1 RD & 1 CC
Join Linda Maul and your ICF Edmonton Chapter colleagues in person for an evening of engaging conversations and community building
Challenging Coaching is a real-world, timely and provocative book which provides a wake-up call to move beyond the limitations of traditional coaching. Based on the authors' extensive experience working at board and management levels, they suggest that for far too long coaching approaches have shied away from adopting a more challenging stance - a stance that can provoke greater performance and unlock deeper potential in business leaders and their teams.
The authors detail their unique FACTS coaching model, which provides a practical and pragmatic approach focusing on Feedback, Accountability, Courageous goals, Tension and Systems thinking. The authors explore FACTS coaching in theory and in practice using case studies, example dialogues and practical exercises so that the reader will be able to successfully challenge others using respectful yet direct techniques.
This is an original and thought-provoking book that dares the reader to go beyond traditional coaching and face the FACTS.
What Makes This Approach Different
Benefits to the Coach
Coaches who adopt this approach typically:
Bottom Line
Challenging Coaching is a powerful resource for coaches ready to stretch their clients, not simply support them. The FACTS model gives you a practical way to raise accountability, encourage growth, and tackle uncomfortable realities — all while maintaining trust and partnership.
It’s particularly useful when you’re coaching experienced, ambitious clients and you want to push boundaries in a clean, ethical, and productive way.
**Please note special registration instructions in your confirmation email**
This Event Awards 1.5 Core Competency CCEUs. Participants must attend live to be eligible for CCEUs.
Date: October 15, 2026
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm MST | 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm EST
Tickets: ICF Members: $28 CAD | ICF Premium Members: Free | Non-Members: $35 CAD
How do you bring your authentic self to coaching and still demonstrate the MCC qualities of being with the human you are coaching? "Everyone who develops mastery starts off in a beginner's mind. And those who continue to evolve masterfully stay in the beginner's mind the whole of their lives." Let’s discuss the fundamentals of coaching and how to use the ICF competencies as the launching point for mastery. Once you integrate your understanding, you then have the freedom to dance in your coaching conversations. Supporting your clients to explore transformational places. Observe a 20-minute coaching demonstration. Linking the coach’s questions to the MCC BARS and PCC Markers. Afterward, break out into groups to debrief the coaching demonstration with each other. Then, come back and pick Lyssa’s mind for her choice points. Make connections between the questions and the competencies.
Learning Objectives:
Explore what FULL Partnership means. Deepen your understanding of the competencies. See how the coaching container weaves the competencies: agreement setting, building trust, coaching presence, listening actively, evoking awareness, and facilitating growth. Observe an MCC Coach demonstrate the competencies through a real coaching conversation. Debrief on your insights.
About the Speakers
Lyssa deHart, LICSW, MCC, BCC, EMCC
Lyssa deHart, LICSW, MCC, BCC, EMCC, author of StoryJacking: Change Your Dialogue, Transform Your Life, the Reflective Coach, Light Up: The Science of Coaching with Metaphors, and Sticky Outcomes: at the Intersection of Coaching, Neuroscience, and Lasting Change. She is also the host of the Coaching Studio Podcast. Lyssa is a recovering Therapist, Confidence Coach, Certified Mentor Coach, Coaching SUPERVision Partner, ICF PCC Assessor, and coaching educator. Lyssa’s understanding of ICF Core Competencies and neuroscience instills confidence in her ability to guide professional coaches. She empowers them to enhance their client outcomes through deep listening, client-led approaches, and ultimately, by fostering a partnership that empowers their clients. In 2018, Lyssa began to develop the groundbreaking Power of Metaphor Program. This innovative program equips coaches to harness the metaphors their clients use, a crucial element in fostering stronger agreements, trust, and powerful embodied awareness. In 2022, she introduced the Updated Credentialing Exam PREP. This resource has significantly aided over 6,000 coaches in preparing for the updated ICF Exam, a testament to her profound impact on the coaching industry. In 2024, she introduced the ACE PREP for the ICF ACC Credentialing Exam. In all her work, Lyssa is committed to improving the coaching community by enhancing the quality and impact of the coach-client relationship.
This Event Awards 1.0 Core Competency CCEU & 0.5 Resource Development CCEU. Participants must attend live to be eligible for CCEUs.
Date: October 21, 2026
Time: 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm MST | 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm EST
As coaches, we are improvisers; we have structures and skills (competencies), but to apply those most effectively, we must be in the moment, listening, connecting, and co-creating.
In this 90-minute session, we use improv rules and structures from theatre and comedy, as well as those tailored just for coaches, to experiment, play, and learn. You’ll get comfortable with not pre-planning or getting ahead in your coaching conversations, and trust in the bottomless well of ideas and possibilities that we can all (coaches and clients) access.
Amy J. Warshawsky, MCC, NBC-HWC & Betsy Salkind, PCC, NBC-HWC
AMY J. WARSHAWSKY, MCC, NBC-HWC, is a leadership and mentor coach with expertise in coaching individuals, teams, and groups. She integrates somatic practices with coaching to deepen self-awareness and embodied leadership. A former faculty member of the ADAPT Health Coach Training Program, Amy has held roles in nonprofit and higher education settings. She holds an MS in Journalism from Northwestern University and a BA from Cornell University. BETSY SALKIND, PCC, NBC-HWC, is a health and mentor coach with expertise in team, group, and leadership coaching. She trained at the Mayo Clinic and was the Associate Director and Lead Mentor Coach for the ADAPT Health Coach Training Program. A professional standup comic and TV writer, with credits including The Tonight Show and Roseanne, she also holds an MS in Organization Studies from MIT Sloan School of Management.
Participants must attend live to be eligible for CCEUs.
Date: November 19, 2026
Time: 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm MST
Tickets: ICF Members: $20 CAD | ICF Premium Members: $0 CAD | Non-Members: $35 CAD
How might we consider "normal" and "good" shape how we see, listen, and support our coaching partners?
As coaches, like every other human being, we enter every relationship carrying our own histories, identities, assumptions, privileges, and ways of understanding the world. While coaching is often positioned as a neutral and empowering practice, it is not separate from the influence of culture, power, and social systems. The questions we ask, the perspectives we validate, and the changes we encourage are shaped by the worldviews we bring into the coaching relationship.
In this reflective and interactive workshop, participants will explore the concept of cultural safety and what it asks of us as coaches. Moving beyond cultural awareness and good intentions, this session invites coaches to consider how neutrality may not be neutral when we live and work in an unjust, prejudiced world.
Together, we will explore the assumptions and beliefs we carry into our coaching practice, examine how power dynamics may show up in both individual and team coaching relationships, and identify ways to create conditions where coaching partners from diverse backgrounds can participate fully, safely, and authentically.
Participants will:
About the Speaker - Huong Bui, MA, PCC
Huong Bui, MA, PCC is the co-founder of KaleidoWork, a coaching and consulting company that helps purpose-driven leaders and teams build more effective and sustainable ways of working. As a coach, Huong's approach is grounded in curiosity, compassion, and the belief that meaningful growth begins with creating spaces where people feel safe to learn, reflect, and take actions. Huong recently completed a Master of Arts in Executive and Organizational Coaching from Royal Roads University.
Her master's research explored cultural safety in executive and team coaching practice through the lens of analytic autoethnography, drawing on her lived experience as an immigrant, coach, and organizational development practitioner. Through this work, she invites coaches to become more aware of the "air we breathe" by examining the assumptions, norms, and experiences that quietly shape our coaching practice.
Date: January 21, 2027
Tickets: ICF Members: $35 CAD | ICF Premium Members: Free | Non-Members: $49 CAD
In this interactive session, participants will revisit the essentials of Active Listening and explore how these foundations directly impact the coaching relationship. Drawing upon the presenter’s experience in coaching and education, this session will clarify the common barriers to effective listening and highlight why deep listening is so vital to coaching success.
This session will also include a practical look at how ICF Competency 6 shows up in real-world conversations, identifying the small shifts that turn regular hearing into truly transformational listening. Through quick breakouts and lighthearted exercises, coaches will have the opportunity to align with these markers and sharpen their existing skills in a high-energy environment.
This is an educational, reflective, and experiential session designed to support coaches in refreshing their core skills, regardless of their current level of experience.
3 Leaning Objectives:
About the Speaker
Shachi Patel, PCC
Shachi Patel, PCC, is the founder of SETU Coaching & Consulting. With SETU meaning "bridge" in Sanskrit, she proudly serves as a bridge between her clients' technical expertise and leadership excellence. Drawing on over three decades of leadership in technology and healthcare, she leverages her engineering, program, and people management background to help STEM professionals and women in tech thrive in complex environments. Her coaching, training, and specialized workshops focus on helping leaders navigate pivotal career changes and transitions through a creative, compassionate, and courageous approach.
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