ICF conference

I'm at that stage in a conference where the info starts leaking out your ears. Thought I'd better pass some on to you so I can take in more tomorrow. Two great keynotes so far: Michael Gelb--"Think Like Leonardo da Vinci" and Sir Kenneth Robinson- "The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything". Gelb will be a keynote at EY's next ILP event. Very entertaining. My favorite quote from his session was "write drunk; revise sober". So far, I've been to breakouts on branding, coaching "voices", coaching research and intuition. I have handouts (electronically) from several of the sessions and found the info applicable to new partner coaching and the Advanced Coaching Training I will be doing. Happy to talk to you in detail about anything that might catch your interest. Here's some highlights from the session on research, which was led by David Peterson of Google--a cocky, edgy researcher/coach:

Only reliable ROI has to be calibrated at the onset of coaching by asking "what would the value be of your meeting this goal?"

Coaches need to practice "unconditional positive disregard"--i.e. not caring more than their clients about the clients' goals.

What do you think are the most critical elements to successful coaching? Research says: trust, listening, caring, feedback.

Five necessary and sufficient conditions for personal change:

1. Insight--do people understand what is most important to develop?
2. Motivation--are people willing to invest the time and energy to change?
3. Capability--do people have the skills and knowledge to know how to change?
4. Opportunity for real world application--do people have the opportunity to practice the new behaviors in a setting that is real? Note: when role playing and letting a client practice new skills, seek to recreate a real environment. For example, if a person is working on better listening skills, try to stimulate the conditions he would really operate under rather than an artificial environment that anyone could succeed in.
5. Accountability--is anyone paying attention and willing to reward or punish behavior?

Some interesting insights about feedback:

• Person-focused feedback--e.g. "you are a strong leader" versus performance-focused feedback--e.g. "you led that meeting effectively" tends to decrease performance
• Self-generated feedback is more effective than feedback which is unsolicited
• Learning feedback is more effective than versus performance feedback--e.g. "what did I do well?" versus "how did I do?"
• We are taught that specific, behaviorally descriptive and timely feedback is best. Actually, the research refutes that. Feedback needs to include the impact the behavior is having on the provider in order to be effective and it needs to be delivered when the recipient can apply it, not necessarily when the behavior happens.

Relevance of advice in coaching:
If the goal is short-term and specific--e.g. deliver one great presentation--it's ok to structure and script and tell the person what to do and not to do. If the goal is long-term and broad--e.g. learn to customize presentations for a variety of audiences and adapt your delivery--better to ask questions to draw out the client's thinking. (Give them a fish versus teach them to fish.)

Goal-setting:

• Challenging, specific goals may inhibit learning. Start small and build confidence.
• Self-initiated goals are not as motivating as goals that stem from ample feedback from people who count.

Potpourri:
"Taming the Abrasive Leader" by Laura Crawshaw (Google; she has a website)

Tons of notes on branding and intuition. Great exercise from the Seven Voices of Coaching that I will use with the Advanced Coach Training.

Met LOTS of people. My discussion on developing internal coaches was well attended and I have people following up with me already. I've signed up more coaching schools for my survey for the book. Yikes! I may have to write it.

Generated several new leads for our open positions via Hudson.

Vegas is exhausting. I'm down $45.