THE ART OF

     DEVELOPING OTHERS

?No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.   The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.   If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.?      

                                --Gibran, from The Prophet

What is The Art of Developing Others?

The Art of Developing Others is a deep conversation which shines the light on the background conversation (or meta conversation) of The Heart of Leadership and the other opening level programs offered by the Gale Consulting Group.  It is for people who are committed that contributing to others and being of service to others is a profound mode of developing themselves. It is for people who know that declaring one’s self as a contribution produces a shift away from self absorption, self concern, and self justification, to empowering others, creating deeper levels of connectedness, and joining in conversations that free others up in behalf of forwarding their lives.

The Art of Developing Others is an introduction into the next level out for making a profound difference in the lives of others. This is a program for people who have covered a certain amount of ground in the developmental distinctions offered by the introductory Gale Consulting Group programs. Through it, we intend to provoke a new opening, like an evolutionary possibility, in your ability to connect with others and open up space for others to tap into their own power, brilliance, and wisdom.

The Art of Developing Others is a natural and appropriate evolution from the basic distinctions of The Heart of Leadership, and other introductory programs designed by the Gale Consulting Group. The Art of Developing Others gives participants pathways for developing themselves in the art of giving others access to releasing their power and freedom to fulfill what they intend to accomplish; to release and enable their creativity. While it can take years of intensive training and practice to evolve yourself into being a masterful coach, or masterful at developing others, this program gives you the critical distinctions that will allow you a powerful beginning and to deepen the work you are already doing, enabling you to develop yourself in the area through practice, over time.

"Life is not a path of coincidence, happenstance, and luck, but rather an unexplainable, meticulously charted course for one to touch the lives of others and make a difference in the world."     --  Barbara Dillinham

Who is it for?

This program is for graduates of previous Gale Consulting Group work who:  

*Are committed to developing others well

*Are in development themselves; are committed to deepening and embodying the principles of the developmental work that they have already done, and in which they are currently engaged, and are intensively exploring new distinctions that allow for the empowerment of others

*Intend to support people working together and working well with others

*Intend to build, expand, and sustain capabilities engendered in their business lives by Gale Consulting Group work already completed

*Are ready to expand their own developmental maturity through enhancing their ability to contribute to and develop others

*Need the ability to develop the next generation of leaders

*Are interested in exploring the opportunity of building a coaching capability within their own organization or business

*Intend to create in their life and their work a reliable way to increase others’ power, ease, satisfaction in life and in work and enable others to create possibility in the apparent face of no possibility

*Have, as a dimension of their job, supporting others in achieving high performance breakthroughs

*Work with high performing people who are not good with others

*Want to enable others to design and deliver difficult conversations in behalf of forwarding the business, or making work work

Why this now?

It is time. For some of us, it is time to be a vital participant in the expansion and evolution of human consciousness, to take on expanding our ability to serve humanity, to be of Service.

Enhancing a leader’s ability to expand the power of others may be one of the most critical accomplishments of our time. Once the fundamental distinctions of communication, integrity, forgiveness, owning one’s unique signature, being a stand for one’s (created) Self, life, and others, authentic and generative (vs. reactive) listening, the ability to create, the ability to transcend one’s automaticity and create intentionality-- (to author one’s life)--once these “powers” start being lived (or created), ongoingly, at the level of “being” so that one starts to experience some reliability for being responsible for one’s experience irrespective of circumstances, the attraction to contribute to others, to open up space for others, begins to unfold naturally. The Art of Developing Others contributes distinctions to people that allow them to forward others’ performance and live in a way that fulfills and nurtures, calling forth people’s magnificence, generosity, and brilliance.

Coaching is often the operational foundation for generating development as a powerful context for both management and leadership--both as a foundation for creating an environment of honesty, authenticity, responsibility, and also as a basis for achieving breakthroughs in productivity and accomplishment. Thus, while various approaches to developing others will be highlighted, the art of coaching is emphasized as the central core of this particular cut in on developing others.

Good managers and good leaders are also often coaches; they do not merely give people information or advice to apply. Instead, they shift how and what a person sees; they alter a person’s view of the world. When this view shifts, their actions naturally and easily follow.

Thus, good coaching leaves people seeing new possibilities, new openings for action. It leaves people with a new sense of freedom, in a world in which they can be themselves. As the poet, Rumi, says, in a poem called “When Things Are Heard,”

“When hearing takes place, character areas change;
But when you see, inner areas change.”

And…

“When the ear receives subtly, it turns into an eye.
But if words do not reach the ear in the chest, nothing happens.”

This program leaves people with an opening into designing conversations in a way that words can reach the “ear in the chest,” so that people are empowered, moved, touched, “gotten to.” Though most would agree that management based in predicting and controlling the behavior of others is outdated in today’s world, and a paradigm shift to management that empowers others and creates collaboration is what is called for, traditional management training does not school people in this discipline. It does not train people to unleash the wisdom, commitment, and creativity of others. It does not open up the world of new possibilities and new seeing for others.

The Art of Developing Others offers an introduction into opening this world for others.

What are the intentions of this program?  

The intentions of this program are to give you, as a participant, a well-grounded beginning into the following four commitments: Given your commitment to develop yourself and ¡§live¡¨ the distinctions that are at the heart of the program,

1) You have a new opening in your ability to expand the power, effectiveness, performance, and fulfillment of others.

2) You have an opening, like a new possibility, in your ability to produce unprecedented results with others through compassion, love, intention, and the ability to draw distinctions (versus force, threat, domination, punishment, and advice).

3) You are released to your ability to develop yourself in being unrelenting, authentic, and unstoppable, without generating reaction, defensiveness, and opposition.

4) You have access to creating an environment in your life such that developing others naturally occurs where appropriate and people experience new possibilities and openings for action and are freed up out of their relationship with you.

What Are the Fundamental Inquiries and Distinctions of the Program?

The following are some of the inquires of The Art of Developing Others:

What is it to live a life of expanding our sense of Being of Service?

What are the kinds of conversations that allow development to occur?

Where and when does coaching take place?

What are the ways I can develop my own intuitive ability for unfolding new possibilities for creation from within the world of others?

What listening allows me to coach another powerfully? What listening limits me?

What are my own personal stops to developing others powerfully (i.e. nice guy¨, need to be liked, etc)?

What is the difference between learning based in understanding, and development as that which causes a new way of being?

What is my relationship to development?

What is the already¨ (i.e. existent) paradigm of development?

What is development? (What can you invent/create?)

What conversations enable and disenable a developmental relationship?

What is the importance of vulnerability, availability, and intimacy in a developmental relationship?

How do I hold others to account in such a way that they hold themselves to account?

What are the distinctions that forward people being at stake in a coaching relationship?

How do I take what’s invisible in the background and is contributing to the person’s unworkability and then disrupt it in a way that empowers rather than disempowers?

What do I stand for with respect to those whom I am coaching?

What is the value of declaring breakdowns in a coaching interaction?

When I recognize a barrier that hinders the performance of another, what is the work I can do to enable people to disappear those barriers?

Am I being responsible for the level of integrity that is required of me as a coach?

What are the derailers to good coaching to be on the watch for? What are the pathways for shifting gears when I find myself reactive in a coaching interaction?

What is the distinction between expectation and intention, obligation and commitment? (And why is this question important?)

What are pathways for dealing with my own disappointments and failures as a coach when my coaching is not accepted?

How do we create a project so that the accomplishment of coaching is clear? How do we measure progress/ breakdowns/victories?

What are various pathways for inventing measurements as a game so that the accomplishment of development is clear?

Do I have the humility to sustain myself as a good coach? What internal dialogue will alarm me such that I can exercise eternal vigilance about keeping the bulldogs of arrogance and complacency away from my door?

Is vulnerability critical in a developmental relationship?

Is there anything else I should know? Yes.

Being good-to-masterful in developing others is dangerous business.

It requires you to be authentically and powerfully in development yourself. Without that, you have an integrity issue, an authenticity issue. Because you are asking others to press beyond the boundaries of whom they consider themselves to be (their “small self”), you also need to require that of yourself. On one hand, living at that boundary where you are at the cliff’s edge, at risk, brings you into discourse with elemental forces that bring you vitality, life, even revelation.

On the other hand, being at that frontier requires, as David Whyte says, “constantly resuscitating yourself from the self enclosed tombs in which you put yourself.”

Also, coaching demands that we be present --without judgment—to whom we are coaching. It requires appreciation for who is in front of us: compassion, acceptance, yes, and love. And, again, to quote David Whyte,

“We could say that love is the name we give that depth of attention that allows the essence of someone else to speak back to us in their own voice in their own way. We let them become visible but in the same moment, because of the selfless nature of attentiveness, also reveal ourselves.”

That’s why I say turning yourself into someone who reliably and powerfully develops others is dangerous business: you have to be “on” for it: you have to be willing to be vulnerable.

At the same time, the opportunity to expand the vitality, aliveness, competence, power, self-acceptance, and performance of others, the power of opening territory for human beings to create their own voice, is the biggest privilege we have. It brings us all into an aliveness, a poetry, an awareness of the power and graciousness of others and ourselves that is astonishing.

It opens up the questions,

What is the Self that you are by serving others’ fulfillment, by causing others’ lives to be fulfilled and being a partner for that, being an environment for that?

What gets made available when you plumb the depths of what develops others and yourself?

Because development occurs in the room beyond what the person you are coaching originally gave you, carving out the space for coaching requires your creativity, your edge, and your originality. You can’t “float by” and be a great coach. You must carve out an opening for your speaking (and their listening) that wasn’t there when you started.

This makes the opportunity very exciting, very interesting, very at risk, and very enlivening. For those of you who already coach powerfully, you know

It is a game of no certainty and pure Life-Givingness!

It demands of us that we shake off our various mantles of imprisonment and let our hearts be moved by the astonishing beauty of the human spirit.

What are the details, logistically, about the program?  

The Art of Developing Others is being offered on January 25, 26 27, and February 17, 2006. The program takes place from 8AM to 5:30 PM with two evenings sessions as well, on Days One and Two. The evening sessions open up room for the participants to lead the conversation and to initiate inquiries that matter to them, while Amba becomes a participant rather than a facilitator.

The cost of the program is $1850.

To participate in this program, you must be a graduate of Gale Consulting Group work, have an interview with Amba Gale, and must be developing people (or have your intention on expanding your capacity to contribute to people or to at least one person, advance their evolution, or coach them) out of your engagement with this program.

How do I enroll?  

Please let me know by email or phone, (206) 842-2692, that you are interested in being in the program, and we will set up a conversation. The interview is an opportunity to acknowledge the developmental ground you have been covering since we were last together, to address any questions you may have, and to see whether or not this program is “an idea whose time has come”. If it is and you choose to be in it, you may complete your enrollment by submitting a deposit and registration form.

*While this program is being offered here as a public offering, we can design this program in collaboration with a client for in-house delivery in a way that works best for each client, once a client has participated in the work of The Gale Consulting Group.