14 Oct 2016
I believe that CPD is vital to my success as a coach. I talk with many of my clients about the concept of 'lifetime learning' and that they should always be open to new ideas and ways of thinking. This philosophy is just as important to my own development as a coach and mentor. I have to 'walk the walk' and be open to new ways of providing my coaching and mentoring serives. Unless I keep up to date with new ideas and thoughts in coaching and challenge the ways that I provide my services, then I risk providing a service to clients that is less than they deserve.
At my latest CPD session at Azure Consulting, Sue Alderson shared some ideas for different way of coaching clients. The idea of coaching while walking around, taking a client on a short walk during a session was interesting and has great merit in certain situations. We also tried an exercise using Silent Coaching where the coach asks a series of questions and gives Quality Thinking time to the coachee, before reaching some conclusions and actions. We finished with a role-play on Systemic Constellations using small figurines to represent characters in the coachee's issues.
This was a fabulous day and recharged the batteries and the grey matter. I feel I have even more options to provide a high-quality coaching and mentoring service to my coachees.