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Using Agilities to Help Individuals Discover their Power
By Lilly Coye, Coach, Consultant, and Agility Coach
When I became a leadership and success coach, I was looking for tools to support my clients and my coaching. I was fortunate to find The DeBruce Foundation and the Agile Work Profiler© After taking it for my own career journey, I realized it was a helpful tool that I wanted to learn more about. I decided to sign up to become a certified Agilities Coach, being then able to better teach career literacy and help others become more informed career decision-makers. During the Agility Coach Training, I became more aware of the 10 Agilities, affirmed my Agilities©, and learned to lead others to do the same. Furthermore, I learned how to activate my Agilities and teach others how to activate theirs.
The first thoughts many people have when trying to seek a new career are, “I do not know what I want to do,” or “I am not sure what I am good at.” In essence, they lack clarity and confidence in their journey. Assessments like the Agile Work Profiler are a great starting point for individuals to learn information about themselves. This tool allows individuals to affirm their strengths and provide awareness of where their skills and interests align when it comes to careers, along with simplifying the process of a career search.
In my coaching practice, to collect some data about the client, I use the analogy that we are on an adventure together. The Agile Work Profiler allows individuals to identify their top skills and interests as they relate to the workforce. This provides individuals with new ways to talk about their strengths. Also, the process provides individuals with vocabulary to search for jobs and utilize their Agilities on their resumes, cover letters, and LinkedIn profiles. After this, the individual can use the Career Explorer Tools©.
“They’ve given me the words to describe my strengths. That is empowering and a confidence builder for someone like me who has difficulty describing my occupational characteristics.” – Sylvia, client
One specific part of my work where I utilize the Agile Work Profiler is with my Thrive Return to Work Program. This is a 9-week group coaching program run through Parents Pivot. Through this program, we hope to work with women as they return to the paid workforce by helping them find clarity, confidence, and community in the process.
We have all clients start with the Agile Work Profiler. This helps returners look at skills they have developed and how they can apply them within the workforce after a period of time of inactivity in the paid workforce. By utilizing the Agile Work Profiler, we help them find the clarity and confidence that they are seeking in their return-to-work journey by connecting them to their skills and interests along with an expanded vocabulary to be able to know and show their value as they work to network and return to the paid workforce.
When first meeting with clients, we walk through their Agilities by utilizing the Learning Your Agilities one-pager which provides an introductory description and useful keywords for each Agility. We also review the individual one-pagers for each Agility. This provides details that help with résumés, cover letter writing, and next steps for activating their Agilities. As clients do this, they find clarity in realizing that they know what they are good at and affirm what they like to do.
“I found the [Agile Work Profiler] to be an accurate and helpful resource. I learned what my strongest assets are and used that information to enhance my resume and LinkedIn page with the skills that describe me best. It also gave me more awareness as to what I’m looking for when reading job descriptions and requirements.” – Alycia, client
With knowledge of their Agilities, along with new career vocabulary, clients can research occupations and learn more about potential careers that they may not have known about before utilizing the Career Explorer Tools. Once they have narrowed down some occupations to explore, they can start to utilize the language of the Agilities to enhance their career search. Utilizing the tools provided by The DeBruce Foundation provides clarity and confidence in the individual’s career exploration process. I especially enjoy being able to equip my clients with tools they need to be better-informed career decision-makers. If anyone is interested in becoming an Agility Coach like me, I encourage you to check The DeBruce Foundation’s Events and see when the next Agility Coach Training occurs.
