This week, I’ve got a very special interview with two fascinating coaches, David Dibble and Joanne Dunleavy. David and Joanne are co-founders of the New Agreements Coach Training Institute. In the interview, David and Joanne share their perspective on Mastering Intent, using systems thinking to expand your coaching practice, and their upcoming presentation at the CoachVille conference in June. We’re trying something new in this issue. We’ve listened to your feedback on shorter newsletters, so we’re providing the first third of the interview here with a link to the rest at our site. Let me know what you think.

Also in this issue, don’t miss some great CoachVille events we have coming to a town near you this spring. Whether you are brand new to coaching, curious, or established, we’ve got something to enrich your practice.

Kim George
Director of Communications and Collaboration
CoachVille/Schools of Coaching
kim@coachville.com

Welcome! I’m talking with David Dibble and Joanne Dunleavy. David is the author of The New Agreements in the Workplace - Releasing the Human Spirit and Joanne, you are the co-founder of the New Agreements Coach Training Institute. David, I’m going to direct the first question to you, which is, why did you write the New Agreements?

I have been on a spiritual journey for about 20 years. I’ve studied systems theory and become a systems thinker; I saw how 90 percent of the results we experience, particularly in the workplace, are a function of the systems we work in and not our individual efforts.

It became very clear to me how few of our leaders were privy to this information and there might be a huge benefit in the area of leadership, business, and coaching if we could become systems thinkers. One day in meditation, I realized that it was time to write a book that would be a roadmap for change at the levels of leadership and coaching based on this combination of universal or spiritual principles and systems thinking.

I know that Don Miguel Ruiz’s work, including his book, The Four Agreements, has had a lot of impact on you.

(David) Yes, I mentioned that I had studied a number of spiritual traditions and practices, and I’ve been very fortunate to have some wonderful teachers. One of my teachers was Miguel Ruiz. Miguel was my teacher for about 8 years, until he gave me the boot and said, ‘It’s time for you to go out in the world’. He’s still probably one of my best friends. I was able to integrate a lot of the things I learned from Miguel into The New Agreements as well, so I feel that it was just a huge gift.

(David) The first New Agreement is to Find Your Path. If we have a clear vision for ourselves that is meaningful, we have a tendency to move much more quickly. The second New Agreement is to Love, Grow, and Serve Your People. If you look at organizations, they’re actually a group of people who have come together to do something. People bring the energy to literally animate the organization. They bring life and energy to an organization, so when we love, grow, and serve our people, we are really serving the organization. I feel that particularly for leaders and coaches, this is a very important New Agreement.

The third New Agreement is to Mind Your Mind in the Moment. This is really the practice of the Mastery of Awareness. The mind creates our individual realities. We have 6 billion people on the planet, and if you spent any time with any of those people, you’d see that each of us sees things a little differently. If we want to change our reality, we have to change our minds. The first step in changing the mind is to be aware of what the mind is doing in the moment. This is a magical moment when we have the possibility of making new choices that will change our reality.

The fourth New Agreement is to Shift Your Systems. I mentioned that 90 percent of the results we experience in the workplace and in our lives are created by the systems in which we work, not by our individual efforts. If we can become systems literate, and learn to shift our systems, we can accelerate the potential results created in the workplace and with our clients. The last New Agreement is to Practice A Little Every Day. We know that anything worth doing well requires a little practice. Practice is a rocket sled for change.

How did the New Agreements Coach Training Institute come about and what is the philosophy of your training program?

(Joanne) Having been an Executive and Business Coach for over 16 years, and also President of an organization, I know how effective Coaching is. I have seen over and over again that it can be the difference in the success of an executive or business owner. We had been working with individual clients and organizations as New Agreements Coaches with Intent for several years, and what we saw happening got our attention. Something was happening beyond the normal powerful possibilities that coaching provides. We saw that equipping Coaches with the awareness, skills, and knowledge to make systems visible, could greatly accelerate the change process. We knew that we needed to share this with coaches and business leaders, and decided to launch The New Agreements Coach Training Institute in order to teach and train other coaches.

It’s so intriguing to me because I love systems and I love the work of Peter Senge who wrote The Fifth Discipline. Tell me more about what New Agreements Coaching with Intent means.

(Joanne) We as coaches are usually trained to work with the WHO of the client. We are trained to work with creating shifts in the attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs of our clients. When we can “see” systems and make decisions to “shift systems,” we have BOTH Coaching eyes open – one on ‘who’ and one on systems. This greatly expands our coaching ability. Can you imagine, being able to make visible the systems that are constraining our clients’ effectiveness and performance? Now, we are working with the ‘whole’ client.

New Agreements Coaching with Intent combines several unique perspectives. We have the relationship, which we hold sacred between client and coach, Systems-Based coaching, Universal Principles, and The Path of the Coach. A New Agreement Coach chooses a path and a set of spiritual practices for the purpose of accessing intuition, inner wisdom and knowing.

We're happy to share that we're off to a great start on the t awards! Here's a refresher of what this is all about (in case you missed our previous mailing) and a brief update on what we've done so far:

As you may know, we will be having an awards ceremony at Saturday night's Gala Dinner at this year's Annual CoachVille Conference, June 3-6 in Orlando, FL. http://www.coachvilleannualconference.com. This will be a major event and we'd like to involve as many people, organizations and the press/media [lots of it :)] as we can. It will be a great opportunity to recognize the best contributors to the coaching community, both coaches and non-coaches.

The awards, complete with trophy [yes, we're working on something appropriately quirky, and if you have any ideas please email heidi@heidicostas.com and put "quirky award" in the subject area ] will be presented in a very festive setting to the winners of the public voting/nominating process we've set up for this.

The process of nominating and voting is now open to the community at large and we're sure it will attract a lot of attention. We're setting up a nomination and voting web page that should be up at the coachvilleconference.com website soon, where you can read about and vote for the nominees, nominate a person or organization , suggest a new category and/or otherwise get involved with this project.

So, please, get your nominees and ideas ready ... and visit www.coachvilleannualconference.com/awards.html.
We'd love it if you'd invite your friends to visit as well!

Lots of work is still needed and we're asking for your involvement and help! If you're interested, email heidi@heidicostas.com and put "t volunteer" in the subject area. Interested in helping to create public awareness about this campaign? Contact Kim@Coachville.com and indicate "t awards press support" in the subject area.

CoachVille Live Events

Are you relatively new to coaching?

Would you benefit from attending a 2-day intensive training to get your arms around the coaching process?

If so, join us for the CoachVille Springboard Intensive, coming to a city near you!

Are you someone who...

Is interesting in getting started quickly as a coach?
Has been looking for a universal coaching model to get results with your clients?
Is new to the coaching game and wants to quickly understand how to coach well instead of waiting years to learn by trial and error?
Is new to coaching and wants to know the best way to break into the field?
Is in another coaching training program and wondering is this all there is?
Is working with clients who you sense are wanting more from you as a coach?
Has heard about the 15 Fundamental Coaching Proficiencies from CoachVille and is eager to learn them in an immersion weekend?
Wants to find a quick, easy way to start bringing clients into your practice?

Join us in Dallas or Chicago...

Register Now!
Coaching Springboard Intensive April 16-17, 2004 Friday and Saturday, 9am to 5pm all days led by Rick Reddington	$179 register here	Dallas, TX Wyndham Dallas Market Center
Coaching Springboard Intensive April 30-May 1, 2004 Friday and Saturday, 9am to 5pm both days led by Rick Reddington	$179 register here	Chicago, IL Westin O'Hare

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