Heather Tierney-Moore - Appreciative Leadership: Delivering Difference through Conversation and Inquiry: The story of a journey to embed values and change culture

Connecting you to your inner wisdom

First published 2002
by Kingsham Press

Oldbury Complex
Marsh Lane
Easthampnett Chichester, West Sussex
PO18 OJW
United Kingdom

2002 Gina Harris

Typeset in AGaramond

Printed and bound by
MPG Books
Bodmin
Cornwall
United Kingdom

ISBN: 9781-904235-05-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or later invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Harris, Gina

I would like to thank Anand Kumar of Kingsham Press for commissioning me to write this book. It has been an absorbing and instructive process.

Many thanks are also due to all the coaches who have contributed to this book with ideas, case studies and quotes. They include Aboodi Shaby, Bill Ford, Christian Worth, Christina Toft, Christine Baines, Dianna Keel, Dominique Charles, Elizabeth Rowlands, Ginny Baillie, Janice Morris, Jilly Shaul, Mark Forster, Mike Duckett, Rachel Spooncer, Resli Costabell, Sarah Litvinoff, Suzanne Looms and Teresa Marshall.

Several of the case studies included in this book have been adapted from those which originally appeared in the Dear Coach column of The Times Saturday Magazine. They were written by Sarah Litvinoff and Elizabeth Rowlands.

The Stories used throughout the text have been adapted from The Song of the Bird by the late Anthony de Mello. I wish I could have told him how much I have benefited from his wise and challenging writings.

Gina Harris is a highly-experienced developer of people. She has been a self-employed trainer and facilitator for ten years and was one of the first licensed trainers for Springboard, the international womens development programme. She is co-author, with Liza Edwards, of Springing Forward, an essential handbook for women who want to make the most of their lives.

Gina runs her own successful life coaching business Access Coaching and can be contacted via her website: or by phone on +44 (0) 1335 350540.

Sonya sat next to me on the long flight from the USA to Switzerland. I was on my way to attend the conference in Grindelwald. She was on her way home to celebrate her 85th birthday.

I asked her what she was most excited about. She said, Im celebrating that I dont care so much any more. I work as a volunteer at a hospital because I want to work, not because I need the money. Ive just graduated from a computer training class so my mind is still being challenged. I spend time with the people I enjoy and dont waste my energy on politics. Most importantly, after all these years, I am now comfortable with who I am, and I am connected to my inner wisdom.

I smiled. She asked what I did and I explained Life Coaching.

Her reply was, Ah, coaching is too harsh a word for what you do. You connect people to their inner wisdom before they are 85 years old.

From the Opening Address by DJ Mitsch,

President of the International Coaching Federation,

at the ICF European Coaching Conference, May 2001

Dedicated to all my clients my partners in the rewarding business of discovering a fuller and more satisfying life.

The chief impulse for writing this book was impatience. I was rapidly tiring of people exclaiming, Youre a life coach? What on earths that? Their ignorance is excusable. Life coaching is a fairly recent phenomenon in the UK, although it has been around considerably longer in the USA. Beside the need to explain exactly what it is, I also have the desire to spread the word about its value and effectiveness. Once I had discovered this better mousetrap, I knew I could not expect people to beat a path to my door I must wave the mousetrap aloft and shout about its glories. My impatience will turn to delight when the question I hear asked most often about life coaching is not What is it? but So whos your coach?

My own discovery of life coaching is an interesting example of what is now called synchronicity. After several years of involvement in the field of self-development, mainly as a licensed trainer for Springboard, the international womens development programme, I became aware of a gap in the support available to people who took such development seriously and who wanted to continue exploring their potential in a regular, focused and motivating way. I actually wrote down my idea of what I thought was needed I still have the scribbled notes. Unknown to me, what I had actually written was an accurate description of life coaching. Shortly afterwards, when giving a talk about Springboard, I met Chris Taylor who was to become a much valued mentor and friend. At one of our regular meetings, she gave me some information about Coach University and the light flashed on. So this was what Id been visualising! I signed up for coach training that very same day.

This book is just one persons experience and understanding of life coaching mine. There are other coaches more skilled, more knowledgeable and more qualified to do this than I am. When I revealed these doubts to my friends, they all sighed in exasperation and said, But they arent writing this book you are. If I use the term we to convey opinions other than just my own, I would like you to remember the quote from Simone Weil: Every sentence that begins with we is a lie.

My book will have done its job if it simply tells you enough about life coaching for you to want to know more. It will have succeeded if it encourages you to find yourself a coach and discover the life you really want to live. If it also inspires you to take on the coaching mindset in all your interactions with other human beings, that will be one more person transforming our world for the better.

You will find many quotations in this book. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, as my friends will tell you, I devour books for my learning and inspiration and I dont see the point of trying to put something in my own words when someone else has said it much better. Secondly, I want to show how widespread and how all-encompassing many of the ideas expressed here have become, from the business world to esoteric fields of spirituality, from well-respected gurus to hands-on practitioners. Thirdly, just a taste of a book Ive found instructive and inspiring may persuade you to read the original and find a new source of knowledge and revelation. And lastly, there is something delightfully compact and memorable about a good quotation. The book will be worthwhile if you find just one quote that is so meaningful to you that it changes your life.