Connect & Conspire

1. Register to be a member of Conspire's peer coaching community: Connect & Conspire
2. Complete screening and matching interview (by phone)
3. Complete payment & enrollment in your chosen peer-coaching module (you'll be invited to do this after your interview)
4. Complete orientation and sign peer-coaching agreement
5. Get matched and get conspiring via video-meeting (or in person if you are able)!

Register

• Course Descriptions
• Register
• Orientation & Agreement
• FAQs
• Course Mentors

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Autumn 2017 Conspire & Connect Modules

Women With Power

You know that you are competent and talented, but how do you give away your power? What do the tone of your voice, your body,  your expressions convey? Engage in self-assessment and structured feedback exercises with your co-conspirator to deepen your awareness of  and to cultivate your power. 
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• 8 Weeks
• 3 Homework Assignments
• $36 Stand Alone/ $66 Matched with Co-Conspirator and Facilitated
• Course Mentor:  Lilach Shafir

Becoming an Influencer

ou find you have a need and/or desire to influence decision-makers. An experienced advocate has co-designed this module for a pair of co-conspirators to support each other in developing influencing skills in writing, speaking and relationship building.  Co-conspirators commit to a series of communication, presentation and speaking exercises and real-time feedback. ​

• 8 Weeks
  
• 3 Homework assignments
• $36 Stand Alone/ $66 Matched with Co-Conspirator and Facilitated
• Course Mentor: Michelle Feldman

Cultivating Joy, Wisdom & Resilience​

You are in the work for to make the world a better place, and yet your own life often feels depleted, unbalanced and on the edge of burn-out. This self-care module is designed mainly for direct service practitioners (social workers and other helper/healers) to experiment with practices that will cultivate your resilience and make you a more effective practitioner.

• 8 Weeks
• Weekly self-care challenge & reflection 
• $36 Stand Alone/ $66 Matched with Co-Conspirator and Facilitated
• Course Mentor:  Ayala Livney

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Is a PhD for Me?

Exploring the PhD path is a significant investment of time, energy and commitment. Many give up as the search alone becomes too daunting. This module is designed to engage co-conspirators in a mutually supportive process that will ensure that you are asking yourselves the right questions, having the most productive conversations, comprehending the full set of options and effectively navigating the application process. 
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• 12 Weeks of Sessions
• 5 Homework Assignments
• $42 - Stand Alone / $82 Matched with Co-Conspirator & Facilitated
• Course Mentor: Hollen Reischer

What's Next? 

Suddenly you find that something must change. But what's next? Let go of the past and sort through the possibilities for the next chapter with a tested framework and a co-conspirator.  This is a self-facilitated peer-coaching version of the Women Leaders Emerging coaching circle. This is an intensive life and career re-boot module so expect to set aside 30 minutes to an hour between sessions to make progress.

• 12 Weeks
• 8 Homework Assignments
• $42 - Stand Alone / $82 Matched with Co-Conspirator & Facilitated
• Course Mentor: Jen Walper Roberts

Ready, Set, Go! 

 You are crystal clear about what you would like to do next, but you'll need to focus and maintain your energy to do it.  Spend 8 weeks taking action  to bring your plan into reality with support, focus, mindfulness and accountability.  Actions include mapping your career network, updating your resume and LinkedIn profile, scheduling and conducting networking meetings, practicing how you describe who you are and what you are seeking,  and reflection/motivation coaching sessions. This is about taking action so what you put in is what you'll gain.

• 8 Weeks
• 7 Homework Assignments
• $36 Stand Alone/ $66 Matched with Co-Conspirator and Facilitated
• Course Mentor: Jen Walper Roberts

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Register for Connect & Conspire

You're here because you are curious or interested in engaging in a high-quality peer-coaching experience through Conspire & Connect. Once you complete this registration, we'll follow up with an email for to make an appointment to chat with Jen about what you hope to gain from the program and to get a better sense of who you are. This will help us to ensure that participants are ready to engage and commit to the peer coaching process.  Once you complete this registration and interview, you will be invited to complete the enrollment process by submitting payment for the course and completing the orientation.

Please be thoughtful about describing yourself and what you are seeking so that we can do the best job possible in matching you with a co-conspirator with whom to complete a Connect & Conspire module.

Connect & Conspire's Orientation & Agreement Set Up a High-Quality Peer-Coaching Experience

What differentiates Connect & Conspire from other online professional development is the care we take to create a space for high-quality peer-coaching and peer-learning. Each course is designed to be completed in pairs with a focus on conversation and reflection.  We therefore make significant effort to ensure that members are ready to participate through careful screening, orientation and matching.*

Once accepted* into the Connect & Conspire peer coaching community, you will complete a 30-minute online orientation module that will train you on how to extract maximum value from a Connect & Conspire peer-coach and how to be an effective peer-coach. The orientation module will also guide you through the program guidelines, norms, expectations and guarantee. You'll complete the orientation by signing an agreement that signifies that you commit to completing the sessions with a peer-coach.  Your commitment is critical to the success of your peer-coaching relationship.

We also require that you attend a 40 minute live peer-coaching practice webinar and will provide a few dates/times. [to be posted shortly].

How are Peer-Coaching matches made?

We determine matches using the following information*:

• ​How you'd like to meet (virtually or in-person)**
• Which course you chose
• What you shared about what you're seeking in a peer coach on your registration
• Years of work experience and level of leadership

*We take all of these factors into consideration AND we emphasize that the main role of a peer-coach is to ask good questions, be a good sounding board and to help you to tap into your own wisdom. This is NOT mentoring. The most important factors to excellent peer-coaching are a) showing up consistently and b) being fully present to the conversation. For these reasons, when screening, we probe motivation and commitment and for ability to listen and reflect.
**We cannot guarantee that we will be able to match you with someone local enough to meet with in person, but we will do our best if this is your preference.

How & When do we meet?

How are the peer coaching sessions Structured?

Each module begins with conversations to establish your relationship with your co-conspirator and to help you clearly articulate for yourself and your peer-coach what you hope to gain and/or what progress you'd like to make with the support of the coach.   These conversations are typically based around sharing your answers to a self-assessment and some critical conversations about who you are, what matters to you and what is important to you about the topic.

From there, modules are structured to be a mix of the following types  of  structured peer-coaching:

• Exploration: Some sessions are designed to hold a space for peer-coaches to support each other's reflection, growth, self-awareness, global awareness, organizational awareness and to tap inner-wisdom.  Having a regular partner to help you tap your inner wisdom is the essence of peer-coaching. For example, you might spend a whole session exploring the context and contributing factors to a time when you felt you lost your power with the help of a few prompt questions and some good listening and reflecting from your peer-coach.
• Action Learning (Do it now instead of planning to do it later) : Some sessions are designed to support each other in solving real-problems or making progress on matters in your lives that are relevant to the theme or that session.  For example, if you are taking a course on influencing, you might be  invited to identify a situation in which you'd like to increase your influence and you and your partner will be guided through questions to help you to identify ways to increase your influence. You would leave the session with a set of actions to take back to your real life. You will see that often you will be given the choice to jump into action learning if something is timely or to  stay in exploration mode instead.
• Feedback: Some sessions provide a checklist or guidelines for providing feedback on each other's homework. This is particularly present in courses dedicated to skill building for which practice and feedback will be critical. For example,  as homework you may be invited to record a 3 minute video that capture you speaking about a topic dear to your heart.  When you hop on to your peer-coaching session you might watch the video together and talk through a feedback checklist.
• Practicing: Some modules will lay out a method, a practice or technique and invite you and your peer-coach to try it out right there and then without any preparation.  You might try out a mindfulness exercise together and then reflect on it. You might try out some power poses together. You might practice quickly sketching out a visual to help convey a message.  We strive to have at least 50% of the sessions result in something concrete you can use without having to do additional work on it between sessions.

What is the time commitment?

When designing the courses we aim to balance
1. Convenience: a core value we have is that even the busiest women with the most complex lives deserve access to high quality professional development and we want them to be able to engage from home in their pajamas if that's what works best!  
2. Depth:  The sessions and homework are designed for depth over breadth.  We aim to deepen your coaching conversations, to move you towards your objectives, to grow, stretch and truly develop. 

Each module is 4, 8 or 12 weeks long.  You meet with your peer-coach once per week at a time you arrange with each other that is convenient for you both. You meet for one hour.

The amount of homework varies per course, and you will see the expected homework time commitment with the course description. Remember, this is coaching, not a class. The homework you do is for yourself and in support of deepening the quality of peer-coaching so that you extract maximum value from the partnership.  What you put into it is entirely for yourself and generally, what you put in is what you'll take away.  Completing the homework is also energizing and motivating for your peer-coach.

Do we have to follow the structure of each session?

Nope! If you find you and your peer-coach need to spend the whole hour on one question, then, go for it! The time is yours to spend.  You are also free to schedule additional sessions if you'd like to work through a whole session but find you'd like to linger a little longer and spread out the course material. It's your peer-coaching relationship and it's yours to manage.

What if my peer-coach doesn't work out?

We 100% money-back guarantee that if you pay to be matched that you will have a partner who is ready to participate and who is committed. However, sometimes life happens and someone needs to drop out.  We will do our best to re-match you if it isn't too far along into the program or refund your matching fee. The courses are designed so you can work through them independently or with a friend, and it's yours to keep.

Anything else?

Do you have more questions? Email us at [email protected] or set up a time to chat.

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