More than 600 people attended the International Coach Federation’s European conference in Paris in June.
Delegates flocked from countries including the US, Singapore, Canada, Africa, Russia and from the Scandinavian countries.
The conference’s French hosts encouraged European involvement and collaboration by inviting each country to nominate an ambassador and to bring an objet d’art to hang on a tree to represent coaching in that country in 2010.
More than 40 UK coaches collaborated to produce their country’s offering of a teacup – sparked by the idea that coaching here is very polite, explained ambassador Lynn Chamberlain Clark.
The saucer was represented by a cupped pair of hands which held the ideas and depicted the multicultural nature of the UK. Around the outside were the national flowers for England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Inside the cup was a mosaic of all the ideas received.
Chamberlain Clark of 3D Coaching said there were many opportunities to share learning. “Every country comes with different strengths and varied focuses on coaching and we were able to learn from each other’s experiences.”
More than 15 languages were spoken at the conference. “The lack of a common language meant that we listened and checked with greater clarity, resulting in high trust and intimacy and a shared responsibility for us all to understand clearly what was being said. A great demonstration of core coaching competencies and an insight into the listening quality of my own coaching,” said Chamberlain Clark.
The conference sought to integrate complementary skills in coaching from science and art. Plenary sessions reflected the diversity of these areas, bringing together dancers, astrophysicists, osteopaths, and artists. The aim was to encourage divergent thinking, although some delegates felt it was not relevant to coaching practice.
Poet David Whyte read from his work including the poem Sometimes*.
“Open questions empower us to hear and answer for ourselves, stopping us and our clients being a barrier in reaching our own potential,” he said.
Some 500 delegates took part in a team coaching experience using Open Space Technology.
They agreed what they felt were the key questions for the global coaching community and then worked on them together.
Questions included how to develop global coaching networks; what is the brave question that as coaches we are not asking ourselves; developing coaching in education, and coaching and qualifications.
The outcomes were handed to the Spanish ICF ambassador to be developed further at the next European conference, which will be in Barcelona in 2011.
* www.coaching-at-work.com/2010/08/11/sometimes/
Coaching at Work, Volume 5, Issue 5