Dear Friend
Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you are well. In Asia we just started the Lunar New Year of the Water Tiger, said to embody courage, strength and also great interpersonal relationships, qualities I hope you are finding around you this year.
Here at Bamboo Being I've been re-imagining our role in supporting leaders, teams and coaches in a world of escalating pressure and, TLDR: we are pivoting our core coaching practice to integrate ESG support for leaders and teams and expanding our offerings for everyone. Keep reading to understand more or scroll down for the new offerings.
regeneration
Coaching conversations recently have centred on a number of themes: burnout from ongoing pandemic life and big life choices: career, location, family. Finding ways to live in harmony with what Life brings and regenerating what is depleted has always been at the heart of our work and the metaphor of bamboo is meant to evoke the capacity to flex with challenges and grow back stronger in a different form when cut back. However I can't remember a time when pressure has been higher on our clients to regenerate themselves, their people and businesses.
A recent McKinsey Report claims the key challenge to an orderly net zero transition is leaders having the requisite "boldness and resolve" to take crucial near-term action on decarbonisation. The 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer reports that because trust in politicians is so low, most people expect business leaders to lead the way on societal issues too. And in his 2022 letter, even Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, claims that CEO's must accept this expectation to lead on climate emergency and social justice issues or face irrelevance, writing: "It is not “woke.” It is capitalism, driven by mutually beneficial relationships."
I believe that trust in the enlightened self-interest of market economies and the capacity of business leaders is misguided. Business Leadership Development has been largely designed to cultivate competencies for a corporate 'leadership pipeline'. Competitive and extractive industries lack frameworks for the co-ordinated and equitable metamorphosis we need in our economies and society. To paraphrase renowned coach, Marshall Goldsmith: "what got us here won't get us there".
grassroots and wild margins
According to Extinction Rebellion (XR) , the biggest civil resistance movement in Britain since the Suffragettes, what we need is distributed leadership. We may not all want to risk arrest, but XR's Strategy 2022 document invites involvement of different types. They call for a Citizens' Assembly on Climate and Ecological Justice and local citizens groups to address local issues: in other words, to avert catastrophe and protect the future, we all need to educate ourselves and step up. The good news is, taking responsibility and even small steps builds our sense of agency and response-ability, which is key to avoiding feelings of overwhelm and burnout.
In their new book, "CITIZENS: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us" Jon Alexander and Ariane Conrad invite us to look to a different story about ourselves in order to fuel our agency, not as individual and relatively powerless consumers but collectively as citizens. In his book, Sand Talk, Tyson Yunkaporta offers yet another perspective on our role in global systems, writing about the indigenous idea of humans as custodians of locations rooted in communities.
For many modern cultures, consumerism has crowded out commonality. One or two generations back, everyone served a church, school, or local community: now 'community service' is a punishment rather than a habit. Large companies and wealthy individuals shop for nominal 'citizenship' based on what can be avoided rather than contributed. Primatologist Jane Goodall founded her Roots and Shoots non-profit to inspire, educate and nurture youth to become a new generation of change-makers, but what about the rest of us? How do we all step forward to create positive change?
the path is made by walking, together
Our approach to coaching puts identity at the heart of change: how we behave starts with how we think of ourselves. But it doesn't end there. We can't appropriate the identity of citizen, custodian or change-maker, overnight: we need to apprentice to it. Apprenticing means 'taking hold' of different ways of being and doing. with our minds and hands over time and with practice. Apprenticing also means gradually allowing an identity to take hold of our hearts. Think about becoming a parent, a marathon runner, a poet- it happens with our minds and hands over time and with practice.
This happens in a crucible of different relationships- new identities depend on social groups or guilds in which we deepen our understanding and practice. Those groups continue to evolve and contribute to the practice of whatever it is, and the practice itself supports greater numbers, depth and shades of practitioner. That is a cycle of regeneration.
new offerings
The root of coaching is 'a process to transport people from where they are to where they want to be'. This year we we have created more ways to engage and be apprentices with us in order to keep what is true in front of us without being overwhelmed.
For anyone: our new ESG book club in which we'll read (and hear from) authors of the books mentioned above and others.
For coaches and facilitators: pro bono supervision and circle training for those willing to pay it forward.
For the coaching curious: new introduction to coaching plus our ongoing Coaching for Development training to help you support the journeys of others.
For leaders: we're piloting Integrated Leaders Coaching and Mentoring programmes, weaving expert mentoring on ESG (and other issues) from specialists into coaching programmes for individuals (so you don't have to go searching on your own for your Board of Advisors on these important issues).
For teams: we're offering an Integrated Teams programme which offers coaching for a team by a team so that the team coaching comes with support for individuals to align their purpose to the team purpose.
If you are interested, do click on the links below.
Take care and be in touch
Sue x
P.S regeneration = inspiration + imagination+ action. rinse and repeat.
Pandemic and crisis fatigue can be numbing. Here is some music to inspire, a Ted Talk to fuel your imagination on what is possible and this tool from Paul Hawken's Project Regeneration climate solutions to help you get started.
*NEW Bamboo Introduction to Coaching Workshop
Half day workshop about the different types of coaching and how coaching has evolved to support people and teams navigate an increasingly complex world.
Suitable for beginners, experienced coaches or the coaching curious!
Saturday 19th March 10 - 1 pm SGT
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*NEW Bamboo Circle Training for Coaches
 | 6 session programme to experience and learn to lead Bamboo Coaching Circles: grounded in Action Learning theory and Integral Coaching philosophy. Suitable for experienced or apprentice coaches Starting March 2022- date TBA Depending on interest and regulations, this will be in-person, virtual or hybrid Free for those who coach a client circle working on UNDP Sustainable Development Goals. (we can help match you with a client circle).
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*NEW Bamboo Group Supervision for Coaches
Monthly, 90 min group supervision sessions in groups of no more than 6 participants.
Suitable for experienced or apprentice coaches Starting March 2022- date TBA
Depending on interest and regulations, this will be in-person, virtual or hybrid
Free to those coaching clients working on UNDP Sustainable Development Goals. (we can help match you with a client). |  |
*NEW Bamboo Book Club 2022
This year's topic-based Bamboo Book Club will include the following topics . Each month we read one (or all!) of a shortlist of books and discuss Suitable for all! Starting Wednesday 16th March 2022 Online, 6.00 - 7.30 pm every month Topics so far are: Citizenship and Society Indigenous Philosophy Climate Solutions and Regeneration Conscious Capitalism and beyond Food for the soul
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*NEW Coaching for Development 2022
 | This rich, Integral Coach training programme leads to an ACC credential with the International Coach Federation and is intended for leaders and practitioners wishing to develop themselves and others.
In Asia this is uniquely offered as a small circle group of 12 per cohort in order to facilitate deep and rich discussions and a close community of practice.
This cohort will be asked to include as one of their guest clients a coachee working on UNDP Sustainable Development Goals. (we can help match you with a client). |
For enquiries about support for individuals, teams or organisations during this time, (especially our NEW Integrated Leaders or Integrated Teams coaching programmes), click on the button below and arrange a discovery call for further details.
Thanks for being with us. Take good care of yourselves.
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