A Lot of Learning

I had a CPD day on Tuesday. I spent the day with a number of colleagues, and the evening at an EMCC event on resilience for coaches.

One of the interesting issues that arose was vulnerability: how as coaches we may choose to make ourselves vulnerable, and the benefits of that to our coaching clients; and also how involuntary vulnerability, or the fear of it, may get in the way of working effectively and with integrity.

Likewise, we considered the effects of vulnerability on our clients, and how, as coaches, a primary responsibility is to provide a safe environment where they can, if they wish, explore such vulnerability and its impact on their behaviour and feelings.  There was also  difference of views about vulnerability made visible by leaders: some of us thought it was a useful thing for them to model; others that it was a manipulative strategy.  My own view is that it could be either, depending on context, intention and so forth.

We also discussed parallel processes: how we may find issues arising in our coaching sessions that are actually based in our life outside the coaching context; as may our clients, of course.

Another important issue was the issue of attending. One of the resolutions I made as a result was to adopt a 'pre-flight check' before every coaching session, to ensure that I do not coach on auto-pilot...

The evening session on resilience was also interesting. It largely covered familiar ground, but was a valuable refresher; and as ever on such occasions, it was meeting colleagues and discussing with them that was a large part of the value. 

So an excellent return to work after the holidays: and whilst it can sometimes be daunting to realise how much I still have to learn and apply to improve my coaching practice, the overall emotion is one of exhilaration.