Dear Co-Active Coaches,

Welcome to the May edition of The Inquiry. I recently attended the CALL retreat, a retreat for graduates of the Co-Active Leadership program, and once again am in awe of our magnificent community. It’s an honor to be a part of a community so dedicated to the principles of Co-Activity.

“Discover and Explore Coaching” is the theme for the ICF European conference happening May 19-21 in Norway, and CTI will be represented there by our European partners. If you are attending the conference, stop by and say “Hi.”

Just like the world of nature around us, CTI is in the midst of growth this spring. One of the signs of this growth is the addition of new members of the CTI faculty. Read more about our new faculty under CTI News. Other signs of growth in our community are the three new niche communities forming in the Co-Active Network this month and a new group of coaches who have joined the ranks of CPCCs. Join us in celebrating them!

Our topic this month is the Benefits of Certification: Why become certified as a coach? How has becoming certified changed your coaching or your coaching business? What impact does coach certification have on the profession of coaching? Articles by CPCCs Iola Freeland, Sandi Davis and Carol Ross give us a peek into the experiences of these three coaches and their thoughts on the benefits of becoming certified.

Enjoy!

Warmly,
Kathy Curry, CPCC
Director of Marketing

Announcing New CTI Faculty Members
If you’ve been in a CTI course, you’ve met some of our faculty members who lead our in-person courses. In addition to these awesome “front-of-the-room” leaders, we have other faculty members who support the learning in our certification program. Certification Program Leaders (CPLs) lead the certification teleclasses, supervisors support certification program students with individual supervision sessions, and examiners conduct the certification exams that determine who receives the designation CPCC.

Over the past few months, we’ve held auditions and begun training new front-of-the-room leaders (both in Europe and in North America), CPLs and supervisors. We’re thrilled to welcome these awesome leaders to their new roles. Some of them are joining the CTI faculty for the first time and others are taking on new roles in addition to previous ones.

New North American front-of-the-room leaders: Randy Brenneman
Linda Clark
Marlena de Carion
Mary Kuentz
Ken Mossman
Clive Prout
Art Shirk
Signy Wilson
Elizabeth Woodbridge
Susan Valdiserri
Troy Yorke

New European front-of-the-room leaders:
Tony Barton, from England
Dori Ben Chanoch, from Israel
Hannes Entz-von Zerssen, from Germany
Michelle Kempton, from Spain
Tony Parry, from England
Sandra Richardson, from England
Susannah Southgate, from England
Sabina Wyss, from Switzerland
Fiona Sturrock, from England
Gulsun Zeytinoglu, from Turkey

New CPLs: Sandra Cain Akasha Halsey Bonnie Hill Melanie Keveles Mary Kuentz Joni Mar Ken Mossman Troy Yorke

New Supervisors: Ariane Cherbuliez Lisa Cormier Wendy Gutin Leni Chr. Jebsen Anne Johansen Alexsandra Lantigua Eva Szita Morris Gulsun Zeytinoglu

Each of these supervisors is bi- or multi-lingual, which allows us to offer supervision in our students’ native languages for students speaking Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Hebrew, Turkish, Hungarian, Spanish, German and French.

We’re very excited to welcome all these wonderful coaches to their new roles and wish them all the best.

Co-Active Network
Three new communities coming this month to the Co-Active Network are Emotional Intelligence, Career Coaches and Spanish-Speaking Co-Active Coaches. They join the more than 40 niche and geographic communities and the Main Community of nearly 4,400 members. The purpose of the Network is to support every member in achieving his/her greatest vision for Co-Active coaching and leadership in the world. Check them out!

Each community has resources, discussions and community events. Check the full calendar on the Co-Active Network. There are an amazing array of exciting events. Also, many of the events held on the Main Community have been recorded on audio podium. The list of recorded sessions is available under the “Resources” section of the Main Community. Look for the topic “Audio Podiums from Network Main Event Sessions” for a full list.

Would you like to share your insight with fellow coaches?
We love to learn from our community, and sharing your thoughts with your fellow coaches is a great way to let us know what’s happening in your world. The Inquiry focuses on a specific topic each month. Topics for the next few months are:

June—Marketing: How do you effectively market yourself as a coach? What is this thing called “branding” and how does it apply to coaches? What advice would you give to a new coach starting out…or to an experienced coach wanting to take his/her business to a new level?

July—Diversity: What’s your perspective on diversity in the world of coaching? How can we increase diversity in the coaching community? And in the community of people being coached?

August—Ritual: How do you use ritual in your coaching, in workshops, or in self-care as a coach? How does ritual enrich your coaching? How has the use of ritual benefited your clients?

We invite you to submit articles and share your insight in The Inquiry. It is a fantastic way to increase your visibility in the coaching profession. Please send articles to newsletter@thecoaches.com. Read the detailed submission guidelines.

The Power of Certification
After questioning several coaches on their own experiences, I became curious about the direction of the profession at large. Will certification become mandatory at some point? Pat Williams sits on the regulatory committee for ICF, and he and the rest of the committee are currently grappling with this issue. “Government agencies and many corporations require coaches to be licensed before they will hire them.” Iola Freeland, CPCC, covers these greater questions along with sharing her own experience in this insightful article. Read more.

Certification—Why Bother?
Becoming certified as a Co-Active coach is a big choice. It is a choice because at this point, no specific coach training, much less certification, is needed to coach and work with clients. It is a big choice because doing certification takes a lot of time, money and energy, all of which are very big things to most of us. What is so important about a program that is not technically required and is such a big commitment? In other words, why bother? You bother because you want to be a really good coach. Sandi Davis, CPCC and CTI leader, has some very inspiring and motivating advice to share in her article about becoming certified. Read more by clicking here.

All That You Need is Already There
Carol Ross, CPCC, was certified through CTI last year. She writes a wonderful reflection on what her journey was like, giving us the honest ins and outs of her process: Last year, I flew from Denver to San Francisco to take my coaching certification exam. While the focus and worry for my classmates had been on the oral exam—coaching live in front of experienced coaching instructors—I was more concerned with making arrangements to see friends and family in the Bay Area. Instead of wondering if I would be able to ask the right powerful question during the oral exam, I was figuring out how to get to four different suburbs without a car…. To follow her journey further, read the article.

Please join the CTI team in congratulating all of the Certified Professional Co-Active Coaches that have finished the rigorous certification program and passed their exams!

CPCCs from March 15 through April 30
Laurel Avery, Jillian Dixon Boxer, Becky Blunk, Susan Braverman, Daria DePaolis, Kay Dundorf, Philip Durnford, Leagh Gabriel, Penelope Gardner, Gail Gordon, Jeanne Heald, Laura Hurd, Tracy James, Andrea Kantor, Donna Krone, Kimball Lane, Bo Brandt Laursen, Joanne LeBlanc, Maggie McCauley, James Miller, Jonelle Naude, Diane Petrella, Thavy Phonsavath, Dawn Quesnel, Carrie Radovich, Pearlette Ramos, Veronica Raya, Eve Reddin, Bethany Robson, Robin Rypinski, Adrienne Serrao, Elaine Shearer, Christine Stray, Cindy Suess, Helena Wheeler, Carol Wzorek, Arnetta Yardbourgh, David Yozzi.