Integral Connections

At Leadership Vancouver Island, Bryan Webber facilitated a short exercise to explore what we wanted to create a stand for. This was not new for me to take a stand but it was a different way to elicit the conversation. I now have a new tool in my tool kit to help others explore what they want to create a stand for. I thought you may find value in it so I am sharing it with you.

What do I stand for the possibility of?

I stand for the possibility of behaving and making choices from a place of inner peace, integrity and positive vibrational energy. When I follow through on this intention, I am living even more from my true essence which positively impacts all that I do.

Purpose: To create an identity of yourself in the future and construct a statement around your values, linking your values to the way you want the world to be. “I stand for the possibility of….”

1. Answer this question: If you were to envision and create an identity of yourself in the future, what would that look, sound and feel like?

2. Expand: What values do you want, qualities, and characteristics? What impact do you want to make to others?

3. With the intention to have a vision of yourself acting this way in the future, as your fully self-actualized ideal future self, in 1 or 2 sentences describe how you would want to be starting with the words “I stand for the possibility of….”

For example: I stand for the possibility of behaving and making choices from a place of inner peace, integrity and positive vibrational energy. 

What are you creating a stand for?

As their coach, I facilitated a team coaching session near the beginning of their project work together. We did a Tri Position Planning exercise where they got clear on the vision of what they wanted to create then aligned their vision with a strategic plan with clear next steps to bring it to fruition.

When I spoke with one of the team members at graduation, I asked to what extent the Tri Position Planning exercise influenced their project. It was pivotal. The power and empowerment of coaching; in a 1.5 hour team coaching session they envisioned their end product, what it would mean for them and their community sponsor and, came up with a plan to bring to their sponsor.

If you are interested in learning more about the local Indigenous community or to sign out the Toolbox for Change for your business contact Chris Beaton at the Nanaimo Aboriginal Centre at 250.754.3215 or [email protected]

We communicate on a daily basis but how many of these conversations really ignite an engaging spark within you? What was the last conversation you have had with someone that has been purposeful and meaningful? When did you learn something new about someone or yourself? 

We all have the ability to create a powerful conversation, one that digs deep and offers constructive insight. With our daily conversations truncated to quick, abbreviated texts or emojis, we need to take time to engage in a real conversation. Here are five tips to set you on the path:

1. Build rapport and trust.

Genuinely ask, ‘how are you?’ This is the single most powerful question for creating rapport and trust.

2. Set an agreement for the time and higher-value conversation.

‘Can we take a few minutes to look at this project?’ Setting an effective agreement on how we are going to talk and what we are going to focus on is the foundation of a powerful conversation. Get a ‘yes’ before proceeding.

3. Be curious.

Uncontaminated child-like curiosity about the other person and what they have to say.

4. Listen to understand, letting go of judgments and assumptions.

There is a quality of deep listening you bring to the conversation so you can hear what is important to the person you are conversing with. Make a commitment to yourself, declaring open awareness in the conversation.

5. A powerful conversation is about asking questions that empower people to be accountable for results.

Open-ended questioning versus telling. What do you want? What is important about that for you? How will you know you achieved it? How might you begin? What are the ways in which you will stay committed through time? If you produce the result you want, what would that mean for you?

Employees who are engaged in their work and committed to shared team goals and outcomes are every manager's dream. The process of developing a team of people who are accountable and take ownership in their work begins during the recruitment and interview process. In this half-day workshop, you will learn and practice new skills for developing engaging and meaningful interview questions. By the end of this session, you will walk away with effective strategies that will enable to you hire the right candidates for your company or organization.

Date: March 4, 2016

Time: 9:00am - 12:30pm

Where: VIU Cowichan Campus

Cost: $95 + $4.75 GST

CLICK TO REGISTER

As we go into the eighth week of 2016, checking in, how are you doing with the implementation of your goals and projects you are working on in your business? We usually start the year out in inspiration. What do I want to achieve this year? What is the dream? What is success in my business for this year? What do I want to create? For others, we are continuing on with projects from last year. Perhaps maintaining stability and sustainability or adding a little bit of growth.

With all of these scenarios we are planning, effectively prioritizing, and implementing our plans, taking action to create results. As you build momentum or consistently maintain momentum, how aligned are your plans with your values? What is your commitment through time? When we align our goals with our values, this is when goals become not only achievable but sustainable through time. Since values are the why of what we do, they are tied to motivation. They are the rocket fuel behind our actions.

If you are noticing your energy is waning or you feel you have lost focus, attention and persistence on your goals, I recommend asking yourself 'what is important' about your goals. If you love the results you are creating, have positive vibrational energy and joy? I invite you to ask yourself the same question.

Here are a few other values questions: What would it mean for you to create those results? Who else would be impacted? What values are you living by?

When you are clear on your values, particularly your absolute or core values (versus relative or means values), connected to your vision for your business, the action steps of what you are committing your time to become clear. Next steps and continued action over time become easy, effortless and fluid in achieving the results to live your definition of success in business and life.

Naturally with the seasons, especially in North America, it is a time of harvest and gratitude: Thanksgiving. In Canada this is celebrated the second Monday in October and in the USA it is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. Cultures around the world celebrate harvest and gratitude.

What does Thanksgiving mean to you?

For me it means a time to express gratitude, gather with family and friends, to give thanks for the many blessings throughout the year. Thanksgiving is one day in the year dedicated purposefully to giving thanks although I express gratitude throughout the year.

On this Thanksgiving, I am reminiscing upon a milestone in my business and life. I am celebrating 5 years of business and living my ideal life. I pioneered Integral Connections in September, 2010. This was a time of fiscal constraints and economic downturn.

I had a vision that if everyone could learn to communicate in a coaching way and live our own definitions of success, what is meaningful for each of us enabling us to give our greatest contribution, the world would be such a different place. I had a passion to create a life of abundance, flexibility, full of learning, empowerment of self and others, living with integrity doing and being what made me freak out with joy.

Through sharing my learning, skills and capabilities I have worked in partnership with entrepreneurial leaders to bring their visions of their ideal lives to fruition. I have done this through coaching, facilitating and leading by example with integrity. I have been one small candle and have lit many more candles with this light over these past 5 years and have plans in my journey to light many more.

Let your light shine bright with passion, purpose and an aligned plan to live your definition of success in business and life. If you want a partner to support sparking or fuelling your flame or creating the plan to help that flame shine brightly, I welcome the opportunity to explore if we could be the right partnership to support that outcome.

For now, I will sign off with a few coaching questions:

• What have you nurtured throughout the year and harvested in your business and life? 
• What are you grateful for and acknowledging? 
• If you were to reminisce on your own meaning of what Thanksgiving represents for you, what does it mean? 
• Moving forward, what is your plan to continue to live your definition of success in business and life?

COACHING STRATEGIES FOR EFFECTIVE LEADERS 

Coaching skills is an essential element of any leadership toolbox. Designed for the experienced manager, this workshop explores practical strategies that will elevate you from the position of “boss” to the position of “leader” within your organization. With a focus on facilitative leadership, you will discover how to maximize your team’s potential by tapping into individual strengths. Through discussion and group activities you will learn how to how to invite participation from individuals on your team, create an environment of innovation and trust and reinforce commitment to shared business goals.

Where: Vancouver Island University - Nanaimo

Date: Friday, October 16

Time: 9:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

CLICK TO REGISTER

RECRUITING AND HIRING HIGH PERFORMANCE EMPLOYEES

Employees who are engaged in their work, and committed to shared team goals and outcomes is every manager’s dream. The process of developing a team of people who are accountable and take ownership in their work begins during the interview process. In this half-day workshop, you will learn and practice new skills for developing engaging and meaningful interview questions. By the end of this session, you will walk away with effective strategies that will enable to you hire the right candidates for your company or organization and tap into the power of your team.

Where: Vancouver Island University - Nanaimo

Date: Friday, November 27

Time: 9:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

CLICK TO REGISTER

Understanding how you process information increases your flexibility in how you communicate. We are going to look at habit systems, patterns and filters that define how we process information from the outside world. These are called Metaprograms (MP’s).

Metaprograms were initially proposed by Richard Bandler, one of the original creators of NLP. Bandler co-founded NLP with John Grinder. Bandler noticed that just like a computer, we as humans tended to run programs in our brains that dictated how we processed information.

MP’s are related to our brain or neurology, which is strongly influenced by our experiences. When we have an experience, it gets logged in the emotional brain. Much of the wiring in our emotional brain happens from early childhood, so we are not even aware of it.

The programming is like a generalization that allows us to respond to similar situations in similar ways without us having to think about it. This tends to be survival based, what is the safe, comfortable way to respond. It is largely unconscious. Each one of us has a programming that makes us respond in different ways.

Habits show up in how we communicate, how we speak. Before we become aware of our habits, we just go on with what we know. As we become aware of our habits, we can choose to develop new habits, new neuropathways and increase our flexibility in communication. We can develop a conscious understanding or our MP’s when we put our attention on them.

MP’s operate at the level of “how” we process information. It is a skill. They are not who we are. MP’s are perceptual filters through which we experience life. The more we develop new habits, the more flexible we become in our brains and the more choice we have in different contexts. We can choose to use other styles that will serve us better since different situations will call for different styles. Or if we don’t get the results we want, we might want to try something new.

As much as our emotional brain loves labeling and either/or types of situations, MP’s actually operate along a spectrum. Also, they can be context specific; we may operate one way in one context, and another way in another. So with the idea of a spectrum, we access the neo-cortex or creative visual brain. This brain is not linked to our emotions, which gives us great power, more choice and flexibility.

There are many MP’s. For today I will share one of the MP’s as an example. Understanding this MP helps you understand how you reason out a decision.

Imagine a spectrum where procedural is at one end of the line and possibilities is at the other end of the line: Procedural Possibilities. A question we might ask is ‘Why did you decide to explore coaching?’ or ‘Why did you decide to explore becoming an entrepreneur?' Jot down a few notes in response to this question from your personal perspective.

How do you notice you responded to that question? Where along the spectrum would you say you fall in this context? Are you close to procedural or possibilities? What are you observing about yourself?

Remember this is a spectrum and you can filter differently for different contexts. For example, when you are learning something for the first time, you may want to know the right way to do something, correct, tested methodology, what is known from the past, the facts, and the order of the steps. This would be more procedural. When you are at work as an entrepreneur you may be thinking of possibilities, change, new and different things. What could be in the future? You love to forge new ground, pioneering and oriented to your values. Filtering from here you are interested in what’s not known rather than what is known. You love that blue sky thinking. This would be more possibilities.

If you are interested in this topic, I invite you to explore further. If you search the Internet for Richard Bandler, John Grinder, Neurolinguistic Programming you will have ample information to begin your exploration and understanding.

Wow! What a way to start the day! This morning my client in India. said to me: "I'm so glad to have you in my life! If you wouldn't have been there, I would have never started my journey. You coached me, helped me so much and supported me. I was completely unaware and now have clarity. Everything is moving."

There are no words to express the feeling I have right now from hearing those words. This is the difference I get to contribute as a coach (and trainer). It is soooo rewarding to see people move beyond their fears, get out of the spin and propel themselves forward to create the life they love!

February 13 ; Friday 09:00 - 12:30 ( 1 session )

Fee: $95 + $4.75 GST