Page History

Welcome to the Workspace of the

Chairing Skills

Program (

CSP)!

Mark your calendars! The next CSDC will be taking place...

Background of the

CSP:

Active ICANN community contributors, and in particular, Chairs, can be easily challenged with chairing skills when taking up the responsibility by of leading a working group or stakeholder group.

The ICANN Academy Course on Chairing Skill Development will be divided into two parts:

1. Telephone Chairing Skills Development starting after ICANN 57
2. Face-to-Face Chairing Skills Development scheduled around ICANN 58 and beyond

Both parts can be organized as standalone courses or can build upon each other.  

The aim of dividing the course into two parts is to focus both on the development of one skill at a time as well as to incorporate feedback from the first part into the second.

This course, in particular the Telephone Chairing Skills Development, has the potential to become an ongoing effort over the year, offered per demand, given the relatively light logistical implications apart from setting up a phone line.

The Telephone Chairing Skills Development (part 1) is planned to begin shortly after ICANN 57 in Hyderabad with the results feeding into the Face-to-Face Chairing Skills Development (part 2) that will start prior to ICANN 58 in Copenhagen and continue during this meeting.

Participants and facilitators of the ICANN Academy Leadership Program (LP) in Dublin 2015 agreed it would be valuable to offer a course to develop chairing skills, for both virtual and face-to-face meetings. As such, the new Chairing Skills Program (CSP) was piloted during the 2016-2017 fiscal year, beginning before ICANN58 in Copenhagen and ending at that meeting.  We took away several lessons from the pilot that will be applied to the second iteration. 

The CSP is different from the Leadership Program in many ways. It is specifically focused on current chairs, and deals with virtual facilitation as well as F2F interactions. This program The course will be facilitated by a professional external coach (Incite Learning) and community coaches. This course is designed for chairs of working groups or stakeholder groups who want would like to develop their skills to chair a meeting.

Part 1 – Telephone Chairing Skills Development

• Coach introduction and training – Call to include Incite Learning the community coaches and staff; Aim is to introduce the course to the coaches and train them in telephonic chairing skills (telephonic;  1 hour)
• Group introduction to course – Call to include Incite Learning, community coaches, trainees and staff; Aim is to introduce the course and introduce the coaches to their trainees (telephonic; 1 hour)
• Individual observations (1) – Coaches (external and community) to observe a call that their trainee is chairing (telephonic; 1-2 hours)
• Evaluation and discussion among the coaches before providing feedback to the trainee (Telephonic; 30 min plus email)
• Individual observations feedback  – Coaches (external and community) to offer feedback to individual trainees; Segments of meeting recordings to be used as training tool; role play included  (telephonic; 1-2 hours for call; 2 hours preparation)
• In conjunction with a subsequent ICANN meeting:
  • Individual coaches and trainees meetings – Coaches to meet f2f informally with their trainee for further feedback (optional)
  • Group meeting – All coaches and trainees to meet f2f to discuss experiences and best practice. (1-2 hours).
  • Individual observations (2) – Coaches (external and community) to observe a 2^nd call that their trainee is chairing to see how the feedback was taken up including a short feedback (telephonic; 1-2 hours)
  • Group call – Call to discuss best practice and lessons learned as well as to review the first session. This call to include facilitators, coaches and trainees (telephonic; 1 hour) 

Part 2 – Face-to-Face Chairing Skills Development taking place during an ICANN meeting

(Ideally the same participants from part 1; it is expected that coaches and trainees will be in the same formation as in part 1; However, there may be some new trainees which need the briefing calls beforehand)

• Coach introduction and training – Call to include Incite Learning the community coaches and staff; Aim is to train the coaches in f2f chairing skills (telephonic;  1 hour)
• Group introduction to course – Call to include Incite Learning, community coaches, trainees and staff.  Aim is to introduce the course and introduce the coaches to their trainees  (optional; telephonic; 1 hour)
• Individual observations – Coaches (external and community) to observe a f2f meeting that their trainee is chairing (f2f; 1-2 hours)
• Evaluation and discussion among the coaches before providing feedback to the trainee (f2f;  plus email)
• Individual coaches and trainees meetings – Coaches to meet f2f informally with their trainee to provide feedback (1 hour)
• Group meeting – All coaches, trainees and to meet f2f to discuss experiences and best practice (2 hours)
• Group call – Call to discuss best practice and lessons learned as well as to review the second part This call to include coaches, trainees and staff (telephonic; 1 hour)

chairing skills through coaching and feedback. The CSP started off as a peer-coaching program, but most recently, the ICANN Academy Working Group has worked with Incite Learning, LLC to further evolve ways to enhance chairing skills. The program has now been revamped to become a one-day, face-to-face program that will better serve new ICANN chairs.

The plan for the CSP in 2020:

Unfortunately, as we are now facing a global pandemic, ICANN’s meetings have been virtual this year, which is an additional challenge for the chairs to be able to lead a group effectively. Therefore, as a preview to the new, revamped CSP that will eventually take place in person, we will be holding a 90-minute webinar on Monday, 7 December 2020 from 3:00-4:30pm UTC.

The target audience for the webinar is ICANN Chairs that want to develop their chairing skills, especially newly elected chairs.

The webinar will focus on three areas that emerged from our design process as critical to success for chairs: Leadership, Communication, and Organization Skills. We will devote 30 minutes to each of the topics. Leadership skills will cover how to build trust in a group and how to convey the right balance of strength and warmth as a leader. Communication skills will explore asking questions, understanding positions, and building consensus. Organization skills is a combination of time management and meeting management - how to effectively prepare for meetings and get things done as a chair. The webinar is not meant to replace the full day experience, but rather to provide participants with both an overview to gain understanding and an opportunity to develop their personal network with other chairs.

The webinar will be delivered by David Kolb, Ph.D., the Managing Director of Incite Learning. David has been working with ICANN since 2013, providing training and coaching to the ICANN community, ICANN org, and others in the ICANN ecosystem. His focus is on leadership, interpersonal skills, and personal effectiveness. He has worked with several of the SO/ACs over the years and provided targeted training designed for their specific needs at the time.

If you are new/current chair (or vice chair) at ICANN and are interested and available to participate in this webinar, please register here by Monday, 30 November 2020 at 23:59 UTC.

Please click here for a copy of the slide deck used during the webinar.