What's most interesting to you these days?

What's most interesting to you these days?

From Carol Kauffman, PhD, Director of the Institute of Coaching

For me it's high-stakes coaching. When you and your client are on the firing line, the consequences are large, sometimes affecting hundreds of thousands of employees or millions of customers. It's daunting! Our work is also pivotal if one person's career or health is at stake.

What IS most effective at these times? 
In my coaching and supervision practice I'm seeing that, yes, we need to know what we "do" best and pull on all we know, including translating the latest research into good practice. But to coach at the top or with high-stakes challenges we need to cultivate who we are -- our "being" skills. 

Under pressure, we need to be able to hold and emanate opposite qualities. What can be demanded of us is to be highly determined and also not attached to our interventions. We must have clear presence, confidence while simultaneously being ego-free. While we know the ropes and structures, at the same time we need to dance in the emergent process. Last, our "confidence" need not be in ourselves, but to be confident in the processes and power of coaching.

What qualities do you want to cultivate this year? I'm working on calm in the face of frenzy. My success is, well, mixed.