Get involved

Standing outside your day-to-day business life can give you another, and hopefully better, perspective. POLLYANNA LENKIC

By Pollyanna Lenkic

I have just completed my year as the International Coach Federation co-president for the Victorian sub-chapter. I have been involved in the ICF for the past three years, which is a volunteer role.

Reflecting back over the past year, I thought about what the year has given me. How I have benefitted and why it’s a great idea to volunteer your services to your industry body or a charity.

Often people ask me why, when our lives are busy with our businesses, family etc. I do get a lot from volunteering in my role, and I wanted to share some of the tangible (apart from the obvious and less tangible – because it feels great) reasons why it’s good for you and your business to get involved with another organisation.

Here’s what my involvement with the ICF has given me:

I have been required to use different skills while undertaking my duties – think differently and stand on the opposing side to the one that I would naturally default to. This is a tangible benefit that translates benefits to my business and relationships.

I have networked with people who share similar values and passion on what they do. This created a feeling of connectedness and kept me focused on what I was passionate about.

The areas of priority for us (the ICF) this year, (sustaining our volunteers so that they do not burnout, creating rigour around processes and procedures and succession planning) has translated in me being equally as attentive with my own processes here. It has certainly highlighted where I need to put some of my attention.

I got out more and networked. My role required that I attend events during the year, and this incentive helped push me to turning up when sometimes it would have been easier to go home. The benefits of this speak for themselves.

I learnt more about who I am, how I operate and what’s important to me.

In the current climate of uncertainty and battening down the hatches, it’s important to look further afield for inspiration, and this may be one avenue to do just that. Go out and explore, you may also get to do some great work that you feel good about.

Pollyanna Lenkic is the founder of Perspectives Coaching, an Australian based coaching and training company. She is an experienced facilitator, certified coach and a certified practitioner of NLP. In 1990 she co-founded a specialist IT recruitment consultancy in London, which grew to employ 18 people and turnover £11 million ($27 million). This blog is about the mistakes she made and the lessons she learned building a business the first time round and how to do it better second time round. For more information go to www.perspectivescoaching.com.au

For more Second Time Around, click here.