Spring Cleaning

05 April 2010

Dear clients and friends

Spring is known to be the appropriate time for spring cleaning.  I can confirm.  My current theme is generally how to lighten up? What to discard?  What to keep?  What to clean up or renew? The range of personal and professional areas in which I am currently making choices of  where I urgently need to create new spaces is really astounding.  When I am not working with clients, this cleanup process is keeping me very busy.

As I sort through my "stuff" I really feel as if I have slowly accumulated too many superfluous belongings over the years.   I have ended up belonging to them. I now need to own much less than in the past and recover my freedom of movement.  Also, this cleaning frenzy is surely influenced by the changes in my budding '60s decadeObviously, I am also in the process of moving my Metasysteme offices from Southern France to Paris, so it sounds very logical that I need to trash old files and choose to keep only what is vital.
But my spring cleaning feels like just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  The current sorting process is more like a tidal wave.   I'm changing my accountant, and my assistant, and my bank in Paris (has been the same for 40 years), and my residence in France (Bucharest is stable), and my publisher (I have had the same one for 30 years and fifteen books), and the way I write, and what I want to write about, and I've already changed my national ID card, and my quartz watch battery, and Metasysteme Coaching's headquarters in Bucharest, and I'm firmly putting an end to a few dissatisfying relationships, and...  All this in just month and some.  Phew!  Thank God my wife is wonderfully supportive.

This "crisis" spring consequently seems to represent:

  • an extraordinary opportunity for a thourough cleaning process,
  • a time to initiate fundamental structural changes to redistribute my energy and areas of interest, and to build new solid foundations for the very near future. 

This future is already almost present:  A number of new and very different corporate clients are ready and poised to start significant work in the next few months.  My coming September 2010 to August 2011 agenda (and business year) looks very promising, already surpassing the previous 12-month activity.    I feel that I am very close to new breakthroughs in my coaching work.  I am already trying to put that in writing.  If this outlook is any indicator, this fall will be the begining of a great post-crisis year.  Now is obviously the time to get ready for the future and create new spaces.  So right now, deep "spring" cleaning is where I'm at.

Professionnal networks

Most of you already know this.  I am actively participating in two internet professional networks, on VIADEO and LINKEDIN.  These are excellent means to keep in touch with each other, air opinions, get food for thought, ask questions, get support, etc. I strongly suggest you put your complete profile on either or both of these (and other) professional networks, and then actively participate in discussions and forums.  On LINKEDIN and for English-speaking international clients and friends, I am active on the group: "Metasysteme Coach Community".  On VIADEO, a French-speaking network, I am active on the hub "Coaching Systémique et le Réseau Métasystème".    Right now in these groups, I'm into dialogues on synchronicity, emerging and self-organizing processes and other master-coaching concerns.  Do come and inspire the conversations or start your own...

Conferences

In Milan this past March 17, I was a keynote speaker for the Italian ICF Conference on "The Avant Garde of Coaching" www.icf-italia.org.  I will soon be a keynote speaker in Bucharest for ICF Romania this coming April 29 where I will present on "To Niche or not to NIche" https://coachfederation.ro/. Also in Bucharest and with three other Romanian coaches, Cristina Manole, Dan Mocunu and Mihai Stanescu, we plan to deliver a full day of practical workshops on the theme of:  "Discover your Inner Coach" on May 17, so keep informed by checking out the program at https://www.metasysteme-coaching.ro/romana/actualit%C4%83%C5%A3i/discover-your-inner-coach.html

I will also deliver two tele-conferences on powerful questions in French on April 28 and in English on May 26. Consult with ICF Europe to attend.  In France I will also deliver a conference in Marseille on September 27 for the local SFCoach association.   All these occupations will surely contribute to keeping me off the streets and out of trouble.
Here I am in a conference in Lyon, last June 2009 (with 3 broken ribs)
 
Last but not the least, don't forget the ICF Paris ECC conference, (that is the European Coaching Conference) this June 17 to 19.  I will be there to connect, participate, learn, party, and dine with as many of you as possble.  See you there.  I am looking forward to this event that will probably be refreshingly European.

The Metasysteme Coach Academy

Every new course on "The Fundamentals of Coaching", every new workshop on advanced team and organizational coaching, every supervision cycle brings new confirmations that the Metasysteme training program is one of the best if you want to learn the skills of the trade and become an excellent systemic coach.  Complete programs are offered in Paris, in Bucharest, and starting this September 2010, in Madrid (program soon available on https://www.i2c.es/web/.)  Regularly check our website:  www.metasysteme.eu  for details on all the above.

Thanks to you, all these training programs attract participants mostly by word of mouth.   We are proud to say that these participants are very well informed on what their national markets have to offer when they choose the Metasysteme training program.  The quality of the learning is continuously improving, and I am really having fun contributing to developing the next generation of excellent systemic European coaches and managers. More importantly, I am learning a lot and preparing my next book thanks to this program.  And don't forget that these are ICF-validated ACSTH programs.  They prepare you to pass international ICF certifications.

Hamburg Workshop in November

For systemic coach training in Northern Europe, save November 22 and 23 for another advanced workshop on "Breakthrough Processes" for individual and team coaching in Hamburg.  This is another Metasysteme ACSTH (ICF Validated) practical learning environment for managers and coaches tailored to rock your perspectives on individual, team and organization high-potential development. In this workshop, you will acquire practical tools to achieve extraordinary professional results in your organization and/or with your clients.  For more information, contact Christina Quirin on https://www.cq-kommunikation.com/

To conclude

I cannot say that the current "external" or world economic and social crisis is over yet.  But today, I can clearly feel that for me, it has a deep and enlightening purpose.  There is an obviously coherent meaning in all the change indicators that are almost naturally emerging in the smallest details of my everyday life.  To be sure, my present transformational work is not over yet.  A lot of dimensions are still 'in progress", as we say.  Considering the general direction of all these small and big changes, however, I am not considering what I have to do as work anymore.  This transformation is imperative.  It is starting to look like a new and refreshing opportunity for me to embark on yet another future.  So I am more and more excited about my new persectives.  And if you allow me, I do plan to share them with you.
Alain