Coaching Chronicles: Magic Moments and Major Takeaways from ICF CONVERGE23
You know you are in the right place when you feel welcomed when you learn, and you can contribute, and when you see in other coaches the same enthusiasm. I have to help people grow and see their BEING in action.
Every time, I read my Purpose aloud: “To inspire people so that they reach higher levels of BEING.” I know it is connected to coaching, so I am a speaker, author, facilitator, and a passionate coach who cares about leaving people better than I met then.
This August, I had the chance to attend ICF’s global conference (the International Coaching Federation), the largest trade association dedicated to coaches. It is definitely your tribe if you are either an external or an internal coach in any organization.
ICF organizes its global conference every two years. It gathered over 1,000 coaches from 60 countries worldwide in Orlando this year. Magdalena Nowicka, ICF’s CEO, and South Africa’s ICF Global President of the Board, Dumisani Magadlela, greeted us with a magical solid message very dear to my heart: #Ubuntu. (I am because We are). You know you are in the right place when you see that happening.
ICF CONVERGE23 Opening by Magdalena Nowicka, ICF’s CEO, and South Africa’s ICF Global President of the Board, Dumisani Magadlela
Let me share the trends and learnings I identified during those two excellent days. It all started with a top-notch keynote, Diana Kander, a former refugee girl who became an incredibly curious innovator. She drove us through the story of Snoop Dog, an artist who became a top innovator and purposeful entrepreneur. She shared her innovator toolbox skills we can ALL build:
🚀 Thinking outside the box
🚀 Strategic Thinking
🚀 Learning Agility
🚀 Visionary Thinking.
Source: WEF (World Economic Forum) - Top 15 Skills of 2025
💡My main takeaways:
✅ Stop thinking like an expert. Start thinking like an innovator. We tend to feed our ego, thinking we are experts in something. Her invitation is instead the opposite.
✅ Constantly reframe the problem to solve. When we can flip our thinking, we can solve problems differently.
✅ Innovation is saying NO to 100 new ideas. Raise the bar for what you say YES to! Move to a scale of 1 to 10. You might have 100 good ideas, but not all are great. Getting rid of those 100 good ideas will create space for great ideas.
✅ Remove the zombies that steel your efforts required to produce enough value in return.
✅ Reimagine what is possible. What does your 2.0 version look like? She suggested we get a piece of paper and write down your new 2.0 version of yourself, your projects, or your role regularly.
Across most conference sessions, two significant trends stood out: how to incorporate AI into the coaching practice and embracing DEI to tap into new customers or markets and unseen or unheard populations. Another trend in the coaching industry is the use of Enneagram. The corporate world has always ignored this ancient personal development tool. It’s now been used more and more by coaches, mentors, and facilitators to help people develop emotional skills and EQ. An enneagram assessment tool company from South Africa, Integrative 9, offered comprehensive tools for coaches and facilitators.
Source: James Robilotta, Credibility vs. Relatability
James Robilotta invited us to think about authenticity. He stressed the importance of building relatability vs. credibility among your customers. How can you, as a coach and your clients, move away from titles, who you know, education, or results and relate to experiences, stories, feelings, knowledge, or emotions you and others felt.
A good coach always asks challenging or thought-provoking questions:
What is one lie you tell yourself daily? The power of authenticity, especially if you are a coach who wants to impact people’s lives.
What version of yourself do you allow others to see?
James left us with a strong message: we can’t learn from people who are perfect. We can only learn from people who are imperfect.
Source: William Arruda- Personal Brading expert
William Arruda, a personal branding expert, encouraged us to develop our NPS (Net Promoter Score) with each customer. He also focused on the three Cs: Clarity, Consistency, and Constancy in the purge view of your clients.
How clear and consistent is your message with every coachee?
Carrie Addington, ATD Master trainer, and facilitation expert, drove us through ATD’s facilitation capabilities to apply in a coaching setting. She matched the ATD capability model to ICF coaching competencies and how they can complement each other. When facilitating learning, it’s crucial to generate a positive learning environment. Trust and psychological safety must be established in a coaching process to have a successful coaching relationship. They are both focused on the learner or the coachee, ensuring learning sticks or behavioral transformation occurs.
Source: How ICF Competencies & ATD Capability model complement each other by Carrie Addington
When facilitating or coaching, it’s great to be overprepared so you have the confidence and tools to break the rules and change the questions.
Source: How to work with Neurodivergent people? by Morwena Stewart, ICF Converge23
Morwena Stewart, a neurodivergent British coach, engaged us in thinking beyond our regular customers and prepared us for neurodivergent customers. According to her data, there are 20% of neurodiverse people diagnosed just in the UK, and there is another percentage who are not. So, Imagine the overall population of people who are neurodivergent, and most probably, our own biases are not even noticing them.
Her best tips to approach these customers:
✅Have positive responses.
✅Smile.
✅Be direct to neurodivergent people.
✅Don’t do pity head; be patient and avoid judgment.
✅Do minor adjustments that are low or no cost for you or your organization.
She encouraged us to educate ourselves more, work with neurodiversity experts, and increase our empathy levels to identify neurodivergent customers around us.
There were many hands-on sessions where you could practice coach-coachee role plays while mentor coaches would give you direct feedback. This conference perfectly combines keynotes, education sessions, practical sessions, and a small expo to identify assessment and tool providers.
Coaching practice is also evolving, incorporating AI as an additional tool to support individuals and teams. DEI also influences how we approach new customers in the coaching space, helping us expand our empathy to untapped populations.
New coaching platforms and learning tools will simplify and support the coaching process. However, I don’t think it will replace the human touch and connection of coaching. The possibility of applying critical thinking skills and mastering our creativity to formulate challenging questions that provoke our thinking immediately is still far from any AI tool to replace human interaction or generate creative solutions.
ICF is the perfect space to learn new tools or coaching techniques, expand your global network, share best practices, and get inspired. If you coach within your organization or are an external coach, I recommend attending this conference every two years.
I believe there are no coincidental encounters, but rather God’s intends. During my registration, I met another Spaniard shining light and empowering kids across the US. She sparked my inner light. Thank you, Chrissy Rosenblatt.
Patricia Hinton is a wise MCC coach with wisdom for becoming a better coach. Emiliya Zhivotovskaya, with her positive psychology center, is also bringing people to the path of Purpose. Her marketing tchotchke, dark chocolate wrapped in prescription refill bottles, was a massive highlight of the conference.
Thank you all for making my first ICF conference memorable, teaching me, inspiring me, sharing beautiful moments or even powerful wisdom pearls, and brightening my journey to continue coaching with more impact.
Let me close with a couple of questions for YOU:
Have you ever thought you may have many neurodivergent people in your workforce? What can you do differently next time you coach one of them?
What would you do if the ask you to solve a problem in an area that you are not an expert? I invite you to think differently and flip the problem upside down to come up with a different solution.
I would love to read your comments below.
#keeponlearning #coaching #purposecoach #purpose
Resources:
https://jamestrobo.com/
https://williamarruda.com/
https://www.td.org/capability-model/access
Facilitation in Action: Finding your own Training Style by Carrie Addignton and Authors: Carrie Addington, Jared Douglas, Nikki O'Keeffe ,Darryl Wyles