involved in a horrific eighty-seven-car highway pile-up—the worst in Canadian history—that saw eight people killed. In The Power of Trauma, she draws on her mind-altering experience to develop a profound new perspective on life that has actually empowered her. Lawrence was nearly stopped in her tracks after staring death in the face, and her lengthy and successful career as a magazine publisher soon ended as she battled the haunting memories of that tragic day. Her intense struggle with post traumatic stress disorder and the lack of helpful and compassionate guidance and information inspired Lawrence to share her experience—and her powerful healing—with others. In this candid and illuminating guide, Lawrence details the symptoms of the disorder, the therapies and programs that eventually led her to a more balanced and fulfilling life, and interviews with the professionals who aided her along her journey from a paralyzing experience to a pilgrimage of self-discovery. The Power of Trauma will help those who suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder to better understand and accept their symptoms. Trauma doesn’t have to be a life sentence. This guide will help you can take steps to heal and positively transform yourself.

You might find this inspirational book of use to any client of yours that has or is experiencing trauma.

Google Coaching Series on YouTube

Google has started offering coaching to most of their employees. They recently sponsored a
series of talks given by their coaches, and they have posted videos of their talks up on YouTube.
I haven't had time to review any myself so let me know what you think.

If you are interested, you can access them by going to YouTube.com and searching
for "Google techtalks coaching" or you can use this direct link or the
Title of this Post to get the listing.
There are currently six talks there.

Coaching Series: Accomplishing More By Doing Less
Coaching Series: Leading from Strength: Making a Difference
Coaching Series: What Tech Women Really Want
Coaching Series: Impactful Communication
Coaching Series: Create the Career You Want: A Non-Hyped App
Coaching Series: Advancing Toward Your Dreams & Goals

Learning and sharing using Web 2.0 tools and techniques

Let's face it: technology is a big part of our lives. Is it controlling you or are you managing it? Here is a list recently complied of the top 100 social media tools. The list has been compiled from a cohort of learning professionals who shared their Top 10 Tools for Learning both for their own personal learning/productivity and for creating learning solutions for others. The author claims to have used 70% of the applications - I am not that far off myself. I actively use all of the top ten and have at least registered myself with many of the other social tools. Of course, I want to check out those with which I am not familiar. What does that say about me?

I have always said - "Sell a service never sell your time."

Don't let the title of this article or the fact that it is referencing the legal profession. Take the time to read it and you will find some interesting points for coaches regarding two issues.

1. Licensing:

Economists have proven this over and over with empirical evidence. Licensing professions rarely protects the public; it’s more about protecting the profession from the public, limiting competition, and driving up wages and profits.

2. Billing by the Hour:

Customers are not price sensitive, they are value conscious. What the billable hour has done has shifted the focus from value and results, to inputs, hours, costs, activities, as if these latter attributes had anything at all to do with value.

There are a whole more bunch of references if you are interested including from the Wall Street Journal.

Intentional Leadership: Leaving a Leadership Legacy

My good friend and great coach Mary Jo Asmus recently used this blog post. If you would like to post anything here that you might think is useful for coaches. Please send it to me.
Intentional Leadership: Leaving a Leadership Legacy

Why I refuse to go from Windows XP to Vista!

I made one post today and loved this but had no way to share it so I decided to post it here. OK this has absolutely nothing to do coaching - even in my own bizarre way of making connections, this would be most tenuous. But here goes . . . The topic of what is humor (a competency for coaches and what does it really mean) came up on a coaching list serve yesterday. This is actually going to be an interesting discussion.

So I find this funny . . .

Encouraging the unrealistic expectations for coaches entering the business

I must have missed it but this article first appeared in Training and Coaching Today and this came out at the end of last year.

According to coaching firm Shirlaws in 2007 year two of its coaches passed the £1m earnings barrier. This is a little misleading due to the "how" they achieved these levels. Both manages a team of coaches so what commissions or bonuses were involved is not stated.

"A few specialist coaches can command a significant fee for their services and these tend to be people who have held prestigious positions in high level organisations, have a niche specialism and very high credibility with senior executives. This top 1% could command up to £5,000 per 90-minute session.

"But an average coaching rate in the corporate sector is around £300 for a 90 minute session. Some salaried coaches can be on about £110,000 a year which can be increased by performance-related commission."

The International Coaching Federation's 2007 survey said the average annual coaching fees for UK respondents was £32,500 though for full time coaches the average was £55,994. This would seen that UK coaches average $60,000 but it is not really comparing apples. Earnings are obviously different in different countries due to acceptance and standards of living. While not totally accurate, I have found that using the actual numbers (forget currency) seems to work out equivalently these days. What I mean is that if a coach earns $1 CDN in the US he or she could expect to earn = $1 US in Switzerland = 1 CHF in Europe = 1 Euro and if in Britain 1 pound. (In reality 1 pound was until recently $2 US).

choice Magazine - interesting offer and curious what is going on.

choice Magazine has just announced a new electronic subscription option. The print subscription is still available of course. To entice new subscriptions (I suspect) they are offering a download of their Third Anniversary Issue on Ethics. It is a well done issue.

Strange but the web site's last update was on January 18th and so there is no mention of this new direction of subscriptions including a PDF version. Apparently this will be mailed but the size is over 8 gig and so I would have preferred to see a download version - something similar to what Executive Book Summaries does.

I must have missed something but it seems that from the site, only one of the three original founders is still with the magazine. Garry Schleifer as publisher remains but Melanie DewBerry-Jones and Maureen Ford no longer appear to be owners.

Coaching for Commitment Webinar on HR.com

I finally after a week got around to listening to Cindy Coe, my fiend and colleague's webinar on HR.com entitled: Coaching for Commitment: It Will Revolutionize the Way You Think about Coaching!

Here's how it is described on the web page:

Never before has there been a program that so clearly distinguishes coaching as a singular role or a tool (CSI) that allows people to assess which role they gravitate toward (mentor, manager, instructor, coach) while measuring the “coaching gap” between performing other roles and being in the coach role. From assessing your coaching skills to learning new ways to coach and teach coaching to others the Coaching for Commitment Program is designed to help you achieve better results as a manager, a business owner, as an employee, a parent, etc. The Coaching for Commitment program includes proven techniques along with a clearly defined coaching process, model and skills. This program is unique in that it encourages you to look at coaching in its purest form. Get ready to make the shift!

This archive is available to every member - which is free to register. I highly recommend taking the time to visit the webinar. Cindy and Amy have done a great job of revamping this material and putting together a great package. The model they have designed is simple and comprehensive. I like their five competencies. They do a real short live case and work through the five competencies and how they could be applied. Brilliant.

Another Coaching Article in the Newspaper . . . blah , blah blah

Do I sound a little jaded? The Sunday Times Online used the following title in this Saturday's article: Bosses let coach take the strain -The move from sport to industry advising is now big business in Britain

No wonder I feel a little fed up with everyone getting excited about mainstream reports on coaching. This title makes it sound like coaching is a direct off-shoot of sports. The expert source for the article is Jez Cartwrigth a former sports coach and psychologist. No wonder the article makes coaching sound like a cross between athletic coaching and on-the-couch therapy. Personally, I don't think that this gives coaching a good image and is rather misleading. While Cartwright may be perfectly trained to do therapy, less trained coaches are not qualified to do so. Readers may make the mistake of hiring someone who plays amateur psychiatrist.

Andy Winterburgh,. . ., admits he was wary about letting a coach into his office, but had heard good things about Cartwright and, besides, it was his boss’s idea.

“I was both interested and wary,” said Winterburgh. “I’m quite open about training and personal development, but I found some of it quite difficult and I was quite suspicious of why he was asking all these questions about my childhood and how that related to the work I was doing.”

. . .

“It was quite hard-hitting,” said Winterburgh, explaining that Cartwright had unearthed a particularly telling childhood memory that had influenced not only his own self-image, but the way he had interacted with people ever since.

Forget the money he's charging: "Cartwright’s programme of eight one-and-a-half-hour sessions will set you back £6,000. " I will give him credit. Either he is the greatest thing since sliced bread or the greatest salesman!

"Coaching might have a significant and important influence on the results achieved by companies, but there is virtually no hard evidence to prove it."

Last October, I wrote about the connection between corporate coaching and return on investment. Recently Gary Platt posted an excellent article on the British site of The Training Zone entitled: Coaching: A Faster Way to Lose Money Than Burning It. Not only is the article well written but the ten comments to date are well presented as well.

n the 2005 CIPD report it states; 'Coaching isn't a cheap option. There are significant costs involved in implementing coaching initiatives - so what might be the best way forward for coaches and host organisations to ensure that the former is behaving ethically and the latter is spending its money sensibly? I propose asking two very simple questions which either party could pose at the early stages of proposing and contracting and I suggest that these issues are recorded in any agreement between the parties.

"Like virtually every other form of HR development in the UK the predominant approach to assessing effectiveness (of coaching) is anecdote, opinion and, as the CIPD defines it, 'beliefs'."

The first question is why? Why do you want to introduce coaching? What is the intention and purpose? . . .

The second question is how: how will success be measured? How will progress be tracked during and after the introduction of coaching? The answers to the first question will provide the focus of this, but it is important to set formal methods for assessing movement towards the targets outlined.

Thank you Gary!

Big Deal - New York Times Article - Coaches Wanted in the Game of Life

Why we continue to be amazed when some serious magazine or newspaper or television show mentions coaching is beyond me. I had thought we had got passed all of this "poor cousin" sort of attitude. But no, along comes this article andon every listserve and ezine and web site - it is announced with great fanfare. Now, I realize that I am contributing to the frenzy but at least I decided to wait one week and make it about my comments on the coaccing industry instead.

Isn't is rather pathetic that almost ten years later, the most important ROI study that we continue to use as a reference is the Manchester Study OR the best article we love to send out is a half dozen years old from Fortune Magazine.

I don't even bother to use any google alerts which contain the word coaching or any variations. I have way better things to do. Maybe that is why I find it more and more hard to post to this blog as well. Anyone interested in taking over - it really is a great URL if nothing else, is welcome to contact me.

Meanwhile, I hope your year is off to a great and prosperous start.

Multi Media Expert Serices by choice magazine - good start but good luck trying to find it online

choice, the magazine of professional coaching is now celebrating their 4th anniversary.
choice is a magazine totally devoted to coaching, read by people who use coaching extensively in their work and personal lives. It is a quarterly, color, printed, 52-page publication distributed by paid circulation to subscribers in 28 countries and via newsstands in the USA.

I don't find their web site all that user friendly and while they have in the past had two written articles in their expert series, Are you Managing or Developing Your Organization and Coaching as a Leadership Tool I could not find anything online for the following:

choice, the Magazine of Professional Coaching has a new service for the start of 2008 and it looks like a great kick-off. The first two offerings of Multi Media Expert Series features coaches/authors Deborah Gallant and Diana Sterling. It is free and open to the first 200 participants. You will be sent a downloadable pdf article, and after the call, you will receive a link to download the MP3 audio. For non-registrants, the article download/MP3 Audio packages will be available, for sale, on our website, after the calls. So if you are interested, go and register to get access even if you can't show up to hear the call.

Stop Ignoring the Internet!
With Deborah Gallant
Wednesday, January 30th, 4 p.m. EST
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER NOW!

Transforming Lives
With Diana Sterling
Wednesday February 20th, 4 p.m. EST
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER NOW!

ICF European Coaching Conference 2008

"Connecting Worlds" is the theme of the ICF European Coaching Conference 2008 which is in Geneva, Switzerland (my home town) and is running from June 26th to 28th of this year. The registration has just opened but unfortunately you can't find a full time schedule or anything about speakers. They are started taking calls for speakers this week. I know some of the people organizing and I am sure that they are doing the best they can. This is a major undertaking but unless they get moving, the turnout is going to be low. I wish them luck.

To take advantage of the ECC2008 Early Bird rates, visit www.ecc2008.ch to register before 15 February 2008 and save your place. Tricky since you don't know what you are signing up for and the price is steep. Payment is in Swiss Francs as opposed to Euros which is a shame. You will need to do your own calculation.

Sherpa Executive Coaching Survey Results

Results of the third annual Sherpa Executive Coaching Survey have just been released today, Tuesday , January 15, 2008.

To download the full report at no charge, visit:
www.sherpacoaching.com/survey.html