Wow, another year is in the books and what a year it was! Almost everyone I talk to expresses what a challenge 2020 became AND how truly blessed they were. I guess I’m blessed to be around a lot of grounded, positive, hope-filled people who see God’s work even in the midst of troubling times.

This month in the CAM Community of Coaches, we will focus on Spiritual Intelligence. People with high Spiritual Intelligence express:

• healthy attachment to God,
• a non-anxious presence with others, and
• a healthy dose of self-acceptance.

In other words, their relationships with self, others, and God are all healthy and growing. People who are spiritually intelligent have the resources to face challenges, even in a year like 2020 or in the year of unknowns that lies ahead.

Join us for this month’s member webinar where we will explore how Christian coaches can practice and promote Spiritual Intelligence. Brian Miller will introduce you to Paul Burns who invented the GPS inventory. And if you can’t make it to the webinar, be sure to check out the recording here on the member website!

This month in the CAM Community of Coaches we’re going to give attention to assumptions – deeply held assumptions, to be more precise.

Assumptions are beliefs that underlie, inform, and constrain possible actions.  Actions and results occur out in the open, but assumptions tend to be hidden or below the surface.  Assumptions operate in the background, yet they exert tremendous influence.

When I talk about deeply held assumptions, I have in mind assumptions that are so powerful and so ingrained in a person’s way of thinking that it might be more accurate to say the assumption holds the person.  Here are some examples of deeply held assumptions from some of my recent clients:

• A client who assumes conflict is always unhealthy and destructive.
• A client who assumes powerful people are evil, corrupt, or both.
• A client who assumes selling is wrong.
• A client who assumes trust must be earned.
• A client who assumes exceeding goals is to be expected.
• A company where it’s assumed that people are lazy.

Coaches support client growth by bringing deeply held assumptions from the background into the foreground.  Only when the client notices his assumptions can he make choices about keeping, exchanging, or adjusting the assumptions. This is true whether the client is an individual, a team, or an organization.

In this month’s community webinar, we’ll explore the power of deeply held assumptions and how coaches and clients can engage assumptions effectively.  Be sure to join live or watch the recording!

As the subject line indicates, this month in the CAM Community of Coaches we are focused on coaching for adaptive capacity.  That’s nice, but what does “adaptive capacity” mean?

In his book Canoeing the Mountains, Tod Bolsinger describes adaptive capacity this way:

It is the capacity to lead a process of shifting values, habits and behaviors in order to grow and discover solutions to the greatest challenges brought on by a changing world.   

Leaders who lead in and through uncertainty absolutely must demonstrate adaptive capacity.  Such leaders are willing and able to resist unhealthy reliance on methods and solutions that worked in previous contexts; they embrace the discovery of new solutions for new challenges.  As you can probably already tell from Tod’s description, adaptive capacity has a strong intersection with coaching. How so?  Here are three ways:

• Adaptive capacity values discovery over delivery. Coaches are much more inclined for generate discovery of new solutions more than delivery of past answers.
• Adaptive capacity values process more than content. Coaches are process experts who can facilitate ways forward instead of getting trapped in their own content expertise.
• Adaptive capacity emphasizes shared wisdom over guru-ism. Okay, I made up the term guru-ism, but hopefully you know what I mean.  Coaches are able to draw out the wisdom of others (including groups and teams) and they don’t have a need to be perceived as the smart person or the one with all the answers.

This concept of adaptive capacity is powerful, which is why we are putting our focus here in October within the CAM Community of Coaches.  Join us for this month’s webinar on October 8 at 11AM Eastern Time.  During the webinar, we will unpack adaptive capacity even more and make connections to you and your coaching.  Even if you don’t lead or work with leaders, per se, it will be a helpful webinar that will improve your coaching in these changing and challenging times.