Coaching in Bangkok

Interview with Jean-Francois Cousin, Speaker, Author and Master Certified Coach (ICF) and Chairman of the Global Board 2019, International Coach Federation.

I caught up with Jen-Francois in his current hometown of Bangkok, Thailand.

How did you get started in Coaching?

Around 13 years ago I started coaching and based myself in Bangkok where I had been working for the previous 6 years as a country manager of Lafarge Gypsum.

There were two reasons that I embraced coaching. The first was that over my career, the paths I had liked the most always involved developing my people. Seeing them blossom and find new paths was very rewarding. The second reason was that I had climbed many steps in the company and to go higher would involve more politics. I was already filling my day with conference calls, far from people and the field. I love people and intereacting, so I felt it was time to move on and focus on that which made my heart sing.

Was Coaching always your intention?

Up until 2006, I did not know about coaching. Realising I wanted to move on, I started reflecting on what to do. Being an engineer, I researched all aspects of personal development practices and found that coaching was already proven and found it attractive for many different reasons.

I started my education online with the International Coach Academy, which then was based in Australia. It took 12 months to complete training and I started working with local Bangkok coaches even during my training, based on the connections I had.

Has training delivery has changed over time?

What I can see is that there is a greater partnership between the ICF and coach training organisations now. We are always upgrading the standards of coach-training, enhancing the standards of education. This is a good, healthy and necessary trend of focusing on higher standards, improving the quality of pedagogy and raising engagement of students.

My only recommendation for training is that we should create as much time as possible for practical work. Learning by doing. When students practice more, then the quality of their presence improves, and they are freed from much of the early performance anxiety found in new coaches.

What do you want to achieve in your role as Global Chair?

My role for the Global Chair is for 1 year and before being elected I had served as a member of the Global Board for 2 years. Though I only have 1 year in the role I have plenty of goals for my year as Chair. The global board works with the ICF staff in close partnership and together we are working on these projects.

Updating the strategic plan for the future of coaching and the ICF going forward. We now have around 38,000 members and we are working to support them, grow this number and boldly lead the profession in service of its members.

We are launching 4 new organisations which will bring the structure up to 6 organisations. The International Coach Federation (ICF) exists to lead the global advancement of the coaching profession. This will, for the most part, not change.

The ICF Foundation was established in 2004 and continues to connect and equip professional coaches and organizations to accelerate and amplify impact on social progress through coaching.

The first new organisation will be the Thought Leadership Institute which will be a family organisation and bring together thought leaders, scientists and academics to think about the future of coaching. We also include leaders of various professions with the intention of having a respectable voice for coaching to best serve future communities.

The second new organisation will be Coaching in Organisations – In support of the wellbeing and progress of organisations and supporting members in the journey of coaching within organisations.

The third new organisation will be focused on credentialing. This will continue to enhance the standard of service and heighten the credibility and value of coaching. This family will help us be more nimble and better define the quality of coaching worldwide

The last organisation will support training schools and programs. This family is still being defined and will support the growth of the training and supporting members in their training journey.

These new families will allow a lot more opportunities for volunteers to support the ICF. Some of the new roles will be taken by current ICF board members but the majority will be open to new people to help drive the future of coaching, bringing new ideas and opportunities to the ICF.

Each of the 6 families will have their own boards and advisory councils. We are very excited for the opportunity for our members to play a more active role in the future of coaching.

We expect these families to be rolled out early next year and are working with branding agencies, forming the boards, completing all the admin and hope by January 2020, each of these organisations will be ready to go. It has taken 3 years to get to this point, but it has been important to make sure everything is done right.

Every member from every country can participate and we are keen to continue our history of diversity in inclusivity.

In December 2019, the new global chair will come from the current board and see these organisations take shape.

How does a coach become involved?

To become a member of the global board, the opportunities are advertised in the monthly members update and the monthly ICF leaders update. There are application links in all of these publications.

We want all our members to contribute to the maximum so that we can write the story together. ICF is for our members and is our members.

There is a growing aspiration to really serve, to make the world a better and more sustainable place. The values that coaches adopt are so very healthy for the world. We can see how leaders in organisations become leaders and I believe it is time for coaches to step up to leadership roles around the world.

What have you read recently?

I would recommend the Trillion Dollar Coach. This book examines the management lessons from legendary coach and business executive Bill Campbell, whose mentoring of some of our most successful modern entrepreneurs has helped create well over a trillion dollars in market value.

Biography

Jean-François Cousin became a global executive coach in 2006, in the wake of a management career around the world with a Fortune-500 company. By June ’18, he had clocked 10,000 coaching-hours, served over 800 executives and dozens of executive teams, travelling to 35 countries / 5 continents to work with them. Jean-Francois serves on the Global Board of the International Coaching Federation and was elected its Chairman for 2019.He authored the book Game Changers at the Circus—How Leaders Can Unleash Greatness in Their Organizations, coauthored several other books and regularly writes columns for the media.For more information visit www.greatness.coach