When Damon Poole first learned about "the coaching stance" from Lyssa Adkins, he refers to it as "pure" coaching. Pure coaching is just one tool to be used alongside facilitating, mentoring, and teaching. Learning about pure coaching crystallized his thinking that there was a way to help people and systems change more than just teaching and consulting. He now realizes that what was in Lyssa's book was the tip of the iceberg. If you've been introduced to pure coaching, perhaps through the ICAgile ICP-ACC course, there's a good chance that you've developed a passion for coaching just as you developed a passion for Agile. There are just a few options for learning about "pure" coaching in the Agile world: Lyssa's book and the ICP-ACC. To go deeper, you'll need to take an International Coaching Federation approved training program, and they don't reference Agile in any way. But now, there's the Advanced Agile Coaching program that has been designed explicitly for Agilists and is an ICF ACSTH approved training program.
Professional Coaching is an approach for partnering with people when they are stuck. It is a combination of supportive behaviors such as those described above, practiced to a high degree of skill, and coaching-specific skills such as asking perspective shifting questions and setting up accountability systems.
Agile involves many changes in mindset, culture, process, and ways of working. As a result, people will get stuck more frequently as they try to figure out how to incorporate Agile in the way that they work. Professional Coaching is a valuable tool for helping people get unstuck and accelerating their transition to an Agile way of thinking and working.
Advanced Agile Coaching – Professional Coaching for Agilists
The course will teach you all of the core competencies of being a Professional Coach, such as creating a coaching agreement, active listening, powerful questioning, using presence and helping people design their own methods for holding themselves accountable. You will also practice everything you learn with fellow participants, get feedback from the instructor, and receive 10 hours of mentor coaching from a PCC level coach.
You can watch the [Webinar] The Importance of Professional Coach Training For Agile Change Agents recording here.
