Reasons People are Choosing Coaching for Transformation

By Martha Lasley

Community of peers for support and learning
In most coaching schools, you’re on your own. In the Coaching for Transformation program, you go through the entire program as a learning community. You’ll be with the same group for the duration, which means you’ll create trusting relationships as you support each other’s growth as coaches. Each participant has a series of peer coaching partners to support learning and development Almost everyone who starts our program finishes. But the learning doesn’t stop there. You’ll create relationships that continue to support you long after you’ve graduated. Many of our grads go on to create partnerships or business ventures with each other.

Cultural awareness and commitment
If you’ve ever attend an International Coach Federation conference, you probably noticed the coaches are mostly middle class, middle aged, Caucasian women. At CFT, we’re committed to changing the demographics of the coaching profession by making coaching available to under-resourced communities and actively seeking faculty with deep roots in multicultural competencies and participants that represent many different communities and backgrounds. We look for creative ways to bring coaching to people who traditionally don’t have access to coaching – the social sector, communities of color, LGBT, and more. From 2003-2010, we’ve been a founding partner in the Coaching and Philanthropy project, working with , Compass Point and BTW - Informing Change and Grantmakers for Effective Organizations  to learn how coaching can be used effectively for supporting leadership development and organizational effectiveness in the social sector. The Coaching & Philanthropy Project was funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation with support from the David & Lucille Packard Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation and the Harnisch Family Foundation.

Mentoring with rigorous feedback on coaching skills
You’ll experience the camaraderie of group mentor coaching and the depth of one-on-one mentor coaching. Your mentor coaches use an appreciative approach to feedback, identifying your strengths as a coach. But the feedback goes a lot deeper than that. You’ll learn about missed opportunities, get suggestions on opening the space for transformation, and get pointers on exactly what you need to work on as a coach. You’ll get solid observable feedback – instead of adjectives, judgments or labels. The feedback is designed to build on your assets and give you specific suggestions to take your coaching to the next level. In addition, you’ll hone your ability to give feedback to others so that your peer coaching sessions put you on a fast trajectory toward empowering, effective coaching.

Deep awareness of emotions and needs
Traditionally, coaching models focus on helping clients achieve their goals, which usually results in temporary change. The only way to help clients create sustainable change is through deep awareness. You’ll help clients break through limiting beliefs, become aware of the wisdom of their bodies, identify their emotions and understand their needs and values. From that grounded, centered place of deep awareness, they can develop strategies and take actions that honor their values or meets their needs. Ironically, the coach’s deep empathic presence does more to facilitate transformation than anything else. CFT coaches develop a solid connection with clients, creating awareness before moving into action.

Business building support
Most schools focus on developing coaching skills, but what good is it if you don’t know how to fill your practice? At CFT, we offer a strong business development program that helps you get clients immediately. You’ll gain confidence through peer coaching, and move on to our unique pro bono coaching program with nonprofit leaders. That’s right, you start coaching right away and by the time you graduate, we expect you to be well on your way to filling your practice. You’ll learn how to do niche marketing in your specialty area, taking advantage of on-line business templates to get your practice up and running quickly. Work on your brand, hone your message, and drop your logo into the templates, and you’re ready to go. You’ll also learn how to develop your blog and get traffic that you can turn into clients. When you graduate, you can join our Coaches Directory, where you can customize your free profile and pick up clients from people browsing our website daily.

Faculty value continuous learning
Some teachers create a personae that they have it all together which creates distance between faculty and learners. At CFT, we’re all seriously committed to life-long learning. We’re in this together! You’ll have the opportunity to coach your teachers and your mentor coaches on real live issues. We recognize that it takes real courage to be vulnerable, and we continuously open ourselves to the opportunity to be coached and hone our coaching skills. Always hungry for feedback, we welcome your suggestions to improve our programs.

The Coach’s Stand
At CFT, we take a stand for deep, transformative coaching. You will learn how to replace rote, predictable coaching with boldness. You’ll develop your own personalized coach’s stand - a powerful way of being that mobilizes personal transformation. The coach’s stand is a set of physical, mental and spiritual practices and commitments that a coach embodies in order to make each coaching moment, session and relationship more powerful and effective. Together they create the orientation you need to effectively call out your client’s power. By taking risks, you hold a vision for your client that is larger than what they can see themselves, which calls them into a deeper space or a bigger game.

Holistic – body, mind, soul, and spirit
The holistic approach combines awareness of body, mind, soul and spirit with solid coaching skills. You will exercise the right and left brain, the heart and the mind, mystery and logic. Coaching for Transformation stands on the shoulders of the study of human development, psychological thought, as well as soul work from indigenous cultures and the philosophies of the East. You are on the cutting edge of the expanding profession of coaching, marrying the heart and mystery of transformation with the practical world of tools, skills and results. You will awaken your gifts and sharpen the tools for accessing inner wisdom in service of individual and global transformation.

Focus on transformation for the client and the coach
With transformation as our focus, we often hear from our participants say, “I expected the program would be transformational for my clients, but I didn’t know it would be so deeply transformational for me.” If you’re in a mediocre relationship, in a dull job, and you want it to stay that way, then don’t join the CFT program. Your life will change and there’s no going back to an ordinary life. If you’re ready to create a life you love, join us!

The next Coaching for Transformation training is beginning on 9/08/12.  Click here for complete information.

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