Life is teeming with energy, possibility, and opportunity. Why not be a part of the action in a big way, fully show up, and make an impact on the world?
If you are stuck, feeling unmotivated, or not really living up to your potential, coaching can really help. Or maybe you are anticipating a big change but you are just not sure exactly how to enter into it.
CPCC: Certified Professional Co-Active Coaching
I’m trained in co-active coaching, which holds that you are naturally creative, resourceful and whole—completely capable of finding your own answers to life’s challenges. Instead of offering instruction or advice, my job is to ask powerful questions, listen, and empower you to kick your creative skills into high gear. It’s better that way.
Career Coaching: Highlands Ability Battery
I’m certified to administer the Highlands Ability Battery, an assessment that helps you get clear on your natural abilities. Once you understand what drives you, you can make better decisions about your career. I like this assessment because it’s so comprehensive, objective, and useful.
For individuals it helps with:
- Picking a career or major
- Finding the right job
- Crafting your job description
- Finding your fit on a team
- Leading your manager toward making the best use of your talents
- Discovering your leadership style
For teams it helps with:
- Hiring: finding the right team members
- Team design: selecting the best people for the team
- Communication: precise language for helping teams maximize productivity
- Challenge selection: picking the work that matches the team’s strengths
- Alignment: getting everyone on the same page toward a common purpose
Stand and Deliver
I see coaching as a partnership where we collaborate on your agenda to achieve your goals. This includes:
- Discovering fresh perspectives
- Learning new skills and habits
- Taking on challenging risks
- Being accountable for action
- Celebrating your success
Coaching Offers
- support
- challenge
- accountability
- safe space for experimentation
Coaching Benefits
- discover and maximize your strengths
- find your unique leadership signature
- tap into your passion and vision
- sustain innovation
- turn play into progress
- honor your intuition
- master the creative process
- grow bigger faster
Unstuckify Yourself
Creativity coaching is about getting unstuck, tapping into your passion, and taking the leap into the next big thing.
Coaching is a Journey
“The word coach comes from an old British word meaning ‘horse-drawn carriage.’ You an think of the coaching process as a journey, one in which you are caught up in the process as you move toward a specific, targeted destination. The coach’s goal is to help you find direction and enjoy the ride.”
—Jane Crewsell in Christ-Centered Coaching
Coaching with Ken Kinard
People say I’m different from other coaches because of my intense curiosity, my passion for excellence, my creativity, and a strange blend of action and contemplation. I’m still trying to figure out what that means.
Creativity Coaching
In creativity coaching we focus on your creative work: making something. And because what you make is an expression of who you are, creativity coaching can touch on all aspects of your life. Just as being and doing are integrated in creative work, so they are in creativity coaching.
Creative Process
1. Explorer
The first role in the creative process is all about getting out—getting out of ruts, out of old habits, out of your own way. Instead we imagine the possibilities, try on new perspectives, and capturing ideas wherever they emerge. These observations and artifacts become the raw materials of the creative process.
Clients master:
- Chaos and mess
- Following a trail
- Creating from place
- Capture machines
Clients tell me that mastering this role frees them up to expand their creative range.
2. Artist
The artist role is the one most often associated with creativity. Some people think they aren’t creative because they don’t fit the artist stereotype, but this common misconception minimizes the other roles. The artist is the maker—the one who selects among options and creates a draft that’s good enough to be judged.
Clients master:
- Habits
- Using the body’s intelligence
- Optimizing time and energy
- Getting unstuck
- Moving into flow
Clients tell me that their work gets more focussed and efficient when their inner artist grows.
3. Judge
The judge makes decisions about the quality of the work and the place where it can best be used. The judge is highly skilled at giving feedback to the artist and sending approved work on to the warrior for publication.
Clients master:
- Building your own aesthetic
- Giving and receiving feedback
- Tailoring feedback to the stage of a project
- Redirection
Clients notice that the quality of their published work gets better when they master the judge role.
4. Warrior
The warrior fights for the work. The warrior’s sword attacks the status quo while the shield answers objections. The warrior also gathers intelligence from others (like critics & customers), bringing valuable feedback to the team for refinement and future projects.
Clients master:
- Strategic thinking
- Offense: taking the hill (advocating)
- Defense: standing tall (answering questions & objections)
- Listening
Clients naturally get more attention and find more customers when their warrior gets fired up. Get ready for impact!
Business Strategy + Creative Process = Innovation
Business leaders strive for innovation. In previous generations innovation meant refining business processes—analysis, systems, logic. But this short-sighted view only uses half of the brain (no wonder people feel alienated at work). A smarter approach is to fire up both sides of the brain, leveraging the creative process to produce more innovation with less effort.
Philosophy
We are all born with creative potential (see imago dei), but not everyone develops it well. In fact, some of us haven’t used our creative muscles since grammar school. How and what you create is a big part of who you are. When you create, you bring your unique voice into the world and make a big impact. Creativity coaching helps tune that voice and make sure people can hear it way out in the bleachers.
1Wow
Creating is making something that didn’t exist before. It’s trilling. And it’s part of who we are. We were created to be co-creators.
Call it creative living.
2Flow
When creating we can lose all sense of time, ideas stream in from “nowhere,” and a newness is born.
Call it being in the zone.
3Stop
Preventing such powerful good from getting released into the world are fear, laziness, and perfectionism.
Call them saboteur voices.
4Learn
If you don’t understand how gremlins work and what to do about them, you may never have the impact you were created to have.
Call it a wasted life.
5Grow
You don’t have to let them stop you. Notice them. Thank them for their feedback. Store it in case you need it later. And get back to creative work.
Call it courage.
6Love
Creativity inspires, gives new insight, challenges old perspectives, and breathes life. It’s an act of service.
Call it love.
7Now
So what would you like to make? What impact would you like to have? The more it matters to you, the more you need a creativity coach.
Call one now.
Creativity Coaching for Teams: Creativity Labs
If you’d like your entire team to benefit from coaching on the creative process, see Creativity Labs.
