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Welcome to the Workspace of the Chairing Skills Program (CSP)!

The first pilot CSP has been completed.  A total of 12 Coaches and 13 Coachees from across the ICANN Community participated in coaching sessions for both telephonic and F2F sessions. 

Background of the CSP:

Based on the success of the Leadership Program (LP), the ICANN Academy is pleased to announce a new pilot Chairing Skills Program (CSP).  This course addresses the Chairing skill challenges that ICANN community contributors can face when taking up responsibility by Active ICANN community contributors, and in particular, Chairs, can be easily challenged when taking up the responsibility of leading a working group or stakeholder group.   Participants and facilitators of the previous ICANN Academy Leadership  Leadership Program (LP) in Dublin 2015 agreed it would be valuable to offer a course to develop chairing skills, both for telephonic as well as for both virtual and face-to-face meetings. A pilot was agreed as part of the FY17 Special Requests.

CSP - Details of the Pilot 2017 Program

The ICANN Academy Chairing Skills Program will be divided into two parts:

1)      Telephone Chairing Skills – session to begin in January 2017

2)      Face-to-Face Chairing Skills  - session to take place around ICANN 58

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 session into the second. 

The Telephone Chairing Skills (Part 1 ) is planned to begin in January 2017. The results of Part 1 will feed into the Face-to-Face Chairing Skills (Part 2) that will start prior to ICANN 58 in Copenhagen and continue during this meeting.

A professional external coach from Incite Learning and community coaches will facilitate the course. Incite Learning has been a regular contributor to  the LP that has been held since 2013.   

The LP is focused on new leaders in the community and includes overviews and current events within the ICANN community as well as skills building in the areas of dealing with resistance, influence, and handling disruptive meetings.  The community facilitators deliver content and facilitate the skill building exercises with trainees. 

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 is designed for chairs of working groups CSP is different from the LP in many ways.  It is focused on current chairs with a focus on virtual facilitation as well as f2f interactions.  This course will be designed for chairs of working or stakeholder groups who would like to develop their chairing skills through coaching and feedback.   The community coaches for the CSP will work directly with trainees. This interaction will include observing the trainees on calls and in meetings and providing specific feedback on how to be even more effective as a chair.  Coaches will ideally alumni of the LP and have previous chairing experience.  The training is in real time using current challenges and issues facing the chair.  Coaches will be available to their trainees throughout CSP Parts 1 and 2 for just-in-time questions and concerns. 

Telephonic Session Status

(Date of Meetings Observed)

F2F Session Status

(Date of Meetings Observed)

F2F Intersessional 15feb

31 March 2017,

6 April 2017,

26 April 2017

CSP Program Outline:

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

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.