Northern Colorado Coaches Alliance meeting 7 February 2007

Services for NCCA members

• As you can see, we're now implementing NCCA mailings as formatted HTML messages. Please send your feedback and suggestions to Carl.
• We have captured a whole bunch of resources in a virtual "library" for use by NCCA members. If you have something you'd like to contribute, please contact Carl. If you would like to borrow something, click on the appropriate orange box on that page.
• NCCA members who have paid to have an advertisement on the NCCA website can now also list their products for sale. This can help drive additional business to your website. Please contact Carl if you have something you'd like to have listed on that page.

Attending

Susan, Carl, Kristen, Holly, Hector, Steve, Karen, Pam

Announcements and introductions

• Steve is building his company, Awakening Insight, and working to join the Association of Coach Training Organizations.
• Karen is an NLP and Hypnosis trainer, delivering her first NLP class in May.
• Karen and Steve graciously handed out some wonderful resources on Communication Skills for Coaches, contact Steve if you're interested!
• Hector is transitioning from the corporate world to coaching, attending Coach U. He's focusing on executive, hiring, and team coaching at multiple levels for businesses in the range of $500K-$1M. He delivers a mix of coaching and consulting. He has almost 400 documented hours toward his certification - yay! His website is under construction at www.boundlesscoaching.com.
• Susan is a business coach and consultant, for companies of up to 250 employees. Her market focus is on green, renewable and sustainable companies - mixing both her passion and expertise.
• Pam is a Certified Life Coach, currently getting education from Coach U. She's not sure who her clients are yet, but is interested in coaching teens, college students, and men.
• Kristen is working with individuals and teams on leadership coaching, specializing in creativity. She is working with a local health company, teaching and coaching nurses.
• Carl is still working to promote coaching in connection with corporate programs - progress comes in fits and starts. He submitted a proposal to speak at the ICF Australasian conference in October, and will find out in mid-March whether this was accepted.

Crucial Conversations - Holly Winters and Kristen Truman

Kristen and Holly shared what they've learned about Crucial Conversations, based on classes and the book Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High.

Crucial conversations are those which have high impact on your emotions and/or relationships. In these situations, you have much more riding on the outcome of the interaction than normal. You often need a crucial conversation when you're stuck: you're having the wrong conversations, you're avoiding, you're taking it personally, or excessively rehashing the same territory without making progress.

We talked about situations in which we've had these conversations, both those that went well and those that didn't - or conversations which didn't happen at all. This was an enlightening exercise, as it helped us to identify patterns and useful approaches.

We talked about two extremes of conversation: Violence to Silence.

Violence is defined as any action taken to compel others toward your point of view: Controlling, Labeling, or Attacking.

Silence is defined as any action taken to withhold information from the pool of meaning: Masking, Avoiding, Withdrawing.

We spent some time with an interesting self-assessment which helped to provide clarity on whether we tend toward either of these two extremes.

Finally, we talked about how to create the Pool of Shared Meaning, drawing ourselves and others toward a common goal of shared action:

Please contact Kristen or Holly if you're interested in further discussion or seeing the handouts.

You are receiving this because you have expressed an interest in the NCCA. If you wish to be removed from the mailing list, please contact carl@dierschow.com. Copyright © 2007 Northern Colorado Coaches Alliance.