The SeattleCoach® Shepherd Coaches
"Let's carry the SeattleCoach heart out into the world!" A veteran SeattleCoach
"Let's carry the SeattleCoach heart out into the world!" A veteran SeattleCoach
You know the story so far.
In 2008 I started training coaches. As it has turned out, half have been entrepreneurial coaches, half internal coaching leaders. And in those first few years, I couldn't help but notice that the internal leaders who came from some of our best companies would finish training--and then leave their companies. I started worrying that Steve Ballmer would be mad. And then, around 2015, SeattleCoaches started staying with their companies--and becoming contagious. And their companies started noticing their impact. And then SeattleCoach started hosting Coaching for Leaders Cohorts.
You know this too.
Employees today want to see purpose in the work they do and they want opportunities to grow. And if they don't have those things, they are more likely to change companies than they are to simply change roles. That's of course where we come in. The demand to help companies build coaching cultures is growing.
Here's what else I've been learning.
These past few years I've been partnering with executive leaders and collaborating with them to translate our coach training into corporate settings. I've learned that to do it right, it takes 2-3 steady and strategic years. And you have to master what I call The On-Ramps approach. (Trust me. If there were short-cuts, I'd have found them.)
So in the Fall of 2019, we started the first Shepherd Coach Team with fifteen veteran coaches. We met twice a month, interacting over lots of content, exploring behavioral applications of the Core Competencies and I asked each Shepherd Coach to:
Develop, refine and deliver their own TED-ish talk,
In addition to having completed our first year together, the prerequisites are the same as the first year. (Though I will lead other Supervision Cohorts in 2020-21, only coaches who have completed the first year with the Shepherd Coach Team will be included in SCT/Supervision Cohorts.)
In 2008 I started training coaches. As it has turned out, half have been entrepreneurial coaches, half internal coaching leaders. And in those first few years, I couldn't help but notice that the internal leaders who came from some of our best companies would finish training--and then leave their companies. I started worrying that Steve Ballmer would be mad. And then, around 2015, SeattleCoaches started staying with their companies--and becoming contagious. And their companies started noticing their impact. And then SeattleCoach started hosting Coaching for Leaders Cohorts.
You know this too.
Employees today want to see purpose in the work they do and they want opportunities to grow. And if they don't have those things, they are more likely to change companies than they are to simply change roles. That's of course where we come in. The demand to help companies build coaching cultures is growing.
Here's what else I've been learning.
These past few years I've been partnering with executive leaders and collaborating with them to translate our coach training into corporate settings. I've learned that to do it right, it takes 2-3 steady and strategic years. And you have to master what I call The On-Ramps approach. (Trust me. If there were short-cuts, I'd have found them.)
So in the Fall of 2019, we started the first Shepherd Coach Team with fifteen veteran coaches. We met twice a month, interacting over lots of content, exploring behavioral applications of the Core Competencies and I asked each Shepherd Coach to:
Develop, refine and deliver their own TED-ish talk,
- To work on one or more of the first three of the five “on-ramps", working with executive leaders, co-creating team meetings and offering an Intro to Coaching workshop, and to,
- To identify their professional aspirations for 2020-2021.
In addition to having completed our first year together, the prerequisites are the same as the first year. (Though I will lead other Supervision Cohorts in 2020-21, only coaches who have completed the first year with the Shepherd Coach Team will be included in SCT/Supervision Cohorts.)
- You have to have a vision--maybe even a sense of calling--to do this work with companies. It's hard and patient work. It takes all of the professionalism, persistence and grit you can muster. There will be lots of testing and learning. It might help if you live or have lived some of your life inside of a corporate setting.
- You have to be scrappy: Ready to find and create your own opportunities.
- Internal coaches, you have to be aiming to become a coaching SME in your organization.
- External coaches, you have to be aiming to make more than the ICF average of $68,000 per year.
- And you to have already earned the ICF's Associate Certified Coach credential or have a plan to complete it soon.