On the 6th of October 2009, I took part to Coaching ’09, at Ramada Park Hotel. The event was organized by Business Edu.
See the event homepage, Twitter page (+1, +2),
The moderator of the event: Decebal-Leonard MARIN, Managing Partner of the training and consultancy company Corporate Dynamics International.
(HR Vocational, Business Standard, LinkedIn, Facebook)
Translation was provided by Babylon Consult.
Pictures I’ve made at the event:
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Petra MULLER-DEMARY and Kirsten DIEROLF: Beginning with the end in mind!
(Coaching Network, Cut-e, LinkedIn) and (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter)
Conference presentation: Share your best practices and experience the solution focused way of beginning with the end in mind. We will explore the beginning of coaching sessions, goal setting and some tools – and you can try them out on yourself at the same time. Join us for our win-win-win!
Some ideas I jotted down:
– You should start with the end in mind;
– We have a program for personal development – “Journey of life”;
– You should align your personal objectives with company’s objectives;
– What is work-life balance? Are you not alive when you’re at work?
– To stop doing something is not a goal; You should rather have an alternative picture of the life you wish to have; (so, rather than saying “I wish to stop smoking”, rather say “I wish to live healthy”)
– In coaching we love the Future Perfect tense – we like to put the client into a situation in which the future is perfect;
– Types of questions in coaching:
a. Platform building: Who is a customer for what?
b. Solution talk: What would you like instead?
c. Goal behind the goal: So if you reach that goal, how would that be helpful in your daily life?
d. Future perfect: If everything is just like you want it to be, what would it be like?
e. Perspective change: Who would notice?
And how would they notice?
Peter SCHUTZ: SystemicGoals in Coaching. A Basis for Leadership and Change
(MindMaster, Formare.info, NLP Zentrum)
Conference presentation: All managers have to work with leadership, coaching and change. Very often the most well intentioned managers do not get good enough results, as the project plan is not systemically planned and/or executed. Professional NLP outcome coaching can assist in formulating and systemically executing realistic positive goals. The session will cover systemic NLP coaching, both in strategy and execution.
What are my notes for the presentation?
– One day a presenter came to a company; He was welcomed by some person, who asked him: “Do you have a PowerPoint or do you have something to say?”;
– Recommended reading for someone interested in becoming a coach at executive level: “The Economist“;
– Do you have questions? I prefer the stupid questions, since they’re easier to tackle;
– (joke) SAP comes from “Software Against People”;
Sir John WHITMORE, Performance Consultants: The Challenge of Global Leadership
(Performanceconsultants.com, Whitmore.ro, GROW model, Book, Award, Ihexcellence.org,
What I liked at his presentation?
– Rather than doing coaching with managers (by coaching them), you should consider teaching managers how to apply coaching techniques in their management style (so they themselves do coaching with their employees);
– The process of self-coaching is a valid one;
– Think of the qualities of someone in your childhood who always made you feel good (not a first degree relative); If you are a teacher or a manager, you should have the qualities of this person;
– Aim high; Whenever thinking of the things you should change in an organization, don’t go for a 5% improvement, for 10% improvement; Rather than this, aim for a 50% change within an organization;
– The crisis will get worse with time for the future generation;
– We teach knowledge in schools, we should teach wisdom;
– Recommended reading: “Denial and demise“;
– The main obstacle that stops one from doing things is fear;
– Coaching is all about practice; You should actually practice coaching, rather than read about it;
– It’s good that one works on its own personal development;
– Important in coaching:
a. Raising awareness;
b. Generating responsibility;
– In coaching, we’re barely at the beginning of understanding things;
– Why is coaching great? You give people choice and you have to give options to people;
– If you let people take decisions, then you’ve got a person who can make a decision;
– Ecology is all about building responsibility;
– The whole economic system is no longer valid, we need to reduce the global economy by 80%;
– In the last 80 years, 90% of the big animals in the world have disappeared;
– Denial is a disease;
– Think about the situation this way: if the ecologic problem was true, what would I do differently?
– EQ (Emotion Quotient) is the basis of knowledge; We need it to take good decisions;
– Our educational system is based on knowledge, not on wisdom;
– Coaching has grown a lot because it was required;
– There’s a need for coaching;
– There’s a tendency especially for men to put on a little act; You should be authentic;
– A seed programs the tree, while a microchip can’t program but a standard set of answers; Nature does it better than technology;
– All the qualities of new leaders are internal ones – they come from within;
– We’re pioneers in coaching;
– Any questions you may have, you have your answers within you;
– Coaching may be used for:
a. Planning / reviewing;
b. Delegation;
c. Problem solving;
d. Assessment / appraisals;
e. Relationship issues;
f. Personal development;
g. Learning new skills;
h. Team building;
i. Brief coaching;
j. Self coaching;
and more…
– A lot of people share these feelings for someone they appreciate – they feel:
a. Special;
b. Valued;
c. Confident;
d. (and have) Self-belief;
– In leadership jobs, EQ matters as much as 85% in having success; For regular jobs, the percent decreases to 66%;
– EQ is an attitude, a way of being;
– Coaching is a behavior, the practice of EQ;
– Coaching builds Awareness and Responsibility, while Instruction lowers it;
– Choice and success builds Self-Belief and confidence, while bland and criticism lowers it;
– For coaching you need to be able to do effective questioning and active listening;
– Vision needs to be:
a. Long term – for the future generations;
b. Broad – society and geographical;
c. Deep – reflective and purposeful;
d. Inclusive – interdependence and integral;
– What agilities do we need? Responsiveness, openness to change, being in the present, freedom from fear and innovative thinking;
Mihai POPA-RADU: Setting the Stage for Successful Change
(Capital, Cotidianul, LinkedIn, Profesii Online, Twitter)
Conference presentation: There are countless models, theories and studies on organizational change, however many such initiatives are doomed to fail even before they are started. In his presentation, Mihai will focus on the crucial role leaders have to play especially in this initial phase of preparing the organization for change, how essential is winning the people’s hearts and how this can be done.
Some thoughts on the presentation:
– There was this lovely song: Haddaway – Life;
– We are more likely not to lose a few things than win a lot of things;
– Greed is not good anymore; Change is good;
– More than this, we can even say that our only hope is change;
– In a company, the CEOs (Chief Executive Officers) need to change too;
– Whenever we face a decision, we’re part of it; We’re not external to it, we’re internalizing it;
– What is the word most associated with the lack of change? Fear!
– For change to happen, we need to have a clear answer to the question – “What’s in it for me?”;
– The change levers: the mind, the will and the emotions;
– Emotions put things in motion;
– Quote by Henri BERGSON: “To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.”;
– Quote by: Barack OBAMA: “Today we [will] begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.”;
John BAX: The duality principle of top down crisis management and bottom up coaching of creativity
(HR România, Wall Street, Capital)
Conference presentation: This interactive presentation is about coaching the process from REACTION to CREATION during crisis situations. Coaching as a leadership style focuses on stimulating and guiding self conduct within the organization. But in crisis situations like now, boards of organizations wish to increase their control. And they should. More attention is paid to cutting cost, postponing investments, making clients pay faster and paying suppliers later, ending temporary labor contracts and even dismissing people. On the one hand these actions show strong leadership, and the power to take unfavorable decisions. On the other hand they are defensive top-down decisions. The question rises, what the impact of these decisions is on the motivation of people working within the organization. Beside demotivation it may even create fear. Strong leadership is not only about taking unfavorable decisions during crisis situations, but also about creating trust that the organization is strong enough that it will survive. The same sense of urgency that makes boards decide to cut cost can be used as a driver to make people be more alert, to show initiative in expressing ideas and to take action in improving what they can influence for the good of the entire company. Strong leadership in crisis situation is about not only reacting, but also about creating. And coaching is the leadership style to support this process.
What have I learned at this presentation?
– While Wikipedia has a different approach on the “Chinese word for crisis” (basically saying that it’s most of the time misquoted), John BAX quoted a thing also said wrongly by president John F. KENNEDY, who said: “When written in Chinese, the word “crisis” is composed of two characters – one represents danger and one represents opportunity.”;
– Coaching has to consider time (short term / long term?), interest (our own interest / others) and scope (simple / complex solution);
– The usual path is: short term, own interest and simple solution, but this doesn’t make it right;
– You need to have convincing skills;
– Idea to consider for a bank: focus on profit optimization, rather than profit maximization;
– We need brainstorming;
– If you take necessary actions which are accepted badly, you should look again at the process;
Yves RICHEZ – Remarkable Performance are effortless
(Business Edu, Success, Youman, Les secrets, Wall Street, Facebook, Personal web site)
Conference presentation: This year, coaching and scientific thought cooperate in order to provide the participants with a further guarantee regarding the effects produced by the first of them. Yves RICHEZ is participating in the Coaching Conference with a presentation which tries to answer the key-question of any manager searching for potential and performance:
a. What do we have to understand by potential?
b. To what extent is this potential a performance indicator?
c. How can we pass form the first to the second one?
d. How can we maintain performance?
e. How can we consider performance, otherwise than through its visible, therefore punctual effects?
f. What is a remarkable performance?
g. Why should we develop a new form of performance:
– The eco-performance;
– Besides the effect achieved by fashion?
– How does one try to survive in a defensive way?
a. Cutting costs;
b. Postponing investments;
c. Making clients pay faster;
d. Paying suppliers later;
e. Ending temporary labor contracts;
f. Dismissing people;
– Crisis management solutions – using the crisis as a trigger for structural improvement:
a. Coaching the grief process;
b. Reframing the crisis situation;
c. Empowering influencing capacities;
d. Stimulating creativity;
e. Co-drafting short- and midterm plans;
– The five stages of grief:
a. Denial;
b. Anger;
c. Bargaining;
d. Depression;
e. Acceptance;
– The main values for the near future:
a. Security;
b. Trust;
c. Connection;
One thought:
– According to traditions in China, a leader doesn’t ask anything from its people, he asks things from nature;
Petra MULLER-DEMARY and Kirsten DIEROLF: Ending with a beginning in mind!
Conference presentation: Share your best practices and experience the solution focused way of ending with a beginning in mind. We will explore second coaching sessions, ending coaching sessions with first small steps into a better future – and you can try out the tools at the same time. Join us for our win-win-win-and then some before you go on with the rest of your life!
What changed in my life?
Strangely enough, the coaching conference made me stop loving coaching as a system. I’ve done a Start and Intensive NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming ) Coaching program, which I loved. But going the next step, from knowing things on coaching, to actually becoming a practitioner – well, at least for now, my decision is not following this path. Coaching itself is good, I totally agree with it, I think that a lot of people should know the basic principles in coaching, it’s just that I don’t want to allocate resources to become a professional with it.
Quite a good insight this was! If you wish to look at things in a positive way, have it like this: I chose to allocate resources to other personal development options than doing professional coaching.