Recovery Coaching

ICF Australasia President – Kathy Tracey looks back on the year.

Is 2020 over yet? What a year.

I applaud everyone who has made it through with their good humour intact!

This year I sit as the President of the ICF Australasia Charter Chapter, and one of the questions Stewart asked me to address here is: Where I want to take the Chapter during my presidency? That got me thinking… just like a good coaching question should!

As a systemic practitioner, it seems to me that the question isn’t about where I want to take it, but about where it might be possible for us to go together. That might sound like semantics, but the importance of recognising that I am a very small part of a much wider leadership team and group of members is imperative. Organisations like the ICF do not run on the juice of one person or even the ‘top team’, they always run on the system dynamics that pervade the virtual corridors where people meet and build a culture together. So the question is perhaps, how do we nurture a beautiful culture?

The leadership team in Aotearoa (NZ) and Australia is full of talented, committed coaches who give their time in service of developing coaches and coaching. Core to the ICF are the principles of professional coaching, ethical practice, and continuing learning. Developing coaches to become credential holders and showing their expertise in this growing field is a key part of our focus.

My hope for this year is that we can build an organisational culture that is attractive and fun, where people get great value from being a member and even more value when they volunteer and take part in events, really engaging with the local branches, Chapter and Global events.

One of the issues many coaches face is that as an unregulated industry, anyone can call themselves a coach. This of course makes it hard for potential clients to know how to buy a professional service or who to engage with. And it means we are sometimes left to deal with tales of bad practice from unqualified coaches who certainly don’t help our professional reputation!

When I arrived in Wellington 5 years ago and set up my practice, I was somewhat horrified to hear that large corporates in both public and private sector in NZ were not vetting their coaches in any way. I discovered that some HR professionals did not know about coach credentials and in more than one case were using ‘an old mate of the boss’!

To be frank, this is why I joined ICF and worked toward my MCC. Five years ago, I had just returned to New Zealand after 30 years in Europe and I had no local corporate network to speak of. I had been running a leadership development company and had built up a loyal customer base – I hadn’t done any marketing for years. Suddenly I was faced with getting my foot in the door with only testimonials from people half a world away, and clearly in an environment where professional executive coaching wasn’t quite so prevalent or common.

Joining ICF, volunteering for local and then Chapter leadership teams, and getting my MCC showed my potential clients that I was a serious contender for corporate work and gave them a way to differentiate me from others. Alongside my own journey, I could educate potential buyers of coaching about professional standards, how to select coaches and what to expect from a coaching engagement. I encouraged coachees to meet at least 2 coaches to assess the chemistry between them and to understand the coaching approach being offered. This means more people in the marketplace are asking about experience and credentials as well as professional affiliations. This creates more transparency about what people are buying.

By becoming a part of ICF, I have met so many great people, had some fabulous conversations and debates, made business connections, built my network and I even met the woman who was to become my business partner at an ICF event. So through these connections, new beginnings have been created – and the best example - my partner and I launched the coach academy last year and now we teach systemic coaching in person and on-line. All because of a meeting at an ICF Coach Café!

Stewart also asked me to share my opinion on what new coaches should be focusing on.

I hope if this year has taught us one thing, it is that we are all interconnected. The spread of Coronavirus has brutally shown this to be true. Those connections and the recognition of the interrelatedness of our human experience is fundamental to systems thinking. I believe all coaches need to be cognoscente of the systems that their clients belong to and the impact of those systems. We are not just coaching the individual in front of us in a coaching session but we are coaching into a whole system of connections, relationships, loyalties, old wounds, hidden burdens and unconscious contracts (just to name a few of the dynamics integral in human systems).

As a coach you may have trained in a more individualistic methodology, and I am not disparaging that in any way, however I believe there needs to be awareness of the wider system, so that the coachees understanding of their world is a little more complete. Self-awareness includes systemic awareness, an understanding of where I stand in the system and what the impact of that is. It helps me understand why I might be struggling with something that wasn’t a problem for me in a different place. (Think for instance: Previously successful manager ‘failing’ to bring success in the new football team. This clearly isn’t a skills issue.)

The pandemic, and the different responses to it, have also tragically reinforced the importance of one of the often ignored fundamental principles of working systemically: ‘Acknowledging what is’. It seems clear to me that those countries that acknowledged fully the onset of the virus, understood the interconnectedness of us all and how the virus spreads, and therefore understood they had to take action, had less cases and less deaths. We have seen, and are still seeing, the tragic outcomes in those countries where the virus was not fully acknowledged for what it was.

This ‘acknowledgement of what is’ has a critical role in our individual coaching assignments too. We have all experienced people in denial (and done it ourselves too), and we know they will not be able to move on fully until they acknowledge the issue or event. It seems perhaps like a small thing, but perhaps the most useful thing we can do as coaches is to hold the space whilst our clients deeply acknowledge what is.

And so to finish, on this theme, I would like to acknowledge the work, energy and efforts of all of the ICF volunteer leaders and members past and present. We stand on the shoulders of giants, looking back over the 20 years of ICF Australasia and the 25 years of the International Coach Federation it is clear that we have come a long way, and we are still on the journey to make coaching an integral part of our communities and societies. We need to broaden our reach, be relevant to all who could and would access coaching, build our professional practice and have some fun on the way.

Kia Kaha & Meri Kirimihete.

From Kathy Tracey MCC

Rangiwakaoma, Wairarapa, Aoetearoa.