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One hundred cards

24/4/2015

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It's about time we had some cards of our own, with the C4E logo, right. So here they come. First up is Daniel Brolén.

  • Martin Richards AB is paying for these cards. (about 200 sek)
  • On Saturday 2nd May, I will make and send an e-mail sample of your cards for approval.
  • The approved cards will be printed and sent to you by May 8th so that you can use them in your contaccts (especially during the International Coach Week 18-24 May)
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Nine promotional ideas for ICW International Coach Week

22/4/2015

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After a little brain-storm, we came up with these ideas.


1) Contact the local teachers' union and offer to hold a presentation about coaching (some teacher unions have coaches!)

2) Contact a local employer and offer to talk about "coaching skills for parents" to the employees who are parents of teenagers

3) Offer to coach a class of students at the local school, every week for 3 months

4) Contact the local teacher training school, and offer to hold a presentation about "coaching for work-life balance".

5) Contact a local youth club, sports, music... and offer to hold a presentation about "coaching for excellence"

6) Tell the local newspaper that you are goinf to do one of the above

7) With a partner, have a LOUD coaching session at a cafe, and leave your business card on the table. Or you could use your mobile phone to call your partner

8) with a partner, have a LOUD coaching session on a bus, and leave your business card on the seat. Or you could use your mobile phone to call your partner

9) Record yourself coaching a teacher, and post it on your website (and link to C4E)
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How I got into schools, presented coaching and got clients

16/4/2015

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It's as easy as 1, 2 , 3

1 Get in touch
2 Present, demonstrate and activate
3 Follow up!

Presentation slides

present_demonstrate_and_activate.pdf
File Size: 971 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

You can download the presentation and use it for presenting to teachers, for example.

Get in touch

Over the past years, I have used these ways of getting in touch:

Sending e-mail. It took minutes a day, and the positive result were 1 in 1000 (or more)
Making phone calls. This took  hours a week, and the results were 1 in 100
Making spontaneous visits. This took  hours a week, and the results were 1 in 10

The script I used for phone calls / spontaneous Visits
I often spoke to the head teacher, or another person who was in charge of the school at the time.

Hi, I am Martin Richards, I am a leadership coach, working for Coaching for Educators.
(Did you know that during May 18-22 coaches around the world will be promoting coaching as a leadership strategy.) 

We are offering to hold a free (pause) demonstration of how effective coaching is in the classroom. (pause and answer any questions that come up) Would you be interested in letting your teachers go to a free demonstration of coaching, it takes an hour?

If there was interest, we looked for a date and time that suited us. Then I sent a flyer to the head to use in promoting the event, for example "How to motivate your students to higher goals", plus date, time and venue.

If there was no interest, I simply explored what the reasons were, and worked to find solutions in a coaching way, remembering that one of the headteacher's goals is "teaching excellence".

Present, demonstrate and activate

Preparation
I needed a whiteboard / flipchart or projector.
I arranged the room if possible, with the chairs in a semi circle.

Outline of presentation

I presented my credentials and experience of leadership development

I defined coaching as "Coaching is a collaborative, solution-focused, result-orientated and systematic process in which the coach facilitates the enhancement of work performance, life experience, self-directed learning and person growth of the coachee" Grant psychologist and coach.

I asked what their expectations of a coaching conversation would be (process and outcome). And then I told them that I see coaching leadership in the classroom having at least these two benefits

Students listen to you (and each other)
Students think more for themselves, and take more responsibility for their studies and lives


I offered to demonstrate individual coaching with a volunteer (watched for volunteers) here and now (soon)

I showed the ICF Eleven Core Coaching Skills and asked which skills they recognised and already use, and what the BENEFITS and CHALLENGES were associated with the skills. I said that I have chosen to focus on two skills and have two exercises that they can use with their students, and invited them to work in pairs.

Activate - two practical activities to engage the teachers

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Active Listening

I showed them the chinese symbol for listening, which combines the symbols for you, eyes, ears, heart and undivided attention

We discussed the benefits of the process of listening actively, and what we might need to do more of / less of than in ordinary conversations. A situation that was useful to refer to was when a colleague comes into the staffroom "full of emotion" from a "tough lesson". Active listening is the best thing you can do for your colleague.

Here's two films that I used, http://www.coaching-for-educators.com/coaching-in-education.html




Task: Actively listen to your colleague
A listens to B speaking about their experiences of the day, in silence, using both ears, both eyes, whole heart, giving no comments, dismissing own thoughts and ideas - just actively listening.


Follow up
We debriefed the BENEFITS and CHALLENGES, and whether or not it's worth mastering the challenges to reach the benefits. We noted that the person mastering the challenges is not the one receiving the benefits; and that this must be part of a MUTUAL effort, from all the staff. A call to action was sometimes appropriate.


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Powerful Questions

I used business guru, Steven Covey's quote (chosen from many others)



"Most people don't listen with the intent to understand, they listen with the intent to reply"

We discussed the aim of having a coaching conversation in the context of classroom leadership.

I told them that my opinion is that classroom leadership can be described as "Further the action and/or deepen the learning"

I told them that the best thing to do to keep the coaching conversation moving forwards, to further the action or deepen the learning, was to ask open questions rather than closed questions or leading questions. We discussed examples of these types of questions and where they come from in the coaching conversation.


Task: Further the action or deepen the learning
A listens to B talking about a tough lesson, then asks only open questions based on what B said. A uses active listening of course!

Follow up
We debriefed the BENEFITS and CHALLENGES, and whether or not it's worth mastering the challenges to reach the benefits. We noted that the person mastering the challenges is not the one receiving the benefits; and that this must be part of a MUTUAL effort, from all the staff. A call to action was sometimes appropriate.


Demonstration

I love giving demos standing up! 
Teachers are used to standing in front of people and find it odd to sit down in the classic "coaching chair".

By this time I had identified several teachers who had something to share, and who had the courage needed to be coached live in front of their colleagues. I invited one of them to come up.

I invited the whole group to agree to full confidentiality, "What we say in this room, stays in this room - we don't mention it after today". A show of hands was usually enough to seal the deal.


I used the GROW method for the demo, making clear each step by moving to a different position in the room. In cases where I wanted to sell the GROW coaching cards, I physically selected each question from the pack that I held in my hand. In between the GROW questions I asked follow up "tell me more" questions and summarised what the client had said (two more skills!). Sometimes I used prepared GROW questions, that were displayed on the screen / whiteboard.

Follow up
We debriefed the BENEFITS and CHALLENGES, and whether or not it's worth mastering the challenges to reach the benefits. We noted that the person mastering the challenges is not the one receiving the benefits; and that this must be part of a MUTUAL effort, from all the staff. A call to action was sometimes appropriate.

At this point the conversations were sometimes about the benefits to colleagues, and at other times it was about the benefits to the students. 
I just went with the flow!

You can order these cards for yourself, with the C4E logo on the back.

Follow up!

Teachers are used to giving feedback. I gave out feedback sheets with the headings "What was good?", "What was best?" and "What could be improved?" I also included "Contact me" and asked for the teacher's name and telephone number. This last question could be cut off the feedback sheet so the feedback could still be anonymous.

Here's an example fo the feedback from one school http://www.martinrichards.eu/katedralskolan.html


The next week I called the teachers who wanted to be contacted. I also e-mailed the head teacher a summary of the teachers' feedback and called to ask for a meeting to discuss the next step. This resulted in further and ongoing assignments training more teachers to use coaching skills, presenting to students and training them to used GROW (for example). I also work with school headteachers in designing and implementing changes at the school.
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C4E Meetings

7/4/2015

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The Presentation and Demonstration Meetings - where you can bring educators for an online coaching demo - have yet to be fully exploited. These need to be re-energised, and there is now ONE date, on 18th June.

The Master Mind Meetings - where we share our experience of ongoing coaching - are a little ahead of their time. These would be better held in the autumn, when we have coaching up and running.

The Orientation Meetings - where you can ask whatever questions you may have about getting started with coaching educators - are working just fine. And we need some more dates in May and June.

So, here are the modified dates for C4E ­ Orientation, 16:00 - 17:00 CET time

Thu 7 May
Thu 21 May 
Thu 4 Jun
Thu 2 Jul

Meeting Calendar

You are welcome to come to these meetings. 

BOOK here
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Speaking to Heads

7/4/2015

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balanced heart and head
There's a certain balance between 'head' and 'heart' that each of us adopts as a source of inspiration in life. Sometimes the balance point moves a little this way, sometimes it moves a little that way, and it often returns to the point that feels right for us.

As an idealist and a dreamer, I find that my balance point is more towards my 'heart' than my 'head', I focus on 'what could be' more than 'what is'. 

Most of the head teachers that I have spoken to have their balance point more towards their 'head' than their 'heart'. They include the rules and regulations that come with representing a large organisation.  

You can see where this blogpost is heading can't you? In order to meet the headteachers I have to speak more from my head than usual. There's no point talking about what could be, without including a measure of what already is. Having noticed that, I design my first meetings with headteachers to include these questions.


We are involved with a change process... 
What is the most desirable outcome?
What does that mean to you? (Why is it important?)0
What is in the current environment that is in the way of that outcome?
What is in the current environment that supports the outcome? 
What already exists in the environment that could support the outcome even more? 
What could we do to enhance that?

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    Martin Richards, Co-ordinator of C4E

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C4E is a not-for-profit organisation that co-ordinates professional, volunteer coaching support for Educators around the world.
C4E does not sell coaching. C4E is financially supported by the non-profit i.b.mee.org
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