Emerging Commitment

Wednesday evening's TechFlash Women in Tech event didn't just shake up my sense of self. It also gave me some facts and figures bolstering a view I've long held regarding the value and importance of gender equality. My perspective is simple and boils down to wanting to maximize value more than caring that much about fairness. Tough girls can hack it and find a way to fit in - I did - but when it's a matter of a system that's sub-optimized, I'm more motivated to want to get in and fix it at that systemic level rather than rely on one-off solutions.

What emerged from that event was a picture that my rather passionate sense of the problems in gender inequality developed over the past 40 years is not wrong. There is indeed a system sub-optimization problem worth addressing. Some of the figures quoted that stood out to me:

• The majority of patents evaluated as highly innovative came from mixed gender teams but only 9% of technology patents have female contributors. Implied conclusion: get more women involved and you're likely to see more innovation.
  
  
• Women typically get 30% less than men in venture capitol funding but maintain similar output to their better-funded counterparts. Implied conclusion: get more for your money when investing in women because often they really have learned how to do more with less.
  
  
• Women are primary wage-earners in 4 out of 10 families but only 5% of tech startups are women-owned/led. Implied conclusion: Women are capable of doing the work; families and the tech sector would both benefit from increased contributions from women.
  
  
• Although women make up about half the general workforce, women make up only 24% of tech; in 1985, 37% of computer science majors were female, now it's down to 17%. Implied conclusion: instead of growing the numbers of women in tech, their ranks are actually shrinking; given the other stats, this is "key talent de-selecting itself and not coming to the table."
  
  
• Only 16% of Fortune 500 companies have women on their boards. Implied conclusions: not only do the numbers of women shrink in the higher ranks, there is a de-motivating effect on all women in tech/business because there are fewer role models and the system is again missing out on key perspectives.

And this was all just from the TechFlash event. I learned today that apparently the World Bank is of a similar mind, but from the perspective of poverty, that there is an economic advantage to investing in girls.

In my mind, these numbers paint a scary picture - fewer and fewer women in a key business sector that doesn't necessarily stop to consider the value they provide so doesn't miss them when they're gone. With fewer women available as role models, fewer girls and young women even stop to think of going into tech. With fewer women in the ranks of tech workers and no one else motivated enough to bring them into the fold, policies and attitudes that make tech a less attractive option to women remain in place and so they simply make other choices about the work they do. And the cycle continues to devolve in that way.

Considering what these numbers really mean, I can only conclude that it is in everyone's best interests - male and female, families and individuals, tech sector and general economy - for us to work together to find a way to bring more women into science and technology. It's not about devaluing men's contributions. It's not about playing the gender card or whining about what's fair (my personal favorite anti-feminism beef). It is simply about what is best for us as a society.

These numbers tell me that our system is more seriously broken than I'd realized, that we have reached a point somewhere along the way when it started to get worse instead of better. While not perfect, the laws and larger policies seem to me to be generally good enough so that's not the biggest problem right now. Where we're falling down is in day-to-day culture and implementation of those policies and in the choices that we each make. And when I stop to think about who is in a position to start to get that part fixed, I see a couple of obvious answers outright.

The first answer is we are all responsible for doing something about this collectively.

Men - find ways to listen to the challenges that women face in tech and help eliminate them, sometimes (perhaps) by taking them on as your own.

Women - don't give up on yourselves just because there are easier options available. Toughen up and do the hard work for yourselves and other younger women to follow and find a way to make women in tech a more, rather than less, common occurrence. Not everyone enjoys being a pioneer, but someone's got to do it or the path is never carved out for others to follow. We had one started and we let it get grown over.

Men and women both - encourage and support women of all ages to think of becoming involved in tech; be creative, it's not all just about the programming. It's about being cutting edge and changing the world, hopefully for the better. That last part is something a lot of women can get behind so it shouldn't be a tough sell. Remember to mentor individual women and also to actively advocate for their individual and collective success.

The second answer was a bit of a gulp for me. Between feeling I had so little in common with women for so many years, especially seeing so many of them not really push themselves to their true capacity, and feeling more drawn to men because it was easier for me to see what we had in common, it never really occurred to me to be that involved in advocating for women. And I say this as a person who has openly asserted how stupid many of our attitudes and policies are when it comes to women.

It wasn't that I thought I was better than other women; it was more (I believe now - I'm still trying to figure it all out) that I didn't realize just much of an impact the advantages I enjoyed (familial support, a genetic predisposition to stubbornness, and an unequivocal sense in key areas of my ability to provide value) really had in influencing my choices as opposed to the choices made by other women. I realize now that while I am indeed different from a lot of women, I am not, in fact entirely alone amongst my gender in those differences. Compared with that subset, the real difference is that the challenges I found difficult might seem insurmountable to others - or not worth the effort. Tough as it is to admit, this thought really hadn't occurred to me.

What I truly did not realize fully was just how troublesome it is that the women who could be doing this work, aren't. And in coming to these realizations, gulps and all, knowing my own experiences - both successful and not so much - with playing in a variety of male-dominated fields, knowing my sense of history and understanding of the playing field (as it was, is, and might be), and knowing I have the coaching skills and the leadership skills, and the general business skills to do it... I can only conclude one thing: that I too am not only capable of directly influencing the short-term and long-term outcomes with regard to women in tech, but that I have an outright responsibility to do so.

That said, I have practically zero clue at this point exactly what that looks like. I only know I have to be involved in some way. First and foremost, it occurs to me that it is important to recognize that responsibility in my sense of mission regarding what I'm trying to accomplish with my business. That means actively seeking to support women and women-owned businesses in tech with my coaching and my consulting. It means making it more clear how I can help.

I also sense an importance in figuring out how I can help younger girls when they are first electing to move toward or away from tech, even though I have a son instead of a daughter. On that front, if you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them. One of things I like about being female is an increased willingness to take the crowdsourcing approach.

Feel free to also enter into dialog on the matter. Your own thoughts and observations, suggestions and conclusions. This is a big one and we'll all have to get behind it to be able to move the ball in any significant way. As they say, though, awareness is the first step.

What conclusions can you draw from the evidence around you about what responsibilities you now (or no longer) have?

ICF Credentialing Process Overhaul

The ICF is considering a major overhaul of the existing credentialing system. Since I feel like I know a thing or two about credentialing because of my years in aviation and a thing or two about coaching because of my time serving on the local board of directors, as well as a thing or two about the current regulatory environment because of my involvement in local legislation impacting counseling and my participation on the ICF Regulatory Committee, I took the time to think carefully about how I feel about this effort.

The following letter that I sent to the credentialing committee is the result of my thinking on the matter. I share it with you now because there are coaches out there discussing this subject who might benefit from some of these thoughts, only if it's to help clarify their own, and there are potential coaching clients who would be well-served to understand more about what is happening in this industry.

Please feel free to comment as you see fit. My intention is to help open up discussion. I have no day-to-day dealing with the ICF credentialing committee, however, so if you want to reach them, you should do so more directly.

I am writing with my thoughts about the proposed credentialing changes as an ICF member holding an ACC credential and as a former chapter president and member of the ICF Regulatory Committee... deep analytical skills in this arena, experience in dealing with this matter at a regulatory level, and the farthest thing possible from being any kind of reactionary on the subject.

I have read all of the materials I can locate on the ICF website pertaining to the proposed credentialing changes and also have scanned through various external letters and discussions on the subject. Last week, I sat in on the October 20 open conference call on the proposed credentialing changes, during which two basic questions were asked which I’ll attempt to answer here: First reaction to the proposal (how does it sit) and what should be considered.

My first reaction is to stand back and pay attention to the landscape because I don’t feel sufficiently confident that enough other people are doing so, either on the planning side of things or on the feedback side. Sensing a great deal of confusion and a huge amount of emotion surrounding this effort, I’d like very much to cut through as much of that as possible and look at this opportunity to update the credentialing standards and the process through which we achieve our credentials as objectively as possible.

The general landscape I see as worthy of consideration while undertaking further planning includes the following:

People are calling themselves coaches without doing what the ICF considers coaching. People are calling themselves coaches who may be doing coaching, but not necessarily well or with any kind of coach training; still others are engaged in what might be recognized as coaching but calling it something else altogether. Fact and entertainment-based media are increasingly including references to coaching – often in a facetious manner that does not reflect well on coaching and not always referencing activities the ICF would recognize as coaching.

Meanwhile, individuals with coach training often identify themselves with the fields in which they specialize much more so than with the field of coaching itself. Some of them have even given up calling themselves coaches, finding it more helpful to refer to what they do using anything but the confusion-laden term coaching. My individual assessment is that coaching as a term for a standalone industry made up of a standalone skill is in significant danger of becoming irrelevant. How credentialing is handled will either speed that process and essentially kill off the industry or revitalize the field by proving to ourselves and others that there really is a ‘there’ there – and hopefully the ‘there’ that’s there applies to more than just training and mentoring other coaches because if it’s not, then it’s just a pyramid scheme.

Assuming for a moment that there really is a legitimate ‘there’ there, I see two primary hurdles we must overcome. They’re not new, but so far, I’m not convinced we’re taking these considerations fully into account either in our individual day-to-day practices, in how our professional association is run, or in how we are approaching the credentialing process so far.

First, there is the barrier to entry issue. Anyone can lay claim to the title of coach, and many do both with and without training, with and without any significant meaning behind the use of the term especially in the context of activities engaged in that are unique to coaching. All too often those who are described in the media as coaches are not trained or credentialed as such. It should be telling that there are a number of trained and credentialed coaches who find it more advantageous to refer to themselves by other titles altogether. Any credentialing system or process that does not take this consideration into account is dooming the ‘profession’ to failure.

Second, there is the distinction between coaching and other similar helping professions such as therapy and counseling. Differentiating between coaching and therapy may not be altogether difficult, and in fact there are some distinctly useful parameters defined in recent Washington State legislation aimed at counseling credentialing that we may be able to use to our benefit. However, this same legislation written so as to protect the title of counselor was written so overbroad in doing so that it endangers our legal ability to distinguish coaching from counseling which is itself less distinguishable from therapy at this point in the State of Washington with the exception of the use of the title.

It is not enough that we see ourselves as different from these other professions. The public must understand the differences and governing bodies must be comfortable that there are differences and that we have safeguards in place to avoid putting the public at risk. When coaches begin getting into areas of ADD coaching, relationship coaching, health and wellness coaching, etc, the waters become much tougher to navigate and I believe we risk serious exposure, not just for the individual coaches involved but also for the industry as a whole. It is imperative that whatever credentialing system we espouse be created to specifically address this aspect as well.

The risk of these two issues coming together is both ubiquitous and severe. All it takes is one person calling himself or herself a coach, behaving inappropriately (or not - just a claim from someone unhappy or vindictive enough to lodge a complaint would be sufficient), and suddenly a state prosecutor with an axe to grind is out there re-interpreting language intended for something else to prove that this person was actually counseling or providing therapy without a license. Therapists might disagree with that claim and leave us well enough alone but the counselors in Washington State have already proven themselves a powerful force determined to protect their interests and it seems quite likely that this scenario is true well beyond the state of Washington. Many of these counselors are also coaches but that gives small comfort when you’re essentially talking about a political turf war.

Much as I personally desire and advocate remaining a self-regulated industry, it may be prudent to re-visit the advisability of some kind of state-level involvement. Perhaps a hybrid approach is sufficient, proving ourselves capable of self-regulation but sun-rising a protection of title legislation similar to that produced on behalf of counselors in Washington State. Whatever choices we make along those lines, our credentialing efforts must support those choices and help protect against any remaining risks.

In addition to these two primary points, I believe it is important that we not waste the past several years’ worth of tangible and intangible marketing capital (including time, energy, money, and public goodwill developed) expended in the process of promoting the existing ACC/PCC/MCC credentials. There is nothing wrong with these existing credentials that a little tweaking in definition, rigor in assessment, and some more public education can’t cure. I see this as a matter of significant refinement that’s needed more than complete re-architecting in terms of what the credentials are meant to signify. Let’s not squander the investments we’ve already made by completely abandoning an appellation just as it’s beginning to gain a foothold.

To those who have indicated that other professions have a single credentialing process so why not collapse our own, I disagree. There are some professions that do not compare directly with coaching that may; others do have active or de facto leveling indicators so it’s important to compare apples to apples when heading down this line of logic.

Aviation: multiple levels of credentialing with higher standards for the same activities with each higher level credential as well as increased expectations around new behaviors or knowledge at higher levels. Credentialing for subspecialties also exist. Don’t have to be a licensed pilot to be alone in an airplane, but do have to have proven basic level of skills and there are restrictions to what is allowed as a student pilot and also at other levels of certification – part of the certification process requires demonstrating knowledge about what is and is not allowed at that level. Excellent comparison because there is both fact-based information and knowledge assessments as well as skills-based behavior assessments. There was a time when aviation struggled to find appropriate assessment methods to get around assessor bias and otherwise deal with the ‘art’ of flying and we could probably learn a great deal about the behavior-based standards that emerged from that effort. In addition to encouragement of continuing education, there is also requirement for regular proof of currency in basic skills as well as regular re-assessment of standard skills.

Medicine: not an ideal comparison but consider US standards anyway, especially since this is the one that I’ve heard frequently (and, in my mind inappropriately) referred to as an example of a single credentialing system augmented with subspecialties – doctors move through the system as interns, residents, sometimes a fellowship, on their way to becoming attending physicians. Board certification comes at the latter stages, meaning they typically are calling themselves doctors before that – but not before completing their training and at least a year of internship-residency. So in a day-to-day sense, there really is some indication of levels of proficiency, even if it’s not directly related to board certification and even if the general public isn’t always aware of it.

Law: this is the closest to a single credential system profession but is the least useful in comparing to coaching, especially since when there are groups of attorneys there are still gradations of expertise evident. Yes, there is only a single bar exam to pass, but then most new attorneys join firms as an associate, having often worked first as a junior associate (summer clerk or summer associate) while still in law school. Only after proving their value to the firm do they become senior associates and then later equity partners or shareholders and then senior partners or shareholders. Granted, these distinctions are conferred based on value to the firm rather than necessarily value to the client but since the two are related, clients generally key off of them as well. Clients almost always know they’re trading cost for expertise when they are working with an associate as opposed to a partner or shareholder and they make those choices on purpose.

My assessment is that it is also imperative that we approach this matter in a way that brings coaches (as well as individuals who may not refer to themselves solely as coaches but nevertheless use coaching skills as a key element in achieving success) together rather than risk further fracturing us as a group. Already we have evidence-based coaching vs. intuitive-based coaching, business/executive coaching vs. personal/life coaching, and individuals who think of themselves more as facilitators of success in real estate or in high tech or in health care, etc than as coaches who specialize in those various niche markets. We don’t need further fracturing over credentialing – it would only create deeper rifts and potentially turn away the very people we’ve worked so hard to bring into the fold.

Furthermore, if we undermine the cohesiveness of our professional association in a legal environment that seems poised to tip one way or another with regard to the legal aspects of our industry, it could completely disrupt any successes we’ve achieved to date with the coaching appellation and in so doing, set up a downward spiral of waning support which breeds further lack of community around coaching which erodes support, etc – a disastrous end that personally, I’d like very much to avoid.

To that purpose, I advocate the following:

• Yes, by all means, do use ISO as a framework to create the structure around one or more ICF credentials and market the heck out of doing so once we’ve got it all worked out how to best do this.
  

• Stick with a three-tiered credentialing scheme – ideally keeping the existing names so that we do not squander our earlier investments; if only one level is ISO-compliant, so be it but all three serve a purpose and preserving the value of our existing investments is important.
  
  Keep a base-level credential similar to the existing ACC – make whatever changes you must to indicate a base level of training and performance that distinguishes ‘real’ coaches from those just calling themselves that and from bartenders and hairdressers who also listen for money… but just make sure to provide some barrier to entry that also clearly distinguishes coaching from counseling and therapy. Plenty of other professions provide for some restriction regarding oversight and/or allowable activities. Something along those lines might not be out of line here.
  
  Keep the PCC-level credential as the central ‘this is what it means to be truly professional’ standard but not the only credential. Again, revise as necessary to address the concerns identified but I see no need to do away with the existing credential altogether. Ideally, the shift in this credential in particular primarily would be one of process (how assessments are made) rather than content (which assessments are made).
  
  If significant changes are made, then there will be the matter of deciding what to do with coaches already possessing this credential. Rather than strict grandfathering or stripping of the credential altogether, I recommend transition time be granted to meet the newer standards, after which time they would no longer be eligible to continue using that credential – presumably it would still be an option to drop back to the ACC. If there are recurring basic-level assessments (as in aviation – pass the original assessments once, but regular re-assessment of basics), I would think it would be preferable to conduct assessments at the more basic ‘review’ level rather than full-on re-certification for such legacy credential-holders.
  
  Keep the MCC-level credential with or without sub-specialty designations. There is a real need to prove mastery although I believe it makes some sense that such mastery might be differentiated into distinct sub-specialties. Regardless of whether there are sub-specialty designations, it makes sense that mentor coaches and assessor coaches come from ranks of those determined to be operating at a mastery level. Similar issues regarding how to handle existing credential-holders exist here as for PCC, although if this credential is not created within the ISO framework, it seems it would be much easier to keep it largely ‘as-is’ and thereby minimize disruption. Further assessment of how this and the other credentials ‘should’ be handled is impossible without additional detail regarding what we’re specifically trying to accomplish.
  

• Regardless of how credentialing is leveled, it is important to maintain some kind of portfolio approach for those who have the skills but not necessarily undergone significant formal coach training. It would of course be so much easier to say that the only way people know how to coach is to receive training but the truth is that it’s a bit more complicated than that. One of the few ways we know what we mean when we say that we’re coaching is through such training, but I’ve witnessed any number of people who take a coaching approach, often with a high degree of mastery, without having undergone formal training themselves. Let’s not unnecessarily fabricate hoops for such people to jump through – since we can’t prevent them from calling themselves coaches, let’s do what we can to make it easier for them to mean the same thing we do when they use the term while still having that meaning be a worthy distinction.
  

• Incorporate GAF scores (General Assessment of Functioning) into the definition of coaching and training on appropriate use of this scale into coach-specific training and coach credentialing assessment. No coach designations or claim to title should be possible without having this most basic risk assessment function trained and assessed, along with basic ethics training and assessment as well.
  

• Begin an outreach to those individuals who may already be ‘coaching’ and actively pursue getting them credentialed if they qualify, perhaps with a buddy program and/or mapping out the most efficient path for them to become credentialed. Just as damaging to coaching as an industry as individuals who call themselves coaches without any skills or training are those who are plenty successful and well-respected doing what they do (regardless of whether ICF would consider it coaching or not) and see no relevance whatsoever to being part of the ICF or its credentialing process. This only further dilutes the marketplace understanding of the term and makes ICF member coaches sound more like the also-ran wannabes than the other way around.
  

• Step up the volume on existing educational campaigns. Regularly send out relevant press releases to local news media with lists of names of credentialed coaches they can contact for interviews or additional information. Some of the releases may be tied into our own efforts, some might be keyed into current water-cooler talk – like when Nip/Tuck features a coach in their plotline or a celebrity talks about hiring a coach, etc. As a professional association, initiate and make it easy for members to initiate conversations outside our own ranks about what it means to coach and the value of being credentialed – again, though, if there are others already successful who don’t see the relevance, we aren’t likely to get very far on that count.
  

These are my recommendations of elements to consider going forward. As a separate yet equally important matter, I’d also like to address the matter of communication during this process. My experience with both sides of communications around significant change are that those integrally involved feel like they’re communicating very well – even over-communicating – and those outside typically feel the polar opposite. Since I’m much less ‘in-the-know’ on this particular effort, I’ll share an outsider’s point of view regarding areas of concern specific to communication:

• Please ensure that your message is both clear and consistent – on the October 20 call, coaches expressed concern over collapsing ICF coaching credentials to a single ISO-based credential – the response at that time was that there is NOT an intent to do such a thing, yet I can understand the confusion since the latest substantive update on the credential revision process says exactly that, that there will be a single credential with additional specialty distinctions possible (Q/A section) and in other official communications I’ve seen or heard there would be a ‘central’ credential with add-on specialties, which still sounds rather like a single credential and when it doesn’t, it’s just plain confusing as to quite what it means.
  

• Streamline the message but extend it out in a variety of formats and don’t assume that once is enough – while you don’t want to overwhelm people with information you also have to deal with the fact that they already feel overwhelmed and so often are missing information when it does come in because not everything that comes to our inboxes is seen & read right away. Put it in an obvious place on the web, tweet it, put it on FB, whatever you have to do to get everyone’s attention.
  

• It’s fair that ‘open comment period’ means you’re not responding yet to concerns or even to questions that have been raised – however it’s important that you’re ultra clear about exactly when and how answers WILL be provided. And when it is a matter of answering questions rather than in engaging in debate (although I’ll certain concede the point that there is both a gray area there and probably a slippery slope as well), I’d encourage you to reconsider your silence. It is human nature (even among coaches) to fill in gaps where they exist, usually with the worst possible interpretation.
  

• Answering questions must include a much more clear and meaningful response to why we’re doing this, what exactly it is that we hope to accomplish, and why we’re doing it now. During the October 20 call, I heard repeated requests for this information and no real response to the questions. It seems reasonable the existing credentials might need some refinement, however the effort being undertaken appears to be much more than a simple refinement and this degree of overhaul requires further explanation. What exactly is wrong? How are the existing credentials failing us? What exactly are we trying to accomplish and how will whatever we’re proposing (however far along in that process we are at any given point in time) accomplish that and what are we doing to ensure that the basic requirements for success will be met?
  

For example – none of what I’ve heard so far convinces me that the new approach, whatever it may be, will be any more likely than the existing approach to address the issue of timeliness when it comes to granting credentials. Even though that is one of the key reasons I’ve heard cited for making a change, it clearly can’t be the only reason, given that completely overhauling the credentialing system from scratch doesn’t seem like an appropriate response to addressing a timeliness issue. And if we’re not completely overhauling the credentialing system from scratch, then it would help to have it not sound so much like that’s what’s happening.

I do hope that despite some length due to the complexity of the matter that I’ve managed to clearly enough convey both my ‘first blush response’ as well as a detailed outline of what I believe to be important elements of consideration going forward. If I can be more clear in any particular area, please let me know. If I can be of any service in moving forward, please let me know that too.

I wish our industry and our professional association the very best and remain hopeful that we can remain both viable and relevant.

Warmly,

Kimm Viebrock, ACC
Former PSCA (ICF chapter) President

As with so many other things, this is one of those where it is important to educate yourself and then form a thoughtful opinion - how does it impact you, what will it take to succeed, what compromises are necessary, and so forth. Whether it's for this matter directly or another one that this helps you think about, I hope I've provided some useful thoughts for consideration. Back now to your regularly scheduled programming...

How are you sharing your carefully considered thoughts?

Pay Attention or Pay the Piper

Some people don't take the time to pay attention, and it can really cost them. Don't be one of those people, especially when it comes to social media and networking.

I feel genuinely fortunate to have had a long and varied career. Even more fortunate that I've now lived a long enough life to make it seem possible that I've done all the things that I have. And that I've gotten over worrying whether I seem 'scattered', but that's beside the point.

The point is, that with so much past life experience and a genuine desire to help people out, I regularly contribute to conversations about a wide variety of topics when I feel like I have something worthwhile to offer. In an era of social media as business development platform, this has yielded some interesting if, in my opinion, rather moronic, results.

Although it's been nearly 20 years since I last worked in television, where I used to be a reporter and a weather anchor, I figure my experience in the TV industry and my expertise as a career management coach is occasionally useful to people. When a recent college graduate wanted some ideas from other LinkedIn professionals for how to land her first TV gig, I joined in with some thoughts of my own.

Sadly, someone else in the group apparently uses it primarily to harvest contact information with little to no thought about whether the individuals attached to that information are in any way her target market. The fact that we're part of the group is apparently qualification enough.

Because of that, soon after my contribution to the job search discussion, I received an email that claimed not to be a pitch (then later allowed that it might indeed be that) and then went on to pitch me on some product or technology for which I have zero use or interest personally. Because I no longer work in television, and haven't for nearly 20 years.

What's really too bad about this, though, is that if she'd paid any attention at all, it needn't have been a waste of her time or mine. Although truthfully, my 90-second investment did lead to this post and it probably took all of 10 seconds for her to launch her automated pre-written email, so maybe that's why she doesn't care. Again, however, I digress.

The point is that had she taken a bit more time and approached me as an individual and customized her message to target me, not some generic me from 20 years ago who still would have felt slimed, I could perhaps have helped her out. Because I genuinely like helping people out and because I still have a number of contacts in the industry. And I probably could have given her some advice about how to better pitch her whateveritis (I immediate sent the message to the bit bucket, so I don't even know anymore what it was). Some of the advice might even have been useful.

But because of not paying attention and the fact that one of the things for which I have very little tolerance is acting stupider than you are, I don't really feel like helping her out anymore. Should she happen to discover this post and realize it's about her, the advice here should be at least as worthwhile as anything else I could have done. And look, the rest of you get it for free! You don't have to have made the mistake to learn from it!

Paying attention to where people are, what they really want, and looking to see whether and how you fit is important. Paying attention to your own mistakes (and others) and learning from them is important. If you don't pay attention, you'll pay the price.

If you're lucky, the Piper's fee will only be 30 lashes with a wet noodle. Sometimes, though, it's worse. Sometimes it's not just a pitch that didn't land; sometimes it's a whole host of missed opportunities - or more disastrously, several potential clients or markets entirely closed to you if you happen to annoy the wrong person. Just hope they don't mention you by name if they're going to go public with their annoyance!

If you've been slimed via social media, do share. If you want help figuring out how not to slime people but still get your point across, I might be able to help. Frankly, though, Havi (with her duck, Selma) and Pistachio can probably help you out even more. I highly recommend them.

What new things have you noticed lately?

Raising a Compassionate Geek

Amidst the chaos of students readying their collection of engineering contraptions based on ancient Chinese technology, Kristen found me and put a copy of ParentMap into my hands. "The story on the Dalai Lama starts on 42," she said as I started to thumb through the pages.

The story wasn't about the more general relationship between the Dalai Lama and his native Tibet. She had read an article I'd written about Small Person's encounter with His Holiness last spring and wanted follow up on what sort of lasting effect he and I had noticed since then.

The educators at Seattle Country Day School get it - science and technology are important, but these are not the only keys to success. Learning how to collaborate with others and to see the world from more than one point of view are important too.

I see this pretty clearly when I'm coaching geeks. When technology professionals have more than sufficient technical skills but still aren't achieving all that they want, we often discover that the missing ingredient is further development of their (sometimes neglected) soft skills - collaboration, compassion, and building strong working relationships.

Small Person is most definitely well-rounded in that respect. As innovative as he is, and as good as he is at building things on his own, he also shows a talent for working well with others, listening to differing viewpoints and integrating them with his own ideas. I have no doubt he'll go far.

As a parent, I encourage that balance because I see how much it helps my clients. It is important to play to our strengths, and it can also be a good idea to take another look at areas we may have dismissed in the past as unimportant and consider the possibility that there may be some value there too.

What role does compassion play in your work and life?

News for the Pressure Prompted

On balance, I'm not a procrastinator; I'm simply pressure prompted. Last night I finally registered for the PSCA coaching conference. If you are a leader, an educator, a coach, a parent, or anyone else who is interested in self-improvement, you'll want to register too, I'm sure of it. There's still time to get the Early Bird discount but time is running out, and that is the primary distinction between being pressure-prompted and procrastination.

Being pressure prompted (for real - not just a rationalization) means that the closer we get to a deadline, the more crystallized our thoughts become. Where earlier on, there seems like too much time and too much space, suddenly when it simply must be done, everything becomes clear.

Sometimes I let it go too far and I'm sure others do too. Too much pressure, and then my thoughts become muddied; I've gone past the point of clarity and I'm too stressed to think clearly anymore. In this stage, I begin to feel slightly panicked.

Being pressure-prompted is often a good thing but it's not without its problems. Sometimes in the midst of all that clarity, I realize I have a perfect idea or solution... but without enough time to execute. This puts me back smack in the middle of procrastination-land. Nothing is happening or plans have to be dramatically shifted to accommodate the issue of not enough time.

When it's a matter of being pressure-prompted, there is still action. Like a seed germinating, the activity is just all internal or underground, where you can't see it. Procrastination generally involves being stuck, with no real action, activity, or progress taking place at all.

Sometimes I perceive (rightly or wrongly) obstacles in the way of my goal that I have trouble seeing my way past. When I'm smart, I realize that I'm stuck and I get my coach on the phone. Usually a quick conversation is all I need to get myself back on the path of movement. This external viewpoint helps get past the blinders we each tend to have - yes, even those of us who are trained to know better.

You can benefit from some of that training too, even if you're not a coach. You're going to hear more about this upcoming conference in the next few days and I promise to make the rest of the information that I include worthwhile, even if you're not planning to attend the conference. Be sure to subscribe to the TechSurvivor blog to receive updates so that you don't miss anything.

In the meantime, be sure you check out the information about the conference, Creating Conscious Choice and Change - Learning and community-building for individuals and organizations to be held on February 5, 2009, in Seatac. Do it now, before time runs out.

What are you waiting for?

What to Do When Your Job is Dead - Top Ten

Starbucks, Zillow, Redfin and now Insight and Circuit City - these are just a few of the organizations who have recently had tech-related layoffs and it wouldn't be surprising in the current economic climate to see continued impact on the technology sector. Most notably in Seattle, it's likely a number of Washington Mutual tech workers could be on the streets soon with the redundancies in operations expected with the JP Morgan acquisition. The question of what to do if you find yourself caught up in the midst of a lay-off comes up regularly, so here are the top ten tried and true tips that I've used myself and passed on to others with some success.

1) Take time to grieve - There's no way around it, losing your job sucks. If you see it coming, you've had plenty of time to get anxious over the possibility that you'll be involved and if you don't, you'll be blind-sided. Either way, you'll be feeling bad about it for a while, so give yourself some time to deal with the emotional fall-out. The key is to make it a planned, limited amount of time so that you can quickly get on with the business of the rest of your life.

2) Take stock - What areas of your life are in need of critical attention and what tangible and intangible assets do you have? Where are you ahead in the game and where do you need to begin playing catch-up sooner rather than later? Whether you've got some pleasant surprises or some serious concerns, it's always better to know exactly what you're dealing with.

3) Schedule your priorities - To avoid devolving into a total pity party, make yourself a schedule that moves you forward and stick to it like you would stick to a job schedule. I like to establish a healthy mix of job hunting, skills development, networking and some fun - approximately in that order, but you decide what's important for you. Presumably, job hunting is your top priority, so make sure your actions back that up. But that doesn't mean it should be your only priority to the exclusion of everything else. Remember to have fun along the way and nurture your other needs in addition to keeping up your efforts to track down another source of income.

Part of keeping it a healthy mix means making what time you do spend job-hunting really count. Target the job boards (are you more likely to find work on Dice or LinkedIn? Monster or Yahoo?) that are most likely to carry your kind of postings and stay current with them. And whatever you do, don't forget to target specific companies that are appealing to you.

4) Learn something - Time spent unemployed is great for brushing up on your technical skills and these days, there are lots of low- (and even no-) cost options for doing so. I have spent time between jobs teaching myself skills such as JavaScript and XML. Back when I was working in television, I'd turn the sound down on the weather reports and practice the sort of on-air patter common for broadcast meteorologists. Make updating your marketable skills a priority - it will improve your resume and you'll have something to show for the time.

5) Stay positive - This one's a two-fer. Staying positive means avoiding both cynicism and pessimism. The best antidote for cynicism is to develop a philosophical attitutude. It may be someone else's fault you are where you are, or it may be your own but in the end, it doesn't really matter a whole heckuva lot. Blaming yourself or others won't help you find another job and in fact, could cost you opportunities if you come across in interviews as too negative. What you don't want to is to get stuck in the past and that's all that cynicism or dwelling on problems will do for you. Work hard at finding what's good in the situation and use that to propel you forward.

Pessimism is best dealt with by focusing on the possibilities, however unlikely they may seem at first. You may have legitimate reasons to be concerned about finding work or making ends meet in the meantime but it just keeps you stuck to spend your time thinking about it. Instead, keep your eye on what might be possible and do whatever you can to increase your chances that you'll be one of the few to buck the odds. Somebody out there is still hiring geeks and someone will get those jobs, even if they're far and few between. Do what you can to be one of them. For some geeks, that learning time mentioned in #4 might be better spent on developing soft skills like those used to develop good working interpersonal relationships than on learning Ruby on Rails.

6) Keep (or start) networking - Keep in touch with people you know from past jobs and other aspects of your life. If several of you find yourselves out of work at once, consider meeting for coffee on occasion to help each other through this tough time. You can look over each others' resumes, offer job hunting tips, and practice interview skills. Lunch 2.0 events help reduce your grocery bill and increase your networking opportunities; take advantage of them. If getting together in person doesn't work for you (and even if it does), you can and should also keep in touch electronically. Email and social networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook can be great tools for staying in contact with people who might be able to help you land your next position.

7) Set goals - Whether it's networking contacts or job applications, make sure you identify interim objectives and track your progress. Not only will it keep you motivated to keep going, it will also keep you pointed in the right direction and you'll feel a sense of accomplishment along the way, even before all your shots on goal land you a new job.

8) Get involved - Use the skills you would bring to a job to help out some charitable organization. They benefit from your expertise, you stay current in your skills and have something worthwhile to show for the time you spend unemployed, and everyone wins. Or participate in events like Startup Weekend or 6-hour Startup as an alternative to drive-by carding-type networking events. Online, you can build credibility by offering your expertise on sites such as LinkedIn and Experts Exchange and other forums.Who knows, in getting involved, you may even meet and impress someone influential in your job search.

9) Reinvent yourself - Sometimes lay-offs are an opportunity to look at things from a new perspective and start fresh. If you're thinking that could be true for you, you owe it to yourself to set aside any fears you have and look at the situation with an objective eye. Do I really want to go in a new direction? What would it take to improve my chances of success? Books can be a huge help in figuring out your position on the matter. What Color Is Your Parachute is a perennial favorite of mine and if you like a bit more structure, you may appreciate my other favorite, Now What - 90 Days to a New Life Direction.

If you're thinking of starting a new business, know that it is likely to be tough but doesn't have to be impossible. Sometimes it's no more risky to go into business for yourself than it is to wait around for the next paycheck, especially if you've had some money set aside. If you're smart about budgeting and business plans, you may be able to turn chaos into opportunity. For those of you not in Boulder tomorrow, be on the watch for notes from the panel discussion, Crash Course - Growing a Startup Amid Uncertain Economic Times as a step toward being better prepared.

10) Get help - Geeks tend to operate in a meritocracy, which is all well and good until we get to the point where we think that means having to be able to do everything ourselves. Sometimes getting help is the best thing you can do for yourself. Another perspective on matters is often very beneficial and don't forget the additional value of making yourself more available for other pursuits more worthy of your direct involvement; sometimes you just can't know and do everything. Help can come in the form of a self-organized support group or an informal buddy system just as readily as from a coach. If what you really want is to work with a career transition coach though, find out about coaching rates and don't assume that it's out of your price range just because you're out of work. Perhaps you know others who are looking for similar services making it possible to band together for group coaching and share the costs.

You can also consider asking the coach to negotiate rates. I've found a lot of coaches and prospective clients really like the formula F = 0.1*(V-A) + A , where the coaching Fee is calculated using V for the Value of the engagement and A for the amount deemed by the client to be Affordable, as a way of preserving value in the coaching relationship while making the coaching services workable for the client.

The upshot is that we all know there are fluctuations in the tech sector - there have been for a lot of years now and some would argue that we never did fully recover from the bursting of the dot com bubble. Still, my sense is that technology is here to stay in one form or another, and that means there will always be tech jobs out there somewhere. If the work isn't going away entirely, it means that we have only to figure out how we fit into the new paradigm and do our best to adapt.

What adaptations will help you survive the downturn?

Next!

Now that House Bill 2674 has been delivered to Governor Gregoire today, it feels a lot easier to think about spending more time on other projects. First on my list is updating my materials explaining the GRIP model of goal management in greater detail because so many people have been looking for more information on that as a smarter alternative to SMART goals.

If you've ever felt so consumed by a thing that you're just glad to be getting it behind you so that you can pay attention to something else for a while, you'll understand my relief at moving on.

Having spent the past 14 months working on this bill so that it really does apply just to counselors and not also to coaches or other kinds of services outside the bounds of mental health care, I am glad to see this process reaching a successful conclusion. That was a lot of letters, phone conversations, and hours of listening to public testimony and committee executive action! For one of the predecessor bills last session, I even delivered my own public testimony on behalf of coaches.

Now I can get back to Goals, Requirements, Issues and Plans as well as other topics of interest to geeks and geeky pursuits of interest to me. If there is something in particular that interests you or you think might interest me, feel free to comment!

What is ending for you - and what does that allow you to begin?

Growing Leaders

When I first became a manager, I was fortunate. I worked for someone who cared more that I became an effective leader than just about anything else. I guess he figured (and rightly so, I've come to believe) that if all his managers were effective leaders, then just about anything else that needed to happen in the department would indeed come about: through us and the people we led together. Here's what I've come to learn since that time - hardly anyone has that level of support transitioning into any level of leadership it's too bad because it's both wanted and needed.

That is a sad and somewhat discouraging fact highlighted in a new survey just published by Development Dimensions International, Inc called Leaders in Transition: Stepping Up, Not Off. My own observation is that corporate work is simply moving too fast and too much else is demanded of leaders already in their own roles to provide the level of mentoring for the next generation leaders that I received. The results of this survey confirms this:

Very few leaders feel that organizations are doing the right things prepare their future leaders.

Fortunately, these leaders in transition don't have to be left high and dry even if sometimes they are left largely to their own devices. If you're not getting support through your organization, look for it elsewhere.

For some, reading may be good enough. I myself cultivate a variety of resources that help feed me new ideas on a regular basis. I've come to appreciate a local coach and columnist, Maureen Moriarty, though amazingly enough, our paths have not yet crossed. I'm thinking I'll have to do something about that.

I also cannot say enough good things about Bob Lewis, and I highly recommend you get yourself subscribed to his e-Zine, even if you're not an IT manager as quite regularly his essays deal with everyday questions of leadership. I've been reading his stuff for years and believe I am a better leader for having done so.

And when you want more personalized support, if your organization isn't providing it directly, maybe it's worth considering looking for that support outside of the organization. Peer learning groups such those offered by Woods Creek or supportive organizations such as ATW for women are illustrative of some of the options available.

If you hold the conversations in the right ways, your company might even pay for part or all of the expenses in participating in a group like these, since it's in their best interests for you to have access to the mentoring you need to grow as a leader. And there are always coaches out there too, many of them good and at least one of us is probably a good match for your needs.

However you get the support and whoever pays for it, I do encourage you not try to do it all by yourself. There's no great honor in going it alone if you can become more effective in less time and with less stress by getting some help along the way. After all, it's not like there's a lot of time these days to hang around and wait for the magic wand to wave and suddenly remake you into the world's most effective leader.

And if you need more convincing than your own experience, I encourage you to read the details on the DDI findings. It's powerful stuff.

What have been your experiences in growing as a leader? Send a message to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and share your best resources - I'm always curious about what works best for people in this arena.

Where can I best get the support that I need to grow professionally in the direction I want?

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Kimm Viebrock is an ICF-credentialed Associate Certified Coach who helps technology professionals and service-oriented technology groups develop and use their skills more effectively and increase their value within the larger organization, allowing them to do more, do it better and have more fun doing it. Kimm is devoted to finding the connectedness in life.

Not in My Right Mind

I don't know about the rest of everyone, but sometimes writer's block turns into something more like writers' bottleneck. At such times, it would probably be helpful to just move onto the next topic instead of staying stuck. There's a message there somewhere. I'll figure it out & get back to you... well... sometime. In the meantime, given that I let myself stay stuck for so long, let me just point out that I'm thrilled to discover that a) some play can have a purpose and that b) there are really good, left-brained/analytical minded-appealing reasons for developing and engaging right brained thinking too. And some fun ways to go about it.

My father, a leftie, would probably be pointing out about now that given the link between brain dominance and opposite handedness, only the lefthanded are in their right minds. As bad a joke as that is, it's actually related to some of what I've been exploring lately more in-depth.

One of the perks of having a small person around the house is having ready access to Lego bricks - one of my all-time favorite toys - so I was pretty jazzed to learn not-so-recently-now (back in November, at the International Coach Federation conference) that there are some good justifications to playing with them that go beyond just having fun. The Lego Serious Play folks say you can actually unlock important information by playing with Lego pieces as a way of facilitating communication between the two halves of our brains - and yes, it does seem to work. At some point, I'm sure I'll get licensed to facilitate this process... I'm that interested in it. If you're interested in it too, be sure to let me know as it might influence how soon I get in to get this done.

Not only is the process fun, it's also based on sound brain theory, which means that it meets my definition of cool, being both neat AND useful. This engaging both halves of the brain to get at better answers is definitely in line with what I've been saying for years, even if it hasn't exactly been out loud. As far as I can tell, an analytical approach that is open to intuitive-based quantum leaps of thinking will always (and I tend to use absolutes rather lightly) be far more productive than either approach alone. This is what I call being logically creative. LSP not only helps make that process possible, the brain theory upon which it's based explains why it's so useful.

And now Dan Pink explains in hard terms why we should care to even look at a right-brained approach to matters when so many of us got where we are and achieved our greatest successes by focusing on one that is strictly left-brained analytical. With hard data that the most analytical mindset can appreciate, he explains in his book, A Whole New Mind , how and why that road is a dead end if it's the only road we travel. It's worth reading. And if it means nothing to you, then I'm guessing that what I do and how I do it probably means nothing to you either. No harm, no foul. When you're ready, we can talk.

I'm guessing though, that a lot of tech folks will get it if they stop long enough to really think about what's involved in their work. The ones who understand why it's important to be able to take ping pong, pool, or foosball breaks from time to time in the afternoon - because tech work is as creative as it is logical - will get it. Those who understand the need for logic laugh long and hard at the total lack of logic in, say, the Kids in the Hall sketch where the guy actually thinks he'll get the car started by washing the windshield. And who doesn't love a good laugh? The thing is, those who also understand the importance of the creative element will probably keep their jobs longer.

And if you accept the basic premise, then what? Figure out how to nurture and tap into that creativity, I guess. Playing with Lego bricks (with or without the Serious Play element) is one way. So is any creative endeavor, really... crafts or other artistic expression, music, you name it. The folks at Face the Music use writing and performing blues tunes to engage creativity toward a useful end, so do check them out if that's an appealing-sounding option.

I'm interested to hear your own observations about blending logic and creativity - send them to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and let me know... do you believe they belong together, or are they separate pursuits?

How can you use creativity to expand the reach of logic?

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Kimm Viebrock is an ICF-credentialed Associate Certified Coach who helps technology professionals and service-oriented technology groups develop and use their skills more effectively and increase their value within the larger organization, allowing them to do more, do it better and have more fun doing it. Kimm is devoted to finding the connectedness in life.

Archealogical Dig

This week I've been working on cleaning up my office a bit. I'm one of those who prefers to see everything so there ends up being a lot of stacks of paper around; not that you can really see it when it gets to that point but that's how it gets there. Now that I understand this, I actually am developing a better system that seems to be working but the old stacks are still there, hence the clean-up effort. What's fun (and sometimes annoying) is all the stuff you find - so that's where that's been all this time. See... so much for being able to see everything!

I started with just a few minutes at a time at the beginning, and now I can hardly stop. It's like the stuff demands to be organized, I swear - it's not like this is an activity I normally enjoy! Where I started was with my desk where all the papers that I felt I had to have right in front of me or I'd forget them had accumulated. Once I realized that I'd forgotten about pretty much everything from the third layer on down and couldn't even get to it if I did remember, it was a relatively simple task convince myself to scoop it all off into a pile on the floor. Of course, that meant one more pile on the floor but then with as many as there were, it was sort of tough to tell the difference.

So in ten minutes, I completely emptied the desk and in another ten minutes even took off every computer component so that the entire desk was bare. Then I walked away from it and left the house for the rest of the day. That's it.

The next day, I walked back into the office and took a fresh look. Did I want or feel the need to move the desk? Probably not, at least not yet. But I did re-arrange a few things and started immediately to like having things in their new places, like the fax machine next to me where I could actually see it and use it instead of on the lower shelf of the desk where I had to push the chair out of the way and kneel next to it if I ever wanted to send a fax.

I left it like that for a few days just trying to pay attention to how I work and how I wanted to use stuff. Then I started slowly, with a half hour of collecting stuff into paper sacks. The one labeled "Afraid I'll Lose Or Forget It" only narrowly edged out the one labeled "Sure I'll Need It For Something Someday" in terms of how quickly they filled. I will still have to figure out how to store the sorts of things I am so deathly afraid of losing or forgetting so they'll be readily accessible but I'm sure there's a lot of the stuff I've been so sure I'd need at some point that I can simply eliminate and that will make storing everything else so much better.

One of the things that's happened is that I actually have to work at limiting myself to 30 minutes a day an activity that normally you cannot beg or pay me to do. The willingness to devote myself to this is likely to fade a bit, so I am working on trying to find that delicate balance between taking advantage of the energy without totally burning myself out in the process. There is no 'done' in this kind of effort. We don't just stop collecting stuff - more gadgets and papers will continue to move through our lives. The trick is to be sure that at least as much is moving out as is coming in. To get there, you work simply on making progress a little bit at a time in such a way that is sustainable once you reach a satisfactory equilibrium. I know this is how it works and that helps a great deal.

And in the meantime, it's sort of like a treasure hunt. One of the things I unearthed yesterday is another of my old television contracts. I'd already found a more recent one, scanned it and have been working on chopping it up into pieces that I can share so we can all have a good laugh. Now we'll have even more to work with and compare. It'll be fun, I promise. Now that enough time has gone by, it's even fun for me - I haven't detected the slightest trace of bitterness yet, which is a very good sign.

After having gone for such a long time putting off doing this work, I have to say it feels very good to be getting rid of stuff I clearly no longer need. That's one of the benefits of waiting. My theory is there's always an upside to poor habits and/or there's something difficult about making a change, otherwise we'd have made the shift a long time ago.

Of course I'm also finding missed opportunities and that's the downside of not having kept up with stuff. And I realize that I can only be better going forward; it simply doesn't help to get annoyed about something that's so far past. No real worth for guilt.

Just clearing some space is worthy of celebration, no matter how it happens or how long it took to get to this point. I'm my own prodigal son.

The other sort of big thing I'm celebrating this week is the news that my ACC application was approved. It is nice to have had that effort rewarded and I'm proud of the accomplishment - now the clock is ticking on getting the next credential as this one has an expiration date. So I'll be collecting more hours (750 is the next milestone), and keeping better track of my Coaching Continuing Education Units. Wow, what a really great time to be better about how I file paperwork!

If you have favorite organizational tricks and tips, I'd be interested to hear about them so send them to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com or let me know if you'd like to hear more about the file system I'm currently using to keep active projects top of mind without having them clutter up the top of my desk.

How can you work with your tendencies and habits to get what you want instead of against them?

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Kimm Viebrock is an ICF-credentialed Associate Certified Coach who helps technology professionals and service-oriented technology groups develop and use their skills more effectively and increase their value within the larger organization, allowing them to do more, do it better and have more fun doing it. Kimm is devoted to finding the connectedness in life.

Mulligan

Somehow, I never grew up with the concept of giving someone a mulligan. I'm not sure exactly why that was but today seems like a day for do-overs... a chance to get it right... so I'm going to take what I can get and run with it. I'm looking forward, for instance to doing a better job scoring Small Person's little league game this afternoon than I did over the weekend. Now that I understand the rules better, including the time limits, maybe they'll actually win this time. The weekend's game was definitely a good lesson in how we often have far more influence over matter than we realize.

If that's of interest to anyone, I'm sure I could get around to elaborating further. In the meantime, there seem to be other do-overs in the mix that have practically demanded today that I pay attention and appreciate. Getting a chance to re-write this essay after it blew up in my face is one. In the fall-out, I discovered that I get to have two ideas to work with, instead of just one, so I'm sure we'll all benefit. And while not everyone has been privy to my credentialing pursuit given that I've been far more silent on the topic than I'd intended, there were some rather interesting events that conspired last week to get in my way of filing my application by the deadline. I apparently was given a cosmic mulligan on that one too, sent in all the paperwork in the nick of time and now am under active consideration for my ICF ACC credential. Whew.

Coaching too, as an industry, got a mulligan today. After being (appropriately) skewered by the Daily Show, I didn't think the New York Times necessarily clarified any better what it is coaches do and how they can help the average person. On this morning's Today Show, however, Laura Berman Fortgang and Penelope Brackett did what I (and others) thought to be an outstanding job showing people the more positive side of coaching and what it can do, as Laura put it, to close the gap between where you are in your life and where you want to be.

Of course I'm somewhat biased because I highly respect Laura's work. Those who know me, however, know that it's not that I think she's good because I like her but more that I like and respect her because she's good. Part of that stems from the fact that I discovered her approach to be very similar to my own and so I've found it worthwhile for myself and my clients to leverage off of her efforts by becoming an authorized facilitator of her Now What: 90 Days to a New Life Direction program.

As with anything I get excited about, I'm happy to talk ad nauseum on the subject... and am totally fine too if it doesn't interest you in the slightest because here's one of the things I've learned about do-overs: they're great for helping let go of emotional attachment to a particular outcome because we've already been through the initial sense of loss. Getting a mulligan, at its best, means being able to give it another try without so much of the emotional attachment that can get in the way of doing it well.

Now, if only I could get a do-over where Laura knows/remembers about my meteorological background so that when Al Roker tells her he needs a weather coach, she knows to tell him she knows just the perfect person. Hey Al, I'm over here, on the other coast.

If you've been granted a mulligan recently, or wish that you had, how about letting me know about it at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and sharing what you learned in the process.

What would you do differently if you were granted a do-over?

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Kimm Viebrock is a Certified Professional Coach who helps technology professionals and service-oriented technology groups develop and use their skills more effectively and increase their value within the larger organization, allowing them to do more, do it better and have more fun doing it. Kimm is devoted to finding the connectedness in life.

Put Me In, Coach

Tuesday night, I went to see Arlo Guthrie (what a truly awesome performance!) so I missed The Daily Show's send-up of life coaching. As a professional coach, I was curious to see whether I'd be able to laugh at having the industry skewered so I made sure to turn it on for the repeat broadcast early the next morning. As they say in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "It's a fair cop."

As per usual, they go after their subject right where it's weakest. And as much as I believe in what I do, many professional life coaches as individuals and the industry in general do have some serious weak spots. Despite the growing popularity (both with people hiring coaches and with people wanting to become coaches), many are unclear about exactly what it is that we do. Many are untrained and uncredentialed. And at this point in the industry, there is very little barrier to entry, one of the first tests of any real profession.

On the flip (less flippant?) side, there is a lot happening these days that is sure to shift coaching toward a much more professional footing. Although these changes could penalize coaches who don't catch this next wave, they will most certainly benefit coaching clients, and that's a good thing so I plan to be part of the drive toward credentialing more coaches (myself included - yes, I'm still working on that!) and being sure that consumers are educated about what they're getting.

Right now though, I believe that as a group, we're kind of like the pre-teen who really wants to be seen as grown-up by everyone else and the jokes that prove that "everyone else" doesn't yet understand us - or perhaps understands some of us all too well - still sting a bit. When we really are grown up, I'm sure the jokes won't hurt so much because by then we'll be more sure of our own skins and more of it will be meaningless anyway.

In the meantime, I find myself mostly able to laugh, both at the gross mischaracterizations and at the barbs that hit uncomfortably close to home. Even more, I find myself thoroughly fascinated by the attention, especially since there seems to be so much of it all of a sudden. Over the weekend, even the New York Times Magazine joined in. Oh, and of course referenced The Daily Show piece too!

Just so we're clear - I happen to be one of those who sometimes struggles with explaining just exactly what it is that I do, mostly because it looks so different for each client I work with. It comes out in the success stories that follow the work that we do more than being anything particularly tangible.

Besides, working with the "show me" techie crowd like I do means that even more clients than normal start working with me for one reason only to determine partway through that something else entirely comes to the forefront. I'm getting comfortable with it, though, because dealing with that ambiguity and helping my clients through it seems to be one of my specialties. Y'know, come to think of it, it's kinda like the eBay IT ads. Wonder if I can borrow that strategy?

When your industry starts requiring more of you to prove your value, how do you handle it - or, if you'd rather, send to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com your thoughts or questions about the coaching industry. I can hold extended conversations on just about any subject!

Where do you need help laughing at yourself?

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Kimm Viebrock is a Certified Professional Coach who helps technology professionals and service-oriented technology groups develop and use their skills more effectively and increase their value within the larger organizaion, allowing them to do more, do it better and have more fun doing it. Kimm is devoted to finding the connectedness in life.

It's a Process...

I still have my notes from the past two eposides of Survivor - Guatemala. I promise I'll get to them. In the meantime, there's something interesting going on with regard to my coaching that I thought would be worth sharing... The International Coach Federation recently announced a change to their credentialing process, a shift that I wholeheartedly support because I anticipate this will help professionalize the industry. Hiring a credentialed coach means a greater certainty of high quality service and as the market demand for this level of quantified quality increases, the value of coaches who are credentialed will also increase. It is the sort of scenario for which the term "Win-Win" situation was invented.

As such, it only makes sense that I increase my own value and support the process at the same time by applying for my own credential. I've always actively worked toward my credential and now it's time to actually get to work on the application process.

In order to edify my clients and potential clients as to what's involved and what a credential actually means and also share my experience with other coaches considering this move themselves, I thought it might be nice to catch you up on where I've been to date and share with you the steps I take between now and January, when I intend to submit my application.

First a bit of background - As a technical support manager, I was fortunate enough to start out reporting to a person with highly developed coaching skills. Although he was not certified or credentialed in the field as I've come to understand it, he clearly had some background and a natural talent and much of what I learned about coaching that didn't come from sheer trial and error in fact came from him. I made every effort to live up to his standards during the years I spent managing, incorporating what I learned from him along with other previous experiences.

In early fall of 2002, I enrolled in a coach-specific training program and immediately began practicing the important skills I began learning in a formal training setting. I'd already been working with a coach of my own for quite some time so by this time I was seriously grounded in where I was headed and also had a great role model to follow.

By winter of 2003, I had completed my training at the Academy for Coach Training and had by this time also shifted my focus from work as an employee in the corporate world to my consulting and coaching practice. Somewhere in there, I also purchased a copy of Client Compass for tracking my coaching time and immediately started logging all relevant coaching hours.

Since then, I have devoted considerable time to the Puget Sound Coaches Association (where I am currently President) and family needs as well as my business, which includes offering workshops and consulting services in addition to coaching. I happen to like the mix and it also means I've not been in blind pursuit of the almighty credential-worthy coaching hours. I'm glad it's taken me some time to get to this point - I feel like I appreciate it better as a result and the hours I've collected have been well-seasoned ones.

A couple of days ago, the ICF website was updated with the new requirements. It took me until today to actually be able to access the version appropriate for me and looking it over this afternoon has seemed a bit like unwrapping a gift. Okay, so it's one I have to put together before I can use, but hey, it's no less special for it!

Whether you are thinking of hiring a coach or are considering applying for a credential of your own, you owe it to yourself to have an idea of what's involved in the process. My own first step was to print out two copies of the application. I know I'll have trouble getting a clean copy first time out so am planning ahead in that respect.

Next, I started looking it over and filling out blanks - my name and contact information, etc and also re-read the Code of Ethics I'd agreed to years ago. Then on to the array of attachments I'm to provide...

Attachment 1 - selected the appropriate Accredited Coach Training Program I'd completed and dug out the certificate I'd received and made a copy to submit with the application.

Attachment 2 - started working on creating a coaching log from Client Compass that looks like the sample coaching log the ICF Application Review Committee wants to see. Fortunately, the application I use does a pretty good job pulling all the information needed; mostly it's just going to be about formatting though it will still take some effort - thank goodness I'm getting this started now!

One of the first things I notice is that I'll need consent from all of my clients to release their names to the Applications Review Committee. Even though they will still maintain confidentiality, finding and reaching everyone could take a while, so I'm really glad I'm getting started now.

More on this as I make further headway on this thing. And more comments on Survivor Guatemala soon too!

If you have questions or comments of your own, be sure to send them to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and I'll be sure to do something important with them, like respond.

What's the next step that will take you closer to somewhere you want to be?

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Kimm Viebrock is a Certified Professional Coach who helps technology professionals and service-oriented technology groups develop and use their skills more effectively and increase their value within the larger organizaion, allowing them to do more, do it better and have more fun doing it. Kimm is devoted to finding the connectedness in life.

Shifting Gears

After spending most of my early mornings (and a substantial number of evenings too) during the past three weeks watching Lance Armstrong prove yet again what a phenomenal Tour de France rider he is, it's time for me once more to move onto the rest of my summer.

Fortunately, I don't think I'll have much trouble figuring out what to do with all that recovered time. I hope Lance is as fortunate in his retirement from professional cycling: shifting gears of that magnitude can be very unnerving for many folks. My sense, however, is that this is something he'll do every bit as well as he's done the cycling.

All around me, people are going through various kinds of changes. Some are starting new jobs and even new careers. Others are faced with having been forced out of what they had been doing. Still others, like Lance, are retiring and trying to figure out what's next for them or looking to make some kind of voluntary change in their lives.

Given that I'm working this summer with a number of people going through individual and group facilitation of the "Now What?" program I conduct now (along with other trained facilitators) based on the popular book by Laura Berman Fortgang, I'm getting to see all different kinds of permutations of this process up close and personal. As exhilarating as it can be to be helping people find success, it's also fascinating - and humbling - to be witness to the process.

I also feel fortunate to be able to collect even more stories about the process from a greater distance as it's a topic I find covered in the media on a fairly regular basis too. Just this morning, for instance, I read in the New York Times about Chris Jordan, a Seattle man who has successfully traded in a ten-year law career to become a photographer. That shift had to have been wrenching and scary at times. At yet, clearly it was one that he felt compelled to make. Feeling that level of conviction helps make the rest of it easier.

I remember thinking once that I could handle just about any other fear or concern if I could only feel such deep knowing and passion about a thing that I'd have that level of conviction. Like hey, even in Field of Dreams when everyone is calling Ray Kinsella a nutcase, he's got this voice telling him what it is that he has to do. All I ever wanted was my voice in the cornfield.

What I realize now is that all too often we become disconnected from ourselves to the point where we have to dig very deeply sometimes to uncover our true passions. The technique that I've learned from Laura Berman Fortgang is something she calls "hobby by crisis" and it's worked very effectively for me and many of my clients. Do something physical or tactile that we enjoy (or used to enjoy) and we find that the body begins to remember for us what it is that we love enough to pursue with passion. Horseback riding, painting, knitting, playing drums, dancing, etc., all count.

Even if you don't know how, even if you don't have time to "do it right" and even if it's not directly related to whatever it is you think you might be heading toward, it doesn't matter; it only matters that you re-engage your senses by re-engaging your body at least a little bit on a regular basis.

Additional tips to help make shifting gears easier include...

• Use what you have - you already have knowledge and expertise you have gained from past experiences. Figure out how to use that doing something you love.
• Feed your passion - figure out what you're passionate about and continue to feed it; harnessed passion can make great things happen.
• See setbacks as learning experiences or minor detours instead of obstacles - this one is hopefully mostly self-explanatory.
• Get support - find people and situations that will support your change in direction and will help you achieve what you want; anything else is an unwanted distraction.
• Get started - success breeds success; every moment spent not getting started, whatever the reasons, just breeds more inertia. Once you start giving it a try, you'll see where your successes and challenges are; even if what you start ultimately leads you an entirely different direction, it's the getting started that puts you on the path to your future.
• Establish a goal and keep it clearly in mind - just as with anything else, if you are completely clear about what it is that you want and why you want it, then making it happen will be much easier. Keep a visual handy as a reminder. It helps feed your passion, boost your confidence, and program your brain to look for appropriate opportunities.
• Listen to the voice that tells you how to get what you want, not the one that tells you that you shouldn't be wanting it - that latter voice wants only to maintain status quo and is therefore not helpful; not that it is always wrong, just that the approach is not at all helpful. Do yourself a favor and pay more attention to the helpful voices in your life.

There is, of course, more. I go through these steps and many more with my clients every week and in turn, they teach me more than I feel I could possibly give them in return. Perhaps you have additional ideas yourself for helpful tips you'd be willing to share with others. Or questions about how to apply the ideas presented here.

I'm always interested and always happy to help so please send your thoughts to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and perhaps we can continue to help each other grow.

In the meantime, Lance will presumably take some time to celebrate and bask in the glory of what he's accomplished. Then he (like so many of us) will begin to ponder "What's next?"

As for me, I will (among other things) continue with my client work, and taking on the presidency of my local ICF chapter, and hopefully also will make my first QSO on my old Yaesu FT-101E rig with my new General class amateur radio ticket. See, I told you I had plenty to do with my time!

What would you do if you had enough time, money, and the attention of the world?