How Can Coaching Support Inspirational Ventures? E.g. Transition Towns

The Transition Town movement is all about building the resilience of a community so that it can withstand - and respond positively and proactively - to the challenges of peak oil and climate change. It focuses on re-localisation, community engagement, collective action, and valuing each individual's contribution. It is about unlocking the collective genius of a community and it is also about alerting members of that community to their own significance, seeking out skills and ensuring people have the confidence to offer those skills for the benefit of their community.

There is a clear and natural connection between the aims of the Transition Town movement and the intentions of coaching.

I am a founding member of the Transition Cambridge group and am one of the Steering Group. We only formed a few months ago and are not yet an official initiative, yet already we have a significant number of local people involved. We have awareness-raising through regular film showings, usually incorporating a potluck dinner which has sparked exciting sociability within the community. We're weaving a tapestry of interconnectedness and interdependence.

There is a 'food group' emerging which has already been cultivating local allotment space & organised a tour of our local organic permaculture farm. We've met with the mayor and started forming links with the local council; we organised a local produce exchange with participants bringing local honey, eggs from their own hens, home-made chutney, and courgette plants from their allotments. We're aware of people cycling more and driving less. We've encouraged reusing/sharing within the group itself - car-pooling, exchanging clothes, magazines, materials, and cooking tips. Even coaching has been up for exchange - I'm now coaching a fellow Steering Group member in exchange for her joinery skills and her boyfriend's massage skills. The group seems resplendent with generosity with one of the group even offering me the loan of her wedding dress for my upcoming nuptials! We're learning lots - how our economic system works and what alternatives there might be, the principles of permaculture, how to implement renewable energy systems and how to use sewing machines.

It's refreshing to be one in a team of people looking at, as it's called in Transition-speak, the Psychology of Change. It's a multidisciplinary approach which in Cambridge, for example, has brought together a counsellor, a therapist, an NLP practitioner, a Deep Ecology facilitator, as well myself as a coach. It seems the Transition movement attracts these types.

So, how have the skills of Co-active coaching helped the group in practical terms?

* Accountability: knowing how necessary this is to group achievement and holding this.

* Bottom-Lining: Transition Cambridge has a particularly large Steering Group and to prevent this from becoming unwieldly, listening for - and urging towards - bottom-lining is imperative.

* Calling Forth: In our awareness-raising work, our job is to rouse, energise, inspire and catalyse members of our community into action. Being able to cut through excuses and doubts with a strong dose of calling forth can work wonders.

* Visioning: At our very first Steering Group session, we went around the group, adding an ingredient to our vision of a new Cambridge. This was then typed up and circulated to the group - a community-sized version of Future Self. This helps us focus on what we want to achieve, rather than fighting against the old status quo, which leads on to....

* Powerful Questions: A good stock of these can help hone the group's focus - "What do we want?" "How can we best achieve this?" "How do we want to deal with obstacles?"

* Next Actions: Being able to get specific about meaningful ways forward

And in terms of the principles of coactive coaching...

Fulfillment: Here's a new member.... What makes him tick? What turns her on? What's his vision for Cambridge? What Saboteurs stop her contributing all that she can? Through casual one-to-one conversations, I enjoy making these links and asking these questions - either directly or through the general course of getting to know them. We're creating a resonant, vibrant community to replace any dissonances in the old model.

Balance: In our awareness raising, how can we appeal to members of our community with different outlooks, from different walks of life? How do they view the world? Being able to view a topic from various perspectives helps with basics such as the wording of our promotional material. We can together unpack assumptions e.g. Economic growth is good... Globalisation is just the way the world is heading... - teasing apart these collapsed distinctions, where perspectives are imbedded so deeply as to be invisible. I intend to use the Perspectives Wheel as a basic tool at public events - with questions as fundamental as 'Life is...' 'Money is...' 'Community is...' The initiatives are all about moving from business as usual - from "that's just the way it is" - to a set-up whereby we choose our perspectives on life itself - how do we want to see the very purpose and fabric of life?

Process: We really need to be able to be with and hold despair. Fear, anger, sadness, joy - a myriad of emotions get brought up. Transitioning from one way of life to another can, understandably, be deeply emotional.

My advice to other coaches interested in getting involved in the Transition Town movement, is to expect there to be a group of you who can work together to further your group's agenda. Know the value of coaching and be open to learning from others. Don't assume you're the most well-equipped to take the lead; often there will be other very adept group facilitators or change agents within the group. At the same time, know your skill-set, know the value of the co-active coaching model, and offer generously. Let people realise you're a coach and get curious about it, rather than telling them. Be coach-y, do coach-y things.

Thanks to the self-awareness that I've developed as a coach and coaching client, I feel clear about my strengths and limitations. I can offer myself whole-heartedly for tasks which align with my values and skills (e.g. communications, running team-bonding games, energising and inspiring) and not for those which would drain me (e.g. funding bids!) This way, not only am I less likely to burn out, but there is space for others to fill with their unique talents. I see that systems principle in work - the group is self-organising and intrinsically naturally, creative and whole; the system can manage to get the necessary jobs done with ease and enjoyment.

Often people - especially those in professions such as counselling or therapy - can be suspicious of 'life coaches', but we can help turn assumptions and stereotypes around by living the co-active approach. There's also the bonus of learning new tools which connect with and supplement our repertoire. Thanks to the egalitarian, non-hierarchical structure of a Transition initiative, there is the potential for everyone to discover the kind of leader they are.

(c) Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2008