By Brian Underhill, CEO CoachSource and Erin Sullivan, Consultant, CoachSource
Seven years of big dreams, 12 months of bi-monthly planning calls, what felt like 25 too many daily internal logistical emails and a handful more to coordinate the busy lives of 7 speakers and 8 group exercise facilitators, our 2nd annual Worldwide Coaches Forum was a sellout show and was worth every minute of blood, sweat, and tears!
The packed day and a half event was hosted at the Sofitel in Silicon Valley, California and drew an incredible group of 69 industry-leading executive coaches from 5 countries and 15 different states (photo to the left). With 7 speakers, 8 group exercise facilitators, a trio walk-about and a 4-course dinner at the Mistral Restaurant, it was a great combination of education, participation, networking, and well, some mouth-watering indulgence…who can pass up Dungeness crab and crème brûlée?
The biggest takeaways? Here is the play-by-play!
1. Brian Underhill, CEO, CoachSource - “Welcome and Get to Know Each Other”
Brian kicked off the forum with a brief welcome and ‘get to know each other’. What better way to do that than to reveal the demographic information we track in our database on each of the coaches in attendance! The well-rounded group of 69 attendees covered:
- 5 countries, 15 different states
- 17 languages including “Emotional Intelligence”, as one coach listed in her profile
- 32+ Master’s/MBA’s
- 25 extroverts, 11 introverts
- 16+ PhD’s
- >896 years of combined coaching experience, 16.3 years average
Oh, and Brian announced the exciting organizational appointment of Kimcee McAnally as the new CoachSource Chief Coaching Officer and new CoachSource partner. Catch the press release here.
2. Marshall Goldsmith, Executive Coach and Author - “Triggers: Creating Behavior that Lasts – Becoming the Person You Want to Be”
* Triggers are any stimuli that impact our behavior: Triggers->Impulse->Behavior
* “I am creating my world and at the same time triggers in my world are creating me”
* When we are aware of our triggers, we may make a conscious choice in how we behave: Triggers->Impulse->Awareness->Choice->Behavior
* Use the Daily Question Process that will help you make the changes you want to make! http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/
3. “Selfies with Marshall”
A professional conference with a dedicated selfie break? That’s right! Attendees lined up to get their “Triggers” book signed by Marshall and to snap a selfie pic for social media consumption using the dedicated hashtag #CoachSource15. We can’t say the hashtag ‘broke the internet’, but it sure was fun!
4. Steve Sass, CFO, CoachSource - “CoachSource Update”
Steve, who is moving from COO to CFO of CoachSource as he looks towards retirement, had additional exciting business updates; Growth, growth and more growth!
* CoachSource recently reached the goal of 1000 coaches worldwide, with now 1024 current coaches
* We have engaged in 1292 coaching projects since inception - 219 ACTIVE today!
* CoachSource has seen consistently positive revenue growth for the past 4 years and the future continues to look very bright!
5. Lisa Ann Edwards, Partner, Bloom Coaching Institute - “ROI of Executive Coaching: Results you can measure”
“Without money, there is not mission” – Mother Theresa
* There are five levels of impact:
1. Reaction, satisfaction, and planned action
2. Learning
3. Application and Implementation
4. Business Impact
5. Return on Investment
* Contract for Business Impact using opening questions in coaching such as:
* How will behavior changes result in business/monetary impact (e.g., revenue, productivity, customer satisfaction, etc.)
* How will you measure and evaluate success of coaching?
* What will happen if coaching meets, or falls short of, your success measures?
Visit http://www.bloomcoachinginstitute.com/ for more on ROI!
6. Brandy Agnew, Senior Strategist, Hogan Assessment Systems & Chris Duffy, VP Corporate Solutions- “Coaching & the Dark Side: Understanding what triggers dark side behaviors, and how to coach around them”
* Every competent study of managerial failure points to overriding personality defects as the key issue – these become your derailers!
* Hogan has added a new set of subscales to the HDS (The Hogan Development Survey), which assesses derailers under stress
* The process for coaching around derailers: Assess to Identity, Feedback for Self-Awareness, Identify Triggers, Implement Rituals, Strategies & Behaviors to Mitigate Reputation Damage
* Visit http://www.hoganassessments.com/ for more!
7. Ram Ramanathan, Principal and Mentor Coach, Coacharya – “From Mindfulness to Mindlessness: An application of leadership, decision-making and innovation”
“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less” – Humpty Dumpty
* The photo to the right was our 15-minute meditation. How powerful!
* Awareness plays a central role in a coaching process and occurs at carious levels: physical, emotional, and cognitive
* Deepest awareness also occurs at en energy level, where emotions, thoughts and sensations disengage and witnessing without judgment occurs – this is the mindless state
*Energy level mindlessness that incorporates the physical, emotional and cognitive levels is where real transformation occurs
Visit http://coacharya.com/ for more!
8. Opt-in Dinner at the Mistral
Of the 69 conference attendees, 58 joined us for the delicious 4-course dinner party at the Mistral restaurant, a pleasant walk from the Sofitel! The highlights:
Mozzarella, truffle stuffed mushrooms
Spicy seafood chowder
Fresh Dungeness crab risotto
Grand-marnier crème brûlée
+ Wine and great conversation!
9. David Peterson, Director of Executive Coaching & Leadership at Google - “Reinventing Coaching – Seven paths forward”
“The world is becoming more turbulent faster than most organizations are becoming more resilient”
David delivered an entertaining (and scary at times) Keynote from the future for coaching. Slipping on his futuristic, reversible jacket and his dark glasses (photo to the right), he warned of the exponential changes ahead and how we, as coaches, need to evolve with them! His predictions:
* Coaching as we know it is going away (soon) 3.5 years – replaced by technology-assisted self-directed learning?
* To thrive, coaches need to evolve (soon)
* Stay ahead of the pace of change, which requires passion, investment, commitment
* Changing faster than the pace of change requires a new paradigm and perspective; not working harder or running faster
* How do we make coaching exponentially better to increase value to coaches, leaders, organizations, world?
Reinventing coaching: Seven paths forward:
1. True professionalism: Dedication to clients, personal and professional development, doing great work
2. Savvy consumers
3. Manage full portfolio of coaching resources
4. Leverage human-technology interface
5. Deep insight into mechanisms of development
6. Address accelerating complexity and other emerging leadership development needs
7. Drive transformational development
10. John Baldoni, Executive Coach, Consultant & Author – “Leadership Presence: Maximizing the Impact you Make”
Internationally recognized consultant and coach and author of more than a dozen books on leadership, John Baldoni spoke about Leadership Presence and how leaders can use their authority, communications and presence to build trust and drive results.
* Leadership presence is defined by “earned authority” and comes from: Knowing your business, Confidence in knowing what they are capable of achieving by themselves and through others, Self-awareness and humility in acknowledging flaws, Instilling hope and a sense of possibility
11. Sue Matson, Partner/Executive Coach, rd&partners – “Stakeholder Centered Coaching”
* A sample of 11,000 business leaders in 8 multinational companies on 4 continents found 95% of leaders who consistently applied the Stakeholder Centered Coaching process measurably improved their leadership effectivenes
* The process:
1. Select 1-2 leadership growth areas
2. Get feedforward suggestions from stakeholders
3. Implement the action plan
4. Make change visible
5. Quarterly Leadership Growth Progress Review (LGPR – Mini-survey) to track progress
Visit http://www.sccoaching.com/ for more
And that's a wrap!
