Executive Coaching
Letter from Ireland
Ireland is in a financial crisis. The worst kept secret in the history of the world is out. The future is only assured through self belief and confidence. The certainty is that the combination of European financial assistance for our banks and economy along with a re-focused political strategy energized by a general election early in 2011 will fuel the progressive process of turning this country around.
It will take time. It will take sustained initiative, courage, skill and consensus across the political, economic and educational landscapes.
Most of all, it will take people equipped with the necessary attributes.
The Government must ensure the availability of training skills necessary to equip those who will be central to that massive national effort to turn the economy around.
Training will be central to the great drive to restore this country to economic prosperity and transparent sovereignty over economic and financial strategic decisions.
Heroes of our time honed from our educational and training processes will lead by example.
We are going to have to dig deep in order to have the strength to cope with future challenges. The profession of coaching is going to be a key play for Ireland in this new and seriously challenging environment.
Seven key principles are fundamental to our hopes of a successful recovery:
1. A focus on our values. When chartering our course through a sea of uncertainty we can lose sight of what is really important to us as human beings. As coaches we understand how fundamentally important it is to ensure that key decisions are in line with our core values in order to go forward with confidence and focus
2. Revisiting our belief systems. So many of my clients now come to me with a need to create an understanding of this new world. We inevitably, at some point in the coaching dialogue, explore what belief system will be most useful as they step into the future. The belief that they are disempowered with no control over their future needs to be challenged in the safe space which coaching provides. Ensuring that our clients are re-energised with an understanding of how they can genuinely create positive changes in their lives is one of the gifts the professional coach brings.
3. Working with our clients to assist them to move with confidence and certainty towards their circle of influence sidestepping circles of concern which suck their energy and can leave them exhausted.
4. A focus on strengths recovering forgotten talents and capabilities creating a springboard to accelerate an action focused approach to the future.
5. Reframing – assisting our clients to understand the importance of language deleting the ‘shoulds’ ‘musts ’and ‘might’s’ and utilising words like ‘will’ ‘can’ and ‘am’. Words which the subconscious will embrace without question thereby allowing true change to take place.
6. Assisting our clients to become more self aware in order to truly grow within the coaching relationship. We listen to our clients to genuinely ‘hear’ what they are sharing with us and assist us to understand their view of the world. This helps us to understand how, in some incidences, they need to gain a better understanding of flawed patterns and paradigms. Thus they begin the process of crafting a more effective strategy in order to create their vision for the future and achieve true potential
And finally
7. Living in the moment. Bringing to our clients attention the fact that the past is our greatest teacher, the future is waiting for us but the present is truly our greatest gift. Let Philip Larkin speak for me in his beautiful poem ‘Day’ :
‘What are days for? Days are where we live They come, they wake us Time and time over They are to be happy in: Where can we live but days?
Paula King
