Cathy Liska Blog series by Joann Evans
Joann Evans holds a B.S. in microbiology and chemistry. She is also a certified Paralegal. She has 20 years’ experience in quality assurance, control and engineering in fields such as pharmaceutical, medical device, IVD, biotech and blood banking. This blog series is her journey through being coached and then earning her coaching certification.
The eye opening, ah…mouth covering, portion of this coach training class was related to toxic language and how a lack of care and awareness to the use of it affects perception, thinking, and thus outcomes. Boy was it hard to change how we ask a question!! While in my travels related to learning more about positive organizational culture and communication, I attended or listened to a number of courses. In this journey I noticed that great thought leaders tended to focus in on one portion of a solution related to communication but I continued to feel that something was missing after reading their books, attending the class or listening to an audio training. This led me to look at everything I was learning from a 50 thousand foot view. It was beginning to come together but still something felt like it was missing. This further led me to explore coaching and to see if I could gain greater insight to that big picture a bit more in creating positive cultures. On this leg of my journey I have come to see that language, how we talk and the words we use is extremely critical. I thought I understood it before but not like this. The words we use and how they are used help to mold the perception of the listener. Most all of us are trying to do what is right and good but we all come to table with various life learning induced filters. Some of them cloud our perceptions and how we take in information. We also come with habit in our language. By being highly aware of toxic words, moving in a forward direction and the use of Cathy’s system we can help to circumvent most negative filters. There will always be those who we cannot reach but with what I have learned here I feel confident that I have increased my chances significantly.
This system has taken critical communication concepts that I learned in a full class, simplified it, made it easier to understand and apply, and then took it one step more. After having experienced this training I feel that the next time I lead a corporate team I’d give this class as required training. It’s not enough to simply understand some concepts. We must apply them; we must also help others grow! By applying coaching concepts as found in this training to the workplace and life we focus on moving forward and eliminate what cannot help us from the past. When we continually take steps in a focused direction forward we will achieve our goal. I can’t understand why it took so long to get here. How was it possible to go 20 years in a career such as mine and only hear of this process briefly before now?
I would like to send a message to all HR professionals. As it pertains to this class, run don’t walk to the nearest computer, get on line, sign up for this coaching certification, train yourself and coach or provide coaches for whoever wants one. With studies reporting an average ROI of 600 percent there is no room to question value.
My next step is to get some practice with real clients and then move on to master the process.
