First frost
Does clarity come today
with this early pristine sky?
A near stillness.
The leaves tremble beneath
the moon hanging patient
as the sun rises to beam,
melt the first frost.
Blackbird clucks alarm
in this suspended time
then falls silent.
Coaching Conversations: Episode 6
What if coaching was for a life-giving planet and the health of our biosphere rather than performance and organizational success?
Alison Whybrow
I was delighted to have Alison Whybrow, one of the founders of the Climate Coaching Alliance (CCA), as my guest for the latest episode of Coaching Conversations. Explaining the genesis of CCA, Alison said,
Zoe Cohen wrote an article in LinkedIn about where were all the coaches when the earth warmed by three degrees? I caught myself thinking ‘what’s the purpose of coaching’? And maybe if the purpose of coaching was different to what it is, then we might start to see a shift. What if coaching was for a life-giving planet and for the health of our biosphere, rather than for performance and organizational success?
She went on to say,
I think the Climate Coaching Alliance was an idea waiting to be discovered. And it just so happened that Eve (Turner), Josie (McClean) and I were the three to discover it.
In just over a year since they formed the Coaching Climate Alliance in 2019, they have created a virtual network space in which coaches, mentors and supervisors from around the globe can learn from each other and share their approaches to coaching from that perspective and supporting their clients to face into the climate and ecological emergencies.
How do we really open this space with scale? That’s really where so much of the learning is. Lots of people know they need to do it. Lots of people are making changes in their personal lives, but the question of how to really hold this with grace and scale is key. There’s so much learning there and there’s so much opportunity and possibility.
Never far from our minds during the conversation, was the UK’s hosting of COP 26 taking place in Glasgow in November. Asked about the role of the CCA in support of the action needed, Alison offered the following,
Our pre-COP 26 role (as coaches), is to create the conditions for our politicians and for those representing us in those meetings to have the bravest and most heartfelt conversations they can have in service of all of our futures.
She added,
One of the things we can do is create the landing strip for what comes out of COP 26. So how do we really ready ourselves and ready our clients and be available to enable people, enable those ideas to lean into them and to land and land well?
Membership of the Climate Coaching Alliance is free. On 4th March 2021 a 24 Hour Conversation is planned. This will be the third global event held by CCA, but this time locally hosted. The aim is to enable a broader and deeper conversations using shared case studies to take the work forward to the next level within the framework of the Eco Phase cycle that the CCA works with (see below).
This Episode of Coaching Conversation is dedicated by Alison to Josie, Eve and the joys of co-founding. All the ideas and thinking expressed have been crowdsourced from many conversations and many learning partners
Mentioned in this podcast
Alison Whybrow, coach and co-author with Alan Williams of The 31 Practices: Release the power of your organization’s values every day published byLID publishing. https://www.alisonwhybrow.com/
Climate Coaching Alliance website” https://www.climatecoachingalliance.org/
and a link to the joint statement by the international professional coaching bodies”
and to the CCA events page and the Eco Phase model: https://www.climatecoachingalliance.org/coming-events/
BBC What Planet Are We On podcast hosted by Liz Bonnin https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08tdhyl/episodes/downloads
Outrage and Optimism podcast hosted by Christiana Figueres https://globaloptimism.com/podcast-old/
COP 26 in Glasgow with UK Presidency: https://ukcop26.org/
Kathy Allen and Living Systems Principles from ego-led to eco-led https://kathleenallen.net/
Tessa Bailey, https://www.linkedin.com/in/tessa-bailey1/?originalSubdomain=ca
A link to Zoe Cohen’s article, ‘Where were all the coaches when the planet warmed by three degrees?’
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/where-were-all-coaches-when-planet-warmed-3-degrees-zoe-cohen/
Liz Hall, editor of Coaching at Work https://www.coaching-at-work.com/
A Coaching at Work editors Award 2020 was given to the Climate Coaching Alliance
Professor Peter Hawkins, https://www.linkedin.com/in/professorpeterhawkins/?originalSubdomain=uk
Polly Higgins, who sadly died in April 2019, campaigned for an International Law of Ecocide.https://www.stopecocide.earth/Earth Protectors take her work forward.
A link to Neil Scotton’s Neil’s Wheel https://neilswheel.org/
Otto Scharmer, to access Otto Scharmer’s presentation register for free with the Coaches Rising Coaching Summit https://www.coachesrising.com/summit/ and then: https://courses.coachesrising.com/session/the-future-of-leadership/
Val Panui, https://www.linkedin.com/in/val-panui-9b73575/?originalSubdomain=nz
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