I feel a bit guilty: I was hoping I could blog my experiences at the training class this week, but just didn’t have the energy. The week was, in a word, astounding.
But first a quick diversion: I had a chance to meet up with a couple of dear HP friends (who I’d never actually met in person) this week. Their generosity was overwhelming, and it just reinforces for me the power of putting energy into building my network.
And the wine was wonderful too!
But what about the coaching training class? Well, it was a class called Foundation Course in Leadership Coaching, put on by The Forton Group in the UK. They have a totally different approach than I’ve ever seen before: Not only to the class, but to the way they develop trainers, and indeed to the way they run the entire company.
It absolutely supports my personal mission of making a deep contribution to the way organizations and leaders operate, and this company’s value system closely matches my own.
I’ll see if I can describe why the class was so much different than anything I’d ever seen. They start with five core coaching principles:
- coaching presence
- accept, blend, and create
- trust the client
- operating in partnership
- living in possibility
What was so shocking was that they designed the class around these principles. Not just teaching the principles – that’s easy – but actually being the principles. I find it hard to describe in words.
Here’s an example: If you trust that the class attendees to have all the wisdom, resources and creativity they need, then there’s no need to focus on conveying information. Very few PowerPoints. Instead, the trainer is holding the space for learning, discovery, and co-creation. The group is, as a whole, teaching each other, and pulling resources and insight from the trainer.
I’m not sure if that makes sense; it’s difficult to capture. I hope to do a better job walking through some of these concepts in future postings.
But, for the moment, I’m living in that place of rich possibility, where I am starting to see how I will make a deep and lasting impact on the world through the companies I will work with. Words can’t describe the feeling that’s given me.
More to come! Not really about finding someone else’s job posting at this point, but instead it’s about building the future where I will rock the world.
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And just to give you another flavor of the feeling of the week… Every day of the week, we were personally coached about 3 times, coached others about 3 times, and had a chance to watch other experts coach several times.
REAL coaching, too, not demo. Yes, many of these were demonstrations of principles, but only done through doing REAL coaching on REAL topics. The richness of this value – both for learning and making progress on my areas of concern – was incredible.
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Sounds FANTASTIC, Carl. It will be fun to see where this leads you and in what new ways you’ll continue to be a force for good in the world! Way to go!!