We were thrilled to host the Shift Positive 360 training here in downtown DC with participants coming from as far away as North Carolina and Seattle, WA to participate! Pete Berridge and Jen Ostrich wowed us with the level of detail, the content that they are sharing and the rarity of having training in a tool where there are no ongoing fees. I have never felt more prepared to deliver a certification, than I did after this training.  And I’ve done a lot of certifications!  The combination of a positive/strengths focus and engaging a system makes it a very unique tool.  I used it on the Monday after the Friday training and got much deeper with my interview than I would have otherwise. As one participant said, “It is more than a 360 – it is a framework for… …

  When you look at your colleagues, do you notice their best qualities? Even when you focus on others’ strengths, you may still feel like the organization is stuck. Maybe you’re mired in inefficient processes. Perhaps you contend with resistance to change. Do you see misalignment between your mission and daily practices? If you do, that’s normal! But it doesn’t have to stay that way. You can do better, because you’re already doing good. If you’re grateful for other’s good points, and yet the organization seems stalled or stuck in some way, conditions are ripe for Appreciative Inquiry (AI). An Appreciative Inquiry summit is an organizational process intended to catalyze positive transformation by noticing what’s already going well, envisioning an optimal future, and leveraging strengths and creativity to get there. This happens when as many stakeholders as possible come together… …

Facing an ethical challenge in one of my subcontracting assignments, this lead me to further exploration of the ICF (International Coach Federation) code of ethics and its concepts and principals with colleagues of mine in the profession and outside of the profession who often had strong viewpoints that contradicted my own. The situation was a friend and my boss has used an online software to collect data from our coaching sessions for purposes of billing and gathering themes from the coaching so that she may present data back to the client.  In addition, she has tried to have us put our coaching notes from the sessions up in two different pieces of software.  On a call a few months ago she asked the group if they would be willing to use the new software to put their notes on it… …