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That’s right, a gift.
We think it’s the best gift anyone can give or receive: Coaching.
Through a grant from The Harnisch Foundation, the Coaching Commons is partnering with ReciproCoach to give a special gift to our guest contributors and readers who keep stirring the conversation with their published comments.
ReciproCoach (formerly Contra Coaching) was created in 2005 by Kerryn Griffiths in Brisbane, Australia. She believes, as we do, that every coach should have a coach. When we ask coaches why they don’t have a coach of their own, most say they’ve had a coach in the past, and plan to have a coach again, but right now they have too many demands on their time and on their budgets.
ReciproCoach was created to meet that need.
Beginning next week, when you participate at the Coaching Commons as a guest contributor whose post is a featured story, or when you make a comment that generates lively conversation, you will receive a unit of ReciproCoach credit called a “coaching coin.” We’ll send you an email telling you how many coins you’ve been awarded, along with information about ReciproCoach. The more you participate at the Commons, the more coins you collect – one gift each month – up to six in a year.
You can use your coaching coins to pay for coaching. Here’s how it works:
A professional ReciproCoach match-maker will choose a coach for you in what is called a coaching “round.” A coaching round is the term of the coaching agreement: a specific number of coaching hours over a specific period of time.
And here’s where the “Recipro” part of ReciproCoaching comes in: you take a turn coaching another coach. (Don’t worry – it’s not the coach who’s coaching you.)
Reciprocal coaching. ReciproCoach!
Brilliant.
You might wonder why we call this “a gift” when you’re asked to coach someone else.
That’s because ReciproCoach coins ordinarily cost up to 25 USD each. You need two coins to join a coaching round and these coins pay for the professional administration of the program, web development, matching coaches with coaches and monitoring the coaching rounds.
The Harnisch Foundation is covering registration fees and has purchased a number of coaching coins for Coaching Commons guest contributors and commenters — and you’re eligible to get your share until all the coins are awarded.
For more information about ReciproCoach, click here.
For more information about The Harnisch Foundation, click here.
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There are 39 Responses so far...
I agree, this IS the best gift that could be given to the coaching community. If you’re not so sure, you may want to read an earlier conversation about whether coaches have coaches:
http://coachingcommons.org/featured/do-coaches-have-coaches/
The added benefit of ReciproCoach is that you get all the advantages of having a coach, plus you get to coach a coach. This experience in itself is one of the best forms of professional development a coach can find. Many coaches get a bit daunted by coaching another coach, but if you really think about it, it’s the best form of accountability for your own coaching skills and development. And if you’re not quite there yet, maybe try our reciprocal mentoring program first or join a student or new coach round, where there is a major focus on learning.
Kerryn Griffiths
Global ReciproCoach Coordinator
What a wonderful gift to the coaching community!
I’ve participated in Recipro/Contra-Coaching since its inception in 2005 at our local ICF Chapter (as Round Robin Coaching!).
It has been, without doubt, the Number One professional development activity I’ve done (and yes, even more beneficial than post grad study in coaching).
Not only have I learned about a myriad of coaching approaches, styles, models, techniques, and exercises (through experiencing them) but I’ve had the opportunity to work with some outstanding people. There’s something very special about this program and the people it attracts…So…
Well done Kerryn – for taking it to the world.
And thank you Coaching Commons and The Harnisch Foundation for making this wonderful resource (even more) accessible to coaches.
Thank you, Ruth Ann! What a nice gift, and also a great way to let more coaches know about ReciproCoach and the service they provide to help coaches and coaching grow.
Cheers,
Angela
I really like and appreciate this idea. It has win-win written all over it. I am eager to bank my coins and see how much interest they gain, particularly when I send a tweet about the system as well as include an article in our members-only newsletter, The Peer Bulletin.
I am an independent coach practitioner, based in UK. The last year has been a tough one for my business, with private clients tightening their belts in the recession.
Recipro Coaching was what I needed to keep myself plugged in to the Juice and the Joy of coaching.
For me, Recipro Coaching has been an invaluable support – to be part of a community where I can contribute, be supported, keep building my coaching skills and hours. I have learnt oodles and oodles about different coaching models, approaches, styles – experientially.
I keep recommending you!
Wow! I’ve found participating in ReciproCoach not only an opportunity for me to grow as a coach, but an opportunity to coach and be coached by some of the very best and most committed coaches in the world. It is also a way for me to maintain a formerly regular visitor status with Australia. From 1997 to 2002 I worked for the National Australia Bank. Three of my five coaching clients have been Australian. What a pleasure to keep my connection with down under.
I have just recently started working within this community and I am finding it very useful. I think this is a great way for coaches to walk the talk and keep us all leading by example. I like the idea of earning coins I think this is an enterprising approach. Well done.
I’m a student and have nearly completed my life coaching course. I am so grateful that RecipraCoach exists as it’s the best way for me to start building my coaching hours and, especially, my confidence and experience.
I agree the ReciproCoaching is a wonderful gift to the community, and not just the coaching community.
I first participated as both a coach and a coachee when it was known as Contra-Coaching.
I have found it to be a great professional development opportunity, especially when you are starting out and don’t have many clients.
I have also found it a great way to meet coaches from overseas as you can nominate, or at least request your coach comes from a specific region.
My current usage of ReciproCoaching is participation in the ‘gift’ rounds. These are great when you want to assist a family member but don’t want to infringe ethical boundaries and coach them yourself.
If you are not sure how they work, have a look at the web-site. It is very well explained. And there is one about to happen. So sign up now!
Maybe, I’ll ‘see’ you in ReciproCoaching ☺
Thank you Coaching Commons and The Harnisch Foundation for making this wonderful resource (even more) accessible to coaches (and my family member).
Absolutely delighted at the idea of being coached, specially if it is someone who comes from a different culture, training, background and so forth. After 17 years as a coach I am more eager than ever to continue learning so as to better serve both my own coachees, clients and colleagues.
Great idea.
Thank you Ruth Ann, Coaching Commons and The Harnisch Foundation for bringing together coaches, cultures and global interests!
Based in France as a global executive coach, I am often resigned to reading, participating in conference calls or teleconferences to engage with other executive coaches from around the world – what a great opportunity to bring us together to exchange, share and grow. That’s what I love about coaching commons – a great place to learn and share, and earning coins…I’ll check this out immediately!
Thanks,
Maureen
I have been with Recipro Coaching (Contra Coaching) for almost 2 years now! Not only have I received marvelous coaching but I have learned a great deal from my clients,who were all amazing. I have literally made friends for life all over the world. One location I seem to be teamed up with often has been the UK and it has been a pure delight! Not to forget wonderful New Zealand and India.
I always let Kerryn be the match maker rather than choosing my own coach. It is more fun that way. I highly recommend you give it a try today. I use Skype to save on the cost of the phone call.
Hi – I am a student and am embarking on setting up my coaching business over the coming few months as I am nearly finished my course. I’d like to know what experience people have had with regards to fees. I am in Australia so I’m not sure if the structure here is different. My coach charges $200 for a one-hour session. There is little follow up. While the coaching has been incredibly effective for me, the cost is a little prohibitive so I have only been able to see her every few weeks. I’ve read of coaches in the US who charge a monthly fee so I am thinking of doing something in the middle. For example, $XX per month that includes 2 x 1-hour face-to-face sessions, 2x 1/2-hour calls/Skype video calls and one email response per week. This way, there is regular communication during the process. I’m quite confounded by this so anything you can suggest would be great.
Hi Jo,
No doubt others will chime in here… I have spent the last four years or more working to make coaching available for coaches without the prohibitive fees. I felt that if we, as coaches, really believe that every coach should have a coach, then we need to make coaching financially accessible for all coaches… hence the ReciproCoach program.
By giving coaching to another coach, you can also receive coaching – as much as you are willing to give, hour for hour. The only money payment occurs when you are matched up with a coach. This is usually nominal, but right now thanks to The Harnisch Foundation and Coaching Commons even the nomical matching fee is being waived.
There is a student round waiting for student coaches like you right now. As soon as we have enough coaches registered for it (any day now) we’ll be starting that round. Maybe you’d like to join it?
Kerryn Griffiths
Global ReciproCoach Coordinator
Took for granted (my mistake!!!) that it would be understood that I am available for coaching other coaches (both in English and Spanish).
Greetings to everyone! I hope I’m not too late to get in on this exciting opportunity! I’ve providing coaching to non-executive women for over 7 years and have only received limited coaching for myself so I welcome the opportunity.
I felt the need to get more connected to a coaching community and was introduced to the Commons and now this great coach to coach resource!
Thanks so much for this, I’m looking forward to this wonderful opportunity.
Be! Well,
Charlyn
Can anyone please give me instructions on how to upload my picture? Messages in which I can see faces somehow seem friendlier.
Thanks,
Diana
Sure, Diana. To have your photo appear with your comments, go to http://en.gravatar.com/site/signup and follow the instructions. If you have any questions, contact me at team@coachingcommons.org.
Thank you for making this possible, I’m very excited to be part of this community!
I’m excited about participating now that I’ve finally taken the time to sign up to recipro-coach. I’m available to coach and be coached in both French and English.
I have just started my first round with Reciprocoach and the match both with my client and my coach are great. Whatever process is being used, it is thoughtful and and really well done. I encourage anyone thinking about trying this to jump right in!
When I first started coaching and gave up my day job to coach full-time, I also found coaching price-prohibitive. When I discovered that I wasn’t the only one I started a little round robin coaching group with my local ICF chapter. I coached one person in my chapter in exchange for another committed coach to coach me. Other chapters got wind of it and soon it spread internationally. This “little round robin coaching group” now has hundreds of members is known as ReciproCoach.
Normally there is a small annual ReciproCoach membership which is up to the price of the average coaching session (except with ReciproCoach for the same price you get as many as 32 sessions over a year or more) or you can pay as you go for less than half the price of an average session and you can get 8 sessions for that.
BUT NOW thanks to the Coaching Commons, if you contribute to any of the conversations happening at this website (not just this topic), then you will be awarded free coins, which buys you entry into ReciproCoach rounds (usually 8 coaching sessions per round).
Many people love their coaches that they arrange to join round after round together, so you really can have your own coach consistently. But most people try out all different styles of coaching and get the personal rewards of having a coach with the professional development of building your own coaching skills by experiencing all different kinds of coaching.
Jo, I hope this helps you!
Just a note about the process being used to match coaches to coach coaches in the ReciproCoach community. It’s a mixture of intellect and intuition. Every coach fills in a professional profile when they join the ReciproCoach community. Then when you join a round, they are asked questions about what kind of coach they would like to have. Using the professional coach profiles (which can be seen briefly on the public Reciprocoach page) and your preferences for a coach, together with the feedback left on coaches from past rounds and a dash of intuition, a professional match-maker (currently me) assigns you with a coach and client. In most cases people are really happy with their coaches. Of course, there are some occasions when we don’t quite get the coaching fit right and in these cases, we have a system in place where you can be re-assigned a coach/client.
Kerryn Griffiths
ReciproCoach >>> Where coaches go for coaching
Hi there everyone,
I am in the second half of my first ReciproCoach round and I can honestly say that it has been truly challenging – in a very positive way! I set up so many expectations for myself and for the coaching experience (my first time as a coach) and they were completely blown out of the water after mere minutes. It’s been both frightening and incredibly rewarding because it has “forced” me to consider myself as a coach and that there are many ways to go about coaching as long as you’re open to it. ReciproCoach-ing has given me the confidence to ask other people to allow me to coach them “pro-bono” while I set up my business and continue to build my confidence. And Kerryn has been a great help as well, as has been my coach.
Thanks!
A lot of people join ReciproCoach and then take a few months to build up their courage to coach another coach. I even know several quite experienced coaches who balk at the idea of coaching another coach. When they finally did it, they loved it. We all do – coaches can be the most wonderful clients, although they can be very challenging
My own first ReciproCoach experience was very challenging… my client came from a VERY different coaching perspective and I was relatively new to coaching, so wasn’t very good at operating outside the box I was trained in. Fortunately, my client was very open with her feedback and saying what she needed from me as a coach and I was able to modify my coaching style to suit her needs. This client taught me a lot.
Similarly, at the same time the first session with my coach blew me away. She also came from VERY different coaching perspective and, because I discovered it was the same as that of my client, I was able to learn from my coach. Not only did she coach me towards some huge changes in my life, she also acted as a coaching model for me. She modeled for me a style of coaching that I was not familiar with and thanks to her modeling, I learnt how to facilitate something similar myself.
ReciproCoach can be wonderfully challenging… I say wonderfully, because the things that are most challenging also tend to be the most rewarding.
Kerryn Griffiths
ReciproCoach >>> Where coaches go for coaching
What a wonderful idea! This is a fantastic opportunity to connect with other coaches, from different backgrounds, perspectives and schools, and to practise our coaching skills whilst being coached ourselves.
I applaud the whole concept. Where do I sign up??
Terrific Gaye
I can hear your applause!
Sign up for free at http://www.ReciproCoach.com
“See” you soon!
Kerryn Griffiths
ReciproCoach >>> Where coaches go for coaching
Dear Kerryn and fellow coaches,
What a fantastic service ReciproCoach offers for coaches. Thank you Kerryn for launching this. Based on what I have read in the comments below, I will take the plunge, sign up to enter a round, and get ready to be truly challenged.(its also nice to know that I’m not the only one a bit nervous about this
)
I had a couple of questions that perhaps you can answer:
- I can see there are 8 session rounds that you can join for all levels of coaches or there are some focused on your number of hours you have coached. What are the upsides of joining the all level rounds? What are the downsides?
- I see that mentoring is also offered. I am curious to learn more about this and what have been people’s experiences. Also can this mentoring count for mentoring hours for the ICF certifications?
Many thanks for your inputs,
Ashley
Hi Ashley,
Welcome to the ReciproCoach community
Yes, it’s totally normal to be a little nervous about coaching another coach. I remember when one of the ReciproCoaches, who’s probably an MCC by now, ask me to coach her I stopped in my tracks
I did coach her and loved it and her and she was also pretty happy.
In answer to your questions:
- In the New Year I’ll set up a range of rounds that cater to particular experience levels or expertise area. In the mean time, the general rounds are great for getting a bit more of the surprise factor. In my experience, the number of coaching hours a coach has accrued, doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re a better coach. One of my early ReciproCoaches had just started coaching and I still remember her as probably having the the best listening skills of all my coaches to date. Regarding the downsides, general rounds are open to everyone everywhere… if you’re not up for calling or skyping with a coach in another country (I personally love this, as many other ReciproCoaches do) then that can be a downside. I usually try to match people according to their preferences – the general rounds are usually fairly big so I have more choice and can fulfil preferences more easily than I can in a smaller round…
The mentoring was designed based on the mentoring an ICF mentor gave to me as part of a coaching round once. In this way, I believe that, as long as the mentor you get is certified accordingly, then it does count for mentoring hours. I have to admit, I haven’t recently checked what the conditions are for ICF mentoring, but the mentoring itself (i.e. being observed actually coaching a client and getting feedback on your actual coaching) is in accordance. In any case, the coaches I have spoken to who have used the mentoring part of our service have found that it has either done the job, or that it has given them necessary practice before the exam.
Feel free to post anymore questions here,
Kerryn Griffiths
ReciproCoach >>> Where coaches go for coaching
Hi,
I’m wondering if there are any coaches in Melbourne who would be interested in meeting up. It can be quite lonely working on your own and it would be great to talk about our challenges and erwards as new or seasoned coaches.
Let me know if you would be interested.
Cheers,
jo
Hi Jo,
There are a few ReciproCoaches in Melbourne. Run a search for them in the ReciproCoach community and email them directly. My other suggestion is to join the ICF chapter in Melbourne – they’re quite a large chapter and very active.
All the best,
Kerryn Griffiths
ReciproCoach >>> Where coaches go for coaching
http://www.ReciproCoach.com
What a very cool idea! It’s really quite brilliant! Without knowing you were doing this, yesterday, I offered to provide group coaching to people who help me build my community on Facebook. http://www.Facebook.com/SmartHabitsFans. Anyhow, I’m looking forward to getting coached by someone from ReciproCoach and to coaching someone else from this community.
This is quite a novel idea. I will go and check ReciproCoach now. And thank you ReciproCoach for my 1 free gift coin. I’m very appreciative.
Thank you for this wonderfull setting.
It helps me to comment and write my ideas, get a gift, and to be part of exchange of coach and ideas.
Win – win and only win.
Bless you
Sunny
For many coaches in the beginning years of building their business, the cost of coaching on top of the cost of training negates much of a profit. Reciprocoach seems like a wonderful idea, I am eager to try it out!
What a fantastic idea! And as I am coming close to completing BEING a coach at Kerryn’s Reciprocoach I can tell you that I am grateful to have the opportunity. Now I’m right at the beginning of GETTING coaching and it’s been terrific.
Truly a gift to be grateful for.
Patricia Weber
Business Coach for Introverts and Shy
That’s a really good point Moira. ReciproCoach can definitely help to keep you out of the red in business. A lot of coaches who are doing well in business also keep ReciproCoaching because it adds a dimension to their coaching and personal development that keeps things playful and alive.
Pat had a special ReciproCoach experience. Once in awhile a coach contacts me personally with a special request. Pat was good enough to step in and fill that request ahead of receiving coaching herself (normally you give and receive coaching at the same time). Thanks Pat for helping out a fellow ReciproCoach – may the rewards you gain from your own coach serve you well!
Kerryn Griffiths
Global ReciproCoach Coordinator
Thank you for this opportunity. This is a powerful way to create community and an opportunity to contribute. I look forward to experiencing the variety of styles that the coaches embody. I love this work!
After Katrina, I learned the lesson of reciprocity. In my search for lost former clients I became the “learner” and they became the “teacher” in helping me reorganize my life and rediscover self. Reciprocity can clothe the naked, I learned, when the destructive Louisiana winds and waters had subsided. Coaching, itself, is reciprocal, by nature, but my experience has helped me narrow my niche. In my five year search for self, following crises, I had to learn to move from “me” to “I” once again. It has been a path strewn with hurdles. Perhaps the move to “we”, as a community, is the missing link in my adventure. I look forward to sharing and learning. Coach Clemens