There are four ways in which IDM teaching "impacts" those who study with us. We deliver:

• new perspectives
• new tools
• deepening of existing competencies
• unique, research-based learning experiences.

Let's take them one by one.

This is an exciting time for IDM! We are increasingly becoming involved in ventures that link us to other coaches, coaching organizations, academic institutions, and businesses generally.

Here are some highlights:

• We have introduced the IDM Ambassador Program. The program is meant to give selected coaches with an appropriate background a helping hand in learning more about evidence based developmental coaching. To reciprocate for an Ambassador's engagement with making IDM better known, we include him or her in the IDM Hidden Dimension Workshop against payment of a reduced fee. Our requirements for, and expectations of, Ambassadors are stated in the Ambassador Guidelines, available upon request by writing to the Director of the Program, Antoinette Dawson. Antoinette is an experienced Executive Coach with a broad OD background and is strongly engaged with the IDM philosophy of teaching. Typically, Antoinette and Otto together interview candidates, to make sure there is a good fit (win/win). The Ambassador Program presently has five members and we welcome your inquiries and interest in partnering with IDM.

• On Monday, February 28, 2005, 12 n ET to 1:30 PM, IDM together with Susan T. Austin's Think Tank called COACHING INNOVATION will hold a special free Teleforum on the topic of Coaching Innovation through Inclusion of Research In and On Coaching. The Forum will be hosted by Executive Coach Antoinette Dawson, an experienced Teleclass Leader, who is conversant with both CI's and IDM's mission and goals. The Forum is meant to provide a handshake between the two organizations and their members, to better promote innovation in the coaching field nationally and internationally. To participate, kindly visit the Community page at IDM's website and sign-up. We are certain of a lively discussion, and you are invited to let others' know of the event. For a preview of the ambience of the Forum, read CI's first newsletter.

  IDM is excited by the prospect of working with Coaching Innovation, which is being launched in early March. (One of their projects was first launched at http://www.coachinginsider.com/current.) Coaching Innovation and IDM share the same goal: innovation in the coaching field, whether in terms of how coaches communicate among each other, international contacts, or new modes of coach education. In particular, we believe with Susan Austin that the legacy of Thomas Leonard is presently not well represented, or continued, in the coaching world. Thomas would have wanted coaching to continue innovating in many directions, and this is a goal of Coaching Innovation as well as IDM.

• On March 10, 2005, 11:30 am, upon invitation by Sam Sheikh, of Better Management Seminars , IDM will present an on- line Workshop on Balancing Your Scorecard: Overcoming Performance Management Barriers by Focusing on Capability Management. The presenters will be Drs. Steve Stewart and Otto Laske.
  
  In this workshop, we will discuss Scorecard implementation issues from the point of view of a new concept of Human Resources Management derived from IDM's Evidence Based Capability Framework called Capability Management. We will focus on the developmental assessment of strategic job families (Kaplan and Norton, 2004), and discuss pilot projects based on a reconsideration of the "softest" of the four Scorecard dimensions: Human Capital. This leads us to proposing the introduction of Capability Metrics. Such metrics derive from developmental assessments far surpassing in accuracy and strategic potential the opinion surveys and competency modeling strategies presently used. We conclude with a short introduction to the nature and process of implementation of Capability Metrics.
  
  Learning Objectives
  
  
  • Acquire a deeper understanding of how human Learning differs from (Mental) Growth
  • Learn to distinguish "horizontal" assessments of competence from "vertical" assessments of capability
  • Appreciate the cause-effect link of strategic job families' potential capability
  • Take a first step toward rethinking the Human Capital Scorecard based on novel, social-science based assessments of workforce capability.

• On April 2nd 2005, Otto Laske will present a one-day workshop entitled DEVELOPMENTAL COACHING IN AN ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT, at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, Boston, MA. The workshop is worth 3 CE credits, and costs $65. It introduces participants to a novel, research-based paradigm of coaching and focuses on generic coaching processes. Participants are introduced to a consistent framework for developmental listening, feedback, and decoding of clients' language. In order to register, write to dabby@mspp.edu or call 617.327.6777. The workshop is open to psychologists, social workers, educators, mental health counselors, and other health care professionals.

• IDM has entered into a coach training agreement with Seneca College in Toronto, Canada. The program combines behavioral, cognitive, and developmental coaching in a novel synthesis focused on individual and business performance. Seneca College is the largest college in Canada with more than 260 career options in fields such as applied arts, business, health sciences, and technology.

• Together with Dialogue Services of Zurich, Switzerland, Jon Ebersole, Manager, IDM is preparing to present the FIRST EUROPEAN WORKSHOP ON DEVELOPMENTAL COACHING. The seminar will be presented in German and English on alternate days, and will be marketed both in Switzerland, Germany, and Austria. The likely venue for this workshop is the Wolfsberg Conference Center in Ermatingen near Zurich.

If you have enjoyed, and feel appropriately challenged by, this Newsletter, you might want to ask yourself whether entering more deeply into developmental coaching is something you are ready for. As I said, people self-select to become pioneers of developmental coaching. Primarily those for whom self development beyond skill acquisition is an urgent issue flock to it. Others who engage with IDM are coaches who are on a search for the best possible approaches to coaching (see the featured article in vol 1.1 of Coaching Insider.

Keeping this in mind, IDM is introducing an opportunity for coaches who want to have the deepest, not just the broadest, tools, especially those at the "self authoring" level. IDM Ambassadors are ambassadors of research based coaching generally, with a specialty in developmental coaching.