"Coaching Circle" - How It Was Created and What We Celebrate Today

On Friday, February 24th, 2020, before Covid-19 outbreak, we supposed to meet with Manon Huntjens first time for coffee just to get to know each other. Somehow we mixed the locations and ended up waiting each other in different places in Amsterdam. So in order not to waste time, we decided to connect via Zoom from where we were.

 We connected, shared some thoughts, and in the end of our meeting we came up with an idea of organising Coaching Circles. The following Friday we launched our very first Coaching Circle with 12 members from 3 the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium.

 Today, 24th July, 5 months later, also Friday, I would like to share the learning and the results we have so far.

 Results

·      We have completed 3 rounds of Coaching Circles, that resulted in creating the community of 60+ coaches from all over the world with different background and levels of experience.

·      Each of these coaches have committed and donated minimum 3 sessions as a coach and received minimum 3 sessions as coachee

·      We welcomed the coaches with different levels of coaching experiences and saw great benefits from that:

o   The coaches who didn’t complete Certification/similar level yet had an opportunity to practice coaching skills in safe environment with their peers,

o   Coaches who were in Certification process could focus on their learning and count those coaching hours (if they have more than 5 clients),

o    Certified coaches served their clients with professional level of coaching and received their own coaching sessions from peers (the piece that you are missing when you finish the Certification)

·      For deepening the learning and helping coaches to develop their practices we organized 2 enriching master-classes with mentor coaches where we got valuable insights how to lead the successful sample sessions & how to find your niche.  We’ve received very positive feedback

·      Next Coaching Circle (4th one already!) we are starting on September 1st, 2020, with Membership that includes:

o    Matching with your coach and client, 2 x 3 sessions

o   optional 3 month membership for Simply Start community with live coaching demo's and office hours

o   Live Masterclass - Neuroscience Coaching with Ann Betz  (yeah, she agreed!)

o   Live Masterclass - Intuition and Coaching with Ronit LeMon, MCC (coaches loved her mentoring tips for successful sample sessions)

o   Sharing with coaches Coaching agreement template

 Learning:

·      From the very beginning Manon and myself were very clear on our mission: we welcome diversity in cultures, backgrounds and levels of coaching expertise. We did the matching randomly believing that the coaches and the clients are matched would be the best ones for each other!

·      We have learnt that that coaches enjoyed being matched up with someone from either around the corner or the other side of the world. And the credentials were not the focus, as we had people who just finished Fundamentals and we had MCC coaches who were open for mentoring others.

·      In our cooperation with my partner we relied on each other strengths – Manon’s entrepreneurial perspective and my perspective as a Professional Coach.

·      Before making any decision we both checked with ourselves how did it felt instead of what was the logical thing to do whether in inviting Guest speakers, choosing best version of video to post, etc.

·      In order to create real commitment from the community members we have created the Membership with very attractive offer and affordable fee – and that created shift of the energy for us as – our participants and us as well.

Personally I also participated in one of the coaching circles, and I had really insightful coaching sessions with my coach, and I coached a person from another continent!

And if you are a Coach and/or you know other coaches who might benefit from all the advantages we offer in our Coaching Circle community, please feel free to share this link with them with more details: https://www.simply-start.com/coachingcircles

Reserve you place before 1st August, and get an early bird discount for all 3 months!