- by Jonathan Sibleyjs@jonathansibley.net

This year’s Executive Coaching Summit will take place Nov 30 – Dec 1 in Orlando, Florida, just prior to the ICF conference.

For 10 years, as many ICCO executive coaches know from personal experience, the ECS has served as a think-tank where executive coaches can get together to meet and share experiences with other, senior executive coaches. While ICCO has embraced communication among multiple executive coaching stakeholders, the ECS has focused purely on executive coaches. Over the years, summits have used various formats, from Open Space Technology to more structured presentations and workshops.

This year, the Summit will include an experiential workshop using Bob Kegan and Lisa Lahey’s Overcoming Immunity to Change methodology. This work grew out of “How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work” and is particularly effective with what Heifetz has called “Adaptive Challenges” – challenges which do not respond to typical efforts to solve them. Not only is the methodology effective, but it also represents a useful business model for moving from individual to team level work within an organization.

In addition to the experiential workshop, we expect to have a session dedicated to executive burnout, time allotted for a discussion of the future of the ECS, and several blocks for discussions that will be decided upon by participants once we are all together.

The world has evolved, including the world of executive coaching. We realize that the ECS needs a compelling mission and to provide enough value for participants to budget the time and funds required to attend.

If the ECS is to continue, this year’s discussion about our future is likely to be key and we would love to make sure that the right people are in the room for this discussion.

Already this year, we have created a new way for members to interact, using a LinkedIn group which now includes 99 ECS attendees and continues to grow. We have also experimented with co-creating the agenda prior to arriving at the Summit. And, we have increased our outreach to potential attendees, while still maintaining strong criteria for acceptance to the Summit.

Information about this year’s Executive Coaching Summit is available at http://www.ecs2009.com

If you have any questions, please contact Jonathan Sibley at js@jonathansibley.net