Press release

Coaching Embraces Excellence

3rd International Conference held by the Association for Coaching on 13th-14th March, 2008

Association for Coaching, London, Thursday 27th March 2008: Embracing Excellence was the theme for the Association for Coaching’s third biannual International Conference held at the Victoria Plaza Hotel, London. It was a theme that caught the imagination and energy of the times and captured coaching’s expanding role in the 21st Century.

Attracting more than 450 delegates, over two days from across the world, the Conference reflected Coaching’s continued growth as an industry and its emergence as a highly regarded profession. The Conference was aimed at those involved in coaching, human resources, leadership management and training, as well as business consultants and academics.

The focus of the Conference was on Coaching’s evolution. In place of individual performance, there was an emphasis on collaborative success for a meaningful purpose. Today’s leadership needs to embrace the vision of a coaching culture, where people feel engaged in a common purpose and actively work towards it. Leaders need to encourage ‘the whole person’ to be at work, so that they can understand an individual’s motivation for being there and get the best out of them in terms of performance and contribution.

Speakers included well-respected international coaches as well as senior directors in organisations that have been on the receiving end of successful coaching programmes. Keynote speakers included Lynne Franks, founder of Lynne Franks PR and more recently, founder of SEED - Sustainable Enterprise and Economic Dynamics; Laura Berman Fortgang, a pioneer in the personal coaching field and author of numerous books; Alan Jones, CEO for Somerset Council; and Dr Gordon Coutts, Managing Director and Vice President of Schering Plough (UK & Ireland).

There were also guest appearances by Sir John Whitmore, Vice President of the Association for Coaching and one of the leading figures within the international coaching community and Katherine Tulpa, Chair of the Association for Coaching.

Sir John Whitmore suggested at the Conference that given the need and push for a more ecological environment, new thinking was needed by today’s leaders to move towards interdependent organisations, where collaboration and supportive working are key. He believes the coaching profession has ‘unlimited potential’ to effect wider change and greater corporate and individual social responsibility.

Similarly, keynote speaker and international coach, Laura Berman Fortgang, suggested ‘meaning is the new bottom line’ and that coaches need to play an active role in raising consciousness.

As well as the keynote addresses, the Conference included five intensive workshop streams containing 30 tailored workshops aimed at either the personal or executive coach. These covered a variety of topics to help coaches develop both themselves and their businesses and equip them with knowledge about the latest tools and techniques adopted successfully within the coaching profession. The streams included workshops related to Executive Coaching; Organisational Coaching; Personal & Business Coaching; Psychometrics in Coaching and Advanced Coaching.

Also launched at the event was a second book, commissioned by the Association for Coaching, called ‘Psychometrics in Coaching – Using Psychological and Psychometric Tools for Development’, published by Kogan Page. The book provides analysis of some well-known psychometric tools and how they can be specifically related to coaching. Since its launch, more than 750 books have been sold.

Sheree Owen, Director for the Conference comments: “The Coaching Industry is growing up and many of the speakers at the event highlighted how professional the industry has become over the last five years. The pace within this industry has been breathless and Embracing Excellence aimed to celebrate coaching as a profession, while providing delegates with genuinely useful training and thought-leadership.”

The Conference was effectively summed up by a poem by David Adams of Unlocking Creativity and this can be found on http://davidadams.podbean.com:80/. Further details about the Conference can be found on www.acconference.com.

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