van·guard

/ˈvanˌɡärd/

noun: vanguard; plural noun: vanguards

1. a group of people leading the way in new developments or ideas.

2. a position at the forefront of new developments or ideas.

A group of leaders was recently celebrating one of the coaches on our team. She joined us almost five years ago and they were all remarking on the progress they had seen in her over the last few years. They said too many nice things to rewrite in this short blog, but one of them said something really funny when they marked her process.

They said, “You used to be the change-the-thermostat girl.” Meaning, she wasn’t confident or experienced enough to coach in our leadership circles when she first joined us and was relegated to more administrative tasks. And that is what she signed up for and what we needed from that role.

But she wasn’t in that role for long. We talked to her about a 2-3 year journey to becoming a coach and she was incredibly patient and operated with a lot of humility. But she was operating in that capacity well before the appointed timeframe. Her natural gifts were undeniable. Her confidence continued to grow, we helped her get high-caliber coach training, and she got lots of live ammo training in coaching situations she maybe didn’t feel like she was ready for (even though we knew she was).

My favorite word for her from this exercise was “vanguard”. She didn’t just catch up to us, but in many capacities, moved far beyond. She is at the forefront of new ideas and developments.

When she joined us, we conducted Next Generation Leader groups. Next level leader roundtables supporting the owners, partners, and C-class level folks at our executive boards. Under her leadership we now have:

A Next Generation Leader group happening inside of a company
A simplified version of that content offered through a lunch-n-learn type format inside of a company.
Working with our partners internationally to create similar offerings abroad.

We felt really progressive when we translated our one-on-one Lifeplan experience to a group one, but she has been at the forefront of expanding the impact of that as well. Under her leadership:

We have done virtual LifePlan retreats for corporate clients.
We have done virtual LifePlan retreats for other groups virtually, both domestically and abroad.
She created a serial version of the LifePlan that allowed her to coach high school kids, collegians, couples, and even families.
We are beginning the formative conversations about scripting delivery through our LMS (learning management system) for LifePlans in a self-guided experience.
We have trained the first of many other facilitators to help offer the LifePlan retreat beyond our team.

We used to rely on experience, knowledge and authority to get through our individual coaching meetings. But once she went to professional coach training and we learned the brilliance of the appreciative inquiry she was coaching with, we had her train all of us. She is now the vanguard of that as well.

From managing the temperature in our meetings to the leading edge of marking new frontiers in our business, it has been an incredible journey. I can’t wait to watch where she takes things over the next five years.

Consider

Are you searching for new ideas and finding new frontiers?
Have you permission’d and invested in the ones on your team capable of taking you there?
Are you falling behind, or worse, missing out on amazing possibilities?