From the International Coaching Federation’s (ICF) website www.coachfederation.org:

“Professional coaching is an interactive process that helps individuals and organizations improve their performances and achieve extraordinary results. Professional coaches work with clients in all areas including business, career, finances, health and relationships. As a result of professional coaching, clients set better goals, take more action, make better decisions, and more fully use their natural strengths.”

A fuller description of coaching can be found in the three-page document from ICF: Coaching’s Core Competencies.

Q: How will coaching skills help me become a more successful organizer?

A: There are many valuable skills and strengths that tend to be characteristic of a professional organizer: a helpful nature, clarity about physical and time reality, experience in seeing options and evaluating choices, an ability to provide opinions on the best course of action, problem solving know-how, physical energy and follow-through. With organizer training and experience, organizers also develop wisdom about organizing challenges and about people.

Ironically, there are times when offering these skills and strengths can be counter-productive for the client even though the client is asking us for our expertise. Organizing as it is often practiced now is apt to include these elements:

Rescuing the client

Reinforcing the client’s sense of impairment or disability in organizing matters

Carrying (or taking over) the client’s motivation

Showing up as “The Expert” and inadvertently taking from the client the opportunity to learn to develop an expertise about their own needs, their own best choices, and their own best actions.

What coaching offers are the skills to create the space and confidence in the client to become a fully active collaborator. You will be able to engage your clients fully in developing decision-making skills and in designing, using and evaluating sustainable organizing solutions, systems and strategies – including maintenance strategies.

Organizers who are also trained coaches have learned that it is more effective to become “bi-lingual” in their skills. They do this by offering organizing stamina, assistance and expertise while creating an environment where the client can identify how their own strengths, values, and needs impact the functioning of their day-to-day lives, the use and storage of their information and belongings and the longer term creation of a life that suits them fully.

Q: If there is such a big difference between the two roles (organizer and coach), then how do you combine them? Is that what you offer in your training?

A: The two roles (organizer and coach) are extremely compatible but can be quite different in their underlying assumptions. A brief and possibly simplistic explanation is that an organizer comes to the client offering their problem-solving expertise, while a coach offers the client a process to discover their own answers and strengths. Nonetheless these are two powerful and not contradictory skill sets to combine in the service of a client. Moving between them and choosing which to work from in a given moment or situation does take training and practice. Learning coaching skills and coaching philosophy and how to integrate coaching into organizing work is the terrain of the training we offer.

Q: Can Organizer Coaching be done as virtual organizing over the phone and internet?

A: Yes, it can, absolutely. Most coaching is done by phone with email support. Although the training quite thoroughly addresses the use of coaching skills within an organizing session, “stand-alone coaching” (coaching which is independent of any organizing session) is also covered in our training.

Training Content & Commitment

Q: How does a skills building call work?

A: A skills building call consists of a group of three students. Most skills building call assignments ask for each student to take on the role of Coach, Client, and Observer, so that everyone has the opportunity to experience being a client getting coached, and coaching a client. The observer keeps track of time and provides feedback on skills used by the coach. Observer Reports are filled out by all group members at the end of each call.

Technically, the call is conducted through a conference call service (there are several free ones available). Each student makes a long distance call into a specific number, and one student is responsible for recording the call (a feature available through the service). After the call, it is possible to listen to the recorded call and/or download it as an audio file.

Q: How many classes can I miss and still get a course completion certificate?

A: It’s our expectation that students will attend all classes unless they have an emergency or other unavoidable conflict. Organizers are encouraged to sign up for the training when they have time in their lives to devote to it. Class participation is valuable and integral to the training.

Q: What’s the time commitment for each course?

A: Each course includes at least 90 minutes of training and 90 minutes of small group (skills building) telephone work each week. In addition there are other tasks: a brief observer report to fill out and send in after each small group meeting, short reading assignments and resource reviews, and occasional required responses to questions posted in the learning forum on the on-line training site. Practicing coaching with clients, friends and/or family members is critical to growing strong coaching skills. Many students find that listening to the class or small group recordings for a second time is useful.

Q: Can I speak with someone who has completed the training?

A: Yes, several of our students have offered to be available for these kinds of inquiries. You can find a link to their email addresses on the Testimonial page and make arrangements to speak to them.

Q: Can I see the training material before enrolling?

A: No. The content of each course is described on the Courses page. If you want to know more please email or call with your questions.

Applying for the Training

Q: How much organizing experience do I need to apply for the training?

A: We are looking for students who have a “comfort and competence” with organizing techniques and with basic organizer-client dynamics. We think that takes about two years, but are aware that some organizers gain very little confidence or actual client experience in the early years of their businesses, and others organizers come to this work with very relevant work (or life) experiences or specific organizing training which might take them to a place of comfort and competence much earlier.

A student who has completed the Coach Approach for Organizers™ training and is applying for certification will also need to document what makes her an experienced organizer.

Q: Do I have to be a member of NAPO, POC or NSGCD to apply?

A: No. NAPO, POC and NSGCD memberships are not necessary. Members of these organizations who take advantage of training and conference opportunities will gain important learning which an isolated organizer would not. If you have questions about your readiness for this work, contact Denslow to talk it over.

Training Costs

Q: What payment plan options do you offer?

A. See Training Payment Options page.

Q: Is the practicum fee in addition to the coursework? I saw the breakdown but am a little confused.

A: The practicum fee is not a graduation fee. It's the cost of the post-graduate Organizer Coach Practicum course which goes beyond the four Foundation Courses. The Foundation Courses deal primarily with coaching skills and our coaching models, and personal and professional awareness -- the focus is on your ability to work with clients.

The Organizer Coach Practicum course is designed for students who want to be credentialed as a Certified Organizer Coach™. Its focus is on developing a personal coaching identity and stepping into one’s new role as an organizer-coach.

Q: Do you offer scholarships or tuition assistance?

A: We don’t. I hope we will be able to at some point. We have occasionally made successful barter arrangements with students for tuition when our needs match a prospective student’s skills.

Graduates of the Nine-week Coach Approach for Organizers™ Course (2005-2007)

Q: I took the 9-week Coach Approach for Organizers™ training on Coaching, ADD Organizing and ADD Coaching in 2007 before the expanded training format was developed. Is the cost the same for me? Is the same material covered in the new courses?

A: Some elements of the training you received are repeated in the expanded Coach Approach for Organizers™ Foundation Courses curriculum. Nonetheless, any organizer interested in Certified Organizer Coach™ credentialing is required to take the full training because so much of it is different, new or evolved. To date, a third of the 42 students of the original training have elected to continue.

The training fees are reduced for those who have taken the original training. Nine-week graduates have been sent information on these accommodations and how to register at those prices. Please be in touch if you would like to be sent the most recent information.

Training Completion & Continuing Educations Credits

Q: May I call myself a coach after taking the Coaching Skills I class?

A: Each professional makes their own decisions about this in accordance with their understanding of the Codes of Ethics for the fields in which they work. Organizing and coaching industry ethical standards require that you represent your training and competence honestly. I offer the following suggestions, standing as I do with a foot in each world.

As soon as a person begins any coaching training I am familiar with, they are encouraged to tell people they have entered coaching training and/or are a student coach or a new coach. Stepping right into this new work and letting people know you are developing these skills is as important to your emerging identity as a coach as it is to your business – to start to get the word out.

After taking the Coaching Skills I course it's appropriate to claim any of the following:

That you have coaching skills training, and/or that you have successfully completed a basic, two-month coaching skills training course

That you use coaching skills in your organizing work

That you provide coaching support to your clients to complement the organizing process in these ways: to gain clarity, set goals, develop habits and accountability, etc.

That you are a new coach or are a beginning coach

Once you are using coaching skills in your organizing work with success and comfort, you could refer to yourself as an organizer coach, a coaching organizer or coach-organizer. I would not personally recommend referring to oneself as a coach on the basis of the Coaching Skills I seven-week training alone.

Q: May I call myself a coach after graduating from the full training?

A: After successfully completing the four Coach Approach for Organizers™ Foundation Courses, I think it would be appropriate to claim any of the following:

That you have graduated from a comprehensive seven-month coaching skills training course

That you have been trained in the fundamentals of both Life and ADD Coaching Skills

That you have graduated from an organizer coach training program

That you are a coach or an organizer coach (or either of those with a specialty in ADD)

Once an organizer completes the Coach Approach for Organizers™ Advanced Training (the Organizer Coach Practicum) and successfully meets the requirements for certification, then s/he can use the Certified Organizer Coach™ designation. If s/he chooses to meet additional certification requirements she may add to that credential, with an ADD specialty. And again, referring to herself as a coach at this stage would certainly be appropriate.

Q: How many of the Coach Approach for Organizers™ training hours count toward my NSGCD or BCPO recertification requirements?

A: In our experience with both of these programs, all of the Coach Approach for Organizers™ training hours would count for either of them. However, the final word on this is the prerogative of those programs. They don’t yet have processes in place for pre-approval of training hours.

Q: How many of the training hours count for ICF (International Coach Federation) or ADD coach credentialing? Are the training hours pre-approved or accredited?

A: Each credentialing organization has the last word on how they interpret and count training hours. The Coach Approach for Organizers™ training is designed to be compatible with ICF certification, and all of our training hours will count toward an ICF credential and toward any ADD coach credentialing we know.

Two aspects of our training which we are proud of are that 1) our students are unanimously enthusiastic about its value and high quality and 2) we request full evaluation of each course from each student and listen to that feedback, strengthen it further. Once our training content has settled we will apply for pre-approval or accreditation of our training with ICF.

The requirements of our training program and of the Certified Organizer Coach™ credential (which this training leads one to) are very similar to those for ICF’s Associated Certified Coach (ACC) credential. The COC™ application is designed to be compatible with the ACC application and our training sets a person up nicely to receive an ACC credential through the standard portfolio application (with the accrual of additional client coaching hours). Likewise, our training is quite compatible with the requirements for ADHD coaching credentials.