SPRING 2023

08 Martie 2023

Dear friends

My birthday just passed, 74 years on the dashboard.  I’ll soon pass three-quarters of a Century.  Looking back with a sense of achievement.  And I Just published a partial autobiography covering my rather atypical childhood and my last 20 years since I’ve turned 50.  So far, the book exists only in French, available on AMAZON.  I wrote a part of it in Oman where the Arabic and culture is so close the my Egyptian past that it all came back to me.  Reminiscences.   I also feel it’s time for a reckoning, to decide what I want to do for the coming decade. 

It seems to be the right time to peer forward.   Health-wise,  my hip cartilage feels much better and my restless leg syndrome has disappeared.  I feel I have better balance, climb up and down stairs more easely.  Although I am not as mobile and agile as before, I’m out of immediate surgical danger.  Could it be that I’m out of my 70’s passage ?  It’s about time !  So I’m re-muscling my legs by going on more regular power-walks, doing balancing acts and then stretching.

My current professional questions concern retirement, sooner or later?  Some acquaintances tell me they can’t imagine me retiring any time soon, while others ask me when I’ll call it quits as if I should.   It’s almost the same type of leading comment or question as « When are you getting married ? » or « When are you going to have a baby ?»  There are a few personal dimensions that become much harder to explore when social pressure and lack of imagination conspire to muddle things up.  

To answer for myself, however, besides the Paris-Bucharest life we are accustomed to, I have experimented with many different lifestyles and destinations in the past.  Almost off the grid in Central France mountains (Morvan), in a seashore village on the Mediterranean, as a hippie in snowy Minnesota, in Egypt, and as an almost apatride gypsy-like professional road-warrior.   I could adopt any of these existences again, and I could just as well experiment with others. 

So all options are open.  With my wife Geanina, we’re actually waiting a little more to benefit from a better retirement income than the one reserved for self-employed French entrepreneurs.  Geanina’s legal retirement age is not too distant, but considering the new French laws (and strikes) we feel no real rush

It’s a fact that during the past three years since the COVID outbreak, I’ve heavily invested my time in writing.  This has really served to distill my thoughts and to feed the international realm of systemic coaching.  In French, I’ve published a whole eight-book collection.  Six are translated into English,  five into Spanish, four into Italian and four more are being prepared for Romanian.   

This authoring-focus has temporarily distracted me away from my clients and markets. The effort was essential to formalize my systemic coaching research and legacy.  I still have one more book in the works and another one or two planned, but will cool down for awhile.    The effect of this rather introspective diversion can indeed be felt in my business presence : this 2023 spring, the Metasysteme-Coaching classes have not been as full as they deserve.  I note that in the past, I  have had good years and not-so-good ones.   I remember the ’78, ’81, and 2008 downturns, the 2000, nine-eleven, and COVID crashes, etc.  So in this time of galloping inflation, I’m not jumping to hasty conclusions - This slowdown may or may not be short-lived, and I’m still very inspired by the learning I get from working with my corporate clients.

I am also quite solicited and willing to deliver grand-father-type volunteer activities.  I can mention numerous conferences, master-classes and other supporting activities for coaching associations and communities.  I also like to support Claude Arribas in Chile and Southern France, and Rares Manolescu in developing Metasysteme-Coaching Middle East.  I have great pleasure and derive a sense of fulfillment from these activities. They provide me with the opportunity to contribute or pay-back what the coaching profession has given me over the years.  Some conferences are also very creatively stimulating.   Much like when writing, this work rests on the same type of personal generosity that doesn’t pay much on the short term but really nourishes my professionalism in return. 

So considering this incertain personal and professional context, I now plan to focus my energy on consolidating my coaching and coach-trainer markets for a still a few more years.  I will also ensure longer-term perpectives for Metasysteme-Coaching’s systemic coach training programs.  This will be useful for those who plan to follow.

  • On this last item for example, I’m ensuring our older ACSTH program migrations towards a LEVEL II offer.  The new program now accompanies  participants all the way to PCC certification.  Its presentation can already be consulted on our English and French websites, as an introduction to our coach-training and supervision courses.
  • Furthermore, I am reviving my past ICF assessor skills to ensure our systemic-coaching students good client-recording evaluations for their ICF certification process.
  • In organizations, many long-time clients keep calling, and some new ones are emerging from professional fields I have never worked with before.  I’m excited to feel that I will soon learn all about totally new frames of references.
  • The LEVEL II coach-training calendar to accompany professional coaches towards ACC (100 client Hours) and PCC (500 hours) are posted on the Metasysteme Coaching websites, and there is a short summary further below.

OMAN sunrise, but we've also more often in Paris these days…


 

Soon

Today an integral part of our ICF LEVEL II program, the three-day Supervision Marathon is tailored to professionally boost all systemic coaching ICF core competencies and prepares candidates to present for ACC, PCC and MCC certification.  21 hours CCEU (ICF).  The next one is programmed to take place on location in Bucharest June 7-8-9, 2023.

Fall season, 2023

With ils unchanged, very practical learning architecture, now toitally
integrated in our LEVEL II program, the next Systemic Coaching Fundamentals starts September 20-21 in Bucharest.  It is delivered partly online
afterwards.  Since 2007, this course has deeply impacted the European
systemic coaching market, both coaches and clients, and more
specifically those of Romania and France.   Over 1000 participants from
all over Europe have attended the course to transform their lives,
whatever their professions, and that includes many coaches.  Many of the
latter are today very performing international PCCs and validated or
potential MCCs.  Know that this course can either serve to launch your
coach career or to complete an introduction to coaching undertaken in
other schools.

Reengineered to complete our LEVEL II program, delivered entirely online for international coaches, the new METACOACH  is a 9-day course, plus intensive practice.  It prepares participants
to become performing systemic team and organizational coaches.  It is
both very powerful and polyvalent :  This course not only serves our
LEVEL II program. It can also complete coach education training
undertaken in other schools, as well as prepare participants to pass
ACTC or team-coach certification.

If you have questions
concerning the above training courses, how they are articulated into a
LEVEL II program, or how they can serve your certification process, boost
your career, better serve your personnel or clients, do not hesitate
to call me.  And if you have already attended these courses, do not
hesitate to inform those around you who can really benefit from them. 
You can also send me a signed or unsigned testimonial  that I can add to the list on my website.

We’re coming to Bucharest for Easter.  As tradition has it, do not hesitate to drop in at Gambrinus in one of our afterwork get togethers.  We can take the time to update, share and reinvent the world. Or give a call.  Or send me a message.   And thank you again if you are among the many who have supported us during the past years by sharing the benefits of our work. Its a small world and many of my friends’ friends can also become our community friends. 

Amicalement.          Alain