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Note from the President
Feature Article -- Establishing the Coaching Agreement
News -- Announcing the Coaching and Leadership Blog
We Recommend -- The Elementary Principal's Coach
Upcoming Events -- Calendar of Great CFR Seminars

Greetings Colleagues!
Frances Shuster, PCC President, Coaching For Results, Inc.

In our busy and urgent lives, we often make implicit agreements and assumptions about those agreements, often without even realizing it. In any relationship, the agreements, both stated and unstated, have the potential to either add to or take away from the relationship. In the next week, notice what agreements you are making explicitly and check out your assumptions about agreements that may be implicit.

Our Monthly Newsletter

All of our newsletter articles are written by CSR Coaches and provide relevant information for school leaders and coaches.

Our electronic newsletters are provided as a gift to individuals who sign up to receive this service and we never share your information with other parties. In our newly updated website, a bonus soon to be provided to our newsletter recipients, will be access to our archived newsletters that will be organized by topic and International Coach Federation (ICF) Competencies. A little added gift for those connected to CSR.

Establishing the Coaching Agreement
By Vicky Dearing, ACC

What keeps partners moving in the same direction and what does this have to do with establishing the coaching agreement?

Imagine a couple who marries and has a beautiful wedding ceremony. Everything about the ceremony goes exactly as planned through the combined thinking and ongoing agreements between the bride and groom. It’s as if the two began the process of partnering as a married couple before the actual marriage began. Now imagine that same couple five years later, married and still committed to each other and yet not experiencing the level of quality they expected from the marriage, partly because they no longer take the time to talk together and reach agreements about what they want. It’s as if they’re headed toward the future with different mind maps on where they’re going and how they plan to get there. Successful marriages call for agreements up front and throughout the relationship.

A similar set of agreements happen in the coaching relationship. The agreements in this partnership,while not as intimate or personal as in a marriage, are significant enough to be identified by the International Coach Federation as one of 11 critical competences of a qualified coach. An effective and competent coach understands that coaching agreements between the coach and the client are established both at the beginning and throughout the relationship, taking on the form of macro and micro agreements.

Formal agreements at the macro level happen prior to beginning the coaching relationship. These agreements include parameters about how the coach and client work together, what the coaching relationship offers and does not offer, and clarity of goals the client wants to accomplish. In this partnership, different from a marriage, the client is always the ultimate decision maker about where the conversation goes, including whether or not a change in conversation direction occurs. The client sets the agenda. The skilled coach exhibits an attitude of exploration and partnership with the client and moves in the direction the client wants to move.

Examples of coach language used at the beginning of a coaching session to establish the macro agreement are:

“As you think about the overall goals you’ve set for yourself this year, what would you like to focus on today and what do you want to achieve by the end of our call?”
“In our time today, what’s the most important thing for us to focus on and how will you know that it’s been a successful conversation for you?”
“We have about 30 minutes together today. What would you like to work on and what will be indicators that it’s been time well spent?”

Examples of coach language used for micro agreements happening throughout a coaching session are:

“Now that we’ve established the focus for our conversation, where would you like to start?”
“It sounds like there are two imminent challenges you are facing. Which one do you want us to focus on first?”
“Would it be helpful if we spent a little time thinking about …?”
“How are we doing on giving you what you wanted?”
“Are you ready to move forward?”
“May I challenge you here?“
“There seems to be a gap between what you say you want and what you are doing. Would you like to talk about this?”
“Are we ready to end?”
“What steps do you want to take between now and when we next talk?”

Coaching For Results, Inc. includes specifics about how to establish macro and micro agreements in the seminars we provide. Whether or not you are preparing to become a certified coach, or just wanting to increase your skills as a coach leader, establishing clear coaching agreements is vital for coaching success.

What new insights are you having about establishing coaching agreements? In what ways do you plan to increase your skills in establishing coaching agreements?

Vicky Dearing is a certified coach through the International Coach Federation and has over 30 years of experience working in public education. She is a former teacher, central office administrator and principal of two Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence. She brings a corporate perspective to her coaching, having served as a Senior Vice President of Training and Implementation for a national education company. Vicky currently serves as the Chief Officer of Marketing for Coaching School Results and is a contributing author to the soon to be published Results Coaching, The New Essential for School Leaders. To find out more about Vicky and all of our coaches, go to www.coachingforresultsglobal and click on “coaches.”

ALL NEW! CFR Announces the Coaching and Leadership Blog!

If you haven’t yet heard our news, we’re all very excited to bring you our first foray into the world of Social Media – the CFR Blog!

You’ve told us that you are eager to get more tools and tips from our experienced coach educators, and we listened. The new blog will:

Keep you informed of the latest in coaching methodologies;
Give you tips and tools that you can implement immediately to improve your leadership coaching skills;
Bring you information about becoming a coach leader;
Provide a place where you can “respond back” – tell us what you think and share your ideas with others via blog comments;
Update you about upcoming CFR seminars and events.

And we make it easy for you to keep track of what’s new on the blog with a simple subscription form. Just enter your email address in the upper right subscription box and we’ll deliver all new blog entries right to your inbox. Couldn’t be simpler to get all the latest news, tools, and tips from the world of educational coaching.

The Elementary Principal’s Personal Coach: Tapping Into Your Power for Extraordinary Leadership
Diana Raney Williams, Essie Hayden Richardson
Foreword by Shirley M. Hord

The guidance and inspiration principals need to take on the challenges of leadership! Perfect for principals to use on their own or as part of formal professional development, this resource provides scenarios for rich conversations to strengthen a leader’s capacity for problem solving and handling the day-to-day challenges of the elementary principalship.

Reflect on lessons learned from the real-life scenarios
Deepen their understanding about their practices through powerful coaching questions
Write about and reflect on their own experiences in journaling sections Engage in proven professional development activities with their staff

Join Linda Gross and Marceta Reilly at NAESP’s National Convention & Exposition in Houston on April 9, 2010 at 8:00-9:30 AM in Convention Center Room 381B for a hands-on session on “Coaching Conversations: Transforming Your School One Conversation at a Time”.

See Details and Register at www.coachingforresultsglobal.com

Most seminars are four days in length. Some are held on four consecutive days while others are held in two-day increments over two months so please check the seminar dates carefully.

Most seminars include a series of three, hour-long follow-up teleclasses specifically designed for seminar participants!

Instructional Coaching: Dallas, TX, June 21-24, 2010
(Follow-up Teleclass dates will be forthcoming)
Leadership Coaching for High Performance: Dallas, TX,
September 14-17, 2010
(Follow-up Teleclass dates will be forthcoming)

Let Us Hear From You

We are always interested in receiving your feedback on how we're doing as well as what you'd like to see more of as we move toward the future. You can provide that information by emailing us at info@coachingforresultsglobal.com.