Image Credit: Photo by Wout Vanacker on Unsplash

September 2022

Dear friends,

As we send this, we are once again sitting in the both/and. We are celebrating that one year ago today Illuminate Collective was born. And we are sitting with the heavy news of the destruction caused by hurricanes Fiona and now Ian over the past week. Our hearts go out to all who have been impacted, and to those preparing for Ian’s continued path.

This experience of simultaneously sitting with what is joyful and what is difficult is central to the human experience. At Illuminate Collective, we believe that we have to do both in order to live fully and authentically. We have been grateful to be able to hold the space to do that for ourselves and for our clients in our first year together.

As most of you know, our name was chosen with intention. We are Illuminate because we believe in shining a light on our strengths and successes, while also acknowledging the shadows and opportunities for growth. We are a Collective because we know that we are better together. It is in community and partnership that we lean into new challenges, expand each other’s thinking, and deepen both our learning and our impact. We’ve reflected many times over the past few months about how much we’ve accomplished this year that we could not have done alone. We look forward to continued collaboration with our partners and clients in the year ahead!

Join us!

Collective Conversation: The Power of Working Together

Tuesday, October 18th from 11 AM – 12 PM EST – As we kick off our one year anniversary celebration, we will be reflecting on how the power of partnership has deepened our work experience and our impact. We invite you to join us in this conversation along with one of our favorite Collective partners, Natalie Basham, in our next Collective Conversation on Tuesday, October 18th.

Please grab a cup of coffee, bring a friend or work partner, and join us for this informal conversation about the power of partnership.

White Leaders Working on Antiracism

Registration is now open for the fall and winter cohorts of White Leaders Working on Antiracism.

In the summer of 2020, we partnered with our colleagues at Leading Elephants, with advisory support from Lesley Brown Rawlings of Beloved Community, to create a learning and accountability space for white leaders. Over the past two years, more than 200 people have participated in this series, engaging in the inner work that is foundational to taking informed, antiracist action. If you are a white leader seeking a space to reflect, process, and practice, please consider joining us.

Pennsylvania Conference for Women 2022

You don’t have to be in Pennsylvania to attend the PA Women’s Conference on October 6th and 7th, as there is a virtual option on the 7th! Join amazing speakers such as Jane Fonda, Yara Shahidi, D-Nice, Austin Channing Brown, and more. Marion is excited to serve as a leadership coach at the conference!

Partner Spotlight

Loa Cover & coLeague

Earlier this month, our good friend and brilliant talent leader Lora Cover launched coLeague. We’re excited to celebrate Lora’s work, which is rooted in a commitment to building and developing teams where everyone can thrive.

In Lora’s own words, “At coLeague, we believe that at the heart of successful organizations are people who can, and want to, bring their full humanity to work. To us, HR is more than compliance. It’s a people-centered approach that unlocks your organization’s potential to meet your mission.

coLeague places on-demand Chief People Officers, people strategists and implementation experts inside organizations—exactly where and how organizations need them. Our work is done in deep collaboration with the organizations we support, co-designing, co-creating and co-partnering with them every step of the way.”

To learn more about coLeague, check out this coLeague panel discussion featuring Marion and other talent leaders discussing current trends in talent work and how the coLeague model can make an impact.

What We’re Reading

We are excited to share we have begun a certification program in the Enneagram, a transformational tool that helps us shine a light on our motivations and behavior patterns so that we are able to grow. We first learned of the Enneagram from our friend and colleague Kelly Harris Perin at Little Bites Coaching who introduced it to us at a retreat with our coaching colleagues.

Among the many books Kelly shared at that retreat, one that we have especially loved is The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile. Through our certification program, we are now reading Discovering Your Personality Type: The Essential Introduction to the Enneagram by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson. We look forward to bringing deeper applications of the Enneagram into our coaching spaces to support our clients’ learning and growth.

Gratitude

We are grateful to the incredible clients we’ve had the great pleasure to work with over the past year! Individually and as a collective, we’ve:

• Provided executive coaching engagements to over 30 leaders and created a an executive coaching program to be part of a company’s year of service rewards

• Designed and facilitated diversity, equity, and inclusion sessions with a wide range of organizations, including some who were engaging deeply in this work for the first time

• Designed a performance management system and provided ongoing, embedded HR support for a start up

• Designed and facilitated team culture building sessions anchored in core values

• Provided mediation and conflict resolution for teams that were feeling stuck

• Launched the fifth cohort of White Leaders Working on Antiracism

• Hosted five Collective Conversations to create space for connection

Our clients bring commitment, creativity, and humor to their work every day. We are honored to walk alongside them. And we’re excited about what’s next.

Keep shining,

Marion and Miwa