The project took place between April and September 2011, involving one facilitator and seven participants.
Pre-Training:
One month prior to the scheduled workshop, a formal letter of invitation was sent to the participants selected by IDF. This letter also provided instructions explaining the self-assessment questionnaire that was attached to the letter. The self-assessments were completed and returned by participants and tabulated by the facilitator prior to the workshop.
For facilitation purposes, a facilitator’s manual was prepared, detailing the objectives of each session, logistical needs, overview and process of the session and instructions for the various activities. A participant manual was also produced which included the schedule, notes on the various CLC concepts and exercises sheets to be used in workshop activities.
CLC Coaching Workshop
The workshop took place from May 27 to 29, 2011 with 7 participants participating. One additional person was scheduled, but could not attend due to illness. The participants included 3 women and 4 men holding various positions within IDF as staff or volunteers (including one VSO international volunteer).
Mid-point Interview
In August and September, five one-on-one interviews were conducted with the participants. Unfortunately the two remaining participant interviews could not take place due to availability.
The interviews took, on average, about 45 minutes. The purpose of each of the interviews was to check-in on the participants’ progress, answer any questions they had, and to gauge their:
- Retention of the coaching principles
- Use of coaching in professional capacity
- Use in personal / day-to-day capacity
- Self-evaluation (what’s going well, what is challenging, what needs more work)
Each of the participants interviewed discussed openly their challenges and successes. Participants shared several anecdotes about their experiences.
Follow-up workshop
The follow-up workshop was the final component of the project and took place on September 19th 2011. This was scheduled for a full day of knowledge-sharing and skills building, however, the coordinator for IDF requested at the beginning of the session to end at lunch time because of other urgent business by the organization. While the content of the workshop was fully covered, this necessitated a reduction in the amount of discussion time and condensed some of the activities.
The workshop consisted of a review of the core CLC principles through participant knowledge and experience sharing. This was followed by a short introduction to the principles of Emotional Intelligence with a particular emphasis on the importance of EQ within teams, in leadership, and in coaching and the importance of self-assessment and management. Participants also completed a self-assessment exercise on EQ, in addition to completing the post-training assessment.
To lend a hand towards greater capitalization of this training, participants engaged in a brainstorming session aimed at creating a simplified action plan for developing a coaching culture within IDF going forward.
Results and Impact
While the full impact of the coaching training on the participants will take some time to materialize fully, results and impacts to the change process are already becoming visible. The manner and extent to which adoption of coaching and creative leadership conversations were adopted is demonstrated below.
Results and impacts were measurable both quantitatively and qualitatively as appropriate, however the strength of the anecdotal evidence provided by the participants is indicative of the increasing adoption of the training. [Click here to read the full report]
Listen to Dr. Williams discuss the mission of CGV on