News

After a long absence, I am writing with the purpose of providing some context for the changes in me and the world around me that have led to this gap. The Coaching Project has transitioned to new interests and priorities over the past couple of years, reflecting my own transitions in life.

Just as TCP was a pioneer in the field of Leaders Coaching Leaders, we are setting out again to explore the role of leadership and coaching in the final stages of life. Some of the questions I have been pondering that have led to this shift in direction are: How can we share our gifts of wisdom and experience after we leave the workplace? How can we contribute to our imperiled world as elders? How can our own living and dying lead the way for others?

I hope to share some of my own story and a few of the exciting new directions emanating from these changes. This newsletter will now become a blog on an updated website and will focus on these new adventures as they unfold.

I would like to thank the many, many people who have contributed to our success over the last 15 years – clients, colleagues, leaders and managers, students, associates, friends. I am tremendously grateful to all who have supported, mentored, and travelled this path along with me. A deep bow to you all.

In our coaching and training we have consistently used our three-stage process as shown in the model below. Each stage answers a question: What’s So? So What? What’s Next? I have used these questions to reflect on my recent experience and to give a sense of completion to this chapter in The Coaching Project’s history.

What’s So?

I often say retirement is harder than it looks. I have been working on it for half a dozen years. I began by moving across the country to Vancouver to be close to my son and his family, to step back from the intensity of work and travel. However, I was soon designing a new leader coach certificate program for Simon Fraser University, chairing the board of a nonprofit, and co-leading a community dedicated to the evolution of consciousness. I quickly realized I hadn’t really changed at all.

I then became deeply engaged in my own inner journey for the first time in my life, meditating, reading, being silent, confronting my own transition to a new stage of life and wondering, as Otto Scharmer says, Who am I and What is my work? I began to study, write and present on the concept of home, being at home in myself, with others and in the wider world.

At this time, I lost a number of loved ones to illness and old age. Friends, colleagues, relatives, they seemed to be falling like dominoes. This led me even deeper inside my own skin. I attended retreats, spent longer periods in silence and solitude, read about death and dying voraciously, and began to reflect on how I too was dying to my old self. When my long term relationship also ended, it seemed death was everywhere – in me, those I loved, and in our dying world. I began to think of this period as a proverbial dark night, full of sadness, depression and isolation, with no escape.

So What?

I have gained a number of valuable insights from this prolonged dark period. One is that having emerged on the other side into a buoyant lightness, I find it imperative to carry forward the time for stillness and introspection that has been so critical throughout the transition. Although I have never been religious, I feel this inward path is a spiritual one, a spacious surrender to the moment, letting go of expectations, judgements and past conditioning. I also realize the tremendous gift in the darkness. Having allowed myself the time and space to experience it, to be challenged by it, I feel transformed, reborn into a new self I can get to know, to learn to feel at home as this new me. The darkness holds the light within itself.

Another insight is that using myself as the instrument of my own learning and experience, I arrive at a place where I can share some of this dark night with others. It may be simply creating some circles of interest in the topics I am drawn to – that would be more than enough. Or it may, like The Coaching Project, expand to fill a need that is larger than my own. One advantage of being on the thin edge of the wedge of the baby boom as I enter my 70th year, is that there are 80 million (LINK) others coming along behind, I suspect with many of the same questions and concerns I am wrestling with.

Coming from an integral perspective, I can also see that nothing has been lost in this transition. Leading and coaching are vitally important in the later stages of life. The Coaching Project has an important role to play in this pioneering work. For example, there are coaches calling themselves ‘death doulas’ now emerging to support those who are dying and their families. There is a huge need to assist elders with their end of life planning; coaches and innovative organizations are emerging to address this need. And there are many opportunities for leadership within our own circles as well as in shaping and contributing to the institutions that will support us as we face our own end.

What’s Next?

I have retired from my previous focus; I have died to my old self. But having been reborn, I am beginning again, again. Called to adventure by my own experience and incorporating my own history, I am focusing on end of life issues, including dying. I have designed a course with a workbook called The Art of Dying.

Over the six weeks, we look at the philosophical and practical issues associated with end of life, and express individual perspectives and wishes in an art form like poetry, drawing, collage, improv, or journaling. I have run this program for groups of 5 to 15 four times now, and I’m beginning to train facilitators to deliver the program so that the impact spreads more quickly. The purpose is simply to provoke conversations about dying, a taboo subject in our culture.

I am also beginning to develop a circle devoted to end of life spirituality, that natural turning inward that occurs in maturity, and how sharing our views and concerns might contribute to a healthier, happier elderhood. I continue to be a member and leader of several other circles with interest in the development of our consciousness as individuals, how who we are has implications for our communities and our wider world. Please be in touch by email if any of these topics are of interest to you. The Coaching Project will continue to offer coaching and programs beginning in the fall of this year.

In the meantime, I am traveling and experiencing new people and places, all informing my global sensitivities. And I am writing, beginning with this closing of a finished chapter and opening of a new one.  I am home.

I recently interviewed Arden Henley, Principal of Canadian Programs at City University, about CityU’s decision to partner with The Coaching Project on coach education. His insights mirror and expand on the results of the ICF study.

Why does CityU see a coaching program as an important addition to its roster of programs?

We see our role as building leadership capacity in the community. Coaching plays an increasingly important role in leadership and we want to respond to that need. Just one example is a leadership survey conducted by a mentor of mine at Jackson Leadership Systems. He asked gifted leaders about the most important elements in the education of leadership for change. The first theme was the cultivation of self-awareness, a surprising outcome with a high level of agreement, highlighting the shift from performance efficiency to personal capacity. “The field of leadership development is moving on: ticking off a list of leadership competencies is no longer enough. They are too static. Self-awareness really means being yourself with more skill.” The fourth of the seven themes was coaching itself, including the importance of honest feedback to build self-awareness. These results are not unique; they are indicative of an evolution in the leadership role.

How does coaching for leaders fit with CityU’s broader mission?

Our mission in Canada is the transformation of society through relevant and accessible post-secondary and continuing education. We are responsible for creating a robust intellectual and practice-based commons for the professions, including giving a voice to coaching in this interdisciplinary dialogue. Coaching is part of enabling individuals, teams and corporations to change, to reach their dreams. We take a positive approach, ‘exemplifying the alternative’, by seeing change as exciting, inspiring, attracting excellence, rather than something we are dragged into.

What might a leader expect to get out of this program?

Well, you can answer that better than I can! But I would say we are committed to a relational vision of leadership. We take responsibility for creative positive change-enhancing relationships through our communities of practice. We provide the forum for ongoing resources, information, encouragement and support. By joining the CityU family, leaders are incorporated into this ongoing learning network. We want to pass along to the next generation of leaders what the previous generation has learned about learning and change.

Who would you expect to attend? What roles/functions might be suited to the program?

The one-day Leader Coach program coming up in January 2015 is an introductory course aimed at leaders at every level who want a taste of what coaching is about or a refresher on their coaching skills. Ultimately, this program may become part of our Executive Leadership Program. This program has been focused mostly on CEOs, Senior Program Directors and Board Chairs of nonprofits and is very highly rated by participants. As we move forward, we are building bridges to corporations to provide a broader multi-sector program dialogue.

Any other comments you would like to make?

We at CityU are taking responsibility for making a better world. We believe the capacity of educational settings to support growth and development is critical, especially at this point in our history where we face unprecedented challenges such as climate change.

We are presently opening a school of management with our first approved management degree program, the Bachelor of Management, in 2015. We are just finalizing the curriculum and will be using these concepts to underpin the program.