Coaching & Consulting Network

Approximately one year ago I have started the Metasysteme Coaching journey having as partner, guide and supporter  Alain Cardon MCC .    I was ready for what I was assuming that will come.   This was not a training. It was a mind-blowing, body and soul changing experience.
If you would have asked me the typical question, how do you see yourself in one year from now?, I would have been far away from today's reality with my answer.   It woke up my senses.  My mind started sparkling, my spirit got younger and emotions flooded me like never before.  It was the most intensive learning experience I was exposed to.
I have become a better manager, since I have learned to better manage energy, time, space and self.  I have become a better leader, since I have reinvented myself while being more genuine, I am happier and more inspiring to others.I am a better father and husband since my child and my wife are smiling more and are merrier.This is my perception, I might be wrong, but it FEELS REALLY GOOD!  Dragos Bohotineanu,

The Metasysteme Fundamentals has been the most powerful learning experience ever, that healed my mind and my soul in the most difficult period of my life.  It allowed me the possibility to explore  my patterns, my frame of reference, my strengths and weakness from totally different perspectives. I did it with much more courage, trust, pragmatism and future view than I knew I had. It helped me structure and reveal the best in me, making me believe I can do anything that is truly important for me, not only for “now”, but for my sustainable “future”. A whole horizon of options is now opened for me and I’m ready to take it.  Raluca Avramescu

This training has been a life changing experience.   If I had to name just 3 tangible outcomes i can directly attribute to the Fundamentals training and Alain Cardon they would be:

• The capacity to better see patterns to understand and engage my environment
• The capacity to balance focus and lack thereof, which enables me to accomplish goals with less perceived effort
• The capacity to delegate, renounce the need for control, and consequently gain an important amount of time, and paradoxically get more control over my day to day life

However, the shift in paradigm i experienced during this 3 month training is impossible to describe in words.  So yes, i recommend this training to anyone wants to open to completely new perspectives." Paul Badea

You know it is an excellent training when you find yourself thinking about it all day.  You know it is an excellent training when your clients and friends suddenly start telling you: “I don’t what you've been doing lately, but it is really really good. Things happen to me, things happen in me…and I see how all these things are coming from our work.”  
You know you’ve met an excellent mentor & coach when you start asking yourself, in any situation, what would your mentor & coach say/ do in this situation, yet, at the same time, you have the confidence and know that, thanks to him, you yourself have all you need to say / do the right thing in the exact same situation …and you know you’re in the right training, when the training made each of us better professionals that all became good friends of an incredible community.  Thank you Alain, from the bottom of my heart, for truly and fundamentally changing my life, both professionally & personally.  Dana Maria Andrei

I’ve just finished the Fundamentals of Coaching training / Metasysteme Coaching with Alain Cardon: 4 intensive months working in the systemic dimension, applying truly intelligent, creative and fluid instruments allowing an already visible shift emerging within my professional and personal life.  Long story short, this was a great learning experience for me! Thank you, Alain and thank you to all my colleagues for the wonderful training days and hours of practice exploring new and better places within myself. And keep in touch, of course!  Amalia Ripea

Alain, I need to confess: I waited for 2 years before I could approach you and start training with you as a coach in 2009. I was that terrified! Now I know why: I was terrified of my own transformation that I may have not been ready for, at the time. Working with you is surely not for the faint-hearted or for the confort seeker. But once I dared to work with you, countless gifts started to flow in my personal and professional life. Every time I come in contact with you I am amazed at the depths of learning and the fun I have. The Supervision Marathon this week has been - again -a blast. Thank you so much - to you and all the beautiful people you attracted in the room. Casandra Bischoff

I have started the 2012 Fundamentals workshop in September and I was completely surprised. I expected an academic approach, a pretentious and somewhat intellectual - easy for me to navigate- training. It was anything but that.  The information was there and it was extremely valuable and well organized but what I took out of the workshop was much, much more than learning about coaching.

The practice you have to do during in between the sessions completely changed my understanding of human beings, the way we interact, what we need, how we move and my relationship with time. The systemic approach is so powerful that even with the little experience we all had as coaches, I could see changes in myself and in my colleagues that I have never thought possible.  Also, acquiring a client perspective and being able to discuss it freely with someone that had the same training as you is very useful for me now when presenting my services. It was a personal and collective journey of growth.

Alain encouraged us to practice while inviting us to renounce all that was not simple and emerging: all the intellectual pretense, the psychological analysis, the savior behavior that usually defines people in the business of helping others... He encouraged us to become minimalist and create a space or void where the client can evolve towards his or her desired outcomes.  I started doing that in my life.

I started practicing immediately (I completed the workshop in December 2012 and I led my first team coaching on January 12th 2013) with a new confidence that I can face any difficulty that might arise. It was amazing to me to see emerge out of the process of my own clients things that were presented in the training. I was actually well prepared for this, and this gave me confidence to try new things, new clients, be creative and practice even more - as much out of curiosity to see what else will prove correct from what Alain taught as from anything else.  The systemic dimension always comes out in these sessions and being taught how to use it to my client's benefit gives me confidence.

My passion is for team development, so I continued to take the specialized workshops (Delegative Processes, Diagnostics, etc) and each has given me another perspective on the approach to teams and people that I can immediately implement in my coaching practice.

Compared to all typical trainings I have attended in any field (usually informative and theoretical), Alain's approach encourages to explore the craft, be creative, invent new things, use your personality and your energy to be the best that you can be. It is not rigid (although it has clear structure) and it is liberating.  Silviana Badea

Coaching Fundamentals is for me one big turning point in my life. Not only added a new profession to what I was doing but it significantly impacted the way I was performing the other two "jobs": trainer and manager.  The main process that started during my first day of learning coaching was to understand myself and accept who I am. It was not immediately obvious to me and it took 3 years to accept what I discovered about myself and start changing some habits into other, healthier habits.

By learning coaching and observing Alain as trainer of coaches, I learned and practiced how to manage groups more effectively by looking at the systems rather than at details. It was measurable for me in terms of constant successful delivery of workshops, increasing my personal revenue and better feedback from participants. As trainer, I learned a lot about how to manage individuals and groups, about how to delegate more to and increase accountability of participants during the learning process. I became more delegating and challenging as a trainer.  As manager, attending the fundamentals helped me become more results driven in relation with my direct reports and the whole team.

The most interesting journey is the one of becoming a coach. In the beginning I resisted the change and unconsciously practiced not being present in a process which requires the coach to be present. For me this education worked at a different speed: the big "Aha's!" came months and years later, during practice as coach although I wished for it to happen overnight. The apparent lack of a structure and system when learning coaching became clear for me later, when I started practicing being present and follow my intuition. But this can't be explained. It needs practice.

Six years later I still remember and practice what I learned but looking through a different "lens". What completed my coaching training was the supervision process, which I consider a necessary step in sustaining the learning and practice of coaching. The results of this double education - Fundamentals and Supervision - allowed me to move towards getting a credential from International Coach Federation (ICF) and move from 5 to 20 % of my income from coaching, taking into account that I was also salesman, trainer and manager.

For whoever ponders whether to attend or not the Coaching Fundamentals, I invite him/her to take into account that it's the highest quality education in coaching available on the Romanian market at a fair price. Next to that, you don't become an expert in theories and writing essays, you become a practitioner in coaching. Last but not least, it a quick transformational process of only 4 months (for the start of your journey) so I believe it's adapted to our continuously changing reality. Rares Manolescu,  Coach & trainer

I would like to tell you that this training was a great learning experience for me. It shaked more of my frames of refference, but especially one. There are some persons, close to me, who told me that I am used to tell my opinions like universal trues that can not be doubt. It was a big challenge for me to not be allowed to intervene with my personal opinions, ideas or suggestions during the coaching process. As I begun to apply coaching skills in my day-to-day life, I have noticed that my relationships with the others improved. I am no long so "categoric" and this is a major change for me.

I very much appreciate the course support (Toolbox I-IV). On my opinion, it is the essence of principles and techniques needed for coaching. I intend to read it once per month or two months, to refresh and to "discover" more useful tools, better integrated with my practice. Carmen Copindean

Ho participato al corso ''Coaching Fundamentals'' di Monsieur Alain Cardon da Settembre a Dicembre 2011.   La professionalità di Alain, la sua preparazione, il suo grado di esigenza rendono il corso un’esperienza rivelatrice di un nuovo punto di vista su se stessi, sulle relazioni con gli altri e con il mondo. Questi quattro mesi di formazione hanno inoltre cambiato la definizione stessa della mia professione di consulente.

Raccomanderei a chiunque di seguire un corso di coaching; suggerirei a coloro i quali non hanno paura di mettersi in gioco di formarsi con Alain Cardon, senza dubbio uno dei professionisti più trasparenti, preparati e rispettati.  Se davvero si investe per imparare qualcosa, qualsiasi cosa, vale la pena andare dal migliore. Alain Cardon, nel suo campo, è il migliore.    Edoardo Ghignone

Several times, I have had the opportunity to work with Alain Cardon particularly on principles of "situational management", during "delegated meetings" and in implementing "breakthrough processes".  Each time, both as a manager and as a participating client, I have recorded a clear improvement in team performance, in its management processes and in its capacity to focus on common goals. 

Alain Cardon and his coach network have an approach that mirrors what they propose to achieve: effectiveness, delegation, circularity, individual and team performance. Their "systemic" approach have them work more on what can be observed in teams rather that on the principles verbalized by their managers... To conclude, the experience, the authority and the method that Alain Cardon proposes are as many powerful tools at the service of any organization that aims for more delegation, co-decision and effectiveness. Alain Pourcelot - Marketing Director  ADIDAS France

At the end of my coach training I could have said quoting Nespresso: "Alain Cardon coaching, what else ?".  About a year later, I can add a list of practical results: A strong feeling of being alive. More intimate relationship with people. Greater fluidity (such as spending less time analyzing or trying to make  things work when they don't).  More active on new projects. More celebration for small successes. More and quicker decisions. New friends, changes in my family and in older relationships. A clear professional ambition and a company that is developing  …and weirder things such as memory increase, or fun things like spontaneously coaching 130 people (2 teams) for an hour and a half, when a trainer had failed to show up!  John / Jean-Emmanuel,

Being chairman of many companies in Eastern Europe (and not a coach), I was very skeptical about the usefulness of the course.  But the "Fundamentals of Coaching" transformed a lot my management style.  It eased it and made it more empowering for my colleagues. The funny and amazing part is that I found the principles of your coaching method very counter-intuitive in the beginning and I was surprised by its fast and impressive results, getting clients to find their solutions on their own. On a personal matter, the effect was even more important and I learnt what active listening means and  how much it can bring. Though I perceived i have excellent relationships with my friends and family, I can still say that it took them to a higher level.    Congratulations once again.  Walid Abboud, Sensiblu, A&D Pharma, Mediplus...

I worked very closely with Alain during several development programs we were implementing together and for Human Invest clients. He always managed to provide a mature and profound perspective that ensured we always crafted the right solutions for the challenges our clients faced.  His presence and values was also a valuable resource for our own company’s transformation that started in 2009. He played a huge role in the new attitudes, work processes and positive results that emerged out of this transition. Viorel Panaite CEO  HUMAN INVEST Romania

'Having the honor and pleasure to participate Alain's 'Fundamentals' is like going back to basics, to YOUR own basic behaviors: carefully listening, caring, being there. It is more than accompanying your client by asking for the best in him/her, it is every single moment about accompanying yourself  in your own discovery journey.' Adriana Ross-Maugourd METRO executive HR, Bucharest/Change Mgt.Dir. Dusseldorf

I have started the 2012 Fundamentals workshop in September and I was completely surprised. I expected an academic approach, a pretentious and somewhat intellectual - easy for me to navigate- training. It was anything but that.  The information was there and it was extremely valuable and well organized but what I took out of the workshop was much, much more than learning about coaching.

The practice you have to do during in between the sessions completely changed my understanding of human beings, the way we interact, what we need, how we move and my relationship with time. The systemic approach is so powerful that even with the little experience we all had as coaches, I could see changes in myself and in my colleagues that I have never thought possible.  Also, acquiring a client perspective and being able to discuss it freely with someone that had the same training as you is very useful for me now when presenting my services. It was a personal and collective journey of growth.

Alain encouraged us to practice while inviting us to renounce all that was not simple and emerging: all the intellectual pretense, the psychological analysis, the savior behavior that usually defines people in the business of helping others... He encouraged us to become minimalist and create a space or void where the client can evolve towards his or her desired outcomes.  I started doing that in my life.

I started practicing immediately (I completed the workshop in December 2012 and I had my first team workshop on January 12th 2013) with a new confidence that I can face any difficulty that might arise. It was amazing to me to see emerge out of the process of my own clients things that were presented in the training. I was actually well prepared for this, and this gave me confidence to try new things, new clients, be creative and practice even more - as much out of curiosity to see what else will prove correct from what Alain taught as from anything else.  The systemic dimension always comes out in these sessions and being taught how to use it to my client's benefit gives me confidence.

My passion is for team development, so I continued to take the specialized workshops (Delegative Processes, Diagnostics etc) and each has given me another perspective on the approach to teams and people that I can immediately implement in my practice.
Compared to what typical training I have attended in any field (usually informative and theoretical), Alain's approach encourages to explore the craft, be creative, invent new things, use your personality and your energy to be the best that you can be. It is not rigid (although it has clear structure) and it is liberating.  Silviana Badea

I would like to tell you that this training was a great learning experience for me. It shook more of my frames of reference, but especially one. There are some persons, close to me, who told me that I am used to tell my opinions like universal trues that cannot be doubt. It was a big challenge for me to not be allowed to intervene with my personal opinions, ideas or suggestions during the coaching process. As I begun to apply coaching skills in my day-to-day life, I have noticed that my relationships with the others improved. I am no long so "categoric" and this is a major change for me.

I very much appreciate the course support (Toolbox I-IV). On my opinion, it is the essence of principles and techniques needed for coaching. I intend to read it once per month or two months, to refresh and to "discover" more useful tools, better integrated with my practice. Carmen Copindean

The Cubes Exercise Risk Management workshop with Alain turned out to be a journey to the centre of earth. As the name suggests, the two day exercise did involve cubes. But, as to be expected when working with Alain, the cubes functioned merely as the looking glass through which to observe one’s very own creation called reality. The Cubes Exercise is a simple and powerful tool that offers as much and as meaningful information as the observer is willing to discover.  Implicit personal strategies that powerfully influence a multitude of areas (for e.g.: project management, teamwork, personal life planning, relationships) were exposed and the meaning of seemingly unrelated events and experiences could be understood in the context of bigger patterns. For coaches interested to accompany their clients (individuals as well as teams) to new levels of insight around their patterns, strategies and hidden agendas, this exercise is a true gem. To see it is to believe it.  Nadjeschda Hebenstreit, PCC

Workshop "breakthrough approach": I've practiced the "breakthrough"-approach several times with different types of clients. Each time it was refreshing  to have both: a solid basis by working with figures and a clearly economical perspective as well as visionary thinking. During the workshops we tested this specific approach with our own business figures and it was good to have this personal experience in mind.

Workshop "diagnostics": Alain shows his variety of working with industrial and PME-clients by offering a diagnostic questionary, that opened my eyes. I learned how to collect hints on different "cultures", both on team or organizational level. This diagnostic background speeds up understanding what's going on in a group of managers and executives and enables coaches to interact more precisely.

English Supervision in Paris: Besides Alain's remarkable energy and presence in each session what impresses me most is how he succeeds to "marry opposites":  He gives a living example how to be in one time relaxed and dynamic, work for results and leave all the space to the client to find her/his own way, be focused and flexible. Rather than techniques and methods what Alain teaches most is the attitude of coaching for teams and individuals. Christina Quirin, Consulting & Training, Hamburg (Germany)

"I have been member of the Metacoach supervision group in Brussels for almost half a year now, and I must say it is one of my most intensive learning experiences in a long time. Not only can I reflect on my coaching style and receive professional feedback from experienced colleagues, I also have the opportunity to enrich my coaching practice with ideas, interventions, techniques, attitudes from very different approaches. The team dynamics are also carefully supervised, so I now have an additional model on how to coach teams easily and effortlessly." Kirsten Dierolf, PCC, Frankfurt, Germany

We initiated our work with Alain Cardon three years ago (2003) in order to boost our executive team's efficiency. The group was composed of strong professionals with high working standards in their respective areas. Relationships were good between them but  they were not really challenging each other. Operational issues were overwhelming strategical discussions. As a consequence, it was obvious that as our executive meetings were not driving sufficient value and our output as a team was not superior to the sum of individuals. Worse, we could sense that this inefficiency was repeated at various levels of the organization in a very systematic (and systemic)pattern.)

Our first team development working session with Alain was a shock as it led us to a clear understanding of  how our team dynamics were driving the wrong organizational behavior. We visualized new attitudes and behaviors that would make a difference. To support the implementation of these attitudes, Alain proposed a set of basic team operating processes.
Other sessions followed with a series of similar team development and team coaching programs on different levels of the organization which truly made a difference in the company.

Our culture has dramatically changed: individuals now take personal responsibility for each team's performance (versus what used to be upward delegation to the boss); commitment to results and peers has dramatically increased; meetings are focused on decision making (versus information overflow); open feedback and demand for  the best from colleagues is natural and well accepted.

Fortunately, this philosophy has become contagious in the organization.  Weaker teams feel the pressure as differences with their colleagues become more obvious.  I was and remain impressed at the immediate and very concrete impact that has resulted from this work with Alain Cardon. The cultural change is very visible and appreciated by all managers in the company. Most would like to repeat the experience to continue to push for team performance.   Marc Lafeuille CEO Bayer Healthcare France

Having heard a presentation by Alain Cardon from Métasystème  at the  ICF European Coaching Conference 2008  in Geneva I decided to take part in one of the Métasystème workshops delivered in English. As a result of this determination I found myself in Bucharest, Romania in September 2008  participating in Alain’s two day long Breakthrough Process Workshop. Together with an Italian colleague we shared an intensive learning experience with a vibrant, warm, and well informed Romanian coaching community.  The coaches in this emerging economy radiated both dedication for the coaching profession and ambition to develop towards excellence.

The Breakthrough Process Workshop represented un-compromised system thinking, rigor of process and a consistent coaching approach towards learning. Alain’s passion for coaching combined with his warm, shy heart, made the workshop a unique and insightful learning experience on exploring the possibilities of  our unleashed potential and then  systematically doing something concrete to reach it.”  Lilian Öhman, Executive Coach, Finland.

Both practical and challenging, I find that the Breakthrough process workshop helps people to really begin to grapple with what it means to think beyond their usual mental boundaries. It illustrates a process that helps overcoming some of the limits that normally frame  the perspective of what can be possibly achieved and realized

I also find that Alain conducts his business at a very high level of professionalism and competency. Alain is an experienced and savvy businessman and coach who has the uncanny ability to identify core issues quickly and then develop and implement an action plan to address them. His lively personality and sense of humor make his clients comfortable and quickly able to trust his expertise. I have absolutely no reservations in recommending Alain Cardon and Métasystème.  Marisa Faccio, Italy.

I have long been interested in Alain Cardon's systemic coaching approach so I recently attended one of his trainings in Romania. The content was challenging and thought-provoking, and the context was a pleasant plus: professional setting in a top hotel, friendly workshop participants (a mix of Romanians and five other nationalities), walking and dining in the Old City of Bucharest in the evening with its beauty and the warm local hospitality - very enjoyable!  Daniele Bevilacqua, PCC Italy

“I have experienced working with Alain a number of times since 1999 in 3 different companies (Pepsico France, Danone Eaux France, Evian Volvic World) both as a team consultant and as a personal coach. His deep understanding of systems and how to make them work together has been extremely valuable to me on several occasions : he was instrumental in helping the Management Team of Pepsico France turn what was a start-up into a big and well organized company ; he played a big role in turning Evian's multi-local brand management operating mode into a global and aligned system ; he helped us bridge the gap between Japanese business needs and the Evian Volvic world systems ; last but not least - at least for me - he helped me blend into a completely new business culture and environment, the Danone company culture after 18 years spent doing marketing elsewhere. Alain's very unique style and approach have resulted in profound mindset changes every time I have been able to experience them. I can only recommend him to anyone willing to bring systemic change to an organization.” Michael Aidan, DANONE