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Values: Generosity aka Lizzy’s Launch Update

July 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment
LizzyGOGO

Most of the shots from the test drive are a blur...

When I put “generosity” in my list of values it was really about my desire to be generous with my time and talents and creativity and love and joy. I like giving. It feels good and it gives me a boost and the folks around me seem to like it, too.

So, it never really occurred to me that the lesson would be around accepting generosity. I mean, sure, I appreciate it when someone thinks of me or sends me a hello on my birthday or treats me to lunch. I’m always a little uncomfortable with it, though. If I dig down deep I know it’s because I’ve been the recipient of lots of “gifts” with ropes attached. So, I don’t trust generosity. Not really.

And then something breathtaking happened.

We decided to purchase Lizzy a scooter for college. I spent some time thinking of ways to make that happen without having to make the Little Kids go without school clothes. In a move that is completely unlike me, I put up a post about this goal and offered my coaching services, you know, out loud. At the urging of a colleague, I also included a donation button in case folks wanted to chip in.

I clicked “Publish” and then went to lunch with Ned Andrew. When we arrived at the restaurant, there were emails telling us that folks were sending money. What?? Yes. And not just a little money. Over the course of the 2 weeks since I went public with our goal, half the price of the scooter has been gifted to us by incredibly generous friends from around the country.

Wow.

Of course, I’ve sent thank you notes to each of them. But I am just floored by the response to our request.

With half the money in hand, Ned Andrew called today and placed the order for Lizzy’s ride. The company we are buying from is installing that cup holder Lizzy asked for and will ship her new wheels next week. She’ll have a couple of weeks to get really facile at driving it before she’s off to college.

She’s in for the ride of her life.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Your generosity is absolutely overwhelming.

Lizzy & Berns Off to the Races!

Lizzy & Berns Off to the Races!

 

Filed Under: Blissification, Happy and Included, Pointing Forward Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Coaching Through Transition: Part IV

July 12, 2011 By 4 Comments

Detail of Sea and Shore by Gina Lynette and Ned Andrew SolomonOver the course of several Tuesdays — Transition Tuesdays — I’m sharing one area of my practice that thrills me more than just about anything — coaching individuals with disabilities and their families as they transition from one life stage to another. Please note that while I’ll be describing a coaching scenario that is very similar to several families that I’ve worked with, it is an amalgamation of those conversations and is not based on any one family.

In Part I, I introduced you to Jon, Kate, and Dan and wrote a little about my approach to coaching families through the transition planning necessary to move students with disabilities from high school into an interdependent, adult life.

In Part II, I shared more about my role in working with Jon, Kate and Dan. I also talked some about what it means to be “humanistic” in coaching.

In Part III, I outlined the process and the steps I’m using to walk Jon and his parents through his transition. These steps form the structure for just about any coaching relationship.

Today, we’re taking a closer look at the person-centered assessments I use during the Data Gathering portion of coaching a family through transition. For folks who have files that gain weight faster than they do, this is a tender space and I walk very carefully here. There are some lovely tools for getting that foundational information collected that honors the individual I’m coaching.

Accessible Assessment

While a traditional organizational coach might go in with formal assessments including personality assessments, 360 multi-rater assessments, task analyses, and the like, coaching families who have been through years of diagnosis, special education testing, and formalized Individualized Educational Plans (IEP) requires some measure of gentleness around this area. Rather than bombard the family with more standardized assessments, right off the bat, I tend to review the file of the individual to see what has already been declared about him, while keeping an open mind to the real possibility that there is more to Jon than his file might indicate. During the same time frame that I’m reviewing Jon’s documents, I meet with the family to gather more person-centered information.

I’m not one to subscribe to a particular tool or set of tools when I contract with a family. Rather, I cobble together a customized approach that best fits the needs of the client and their circle of support. I do start with best-practice, person-centered tools developed by such brilliant thinkers as Helen Sanderson, John O’Brien, Jack Pearpoint, David Sibbet, Martin Seligman, Ben Dean, Christina Merkley, and Michael Smull, among others*. I then mix in the adaptations and creations of my own that have morphed and grown over the years that I’ve been working with individuals with disabilities and their families.

Using Essential Lifestyle Planning as the basis, the process might involve the following steps:

  1. Inventory the skills, interests, communication strategies, likes, dislikes, natural and paid supports, dreams, goals, fears, passions, missteps, and areas of concern of the individual and their loved ones through interviews, dynamic group facilitation, and file reviews.
  2. Sort out what is important to (makes them happy) the individual and important for (keeps them safe, healthy, and a valued member of the community) the individual from their perspective as well as those who care about them.
  3. Sort out what makes for a good day for this individual or what has the potential to send the day into a bad direction.
  4. Determine what is working and what is not working from multiple perspectives through a process that closely resembles a 360 assessment that my Industrial/Organizational brethren are used to using.
  5. Ask: “What have we tried? What have we learned? What are we pleased about? What are we concerned about? Knowing what we know, what will we do next?”
  6. Collect all of this information in the most gentle and respectful manner, put it into a format that is recognizable by and accessible to the individual at the center of the process, and work with the individual until they are delighted with their plan.
  7. Set them loose upon the community with a renewed sense of what is possible and pray that they do not encounter someone who dashes their hope in the first day or two.
  8. Check in regularly to maintain momentum, adjust the plan, and connect with resources.
  9. Hope for the best.

At each step along the way, I’m constantly paying attention to how this family works best. Do they prefer checklists or questionnaires? Do they prefer individual interviews? Would they rather brainstorm as a group? Are they visual thinkers who love graphic facilitation sessions or are they more likely to send me long narratives in emails at 3am? There are ways to use any and all of these preferences when gathering the clues and learning the preferences and uncovering the hidden agendas and fears that this family brings with them.

Some of the tools I use most include:

  • Essential Lifestyle Planning (ELP): Helen Sanderson and Michael Smull along with the Learning Community for Essential Lifestyle Planning have put together a series of powerful tools that they share freely on their websites.
  • PATH (Planning Alternative Tomorrows with Hope): John O’Brien, Jack Pearpoint, and Marsha Forest developed the PATH tool to facilitate groups of people in creating strategic plans around moving an individual from an institutional setting into a real life as part of a community.
  • SHIFT-IT® Graphic Coaching Process:  Christina Merkley has created a set of visually accessible templates that allow individual coaching conversations to be captured in the same powerful, graphic way that the PATH tool uses.
  • Positive Psychology: Martin Seligman leads the way in this field of research and practice that is constantly adding to our toolkit of effective methods for tapping into what’s right about us rather than focusing on what’s wrong with us.

Each of these approaches will get covered in future segments, but I’m trained and/or certified in all of them because they each add something to the coaching conversation that I believe is essential to getting to that penultimate goal – a really real good life.

In Part V, we will take a closer look at the PATH tool and discuss how delicious pie-in-the-sky dreaming can lead to some pretty delightful real-world results.

*I name drop, not because I want you to be impressed with how well-connected I am, but because you might be interested in researching some of these folks’ ideas and methods. There are so many wonderful resources out there that this list could have been 3 times as long and still would have left some of my favorite folks out.

 

For folks who like to know more, here are the references from this series:

Brouwer, P. J. (1964). The power to see ourselves. Harvard Business Review, 42(6), 156-165.

Helen Sanderson and Associates. (2007). Person centred thinking. Liberty, Missouri: HSA, USA.

Pearpoint, J., O’Brien, J., & Forest, M.  (1993). PATH: Planning possible positive futures. Inclusion Press:  Toronto.

Peterson, D. (1996). Executive coaching at work: The art of one-on-one change. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 48(2), 78-86.

Stern, L. (2004). Executive Coaching: A Working Definition. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 56(3), 154-162.

Stober, D. R. & Grant, A. M. (eds.) (2006). Evidence based coaching handbook: Putting the best practices to work for your clients. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Coaching through Transition: Part III

July 5, 2011 By 8 Comments

Over the course of several Tuesdays — Transition Tuesdays — I’m sharing one area of my practice that thrills me more than just about anything; coaching individuals with disabilities and their families as they transition from one life stage to another. Please note that while I’ll be describing a coaching scenario that is very similar to several families that I’ve worked with, it is an amalgamation of those conversations and is not based on any one family.

In Part I, I introduced you to Jon, Kate, and Dan and wrote a little about my approach to coaching families through the transition planning necessary to move students with disabilities from high school into an interdependent, adult life.

In Part II, I shared more about my role in working with Jon, Kate and Dan. I also talked some about what it means to be “humanistic” in coaching.

Today, I’m outlining the process and the steps I’m using to walk Jon and his parents through his transition. And when I say “process and steps” I mean a delightful mix of gentle fact-finding, person-centered conversations, and fun facilitation with colors and markers and BIG paper! Wooohooooo!

Unfortunately, the art supplies don’t come up until later in this series, but if you were working with me you’d see them within about 10 minutes of entering my studio. I do, however, want to give you an overview of the steps and stages in the process — any coaching process — so that when we return to Jon’s story you’ll have a road map.

So, here goes…

 

Steps in the Process

While coaching a family differs in some ways from coaching an individual or team within an organization, many of the steps are similar. Establishing and maintaining trust is the most essential element for a successful coaching experience – one which David Peterson advocates spending the first coaching session developing through the exploration of the individual’s personal goals.

The coaching process – in spite of being person-centered in the humanistic approach – is not a meandering conversation. It follows a pattern of development that has been studied, practiced, and tweaked – while still remaining open to the needs of the individuals I’m coaching.

When provided by the professional consultant, [coaching] is more commonly preplanned and follows a structured seven-step process: (a) initial needs analysis, (b) contracting, (c) data gathering, (d) specific goal setting, (e) coaching, (f) measuring and reporting results, (g) transitioning to a more long-term development effort. – Lewis Stern

While I may not announce, formally, at the beginning of a coaching session, “Welcome to our data gathering phase.” It’s certainly happening. Some formats lend themselves to a very close following of Stern’s steps. Others blend them more. Regardless of how distinctly these activities happen, they are each essential. So, let’s break them down a little here and then I’ll describe them more fully as we follow Jon, Dan and Kate through their work.

In each step of the process, the needs of both Jon and his parents must be balanced. In corporate coaching, we have to balance the organization’s expectations (because they are typically the ones who pay me) with that of the coachee.  In Jon’s case, the equivalent voices to the corporate client’s organization are his parents, Dan and Kate. They’re footing the bill and have quite a bit of influence (if not actual control) over Jon’s life choices. However, it is Jon’s life after all. Balance. Balance. Balance. It comes up a lot in coaching. So much so that I may have to come up with another word for it.

Initial Needs Analysis

In the simplest terms, the initial needs analysis involves finding out why I’ve been contacted by a family. And here is where I reveal that my number one job – the actual reason I’m hired – is to ask the questions folks have been staying up at night thinking about and then helping them articulate the answers. Where are they? Where are they hoping to go? What do they want to avoid? What have they tried before? What did they learn from that? Sometimes all of the answers are available just by talking to the immediate family, but usually it involves some extended conversations.

Contracting

I’d rather pull out my eyelashes than go legal on folks, but the reality is that contracting is about knowing everyone’s roles, rights and responsibilities on the front end. At this stage, we’ll agree on a format and a timeline. We’ll also agree that this will be an iterative process, that is, we will all have some freedom to review the contract, discuss how it’s going, and decide whether we need to adjust the plan.

Data Gathering

The data gathering phase never actually ends, but there is a period of time when I’m digging through all of those facts and beliefs and events and getting them organized into visual formats that lend themselves to decision making. Sometimes this looks like questionnaires. Sometimes it involves interviews. Often times it looks like lots of sticky notes and markers and more of those questions I’m known for. Once we gather really good information about the current reality and the hopes, dreams, challenges, and fears that need to be taken seriously in the future, we’re ready to start planning.

Specific Goal Setting

I don’t know that anyone on this planet has escaped the SMART goal planning acronym. It’s been around long enough that there are people arguing over what the R stands for. So, I won’t go there, but I will say that goal setting (and keeping!) is an art. In order to keep everyone moving toward what matters – creating doable action plans that will support them achieving the dreams they hope to fulfill while overcoming the challenges and either avoiding or confronting their fears – I use some pretty cool tools. The key is to capture what the family is trying to achieve in some permanent format that is accessible and revisable. It’s also essential that there is consensus on what needs to happen, who is going to actually do the work, when they are going to accomplish that task, what they are going to do once that task is completed (this step, my friends, is where I see 99% of plans fail – people do stuff and then sit on it), and why they are doing it in the first place.

Coaching

Here is where we start coaching. Wait. What? We’ve done all of this work and we are nearing the end of the steps and now you start coaching? Yes. Now I start coaching. I’m sure I’ve done some steering before now. And I’ve certainly been facilitating conversations and asking questions and organizing information. But it isn’t until we have a plan that I really get to coach.  Here’s where we start hitting obstacles. Before now we could be as pie in the sky as we wanted. Now we have to actually implement those plans. The reality is that there will be some revision and some renegotiation and some steps that get deleted or completed quickly. As a coach, it’s my role to keep the train on the tracks.

Measuring and Reporting Results

Checking in is essential to a successful coaching relationship. Some folks call this the accountability stage. Did you meet your goals? If you have a 6-12 month goal horizon, we can quickly tell if we’re there. The reality is that, while we will have short-term action steps, many of the coaching plans I put together look ahead at least a year and, often, many years. At this stage of the process, I am going to be available on a very regular basis as those action steps start being accomplished and we create momentum and then fade my supports as the process of making plans and carrying through on them becomes more routine for the family. That’s the point when I start working myself out of a job.

Transitioning To A More Long-Term Development Effort

I have only done a good job of coaching a family if, along the way, I teach them how to build and sustain momentum toward living the life they really want to live. I help them learn the steps of building consensus. They practice listening and communicating effectively as they work toward goals that may not always be their first choices. They get pretty good at using the tools of creating good plans and goals and then – here’s the big then – actually acting on those plans. Once some of the big rocks have been removed from the family’s path, they are typically pretty comfortable continuing without checking in with me. Some choose to keep calling periodically for accountability. Some disappear for years, only to call me back when they come to their next transition.

So, that’s the big picture. It really is a pretty straight forward process. Of course, people being people, it does get messy from time to time, but that’s why we work so much on establishing that trust. It’s vital when we’re right in the middle of a big transition that everyone has a sense that we know what we’re doing or feels safe enough to speak up if they want to adjust the plan.

In Part IV we’ll take a closer look at the person-centered assessments I use when coaching a family through transition. For folks who have files that gain weight faster than they do, this is a tender space and I walk very carefully here. There are some lovely tools for getting that foundational information collected that honors the individual I’m coaching.

 

 

For folks who like to know more, here are some references from this series:

Brouwer, P. J. (1964). The power to see ourselves. Harvard Business Review, 42(6), 156-165.

Helen Sanderson and Associates. (2007). Person centred thinking. Liberty, Missouri: HSA, USA.

Pearpoint, J., O’Brien, J., & Forest, M.  (1993). PATH: Planning possible positive futures. Inclusion Press:  Toronto.

Peterson, D. (1996). Executive coaching at work: The art of one-on-one change. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 48(2), 78-86.

Stern, L. (2004). Executive Coaching: A Working Definition. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 56(3), 154-162.

Stober, D. R. & Grant, A. M. (eds.) (2006). Evidence based coaching handbook: Putting the best practices to work for your clients. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

 

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Let Freedom Ring! Launching Lizzy on Independence Day

July 4, 2011 By 6 Comments

Kids

Our Four Loves

When I married Ned Andrew I got a pretty amazing bonus prize. He came with two absolutely incredible daughters — Lizzy and Skye. Ned and I met at a disability conference about 10 years ago. I was there trying to learn how to navigate the special education maze. He was there to promote the two disability leadership trainings he’s been running since the winter of 2000. We hit it off immediately.

It took another 6 or 7 years to grow our friendship, manage to live in the same town, fall in love, decide we were brave enough to try a full-time relationship gig, and get married. However, once I met them, it only took me about 45 seconds to latch onto Ned’s girls.

Anywho, as I’m not fond of the term “step-parent” — having two of my own, along with step-brothers and half-sisters, it never felt like a term that honors these relationships — we came up with alternate designations for one another. Lizzy’s one of our Big Girls. (We call the two I showed up with the Little Kids.)

And, is Lizzy ever a Big Girl. She’s already a retired CEO, having established her own line of greeting cards when she was 12. She has a part time job, travels with her youth group, and has earned her callouses texting her enormous group of friends. She keeps us all in line and is quick to offer “Big Sister Advice” to the Little Kids. She graduated with honors from high school in May and has been accepted into her college-of-choice in Nashville.

Lizzy also has cerebral palsy which mainly impacts her stamina and her ability to carry her stuff. It does not impact her wicked sense of humor, incredible organizational skills, or her determination to get her doctorate. For the most part, Lizzy uses a walker to support her while she walks. When we are doing something that will involve more walking than she’s up for, she sits in a manual wheel chair and one of us pushes her around.

It was about 5 years ago that I started harping on Lizzy’s needing a way to navigate long distances without being pushed. I wanted her to have that independence. Having Lupus, I’ve needed to use a chair from time to time and there’s just about nothing worse than being at another person’s mercy to get where you want to go. That, and we somehow tend to end up parked looking at someone’s butt instead of whatever we’re trying to see.

LizzyGOGO

Most of the shots from the test drive are a blur...

Being the  — um — stepmom/extra mom/Dad’s wife — I kinda kept my mouth shut. Kinda. Until Ned talked with a colleague about how her daughter was love, love, loving her new scooter at college. Ned got pretty excited at the thought of Lizzy being able to go under her own steam. So, we arranged for Lizzy to try out several scooters “in the wild.” She spent 2 hours in the heat driving them all over the neighborhood and some additional time navigating around the house. She and Berns raced them in the parking lot. She drove it across the grassy lawn to take a phone to a neighbor. She was in her element.

She had only four requests: (1) a really cool key chain, (2) a cup holder for her coffee, (3) a seat belt so that she feels secure, and (4) that we get it before she goes to college.

Lizzy’s excited at the thought of having a way to carry her own books and stuff around campus, being able to hop into the car with her friends (the scooter Lizzy wants breaks down into 5 light pieces), and, for the first time in her life, being able to just gooooooo!

The reality is that buying this scooter is a stretch for us — it’s going to run about $1400 for the one that fits her best once we get that seat belt and cup holder installed. We have four kids and I’ve cut my hours way back to homeschool one of them. We aren’t into asking for public funds to cover stuff that we can earn ourselves — we try to be good stewards of those resources and know there are folks who need those supports more than we do.

So, I got to thinking and…

Here’s where you come in.

As you know, I’m a coach. What you may not know is that I recently invested well over a year getting certified to add a set of pretty neat graphic templates to my coaching toolkit. After working through them with several clients and finding that they truly help folks get past the typical barriers to change, I’ve been thinking about how to incorporate these tools more fully into my practice. I’m not into big announcements of “New and Improved!” Heck, I’m not really a big self-promoter at all. It isn’t my style.

But I do love my kids and I want Lizzy to have that scooter. And I do know that some of you are kicking around the idea of hiring me. So, I’ll just do us all a favor.

Gina Lynette -- Certified SHIFT-IT Graphic CoachIn honor of Independence Day, in support of Lizzy’s physical independence as she heads to college, and as a demonstration that we can do BIG THINGS if we just decide it’s worth stepping out a little, I’m offering to walk/roll folks through the SHIFT-IT Graphic Coaching Process® for about half my normal coaching rates. I’m offering three options — a single At The Crossroads session, a 6-session SHIFT-IT package, and a 12-session SHIFT-IT package — so that you can invest in your own launch at a price point and level of support that works for you.

Each session lasts an hour — a really real 60-minute hour — via the phone or Skype, and if you like, you can watch me complete your SHIFT-IT maps in real time via Google Docs.

While I’m typically pretty flexible with payment, I am asking that you book your package and pay for it in advance — we need that dough pretty soon if our girl is going to drive herself around campus on August 15th. No worries about my seeing your payment information — it all goes through PayPal and you don’t have to have a membership to check out.

If you want a pay-as-you go option, you can grab a single session (or two) at the Launching Lizzy Rate and we’ll work out the rest from there.

I’ll honor this rate for packages purchased during the month of July, 2011 or until my calendar is begging for mercy. No one deserves a stressed out coach!

Of course, if you need to know more, I’m always happy to schedule a 30-minute conversation to talk about how coaching works, to see if we’re a good fit, and to help you choose a plan that will meet your needs.

Select your Lizzy’s Launch Coaching Package from the Menu and then click on the brown button to go to the checkout.

Lizzy’s Launch Coaching Packages
 

 

 

 

While this isn’t a tax deductible donation, and we aren’t a charity of any sort, some folks asked if they could just chip in. So, here’s a button for that. I’ll watch what comes in this way very closely and if we are getting near our goal, I’ll remove the button and let y’all know!

Go, Lizzy, Go!

Lizzy & Berns Off to the Races!

Lizzy & Berns Off to the Races!

Filed Under: Happy and Included, Pointing Forward Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Coaching through Transition: Part II

June 28, 2011 By 6 Comments

Over the course of several Tuesdays — Transition Tuesdays — I am sharing one area of my practice that thrills me more than just about anything — coaching individuals with disabilities and their families as they transition from one life stage to another. Please note that while I’ll be describing a coaching scenario that is very similar to several families that I’ve worked with, it is an amalgamation of those conversations and is not based on any one family.

In Part I, I introduced you to Jon, Kate, and Dan and wrote a little about my approach to coaching families through the transition planning necessary to move students with disabilities from high school into an interdependent, adult life.

From here, I’ll share more about my role in working with Jon, Kate and Dan. I’ll also talk some about what it means to be “humanistic” in coaching… and I’ll hint a bit at how we’re going to get everyone on the same page and pointing forward.

Foundations of Family Transition Coaching

Coaching a family through a transition requires a balance of coaching, mediation, and networking skills that allow each individual to be heard, address potential conflicts in a person-centered manner, and build the natural supports that will help ensure long-term success.  The humanistic approach is based heavily on the work of Carl Rogers.

“It is through an optimal climate (empathy, positive regard, genuineness), in the relationship and provided by the practitioner, that the client’s capacity for self-growth is accessed.” — Carl Rogers

The humanistic approach has self-actualization as a foundational emphasis along with:

  1. a relational emphasis as the fundamental source of change
  2. a holistic view of the person as a unique being
  3. a belief in the possibility of freedom of choice with the accompanying responsibility –Stober & Grant

As Jon has likely experienced low expectations based upon his identified disability, it is especially important that I demonstrate high regard for him and support him in expressing his dreams in a safe environment.

Showing high regard for Jon and coaching him through goal-setting and attainment must be balanced with a measure of advocacy. I may need to work individually with his mother, who may see her son as a perpetual child, and with his father, who may not acknowledge some of his son’s real need for supports in identifying their roles in limiting their son’s options for future growth.

“People are masters of their own destiny in the sense that they take charge of their own development if they want to grow. Nothing can be done to make them grow; they grow only as they want to and as their own insights enable them to.” — Paul J. Brouwer

This quote is ever more poignant when you realize that, in some cases, the parents’ lack of growth can inhibit their son’s reaching his dreams. Part of this coaching process must address this reality if Jon is to have any realistic hope of launching into adulthood as an interdependent, self-determined individual.

One important note about my work with families: my goal is never — not ever — to undermine Jon’s relationship with the people who love and support him. Yes, I may work to help him build confidence while also helping him show his parents where he can soar without tethers, but I also recognize that every single one of us needs other people.

People do the best with what they know, and Kate and Dan are no different. It certainly isn’t my place to tell this family what to do — but I do see it as my role to open up the windows and allow some fresh ideas to blow in. What they choose to do with those ideas is truly up to them. As Martha Beck recently wrote so eloquently in O, The Oprah Magazine, it’s about loving without caring. Somehow, in my coaching, I am able to facilitate change without the impulse to control the outcome. I promise to share more about this balance later.

Tools of the Trade and Then Some

In order to achieve the foundational elements of this relationship – establishing trust, supporting Jon in being a self-determined individual, gaining buy-in from his parents on his goals, and building a strong circle of support – I pull from every evidence-based method at my disposal. I use aspects of The Learning Community’s Essential Lifestyle Planning – which the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid are studying through a five-year, five-state demonstration project – along with PATH planning, co-active coaching tools, person-centered assessments, and graphic facilitation methods that allow Jon to participate in conversations where he has traditionally been shut out.

In Part III, I’ll outline the process and the steps I’m using to walk Jon and his parents through his transition. And when I say “process and steps” I mean a delightful mix of gentle fact-finding, person-centered conversations, and fun facilitation with colors and markers and BIG paper! Wooohooooo!

 

For folks who like to know more, here are the references from this post:

Brouwer, P. J. (1964). The power to see ourselves. Harvard Business Review, 42(6), 156-165.

Helen Sanderson and Associates. (2007). Person centred thinking. Liberty, Missouri: HSA, USA.

Pearpoint, J., O’Brien, J., & Forest, M.  (1993). PATH: Planning possible positive futures. Inclusion Press:  Toronto.

Peterson, D. (1996). Executive coaching at work: The art of one-on-one change. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 48(2), 78-86.

Stober, D. R. & Grant, A. M. (eds.) (2006). Evidence based coaching handbook: Putting the best practices to work for your clients. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Filed Under: Happy and Included, Pointing Forward Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Happy Quote

June 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment
New York Closeup

Detail from Map (1961) by Jasper Johns -- MOMA, New York City -- Photo by Gina Lynette

 

Their love is worth the same as your love. Their partnership is worth the same as your partnership. And they are equal in your eyes to you. That’s the driving issue.

— Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Marriage Equity

 

Filed Under: Blissification, Happy and Included Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Coaching Through Transition: Part I: Getting Started

June 21, 2011 By 5 Comments

 

Central Park -- Gina Lynette

I love to coach. As I shared in my values post, I get practically giddy at the thought of nurturing and guiding folks safely and smoothly through change — transitions and transformations.

Over the course of the next several Tuesdays, I’ll share one area of my practice that thrills me more than just about anything — coaching individuals with disabilities and their families as they transition from one life stage to another. Please note that while I’ll be describing a coaching scenario that is very similar to several families that I’ve worked with, it is an amalgamation of those conversations and is not based on any one family.

Coaching, by its very nature, is a highly individualized process involving the establishment of trust, the co-creation of goals, and ongoing support throughout the relationship. It is important when working with individuals and teams — but it is never more critical than when working with a family. Trust, co-creation, and support become trickier as we add individuals to the table, but I’ve spent my entire adult life gathering tools and skills that support individuals in assessing their current reality, establishing goals – both stretch and very realistic in nature – and enrolling their community in support of those objectives.

The Scenario

In this scenario, a family is interested in figuring out the process of transitioning their son from high school to a really, real adult life as part of his community. The son, Jon, expects to graduate at age 22 with the current class of juniors. He has been diagnosed with an intellectual disability and is receiving special education services at his local high school.

His parents are divorced but civil. His father, Dan, expects him to get a job and live on his own or with a couple of roommates. His mother, Kate, does not see him ever leaving home – there are way too many things that can go wrong. Jon’s circle of support includes extended family, classmates, several favorite teachers, people at church, and family friends.

The state where they live currently has a waiting list of about 8000 people with intellectual disabilities hoping for services and supports. With recent budget cuts, only the most urgent needs are addressed by the state system when enrolling new individuals into services. Having two living parents puts Jon near the bottom of the list of people waiting.

The parents of a classmate at school are working with me to do similar planning for their daughter. They shared my name with Kate while attending a transition workshop offered by the state’s Parent Training Institute. Kate called to find out whether I could help them figure out what their son will do after high school.

Establishing the Coaching Relationship

As Kate was referred to me by another family who is in a similar situation and who found the coaching process helpful, I’m already at somewhat of an advantage over a coach who is called from an advertisement. Kate, Jon, and Dan already have some idea of what I’m able to do, although they may not have a clear understanding of my overall role in Jon’s transition.

Even so, the first order of business is to establish trust while outlining what coaching can and cannot do for this family.

A partnership requires that coaches earn the trust of people they work with, so that can provide the right amounts of challenge and support throughout the process. — David B. Peterson

I rely heavily on a humanistic approach as a foundation of my practice and incorporate other tools and theories when needed. Walking this family through the transition planning necessary to move Jon from high school into an interdependent adult life, while paying attention to his hopes and fears and those of his parents, and helping them to build a strong circle of support will necessarily direct some of the content and most of the goals of the coaching relationship. How I guide them through this is steeped in my values, my training, and my solid belief that everyone deserves to be happy and included.

Because they do.

In Part II, I’ll share more about my role in working with Jon, Kate and Dan. I’ll also talk some about what it means to be “humanistic” in coaching… and I’ll hint a bit at how we’re going to get everyone on the same page and pointing forward.

 

For folks who like to know more, here are the references from this post:

Brouwer, P. J. (1964). The power to see ourselves. Harvard Business Review, 42(6), 156-165.

Helen Sanderson and Associates. (2007). Person centred thinking. Liberty, Missouri: HSA, USA.

Pearpoint, J., O’Brien, J., & Forest, M.  (1993). PATH: Planning possible positive futures. Inclusion Press:  Toronto.

Peterson, D. (1996). Executive coaching at work: The art of one-on-one change. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 48(2), 78-86.

Stober, D. R. & Grant, A. M. (eds.) (2006). Evidence based coaching handbook: Putting the best practices to work for your clients. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Filed Under: Featured, Happy and Included, Pointing Forward Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Values: Passion meets Purpose

June 20, 2011 By 1 Comment

values dance intuition validation gratitude creative worth love respect success flourish happiness connection flow sing positive possible pointing forward play help love beauty balanced supportive authenticity respect fun generosity integrity open Collaborative growth self-determination rest purpose bliss rest warmth nature celebration love joy delight holistic balanced supportive learning inclusive diverse fun sing breathe I mentioned Jennifer Lee’s The Right-Brain Business Plan in a Happy Quote last week and promised you’d hear more about this book and Jennifer’s smart insights.

Well, here we go…

Just to get your toe wet, we’re starting with a simple concept.

What’s that, Gina?

Values

Okay. Maybe not so simple. But it is a fundamental element of any business, project, faith, school, book, blog… well, it’s a foundational element of life.

As Jennifer points out, “When you’re aligned with your values, you’ll feel fulfilled and energized, and that is what people will resonate with the most.”

So, if you aren’t sure what you  — or what the folks you interact with — value, you’re leaving some pretty important stuff up to the prevailing winds. So, in interest of full disclosure, I’ve typed my value words into a cool little Wordle (thanks, Jonathan!) for all to see. And, while I have to admit that it’s a pretty graphic, it’s more than just words to me. These concepts bring up strong emotions when I read and think about them. That’s how I know they are my values — they are important to me and when I am not living according to my values — in my passion and purpose — I’m not happy.

But when I am in the flow — WHEW — get outta my way because nothing is gonna stop me from realizing my goals.

Except for one tiny truth: my proverbial cross to bear, the mixed blessing, my Achilles heal is that I am hardwired — trained from infancy — to put others first. So, nothing I ever do is completely about me and my goals. After years of therapy, we’ve pretty much decided that it isn’t going to be. Evidently, I’ve inherited a PhD in Empathy from my Grandmommy Wandi and, like the procrastination thing, I’ve decided to stop fighting it.

So, in short, the good news for everyone around me is that I am passionate about integrity, authenticity, inclusiveness, accessibility, self-determination, joy, and connection. My purpose is to nurture and guide folks safely and smoothly through change — transitions and transformations. I help people define and pursue their unique and authentic purposes.

Ahhhh. Feels so good to know who you are… feels even better to actually be who you are.

Which leads me to this: Where does your passion meet your purpose? What makes you sing? What makes you banana crackers when it doesn’t happen?

What do you value?

Filed Under: Blissification, Featured, Gina's Reading, Happy and Included, MegaChallenge 200, Pointing Forward Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Homeschooling: Not my first choice, but a good decision.

June 15, 2011 By 3 Comments
Homework
A (School) Room with a View

As you may have surmised, I am the co-parent to several kiddos. A couple of them I birthed and a couple of them were pretty neat bonus gifts in my marriage to Ned Andrew. All of our kids come with a diagnostic code or two that makes parenting them a little different than the manual would indicate.

B is our only boy-child. He’ll tell you, right up front, that he has autism. What he might not tell you is that he’s scary smart. As in finish-the-Weschler-IQ-test-without-hitting-a-ceiling smart. As in that’s-okay-I-don’t-need-to-go-to-class-I-memorized-the-textbook-the-first-week-of-school smart. Yep. He’s that kid. He can’t tie shoes (seriously) but he could invent better ones.

I homeschooled both of the little kids (as we call the two I birthed) for four years back when I lived in East Tennessee. When we moved to Middle Tennessee in 2007 — so that I could take that job — we made sure to relocate to a county that has an amazing reputation for including kids with disabilities in their general classrooms. It worked for B’s remaining elementary school  years. It didn’t once he got to middle school.

I may sit down and write a long post as to why at some point, but I’ll have to work through some more stuff with my therapist before I can do that in something other than 40 point all caps and without using words that would inspire my grandma to soap my mouth. Let’s just say it wasn’t a good fit and move on, shall we?

Which brings us to the alternatives. It looks something like my being home with a child who learns at the speed of light and moves even faster. I wasn’t sure I was up for it again. I really do enjoy my work and was just getting re-launched in my coaching and facilitation bliss. But I also love, love, love my son and want him to be happy.

So, we came home. I purchased an online curriculum that allows him to pretest on every lesson. We have an agreement that if he scores a 90% or above on the quiz, he can skip the lesson. If he scores below that, he has to study until he scores at least an 80% on the test. This was weird for me at first because I am so not into grades and scores, but, please recall, that my kiddo has autism. He needs to  know the rules and they need to stay the same. Every day. Always. Except when I am teaching him to be flexible. But that’s another post.

We have a semester behind us. Officially 100 days — the state requires 90 — of learning our way. I have to admit that I am enjoying it and B is too. We have a rhythm to our days — we work together in my studio in the morning and then he takes off for his Minecraft/Electronics/Lego NXT/Boy Mess in the afternoon. He educates us on all sorts of fascinating topics each night at dinner. (Yep. We all eat dinner together.) Since we have a no-electronics-after-dinner rule in our house, after his bath, he gets tucked in with a book and typically reads 3-4 titles a week.

Gone are the 10:30 am phone calls from the school to come retrieve my bruised and crying child from yet-another take down by their staff. Gone are the endless projects that require my boy with a significant learning disability in written expression to take that 8-lane-highway brain of his and express his thoughts via bicycle. Gone are the homework battles, the 4-hour IEP meetings, and the worry that all we are accomplishing is the isolation and desolation of this person.

Nope. Homeschooling was not my first choice, but it was definitely a good decision.

Filed Under: Blissification, Happy and Included, Pointing Forward Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Happy and Included

May 23, 2011 By 3 Comments

Friendship -- One piece of Happy and Included

G & S Walking and Talking on a Sunny, Spring Day

For as long as I’ve been a part of the disability community there has been an ongoing debate. Well, there have been many ongoing debates, but one in particular speaks to the fundamental nature of how folks with disabilities — especially intellectual disabilities — live in our society. What’s the debate?

Choice versus Safety

See, there’s this belief that they are mutually exclusive realities. Somewhere along the way we decided that either an individual can lead a self-determined life — a life of their choosing — or they can have a safe life where they are protected from bad choices — their own and, presumably, others’.

And then we started seeing the reality of this “safe” life option. The exposure of the horrors at Willowbrook and similar institutions began the slow shift toward the empowerment of individuals with disabilities to make choices in their lives. Some might argue that the pendulum swung too far and opened up all sorts of dangerous realities. Others will argue that no one is truly safe in this world — that getting into a car is inherently dangerous and most of us make that choice every day.

So, we debate it endlessly. How much choice does an individual with a disability get to have? When do others have the responsibility to step in and protect them? Who is liable if they make a choice that risks their health or costs them money or ostracizes them from their community? Do they get to vote in our elections? And around we go.

I’ve spent about 25 years listening to these conversations as I have worked with folks with a variety of labels — some of them disabilities — in a variety of settings. And as luck would have it, I’m raising several kids and have innumerable family members, colleagues and friends with labels of their own.

It’s my intention to share more of this background as this blog develops, but the end result of all of this experience is the solid belief in two essential elements for a well-lived life. The first thing that people really want and truly need is to be happy. As Michael Smull often says, “While alive and unhappy is unacceptable, dead and happy are incompatible.” We have to pay attention to both — choice and safety. The second essential element is to be included — to be seen as and to feel like a person of value, as someone who contributes to and is a welcome part of their community.

Now, defining those terms — happy and included — is about as individualized and as universal as it gets. Getting to those definitions and then making them reality is where the real work comes.

Ah, but it’s wonderful when we get it right and it’s pretty great when we get it close to right… and it sure beats arguing over semantics.

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