Contracting is a critical and often overlooked part of coaching success. It sets the foundation "It’s all in the setup ". This is a time where you set expectations, shared standards, and agree on the process and responsibilities of each party. The agreement - how you are going to work together, the approach, the ontological methodology, and your "unique coaching approach." Also contracting is not a one-shot deal but there are many "mini-contracting" opportunities throughout the relationship. How do we contract when things get uncomfortable or the client has a breakdown with the coaching itself or with the coach.

Led by Charles Feltman

Previously in "Successful Contracting with a Client" we set a solid foundation for coaching engagement with contracting. In this session, we will further expand the foundation to the power of strong opening questions. Together, contracting and opening questions ensure the coach has a strong relationship with the client or coachee.

Led by Libby Robinson

Why is self-awareness and centering important in Coaching? In this class you will begin to learn and pracitce coach self-awareness tecniques. What are the practices that help you get ready to coach. Can we center with the client? We can use our own self-awareness as a tool in our coach. What knocks you "off-center". What to you do when you need to bring yourself back? Are you transparent with the client about when you are off-center? Center is not a "place" but a practice of revisiting and checking of where your attention is. Centering - which is found in many martial arts and yoga is also a powerful practice in ontological coaching. How can centering help your well-being as well as the wellbeing of our client.

Led by Carol Harris-Fike

What are somatics? How is the physical body a domain of learning in coaching. In this class you will be given some of the basic distinctions in somatics, and begin to see how to enter this domain skillfully in your coaching.

Led by Croft Edwards

Language is not just descriptive it is also a form of action. In this class you will begin to enter the world of linguistics as a significant tool of ontological coaching. We will introduce the basic distinctions and "technology" of language or "speech acts". Sometimes we are not using language, language is using us! Also we will look how the clients "story" is full of various patterns and speech acts that can be used as an entrance to a deeper more transformative conversation. We will also look at how their story impacts their way of being and what options are open to them emotionally and somatically based on their story. How do we help the client to get beyodn the presentnig story - what is the story "underneath" the story? What is your story about your story? Stories aren't bad - they are just a shorthand of lived experience. Coaches also have "stories" about their client too.

Led by Francisco Gonima

Ontology is the study of the "way of being" of an individual, team or organization. Ontology gives even very experienced coaches new "distinctions" in order to work with their clients in a deeply transformative way. In this first class we will introduce the 3 primary domains of ontology - linguistics, emotional realm and somatics as areas for discovery. We will also look at first and second order learning and the concept of the "observer" or witness state. We will also introduce the concept of "breakdown" or "break in transparency". Through understanding the distinctions that are often “invisible” to most coaches we can help people have dramatic insights, learn to awaken to new possibility all by using this “multi-lens” and multidisciplinary approach. The basic models and worldview that help you observe and lead differently. What is a "Breakdown" and how does it Affect Transformaiton, Midfulness and Collaboration? (Intro to Basic Ontological Distinctions - BEL and OAR and Breakdown...).

Led by Carol Harris-Fike

This group mentor coaching class is facilitated to allow participants to actually begin the practice of ontological coaching - on each other. All participants will have the chance to coach and be coached, with both facilitator comments and peer feedback. Our focus will be on the ICF Core Competency 3: Establishes and Maintains Agreement.

Led by Libby Robinson

During this hour Libby Robinson, MCC, will be looking at Core Competency #8 and how to implement the key skills required for this competency into your coaching sessions.

Definition: Partners with the client to transform learning and insight into action. Promotes client autonomy in the coaching process.

8.1 Works with the client to integrate new awareness, insight or learning into their worldview and behaviors
8.2 Partners with the client to design goals, actions and accountability measures that integrate and expand new learning
8.3 Acknowledges and supports client autonomy in the design of goals, actions and methods of accountability
8.4 Supports the client in identifying potential results or learning from identified action steps
8.5 Invites the client to consider how to move forward, including resources, support and potential barriers
8.6 Partners with the client to summarize learning and insight within or between sessions
8.7 Celebrates the client’s progress and successes
8.8 Partners with the client to close the session

Led by Libby Robinson

Every 6 weeks, Lauren will host a drop-in session where you can bring your (ACP or ICF) questions, concerns or admin horrors. 

Led by Lauren Smith

Part 1 of 4 Part Series: Linguistics is the study of the nature, structure, and variation of language, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics, and pragmatics. We will look at key distinctions in the "technology of language" - both yours as a coach and your clients. This class will focus on two main areas -- assessments and assertions and how you can start separating fact from story and the "phenomena" versus the "explanation of the phenomena". This one tool is absolutely essential to coaches not being "stuck" in the client's worldview. This is the first of 3 classes covering linguistics.

Led by Charles Feltman

In this class we will engage in a conversation about questions. Questions are the primary tool we can use as coaches in order to better understand what is going on for our clients. Therefore, our ability to ask powerful and generative questions is critical to our success as ontological coaches. We will explore our questioning habits and practice expanding our questioning repertoire.

Led by Robin Postel

Part 2 of 4 Part Series: In this session, we will look at the technology and distinctions of requests, offers and promises to understand where a client's breakdowns in language may be occurring if they are not getting the results they seek. Language also "lives in the body and has mood and emotion as a backdrop. We will practice listening for effective use of requests, offers and promises in our everyday life.

Led by Carol Roller

In this ACP we will explore what we mean by a “breakdown”. Why it is relevant to ontological coaching and ways in which coaches can explore this domain with their clients in a way that empowers them to live life more fully.

Led by Pam Rechel

Part 3 of 4: A key part of conversational mastery is understanding and utilizing the cycle of the promise. In this class, we will dive deep into the Cycle of the Promise and how it shows up in everyday life.

Led by Melanie Parish

In this class, we will explore the linguistic construction of emotions - the story, the impulse and the purpose. This provides coaches with an opportunity to provide clients a new way to appreciate their emotions, as well as explore a wider variety of emotional capacity. In this class we will explore the territory or emotions and how emotions fundamentally underlie all human interactions.

Led by Libby Robinson

Part 4 of 4: We often think of language as descriptive but it has much more power than that. Language also has a generative process. We will reveal the power of declarations, how to notice them, their "congurency" and how to use them in a coaching session.

Led by Croft Edwards

Good contracting is a very clear skill. Come prepared to coach and be coached. We will workshop when we are contracting and when we are coaching. This will help you develop a greater understanding of the skill of contracting. This will allow you to go into your coaching sessions with a very clear contract which will enable your coaching sessions to flow more clearly and your contracting with your client to be more clear. Good contracting leads to great contracting...

Led by Melanie Parish

What types of conversations are you typically in? Do you know? Attend this class to learn about different variations of conversations and how clarifying which conversation you are in or which oen you want to be in can help pave the way for better results with others.

Led by Leah Kedar

Supervision is a process in which coaches are supported in reflection about their practice as a professional coach by a coaching supervisor. The ICF recommends that all coaches participate in supervision, European coaching associations require supervision to maintain certification. Intervision is a supervision process among peers. Supervision aims to support coaches in ways that are restorative (e.g. self-confidence), formative (e.g. new learning and development) and normative (e.g. ethical clarity). Coaches typically leave supervision feeling resourced. This is an opportunity for you to bring forward issues that you are facing as a coach.

Led by Carol Harris-Fike

Ontological coaching uses the approach of observing what it means to be a human being. Epistemology, how we learn, is a component of what it means to be human. In what ways do we support or detract from our learning? How do we determine what territories we need to explore? Join us for a conversation on what learning has to do with coaching.

Led by Carol Roller

An effective coach balances challenge and support. Effectively challenging our clients when we observe incongruencies in what they say or do is an opportunity for them to become aware of their breakdowns. The work for the coach is to approach the client with curiosity in offering feedback. The coach strives to offer input without attachment to whether their observations will resonate or not. Come and practice these coaching moves with other coaches to improve your ability to communicate directly.

Led by Leah Kedar

During this hour Libby Robinson, MCC, will be available to answer any questions you have about the concepts learnt in class so far. 

Led by Libby Robinson

Every 6 weeks, Lauren will host a drop-in session where you can bring your (ACP or ICF) questions, concerns or admin horrors. 

Led by Lauren Smith

Moods and emotions are one of the three main categories of human experience that ontological coaches use to help clients discover their breakdowns. In this course, students will look at the distinctions between emotions and moods. They also will take a look at four basic moods – resentment, resignation, acceptance and ambition. Understanding which mood clients spend their time in helps reveal what types of actions are available.

Led by Libby Robinson

Coaching presence that is light and gently irreverent can serve a client by helping them to see the patterns they live in may have become too small. Within the context of a trusting coaching relationship, lightness and humor gently shine a light on the breakdown – sometimes more effectively than through more direct means. Involves the core competencies of establishing trust and intimacy, direct communication and powerful questions

Led by Leah Kedar

What are somatics? How is the physical body a domain of learning in coaching? In this class, you will be given some of the basic distinctions in somatics, and begin to see how to enter this domain skillfully in your coaching.

Led by Carol Harris-Fike

In this class we will practice sticking with a topic longer than we may be comfortable - noticing our own tendency to pivot away from one question to another - darting about in a conversation versus diving deeper, and exploring further - getting to the essence of what our clients are experiencing, accessing the wisdom that resides there.

Led by Pam Rechel

In this session, Carol will support participants as they complete the study of the Foundation of Ontological Coaching. They will grow in understanding how the ontological coaching distinctions are applied within coaching to support clients in how they are being to accomplish what they desire. Carol will coach a volunteer participant and then process with the participants how the principles were applied. Carol will share the deep value she has witnessed with her coaching and mentoring clients in her almost 20 years of Ontological Coaching practice

Led by Carol Harris-Fike

In this workshop come prepared to coach and be coached, We will workshop a variety of question types to expand how questions can be used more powerfully in your coaching. We will look at how your questions can amplify your client’s values or how you might be amplifying your own. What are the ethics of this?
Learn about open channel questions, curious questions, open ended questions, and how to avoid close ended questions and stacked questions.
So many questions….

Led by Melanie Parish

This group mentor coaching class is facilitated to allow participants to actually begin the practice of ontological coaching - on each other. All participants will have the chance to coach and be coached, with both facilitator comments and peer feedback. Our focus will be on the ICF Core Competency 8: Facilitates Client Growth

Led by Charles Feltman

Declarations are a poweful speech act that can help a client keep their commitments alive - even in the face of doubt, or obstacles. An authenic declaration - powerfully made and received by the coach can be a touchstone and a "mantra" for a desired future.

Led by Libby Robinson

Asking powerful questions is an important coaching competency. Stacking questions is asking more than one question consecutively without leaving space for the client to answer. This class will focus on why we commonly do that (we all do it!), the impact on the client (often confusion) and how to stop.

Led by Pam Rechel

During this hour Libby Robinson, MCC, will be available to answer any questions you have about the concepts learnt in class so far. 

Led by Libby Robinson

Every 6 weeks, Lauren will host a drop-in session where you can bring your (ACP or ICF) questions, concerns or admin horrors. 

Led by Lauren Smith

While visions are often articulated in broad brush strokes, it can be very useful to bring specificity to the visions we create. Partnering with our clients to identify the texture and specifics of the outcomes they desire helps them build accountability markers along the way. Transforming learning and insight into action, and promoting client autonomy.

Led by Libby Robinson

This group mentor coaching class is facilitated to allow participants to actually begin the practice of ontological coaching - on each other. All participants will have the chance to coach and be coached, with both facilitator comments and peer feedback. Our focus will be on the ICF Core Competency 4: Cultivates Trust and Safety and 5: Maintains Presence

Led by TBD

This class is for participants who already have at least two current coaching assignments. Be prepared to discuss your coaching clients in a confidential way and clarify what skills you want to build in your own coaching.
Come prepared to practice coaching - with feedback!

Led by Libby Robinson

On the surface, a code of ethics is fairly straightforward. In practice, it can be messier. In this 2 hour session, we will explore real ethical dilemmas participating coaches face in their practice, using Michael Carroll’s lens of ethical maturity. This is defined as “having the reflective, rational, emotional and intuitive capacity to decide whether actions are right and wrong or good and better, having the resilience and courage to implement those decisions, being accountable for ethical decisions made (publicly or privately), and being able to learn from and live with the experience(s)” (in Erik de Haan Supervision in Action 2012). An assignment will be given to all participants in order to prepare for Part Two on 24th June!

Led by Robin Postel

Following participation in Ethical Maturity Part One - Part 2 will deepen the exploration using Michael Carroll’s lens of ethical maturity with a reflective practice based on cases brought by participants.

Led by Robin Postel

Our somatic experience – what happens in our bodies – is as important to forming the observers we are as are our thoughts and emotions. In coaching, attending to “the body”, our client’s and our own, is a powerful avenue for discovery, learning and growth. Our clients’ thoughts and emotions are held in, shaped by and expressed through their bodies, which have their own wordless wisdom. Coaching to the client’s somatic experience can accelerate their ability to find liberating new perspectives and make meaningful changes in their lives. In this session we will explore the links between body, thought, and emotion, how to bring the client’s attention to their somatic experience in useful ways, how to support them in learning through the body, and how to use our own body experience effectively in our coaching

Led by Carol Harris-Fike

During this hour Libby Robinson, MCC, will be available to answer any questions you have about the concepts learnt in class so far. 

Led by Libbby Robinson

Every 6 weeks, Lauren will host a drop-in session where you can bring your (ACP or ICF) questions, concerns or admin horrors. 

Led by Lauren Smith

The ICF expects coaches to have the capacity to have productive conversations about diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and justice. Integral Coaches is committed to creating an inclusive culture for coaches and clients.

This course is the beginning of a series of conversations. We know it's a big and complex topic and that we each have to start where we are.

In this course we will begin by talking about where we each are in our journey to talk about race and our intentions for learning more. This will also help inform how we create our conversation roadmap for Integral.

Led by Leah Kedar & Pam Rechel

Concluding a coaching session is as important as contracting and how you coach in the middle. Come prepared to coach and be coached. In this workshop we will talk about how you can solidly complete your coaching session with eyes toward moving the action forward so that you feel solid in your coaching and recordings for your submissions.
Come prepared to practice coaching - with feedback!

Led by Melanie Parish

Being a great coach is well, great. But it won't be much fun if you can't find clients - or clients can't find you. In this class we will look at what are some of the necessary building blocks of starting your coaching business, vision, personal brand, business development strategies and making compelling offers to your target audience.

Led by Libby Robinson

In his endorsement of The Thin Book of Trust, Stephen M.R. Covey calls trust “…the foundation of everything we do and the key leadership competency of the new global economy.” Trust building is a competency that can be learned, developed and practiced. This ACP session will focus on how through coaching we can support our clients in becoming skillful at building, maintaining, and when necessary restoring trust at work.

Led by TBD

This group mentor coaching class is facilitated to allow participants to actually begin the practice of ontological coaching - on each other. All participants will have the chance to coach and be coached, with both facilitator comments and peer feedback. Our focus will be on the ICF Core Competency 6: Listens Actively and 7: Evokes Awareness

Led by Carol Roller

Skill drilling the parts...to make the whole...

We will have short mentor segments with a stop-and-start format. Come prepared to coach and be coached. The Facilitator will step in and ask questions during the process to help you drill the exact skill you want to master with feedback as you go. 5-7 minute coaching segments so lots of coaches and clients for this fast-paced session.

Led by Melanie Parish

One of the best ways for new coaches to learn skillful coaching is to be coached by experienced ontological coaches and then debrief the coaching with them. In this fully experiential class an accomplished PCC or MCC coach, will demonstrate 1 or 2 brief coaching sessions with participants. Particpants should be prepared with at least one topic they are personally willing to be coached on in front of others.

Led by Carol Harris-Fike