Hudson Institute Learning Conference Summary

Jackie Bayer and I along with approx. 140+ other coaches had a terrific learning experiences during the Annual Hudson Institute Learning Conference in Santa Barbara, CA - what's not to like!

The conference was a cornucopia of learning; I struggled to summarize the following highlights.

Key Note Speakers:
Michael Gelb, author of "How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Everday" and "Brain Power, Improve Your Mind as You Age".
Dr. Cathy L. Royal, author of "The Appreciative Inquiry Fieldbook".
Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener, author of "Positive Psychology Coaching", and "Practicing Positive Psychology Coaching".

Workshops:
Cultural Intelligence and Coaching.
Measuring Business Impact of Coaching.
MBTI & Coaching.
Personal Branding as a Coach.
Improv for Coaches.

Practice Coaching:
Fishbowl
Dyads
Triads

My Key Takeaways:
From Michael Gelb's, Brain Power presentation: Novelty and Challenge enhance our brain; Positive Social and Work Environments create positive brain energy; Sleep Deprivation contributes to accumulated stress; Exercise provides more oxygen to the brain and leads to higher brain activity; the Mind works by Association; Enhance your brain by Spending 15 minutes a day Learning Something New.

From Gelb's Think Like Leonard Da Vinci presentation: Keep a Notebook or Journal of thoughts, plans, actions, accomplishments; Independent Thinking results from testing things out for yourself; Passionate Curiosity drives real change; the person with the most organized nervous system dominates proceedings; Bring Humility to your listening by using your five senses; Optimists are the more likely to be successful; Embrace the unknown and the uncertain; Balance the Body and the Mind; Everything is connected to everything else; First ask yourself, What do I want to do?, then ask, What am I Doing Now?

From Dr. Royal's presentation: Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is the people's process in that every voice should be heard and respected; Changing the world happens by impacting those you interact with; First Questions asked of coaching clients are fateful; What you ask you'll find; Once you decide you know the solution for your client, you're part of the problem; AI is a co-creative process to determine the client's "preferred future".

From Dr. Biswas-Diener's presentation: Stengths are a coachee's Sails and Weaknesses affect their buoyancy; Strengths need to be developed then an individual must figure out how best to use them; Help coachees understand the value and the limits of their Strengths; Strengths are "potentials" rather than traits - failure hurts but that's ok, because that's how we learn; Failure should be encouraged (i.e., not feared) because it facilitates and accelerates the learning process; Help coachees create Strengths Vocabulary (i.e., help them name and own their strengths by using words of their choosing rather than necessarily using those listed in Strengths Finder 2.0), for example a coachee adept at solving problems might want to refer to themselves a "solutioner" vs. problem solver - that's ok as long as he/she is clear on why they picked it and what it means for them; Ask coachees what they're looking forward to?, look for observable peaks of emotional energy, i.e., observe their posture, eyes, pace of speech, smile, etc., then continue your questioning based on those observations.

I hope you'll find these highlights helpful in some way.

All The Best,
Bob

real value of coaching

Just got back from presenting at the annual Conference Board's Executive Coaching conference. Interesting to observe the wide range of topics and note who was drawn to what. There were once again sessions focused on calculating ROI designed to defend our value to leaders who I assume have never been coached. Early studies based on guesstimates by the coachee of the value of coaching averaged an ROI of 600% and were actually ratcheted down by the researchers (Manchester Group) before publishing because the numbers seemed unbelievable. I watched well-intentioned HR leaders searching for the right approach to justify what they intuitively know will bring value to their organizations. I spoke with a few of them on break and asked if they had asked their leaders which metrics would matter to them. They hadn't.

I spoke with some others who have, like we do, a fairly mature coaching program in place. The tone of our conversation was very different. We spoke about the value to our leaders during times of chaos to have time to reflect via coaching, the value of making mindful decisions during times of ambiguity guided by a coach's questions and the value of having a coach who cares truly listen. We noted that not one of the people we've coached asked for ROI data.

It's my dream that we will reach a tipping point in terms of numbers of people coached so that the futile effort to quantify the quality of an experience will simply fade away.

Welcome new team members!

An official welcome to Bob and Joan. Let's greet them as a team and pull them into this blog (as well as getting our heads back into it) by providing a one word comment. Please use one word to describe our team to Bob and Joan. I'll go first with the word "supportive".

3 Theme Words

Saw this today and thought I'd share....it's about choosing 3 words as guideposts for 2012. Some of you may recall last year was a 1 word theme idea. I like getting to choose 3.
The 3 words that came to mind for me: Focus, Heal, Laugh.
Happy New Year everyone. D
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/my-3-words-for-2011/

Happy holidays to an incredible team!

"The Bushmen storytellers talk about two kinds of hunger. They say there is a physical hunger, then what they call the Great Hunger, that is the hunger for meaning. There is only one thing that is truly insufferable, and that is life without meaning. There is nothing wrong with the search for happiness. But there is something great--meaning--which transfigures it all. When you have meaning you are content, you belong."
--Sir Laurens van der Post in the documentary Hasten Slowly--

Happy holidays to a team that found meaning in its work and provides meaning thru its work!

Stuck in the hallway

I blog best when I have a glass of wine, so welcome to room 305 of the Hilton Garden Inn in Greenbelt, MD where I've been since Saturday evening. I've used the same issue for 12 mentoring sessions in my Advanced Coach Training and two interviews for our open positions--my lack of work life balance and my fear that I will transfer these crazy behaviors to my life post-EY. A coach today reminded me of the saying, "when one door closes another opens...but it is hell in the hallway."

I've been attending the November meeting of the Conference Board's Executive Coaching Council. Today we had a presentation from two facilitators from Heart Math (www.heartmath.org). Something to think about in the hallway. When was the last time you stepped back and asked yourself, "how crazy is my lifestyle?" We learned some interesting coping mechanisms today but the biggest take-away for me was asking the question, "is this REALLY a threat?" We go into crisis mode and dump noxious chemicals in our bodies when we feel we are threatened. Real threats are related to saber tooth tigers, which our ancestors didn't worry about, by the way, until they smelled them! Some of the "saber tooth tigers" we identified today as a group were:

• email from boss with unreasonable request
• sideways look from a colleague
• flight delay
• missing shirt button
• inability to find document

and my personal favorite

• text from husband saying "don't buy that high-fiber bread again"

Seriously.

So, entertain me--what were your saber tooth tigers this week? Hint: laughter is restorative!

Happy Halloween!

What's the scariest thing you've done in the last month?