photo credit: chez_sugi

Coaching is the latest in a long legacy of professions designed to heal the human spirit and our human communities.  At this juncture in history, we live on a threshold — asking new questions and seeking new answers. What is on your mind these days as you think about your place in the world? What is opening up for you about what is essential and possible in this time of great change?

I’ve continued to explore in my work and my writing the impact of contextual and communal stories in our lives and workplaces. For example, I’m speaking at the ICFA Conference in Adelaide on September 1 as part of a gathering of coaches to explore how to create more sustainable lives, practices, leaders, and organizations and communities. I’m working on a large coaching culture project designed to shape the collective stories in support of greater accountability at personal and team levels for learning and development. When asked by a team member how I would measure “success” in the end, I responded that if I felt that 100 people whose lives we touched in the project “woke up” to what was truly possible with this work—for themselves and others—than we will have done well. In each case, it is releasing the need to wait for others to begin and instead embracing the opportunities we have each day to take a few steps forward in conversation with others.

What are you waiting for?

I was reminded of a few lines from Annie Dillard’s marvelous book, Holy the Firm:

There is no one but us. There is no one to send . . . but only us, a generating comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at an awkward time . . . [feeling] exhausted [at times] and unable to see the thread . . . But there is no one but us. There never has been.

Where can you add beauty, grace and compassion today — even if it is just one flower in the street, one moment in time?

I had the good fortune recently of speaking at the inaugural meeting for a new ICF Chapter in Hamilton, an hour’s drive south of Auckland. Present in the group photo from left to right are Jan Canton, Janet Young, yours truly, Sally Webb, and Dorothy Oliver—the team who organized the first International Coach Week celebration for the Waikato/Bay of Plenty Region. Missing from the photo is Corene Walker, Director of Events, ICFA. It was a wonderful opportunity to help them kick off their chapter with this special event for coaches, potential coaches and organizational leaders who use coaching. We spent 90 minutes talking about “What Are Your Clients Trying to Tell You? . . . And How to Listen to their Stories to Find Out!” The drive down together was filled with delightful humor, an engaging conversation about the state of coaching, and confirmation that there are indeed sheep in New Zealand!

While in the area, I got a tour of the beautiful “whop whops” (rainforest/mountain range) by Leslie Hamilton, Chair of the marvelous 2007 ICFA Conference in Melbourne. On the same trip I spent an evening speaking on the same topic for the inaugural meeting of the ICFA sub-chapter in the delightful city of Hobart, Tasmania and for Coach Week in Perth. I always enjoy introducing people to a new approach to coaching that is driven by a mindful and compassionate attention to the narrative material from clients’ stories. I finished off this part of the trip with a two-day workshop on narrative coaching with 16 people. What I love about working Down Under is the genuine openness to learning. More workshops are being scheduled as I wrote this.

Leave me a note on the blog if you’d like to talk about hosting a workshop in your area.