Integral Institute: Bulletin Board

INTEGRAL COACHING THROUGH NEW VENTURES WEST

(reported by Amiel Handelsman)

Founded by James Flaherty in 1986, New Ventures West offers training in Integral Coaching to individuals and organizations. In our public programs, we attract experienced professionals seeking an approach to developing people that is intellectually rigorous, heart-centered, tuned into the body, and infinitely adaptable to each individual and organization. And, let us not forget: elegant. Over 400 people have graduated from our Professional Coaching Course. In our organizational work, we have primarily served large companies and public agencies.

Five years ago, we made the “developmental turn,” embracing as a principal framework the four quadrants, six streams, and a model of stages called the Ten Ways. This framework has enriched and expanded upon our original grounding in phenomenology, linguistics, hermeneutics, ontological design, and pragmatism. Under the assumption that “insights are not enough,” graduates of our classes design customized developmental programs that consist of practices (in the “I,” “We”, and/or “It” domains) and self-observation exercises. Three core principles are to include everything, design for the client’s developmental level, and undo in oneself that which gets in the way of being present.

Says founder, James Flaherty, “From the time I was seventeen I wanted to be able to go to someone and tell her what was going on in my life, in my body, in my relationships, and in my dreams, and have her give me a coherent explanation of what was going on and a path forward that addressed everything I raised. To my chagrin, I never found such a person. The work that we do is a response to that. Obviously, we’re not the first to have this idea, but I am grateful to have this wonderful opportunity to be involved deeply in people’s lives in a practical way.”

Senior teacher Pam Weiss adds, “I see two major camps within the coaching field: the ‘I’m-the-expert-let-me-fix-you’ camp and the ‘You-are-perfect-and-whole-and-have-all-the-answers-within-yourself’ camp. Each attracts certain types of people and is grounded in a particular assumption about what it means to be a human being. Each has something to offer yet leaves out critical pieces. The intent of Integral Coaching is to integrate the best of these approaches—and many others—into a larger frame. We do this for a simple reason: it produces better outcomes.”

We recently began collecting testimonials from certified Integral Coaches for the first time. Here is one:

“This program has had a significant and positive impact on me as a human being. I am more skillful in my use of language and have a broader range of resources available to use in coaching our managers and employees. I am also more cognizant of my own leadership abilities and how to best apply them in the corporate world.”
—Linda Denton, Senior Vice President, People Services, Young & Rubicam

And, now, the latest news:

• In recent months, James Flaherty has begun coaching executives at the highest levels of two prominent Bay Area corporations. We are excited by these projects and intrigued to see what emerges.

• In October, we began offering a new three-day class called Integral Coaching Principles for Experienced Coaches. This is our first attempt to respond to a yearning in the coaching field for models, philosophy, and all those things that people in Integral circles take for granted.

• We are thrilled to be offering the year long Professional Coaching Course in the Midwest for the first time in 2004. Chicago appears to have a distinctly different memetic mix than the other locations for the program (San Francisco and Boston), so we are viewing this as an experiment in continuing to adapt the methodology to local cultures.

• We will offer Coaching to Excellence, the well-tested two-day introduction to our methodology, in cities around the U.S., including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Denver, and Boston.

For more information, contact Amiel Handelsman at 800-332-4618 or visit www.newventureswest.com.

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