CTI Coach Training: Fundamentals
As mentioned in another recent post, I launched into formal training approximately a three years ago to be a better Leadership/Executive Coach, and it has been quite an eye-opening journey. Thanks to the hospitality of dear friends and proximity of training locations, Jamie and I were able to travel together almost all of the weekends during which I was receiving formal training. Most of my trainings were in Washington DC, and so it was just a short journey to the nation’s capital—but a winter storm caused a last minute cancelation/delay of my first training “Fundamentals” by one week.
Making the trip to DC, I really didn’t know what to expect. Would the people be like me? What would the training be like? Would I think it was a total waste of a weekend? Would it just end up being a networking type event with a bunch of superficial “business-people” from the DC area? Honestly, I was shocked, blessed, and amazed by my experiences and the group of people I walked through that first weekend with. Most of the folks from the group came from the greater DC area, but there was a guy in the group who also made the journey from Pittsburgh to “test the waters” like me. Many people were sent from some pretty well known companies to get some training to bring back into their work, and their companies paid for their training. At the same time, there were some who, like me, were treating the training as a formal investment in their own development, and worked for organizations who just did not have the budget to cover this kind of professional development.
The purpose of the program was to provide an overview and introduction to the Coaches Training Institute’s (CTI) coaching model, and start each of us with some experience coaching. I was very quickly brought to awareness of a deep authenticity, transparency, and vulnerability emanating from each person in the room. In a world filled with posturing, sound bites, and superficiality, our time together was incredibly refreshing. I have rarely witnessed a group of diverse people move toward such incredible openness and championing of one another so quickly.
While the entire weekend was pretty epic, there were three key moments for me that left me with a sense of awe. The first was this. At one point we were each asked to think of a moment when everything was “perfect” in our world, a peak moment, or some crisp memory. My memory immediately went back to mine and Jamie’s wedding day. Everything about it was so rich and so clearly imprinted on my soul. After two minutes of reflection, a volunteer was asked to share. I had been fairly quiet for most of the training up to this point, but I just had to share this beautiful moment with this group of strangers. I was given one minute to share. Then, one of the instructors thanked me, and asked my classmates if they could identify what some of my core values were. This group of people was able to utterly nail many of my core values in a one-minute period. I was in awe of how much of what I really wanted to hold as important was so easy to see. We emanate our values, and to me that was a very beautiful learning.
The second moment was during a period of coaching in which each of us identified a ‘persona’ that would fall outside of our normal personality. Then we were paired up to coach from the perspective those personalities. My partner and I both knew very little about the people who we were ‘labeled’ with, but both of us chose to trust and go ‘all-in’ to bring out aspects of our personalities that we both admitted to silencing in our past. It was a wonderful moment.
The third moment happened on the last day of our training. We were divided into groups, and we went around in a circle identifying traits that we saw in each other over the course of the weekend. Here again, a group of strangers started identifying things about me that I had not divulged. One woman even commented that she bet I drove a car that ran on veggie-oil. Those who know me know I have been driving a hybrid for about ten years. Unbelievable!
I was richly blessed by this training, and for the understanding that was imparted to me that the things that I held as most important were readily visible to others. I often find myself questioning and second-guessing myself and wondering how faithfully I am living out my values. I sometimes wonder if my values are identifiable by others. There was something really delightful about going deeper with this cadre of amazing individuals, and the time definitely had me hooked!