Learning - Fatima

Illustration of a person drawing a light bulb to represent new ideas

Developing Teams and Organisations to Respond to Change

December 17, 2023/in Blog/by Fátima Ribeiro

This article was originally published in the newspaper “La Estrella” and is part of a biweekly column from the ICF Panama Chapter to disseminate what professional coaching is. It seeks to inform, create more awareness and differentiate professional coaching, in which the coach is governed by ethical principles and is continually improving his or her skills.

See the original article in this Link.

One of the challenges to achieving successful transformations in organisations and enhancing their development and sustainability is having leaders and teams prepared to respond to change.

Bushe & Lewis (2023) identified in their article published in the Leadership & Organisation Development Journal, three change strategies for organisational development. The three strategies defined by the authors are: (1) a data-driven strategy (data-based), (2) a high commitment strategy (high engagement) and (3) a generative strategy.

Each of these strategies corresponds to a vision of the organisation and its system, its processes, structures and relationships.

The authors consider that adopting one of the three strategies, mentioned above, in change situations is dependent on the type of challenges that the organisation faces and the level of commitment required from the different interested parties or stakeholders.

A data-driven strategy is appropriate when there is a lack of understanding of the problem or challenge and the collection and Previous data analysis is important to clarify it, and the data is also important to convince others (teams and/or stakeholders) of the need for change. This is also an appropriate strategy when the company’s challenges, in addition to being complicated, are more linear, allowing data collection and analysis to establish causal or functional relationships.
A high commitment strategy is appropriate when leaders have a clear vision of the desired future, but the commitment of collaborators and/or others stakeholders It is essential to ensure the success of the change process. With this option, central coordination in the selection of change strategies is important, for example, due to capital requirements, but participants in the process have the opportunity to influence the structuring of the exchange rate or its implementation.
A generative strategy is appropriate when change is a complex and adaptive challenge, requiring greater interaction and communication, and when there is the possibility of trying different simultaneous approaches to achieve the objectives. In this strategy, the concept of purpose (defined as what the organisation tries to achieve each day), and which is different from the vision (understood as the desired future or the solution to a problem) is shared by all those involved in the change process, making everyone unite around the purpose. This strategy is appropriate when the change process will require a transformation in people’s behaviours and beliefs and, for this reason, also requires their active involvement in promoting change. This strategy, which involves greater commitment from all employees and other stakeholders, is appropriate when the leadership team requires faster transformations than in idealized and implemented top-down change processes.

The role of the leadership teams is different in each of the strategies, from a more directive role to a role that is more of a facilitator and promoter of learning through trial and error.

The leader in the generative strategy is a facilitator of resources, relationships and conversations and of learning processes. For this strategy to be effective, it is important to cultivate psychological safety, trust and empowerment in teams.

A team coaching process, with a team coach with experience and knowledge of organisational dynamics, can support leadership teams to discover a purpose that inspires and engages others in the change process, and that creates value for different stakeholders, to clarify processes, to create relationships and alliances that enhance commitment and change, and to create a learning culture in teams and organisations. External team coaches can positively impact team performance and contribute to the organisational transformation process.

Author: Fátima Ribeiro

The author has the PCC credential (ICF Professional Certified Coach) and is a Coach in professional development, leadership and team processes, and a member of the ICF Panama Board of Directors.

Fátima Ribeiro's diploma in team coaching

Certified Practitioner in Team Coaching

February 17, 2022/in Events/by Fátima Ribeiro

My learning journey in team coaching began in 2019, studying with Professor Peter Hawkins in Portugal.

In 2021 I completed an advanced level in this learning and professional development path as a Team Coach, receiving the “Certified Practitioner in Team Coaching” certification.

Currently I also received the “Team Coaching Individual Accreditation (ITCA), level Practitioner” credential from the EMCC – European Mentoring & Coaching Council.

Doing the internship programme with Global Team Coaching Institute (GTCI) last year was an excellent and very rewarding learning experience, with great teachers and with colleagues from all over the world.

I am grateful for all the lessons learned, alliances, and friendships developed on this journey.

Thank you Professor Peter Hawkins, John Leary-Joyce, Dr Hilary Lines, David Matthew Prior and all the excellent GTCI faculty members and co-dean Professor David Clutterbuck.

Thank you, Susana Azevedo, for being an excellent partner, co-coach and friend on this learning journey.

Thanks to the colleagues in our internship and supervision group. I learned through the experiences and knowledge shared with everyone.

Certificate recognising Fátima Ribeiro as a speaker at CONANREH 2021

Designing the Future of Organisations – CONANREH 2021

October 22, 2021/in Events/by Fátima Ribeiro

Very happy to participate as a sponsor of the CONANREH2021, annual congress of ANREH – National Association of Human Resources of Panama, with the theme “Designing the Future of Organisations” and contributing to the development of learning and creating value for people and organisations, reflecting on challenges and exploring opportunities.

A professional leading a team working session beside a whiteboard

Developing Leaders as Coaches

September 19, 2021/in Blog/by Fátima Ribeiro

This article was originally published in the newspaper “La Estrella” and is part of a biweekly column from the ICF Panama Chapter to disseminate what Professional Coaching is. It seeks to inform, create more awareness and differentiate professional coaching, in which the Coach is governed by ethical principles and is continually improving his or her skills.

See the original article in this link.

The three main Coaching modalities used in organisations are:

External coach, professional with training in coaching who is hired by the organisation for specific processes on a one-time or continuous basis.
Internal coach, professional with training in coaching and who practices it within a single organisation, being part of its staff.
Leader Coach, manager or supervisor who uses tools and coaching skills in his role as a leader.

Some of the challenges of the leader as coach are:

How can I effectively coach all my collaborators individually in the limited time I have on a daily basis?
How can I do this “virtually”?
How can I continually improve my skills?
How do I use coaching tools with my team collectively so they can apply them to each other and we can create a culture of team development?

To develop as a leader as coach, the leader needs to have specific training for this purpose, which allows the development and application of coaching competencies in the organisation in an ethical and professional manner.

The basis for coaching training are the 8 competencies defined by the ICF – International Coaching Federation, divided into 4 large groups:

Foundational Competencies or Foundations
1. Demonstrate ethical practice
2. Embody a coaching mindset
3. Co-Create the relationship
4. Establish and maintain agreements
5. Cultivate trust and security
6. Maintain presence
7. Communicate effectively
8. Actively listen
9. Evoke awareness
10. Cultivate learning and growth
11. Facilitate the growth of each client

This is a very brief description of the competencies by the author for the purposes of this article, and for a broader and more precise definition we recommend consulting them on the ICF website:

Demonstrate ethical practice, understanding and consistently applying coaching ethics and standards.
Embody a Coaching mentality that is open, curious, flexible and focused on the coachee.
Establish clear agreements with the coachee, and with the different stakeholders, where applicable, about the relationship and coaching conversations, process, plans and goals, among others.
Cultivate trust and security, creating in partnership with the coachee a safe and supportive environment that allows them to share freely, in a relationship of mutual respect and trust.
Maintain presence, giving your full attention to the coachee, using an open, flexible, grounded and confident style.
Active listening, focused on what the Coachee is or is not saying, for complete understanding in the context of the Coachee’s systems, supporting the client’s self-expression.
Evoke awareness, facilitating the coachee’s understanding and learning through the use of tools and techniques such as powerful questions, silence, metaphors or analogies.
Facilitate growth, to transform learning, knowledge and vision into action, promoting coachee autonomy.

For a more effective development of coaching skills, support in the training process with professional coaches, mentors and/or supervisors, and internally with peers and sponsors that promote the development of a coaching culture in organisations contributes.

Leaders, through the use of coaching tools, contribute to change in culture, promoting a focus on solutions, not problems. They also promote the development of communication and relationships, and an improvement in the trust and commitment of their collaborators. Lastly, the use of coaching tools helps employees become empowered, focus on solutions, and seek support to solve problems themselves.

International studies show that coaching is key in developing high-performance teams.

Author: Fatima Ribeiro

The author is ACC (ICF Associated Certified Coach), Coach in professional development, leadership and teams processes and member of the Board of Directors of ICF Panama.

A team sharing ideas on sticky notes during a collaborative session

Psychological safety and learning from mistakes

May 3, 2021/in Blog/by Fátima Ribeiro

This article was originally published in the newspaper “La Estrella” and is part of a biweekly column from the ICF Panama Chapter to disseminate what Professional Coaching is. It seeks to inform, create more awareness and differentiate professional coaching, in which the Coach is governed by ethical principles and is continually improving his or her skills.

See the original article in this link.

The concept of Psychological Safety popularized by Amy C. Edmondson, a professor at Harvard University in her book Teaming, refers to the belief shared by members of a work team that, within the team, there is a safe environment to take risks and admit mistakes. Not to say that there should be no consequences for errors, but that errors can be admitted in an environment of psychological safety and at the same time comply with the organisation’s standards and controls. This is the way we can truly learn from our mistakes, find the root cause and creatively focus on solutions.

The responsibility for creating this feeling of psychological security in work teams falls mainly on the leaders of the organisations.

Through team coaching we can work with organisational leaders and their teams to raise awareness of the existing level of psychological safety and implement actions for its development. Team coaching can help facilitate spaces for conversation and feedback, develop trust in teams through observation and intervention methodologies that promote self-awareness, release of tension, critical self-assessment of performance, and recognition of worth, among others.

We can also support leaders to deploy their competencies as leaders who coach, through active listening and direct communication, a creative approach to visualizing options, developing solutions and integrating lessons learned.

In his 2011 article, Strategies to Learn from Failure, Dr. Edmondson, talks about creating an organisational culture where mistakes are seen as a source of learning, encouraging teams to detect, analyse and even experiment to learn from their mistakes. A leader at a technology company said: “We are in the discovery business, and the faster we fail, the faster we succeed.”

In this sense, in the aforementioned article, we talk about “The Spectrum of Reasons for Failure”:

Reasons with the greatest reason for Individual Responsibility:

Deviation: An individual CHOOSES to violate a prescribed process or procedure.
Inattention: An individual INADVERTENTLY deviates from existing specifications.

Reasons with some Individual Responsibility:

Lack of Skill: An individual DOES NOT HAVE the skills, conditions or training to perform a task.
Inadequate Process: A competent individual adheres to a prescribed process that is INADEQUATE.
Challenging Task: An individual is faced with a task TOO DIFFICULT to be performed reliably every time.

Reasons with little or no Individual Responsibility:

Process Complexity: A process composed of many elements suffers BREAKS when it finds new interactions with other elements.
Uncertainty: Lack of clarity about future events causes people to take APPARENTLY REASONABLE actions that produce undesired results.
Testing Hypotheses: An experiment to prove that an idea or design is successful fails.
Exploratory Testing: An experiment conducted to expand knowledge and investigate a possibility leads to an undesired result.

It is important to emphasise that this is a spectrum and there is no clear and defined border between each of these reasons. The idea is not to find guilty people, but to explore the reasons for the failure. Having knowledge of this spectrum helps to more consciously explore the root cause, find appropriate solutions and implement them in an organisational development process.

The leader can apply coaching competencies in a conversation of exploration and creative reflection between leader and collaborator, using open questions that explore the personal or systematic causes of failure, in an environment of psychological safety in which the focus is on integrating learning, promoting the development of people and processes and finding solutions that create value and sustainable results for all Stakeholders. Team coaching can support organisations in creating a culture of learning and responsibility.

Authors:

Alberto Navarro, He is an Executive Coach and Team Coach, credentialed as a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) by ICF. Vice President of the Board of Directors of ICF Panama Chapter.

Fátima Ribeiro, He is a Coach in professional development, leadership and team processes, credentialed as an Associated Certified Coach (ACC) by ICF. Member of the Board of Directors of ICF Panama Chapter.

Poster featuring Fátima Ribeiro at the Desaprende 2020 Latin American Virtual Congress

Latin American Congress Desaprende 2020

November 13, 2020/in Events/by Fátima Ribeiro

On November 13, I participated in the first Latin American Unlearning Congress – Unlearn 2020, with the topic: Challenges in the virtual teaching process, adding value from my roles as a teacher, facilitator and coach.

We reflect and exchange best practices considering the following elements of virtual teaching:

Technology options
Structure of the teaching process
Communication channels
Learning activities
Assessment and feedback options
Selection or creation and presentation of content

He Latin American Virtual Congress OF THELEARN 2020, was a project that brought together experts from the region with the purpose to update and empower learning and development professionals, in the redefinition and evolution of its role in the context of digital transformation.

A symbol of Panama in the announcement for the Compromiso PYME Panamá Bootcamp

First Compromiso PYME Panamá Virtual Bootcamp

April 5, 2020/in Events/by Fátima Ribeiro

On March 28, 2020, I participated as a speaker in the 1st Panama SME Commitment Virtual Bootcamp, a solidarity movement of non-profit initiative and impulse, created by Ulises Gonzalez & Sergio Tertusio, who managed to promote a very nice collaborative activity.

Excellent panelists participated, on a variety of topics, with the aim of supporting SMEs and businesses affected by the current situation.

If you didn’t have a chance to participate live, the bootcamp recording is available on YouTube and the presentations can be downloaded on the website Panama Commitment.

I share the presentation of the panelists who participated in the event and the recording of the topic I presented “Did I do everything possible to…? A reflection to stay focused and connected.”

I thank everyone who participated and accompanied us, all the panelists from whom I learned a lot, and a special thanks to Ulises and Sérgio, creators and mentors of this project.

You can contact me with any questions, comments or support.

Let us be generous with ourselves, and from our skills and abilities, let us all continue to contribute in a supportive, empathetic and compassionate way with those around us!

Professionals sharing ideas during a work meeting

Key competencies in professional and ethical coaching

January 19, 2020/in Blog/by Fátima Ribeiro

This article was originally published in the newspaper “La Estrella” and is part of a biweekly column from the ICF Panama Chapter to disseminate what Professional Coaching is. It seeks to inform, create more awareness and differentiate professional coaching, in which the Coach is governed by ethical principles and is continually improving his or her skills.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF), founded in 1995, is committed to advancing the coaching profession, which is why it has defined a model of key competencies with high ethical standards.

See the full article here link.

The Future of Work

December 23, 2019/in Events/by Fátima Ribeiro

On October 30 we had the Forum of the APEDE Executive Update and Business Management Commission with the theme “The Future of Work”.

In the Forum we address the following topics:

Global perspectives on the Future of Work and position of Panama
Talent in the digital age
Work – new challenges and opportunities
Development of human talent – key to the sustainability of companies

The article published on pages 14 to 16 of the December 2019 edition of the magazine Competitiveness Executive explores some of the ideas developed.

The Press conference was covered by different media, including Panama News y The Star.

You can watch the Forum video here.

We thank all participants, speakers, moderators and sponsors for their contribution to the success of the Forum.

A panel discussing practices in leadership training

Sharing best practices on leadership development

March 25, 2019/in Events/by Fatima Ribeiro

Thanks to ALIAT – Latin American Association for Innovation in Learning and Talent Development for organizing the Learning Workshop “Sharing best practices on leadership development” with this interesting Fishbowl Methodology.

An excellent sharing of experiences and learning accompanied by excellent professionals.

ALIAT represents a framework in my career as a Coach and it is with immense pleasure that I collaborate in its activities. It was at the beginning of the association in 2016, in one of its first monthly meetings, that I met the representative of INCAE Business School in Panama, who introduced me to INCAE’s executive training programmes, the school where I completed my first Executive Coaching certification in December 2016.

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