Short and Life-changing, Co-Active Coaching: Fundamentals
Was it the summer of 2020 or 2021? After leading an informal squad for half a year, our squad became an official team, that also meant I became an official team leader. Being official or not, somehow the weight of responsibility carried was a world of difference. Obviously it was the norm –– the same anxiety was unhidden even on our relatively low-resolution webcam back then, as I stepped into the virtual room of LeadDev Together. That's where I first learned about coaching as the 3 pillars of leadership skills: mentoring, coaching, and sponsoring. It changed the way I lead, and the most reliable tool for me to lead a team that outperformed me in all aspects of individual contributors.
I then had the privilege of working with several great coaches who changed my life forever. What happened? Well, we just had a conversation.
It's still magnificent for me to reflect, that just one conversation is enough to change someone's life forever.
That's why I started looking for ways to improve my coaching skills even though I don't have a team to lead at the moment. The skill has helped me lead, helped me better manage the relationships around me, and helped me become a more authentic, better version of myself. Thanks to the recommendation of coaches in Rands Leadership Slack, I discovered the Co-Active Training Institute and decided to give it a go.
Coaching from Day 1 ... for Real!
Luckily, Co-Active Coaching Fundamentals offered the virtual format regularly. I joined the cohort starting at the beginning of September in the Singapore timezone. The program was hosted by two CPCC-certified coaches, two classroom assistants who were also highly experienced coaches, and one technical assistant who was responsible for all the technical gotchas of a virtual room.
In the 4-day program, we met for 5hrs in the first 3 days, and 6hr on the last day. As the name suggests, the Fundamentals aimed at establishing the general framework from end to end:
- Beginning: Designing alliance with the client, creating a space that is safe, non-judgmental so that transformation can happen.
- Running the session: The mindset of being a coach and the concrete skills using the Co-Active Framework.
- Closure: Defining the way forward and giving powerful inquiries for the client to reflect on.
What made the whole experience stand-out was that everyone was required to coach from day one.
The host coaches would coach each other, the host coaches would coach the students in front of everyone, the students would be asked to coach the hosts, in the breakout rooms we'd use the new tools we just gained minutes ago to coach each other while the host would randomly stop by and give insights. i.e. no role-playing, no synthetic scenarios, we coached on the real topic every single time. I had my coach training on my previous role for multiple times but they were hard to sink in because they were not real.
What's more, we were asked to find our real clients outside of the classroom on day 1, and applied what we had learned in the sessions as the homework of day 3. Thankfully we had an alumni group that I could leverage for that. Thus, every day was 20% of talking vs 80% of doing. Each day, we submerged ourselves in this rapid, intense exchanging of mental energy, being pushed to the limit like never before.
Like in the fulfillment module, my classmate helped me identify what I valued of life, and face how much I had deviated from my values.
Like in the Being Tag exercise, I forced myself to become a "fast loud disruptor", accessing the energy of the mental range that I had never dared to access.
Like in the Process module, I learned that opening up and synced with the other actually took courage. I almost had an emotional meltdown after the session.
Like in the day 3 homework, the real coaching sessions with external clients, I had to relentlessly invoke self-awareness to induce my full presence since there happened to be an argument at home.
By the end of each day, I felt so depleted from giving out everything I had, yet so fulfilled by receiving the energy given by my classmates.
By the end of each day, I felt like a new person.
Closing Thoughts
We still have 3 months to go in 2025, but I can already see that joining Co-Active Coaching Fundamentals is the best investment I've made this year. The skills and the mindset I learned there have already helped me better resolve several challenging family relationship situations.
It's such a transformative experience that I won't forget for my lifetime.
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