Dear ACTO members,

It is a pleasure and privilege to be able to serve you through the platform of an ‘evolving’ ACTO. There is much to accomplish in the times to come, and we invite and seek your active engagement. I chose to say yes to being the president at ACTO because it is a way for me to contribute back to a profession that has nourished me and helped me evolve into a better human being. I wish to focus my message today on evolution within the coaching field and its impact on coach training.

As the world evolves, so does coaching, and hence coach training. Whether this evolution is a conscious one is completely in our hands and hearts as coach trainers.

I often ask myself questions around the nature of the coach training I am invested in. Here are some questions that I think about.

  • Is the coach training reactive and serves a need that has already been articulated over the past few months or years?
  • Is the training informed by framework and structures pioneered by others and I fit in my own design process into this frame in order to be relevant?
  • Does the coach training tap into the evolutionary impulse and I design coach training from the field of possibility – a field that informs who coaches will be over the next decade?

The choice making around the above mentioned options leads to specific design choices for our curriculum and more importantly how we teach and train.

So what are the distinctions around these design choices?

  1. First distinction is to design from a known source v/s an emergent source. This would translate towards accessing a set of known competencies and all that has been documented about coach training v/s listening into the field of emergence for the coaches we are serving and their own journey as people and within the context of the communities they serve.
  2. Second distinction would be to design for empty spaces, devoid of logic and explanation and practise time. These empty spaces would then necessary evoke what is present within the awareness of the group one is training, and hasn’t yet found voice or legitimacy. E.g. – identity work that is unsafe or threatening to the self-image of the coaches.
  3. A third distinction would be tap into the multiple intelligence(s) that a human being possesses: namely – cognitive, relational, ecological, cellular, emotional, heart-based, purpose-focused etc. For far too long, much of coach training has focused on the language and actioning at an individual level. Is there more to us and this field?

Increasingly, I have noticed coaches bringing in themes and challenges that necessitate access to intelligence that is planetary in intent and reach.

At ACTO, we are committed to building a learning network and community that supports us in making these design choices and being a partner to your coach training organization pioneer curriculum and teaching approaches.

In case you resonate with what has been shared here and wish to engage in further exploration and design thinking process, please do write to us.

With appreciation and respect,

Vikram Bhatt