College of Law

COACHING: WHAT WE OFFER

The EDR Program helps cultivate a culture of collaboration by providing individual and team coaching for environment, natural resource, and public policy professionals.

We treat coaching as a partnership. Our coach partnering supports you as you build awareness of your strengths, practice leveraging those strengths as an individual and as part of a team, and learn how to make conflict productive in professional and personal settings. We set you and your team up to make tangible, practical commitments to your ongoing development. This enables you to chart your own paths forward.

Our coaching partnerships begin with a readiness check-in and then, depending on the needs, we tailor programs lasting 90 minutes to 2 weeks to one year or more. Typically, a 6 to 9-month commitment is recommended. We do most of the partnering work virtually via Zoom and by telephone.

Read below for what leaders and teams say about coaching with us.

 

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What Leaders and Teams Say About Coaching With Us

During my time in the Bullock administration, Nedra worked with our Director’s Office on a year of work that improved our stance as individuals and a team. We used Lumina Learning, team coaching conversations on the pressing issues in front of us, and we used her as our guide to give us feedback from people we chose. It was invigorating and a key part of what allowed us to make a difference on a number of key issues in Montana and regionally. Nedra’s coaching has given me the confidence and support for being completely authentic. And in doing so, I hope it clears the path for the next generation of leaders to do the same. Nedra you planted the seed of being grounded and to use that athletic stance. For that I am immensely grateful and fulfilled in my current job.

-Martha Williams, Principal Deputy Director, US Fish & Wildlife Service

Danya's insight into the practices of facilitation and conflict resolution makes her an invaluable coach. I take away practical, nuanced insights from each conversation with her. She encourages the best in learning by repeated practice and reflection. With her, I've been able to observe, put principles into action, develop habits around making continual adjustments, and come to my own conclusions really allowing me to integrate the principles Danya teaches into my professional (and personal!) conduct.

— Isobel Lingenfelter, Wildlife Connectivity Working Group Coordinator, Utah Wildlife Federation

My team and I get so much value out of every coaching conversation and there’s action that comes out of each one. We have used Lumina Learning as one foundation for the past 4 years and now we are engaged in the Wallace Stegner Center Inner Work of Collaboration course as a team.

— Susan Russo, a National Park Service Chief of Visitor Experience and Community Engagement

Nedra is awesome to work with and she helps multiagency groups create constructive work environments. She demonstrates enormous flexibility and support. In short, a very dependable, effective coach and facilitator. She makes everyone’s job easier – and sometimes more fun. Nedra also provided several different teams I lead with professional development assessments called Lumina Spark. Through the use of a standardized, online survey each team member receives an individualized personal development portrait. It was highly useful and the individual attention and follow up to interpret made the team map exercise most valuable. This last year, we found it especially useful during Covid related remote work.

— William Shott, National Park Service Superintendent

 

Nedra was my leadership coach as part of some ongoing work we are doing between Tribal, Federal and local government finding properties to clean up and redevelop together. What a surprise to find out how valuable it is to have a learning partner to support me in identifying my biggest strengths and talents and then increase my use of those day to day. The twice monthly coaching phone calls didn’t take much time and ended up helping at just the right times. For just one example, she helped me discover a more effective and authentic way I could manage staff time across shared projects. The coaching helped me continue to build the trust and respect that is at the heart of our work inside government and with other partners.

— Ashleigh Dupree-Weeks, former leader of Fort Peck Tribes Office of Environmental Protection

 

It’s a rare skill to be able to focus a diverse group’s attention – to blend the various personalities, biases, and worldviews of the individual participants – into an organic unit with a shared mission. It’s even rarer to find someone who can do this while effectively incorporating the knowledge, skills, and quirkiness everyone brings to a meeting. It’s rarer yet to be able to get participants feel like a part of a team quickly and to have fun in the process. Nedra Chandler has all these skills. I have worked with lots of facilitators before. I’ve seen good ones and not so good ones, and I can confidently say that Nedra is a great facilitator. She enables a group to get lots of work done. I hope to be able to work with her in the future.

— (Former) Montana Department of Environmental Quality Richard Opper