About Cheryl Smith

A Tumble Off The Roof Started It All!

Can you imagine how my grandmother must have felt as she watched me tumble off the shed roof! At three years old, I was up there organizing the neighborhood children to play a game. As early as that, I had started on my path. Bringing people together in a positive, common—and constructive—experience has been the theme of my entire life.

I’ve been on top of sheds organizing people ever since. Camp counselor, school government, volunteering, social events, clubs and even overseas travel with friends, you name it. If it involved working with people and bringing them together to create what was needed, I did it. It’s actually not an exaggeration to say that I think of my facilitator work as an extension of my summer camp counselor days. Learning “takes” better when we’re having fun.

At Age 11, I Was Already Studying Leadership Development

At 11, I became a junior leader in a YWCA leadership training course. I was always interested in leadership. The questions, “How do you create followers?” and, “What does it take to get people to follow you?” were intriguing. This was the beginning of recognizing how much I loved both being a leader and developing others to be leaders. It was what I was meant to be and to do in my life.

Created My First Job Right Out Of College

In college, I got a degree in Communications, including Public Relations. Always the entrepreneur, I noticed that the college did not have a liaison with the high schools that fed students to them. I wrote a paper about this, and the last sentence of the paper enjoined them to create such a position and to hire me to do the job…and they did!

Peoples And Cultures Of The World Have Always Fascinated Me

I’ve lived and worked in many countries, and backpacked around the world three times. Travel brings a sense of freedom—almost like playing hookey—and indulges my innate curiosity about other cultures. Seeing firsthand how people live in other places has taught me that humans all over the world want the same thing—to make a better life for themselves and their family. Much supposed enmity is created in our own heads.

Travels took me from London to Kathmandu in the back of a Bedford five-ton army truck about the size of a moving van. I was the volunteer quartermaster, managing food supplies for the tour of 21 intrepid travelers. We shopped at local markets and slept in tents beside the truck. During another tour, we cycled across China in the 1980’s before there were any foreign hotels or foreign restaurants. Imagine this—one day I lost my purse and passport in Communist China! Fascinating experience.

Being An Entrepreneur Is In My Blood

I had the good fortune to join IBM in the days when we were allowed to treat our jobs as if they were our own business. Marketing and management responsibilities took me to two continents during those years with IBM. I ended up by winning the top award of Salesman of the Month several times. (As an aside, at that time IBM couldn’t even conceive of a woman winning the contest, ergo “Salesman”!)

Selling as much as I possibly could in my territory was a direct result of getting to know people for who they are. I built good relationships by figuring out what they needed rather than doing high pressure selling. “Everybody” in my sales territory became my friend. I simply made it easy to do business with me (IBM). Also won the Golden Circle, which meant that I was among the top 2% of IBM salespeople in the world (At the awards meeting, my husband was given a souvenir necklace along with the female mates of the other winners).

Was A Coaching “Early Adopter”

I slid into leadership coaching in a kind of oblique way. Started my own business, selling DISC and 360 assessments to HR departments. Debriefing the styles inventories got me into coaching. I was definitely a coaching pioneer and ahead of my time. Also worked for a consulting company for a few years, and that got me into leadership education and doing an early form of coaching.

It became obvious to me that coaching is the most effective means of unleashing leadership capability.  I decided to train to be a corporate and leadership coach. Went to Coach U for my coaching certificate where I took classes from Thomas Leonard, the founder of coaching. As Corporate Coach U was being launched, they developed the Coaching Clinic®. The Coaching Clinic® is a two-day seminar where executives, managers, HR professionals and leaders learn crucial coaching skills and competencies.  Individuals gain an in-depth understanding of the coaching process.

As the Coaching Clinic® was launched, I was among the first trained to facilitate it. I stuck my hand up and said I’d coordinate all the facilitators to create a community to share best practices and support each others’ success.  From there, I was given a staff job, then became Director Of The Coaching Clinic.

Within a short time, I became Vice President of Corporate Coach U. In this capacity, I had responsibility for global sales, program development and delivery. I facilitated coaching initiatives in more than a dozen English and non-English speaking countries on five continents (in South America, Australia, Asia, Europe, and North America). I traveled the world, introducing coaching into countries who had never yet experienced it.

Started Navigational Coaching

For years, people had been saying to me, “When are you going to write your own coaching wisdom down so others can learn what you have learned?” Finally, I realized that I’d spent a lifetime learning and working and all that I’d learned was labeled as the intellectual property of someone else. The light went on for me and I realized it was time to codify and teach my own work. That was the birth of Navigational Coaching and Leadscape Learning, Inc. that I co-founded with my great friend, Brent Stewart.

About that time, there was a market demand for videos demonstrating and modeling workplace coaching conversations. I’d got a consistent request for video examples so people could watch repeatedly to learn for themselves. Brent and I have made some videos of good coaching conversations from the world of work and they’re available on this site.

For The “Serious Side”—Here’s Some Resume’ Information

In case this story seems too lighthearted, here are some facts of my work background.

Overview of Experience

• While studying for my Master’s degree in Leadership at Royal Roads University (RR), I was approached to become an associate faculty member. I taught in the Executive Education Program for the University and am still an associate part-time faculty member at RR.
• Co-designed Royal Roads University’s Executive Coaching Certificate program. We designed a program that has the rigor of academia and the respect of the coaching world. It has graduated over a 1,000 coaches, and is recognized as one of the top training schools for coaching.
• Master Facilitator of the Legacy Leadership program from CoachWorks. CoachWorks is a company that provides executive coaching services and leadership training materials, resources and services nationally and internationally.
• At Coach U., was designated a Master Trainer of the Core Essentials Fast-track Program, Corporate Coach U’s Coaching Clinic Licensing Program and Essential Conversations for Developing Others (a program I co-authored).

Education and Training

Note: From this point, the information is given in third person like a resume.

• Cheryl has a Master’s degree in Leadership from Royal Roads University in Victoria, British Columbia.
• One of the first 50 coaches to be certified as a Master Certified Coach by the International Coach Federation. There are only 600+ coaches in the world with this accreditation.
• Qualifications in a number of assessment instruments used in leadership development.

Achievements

• Was recruited as a Senior Director for western Canada by a French company, GSI Human Resources Information System. We sold software used by HR Departments to “computerize their records” (our simplistic explanation of the function).
• Co-developed a leadership program “Navigational Coaching: Strategic Coaching Skills for Leaders” (2010)
• Developed and produced video series “Coaching Conversations” (2010)
• Co-author of the book “Dynamic Coaching for Building Dynamic Teams” (2002)
• Author of several papers on leadership and coaching