Critical Practice Program
A Challenge to Coaches, Consultants & HR Professionals
- Have you ever considered that your professional conversations are an exact reflection of your present thinking?
- Have you realized that you can learn to understand your own work better, whatever kind of coaching and consulting you presently do?
- Do you have the courage to objectify your professional conversations by recording them so they can be cognitively and social-emotionally scrutinized by others?
IF SO, IDM’s new Critical Practice Program is for you! You can enter the program without any knowledge of the Constructive Developmental Framework and gradually absorb developmental thinking in both its social-emotional and cognitive forms.
Starting with CPP1 and moving to CPP2, you can transition from a behavioral to a developmental mindset, and absorb valuable information about the structure of organizations along the way.
Objectives & Outcomes
- Cut through the speech content of coaching conversations to the structure of the thinking and meaning making behind it.
- Acquire an ear for your own conversations and thinking habits with clients.
- Become aware of social-emotional and cognitive implications of what clients are saying unbeknownst to themselves.
- Learn to see how one's own speaking leads clients to say what they say, or hinders them from saying what is on their mind.
- Learn to notice how coaches' or consultants' misguided questions and answers can derail (paralyze) clients.
- Build a repertory of conversational "no-no's" to remember when working with clients.
- Become a more discerning user of language in coaching and consulting.
- Stop learning "about" coaching and learn to coach.
CPP Overview
The Critical Practice Program (CPP) at IDM aims to lead behavioral coaches and consultants into developmental territory, thus closing the present gulf between behavioral practice and applied developmental theory. It does so by giving course participants direct and individual feedback on their professional work from a developmental perspective, regardless of the level of their knowledge of the Constructive Developmental Framework (CDF). For this reason, everybody who does coaching and consulting work can participate by entering CPP introductory level courses (see below).
CPP Courses are based on guided role plays and the analysis of transcripts or recordings of coaching and consulting conversations submitted by participants [with permission of their clients]. In small groups of at most 6-8 participants, students receive feedback on the developmental cogency of their interventions seen and heard from the perspective of CDF (Laske, 1999-2009). By working through such feedback, participants indirectly absorb the basic tenets of applied developmental theory, gradually becoming developmentally thinking practitioners.
Professionals' "tires" meet the "road" in conversations. The quality of conversations indicates the quality of the intervention launched. In order to learn, coaches and consultants have to be willing to give evidence of how they speak with their clients. The Critical Practice Program goes directly the core of professional practice as it manifests in coaching or consulting conversations. It is not "about" coaching or consulting, but targets professional coaching and consulting processes directly, as evident from transcribed or recorded conversations. Language is treated as the medium that "gives away" clients' and coaches' developmental whereabouts. It is regarded as showing the degree of developmental cogency of a practitioners' work.
Through language a person articulates three different but related aspects of his/her life and work:
- Where s(he) presently draws the line between "what is ME" and "what is NOT-ME" and accordingly answers the question "What should I do and for whom?" — the crucial social-emotional question
- How s(he) presently constructs the world for her-/himself conceptually, that is, how complex an inquiring system s(he) is using, and what, accordingly, are the logical and/or dialectical tools (thought forms) s(he) can use to answer the question "what can I do and what are my options?" — the crucial cognitive question.
- How s(he) articulates internal needs and pressures that determine self-conduct, approach to tasks, and emotional intelligence — the determining personality profile.
CPP Classes for Novices and Progressed or Advanced Students
All CPP courses are held in 4 2-hr sessions. Class discussions are focused on pragmatic coaching issues relating to specific clients, not excluding discussions about more general coaching issues viewed developmentally. Each participant is asked to submit a 20- to 30-minute recording of a coaching conversation (or a transcript thereof), to receive feedback both from peers and the instructor. Feedback is given on a first-come, first-serve basis, and it is the participant’s responsibility to provide material for discussion and feedback.
At the present time, the following classes are offered (40 ICF CEUs along the Portfolio Route):
- CPP1 [introductory, 4 2-hr sessions], for those unfamiliar with CDF: How good is my understanding of my client's social-emotional meaning making, and what can I do better to be more effective with my client? [Up to 8 participants]
- CPP2 [introductory, 4 2-hr sessions], for those unfamiliar with CDF: How good is my understanding of how my client presently constructs the world conceptually, and what can I do better as a thinker to be more effective with my client? [Up to 8 participants]
- CPP3 [progressed, 4 2-hr sessions], for those familiar with CDF "to some extent" (e.g., Gateway): What is still missing in my coaching conversations, either cognitively or social-emotionally, to make me an effective developmental coach? [Up to 8 participants]
- CPP4 [advanced, 4 2-hr sessions], for those who have submitted a CDF case study (Module D): How can I refine my coaching/consulting conversations by taking into account both the social-emotional and cognitive aspects of what my client is saying, and intervene for the client's greatest benefit? [Up to 6 participants].
The classes are geared to experienced coaches and consultants whose acquaintance with CDF varies from nil to IDM case study. In the courses for CDF novices (CPP1/2), feedback on social-emotional and cognitive issues is given separately, in two separate classes. By contrast, in the progressed and advanced classes (CPP3/4) social-emotional and cognitive aspects are taken into account simultaneously, as their interrelationship demands.
CPP Courses Follow a Developmental Path
Concretely, attendance of CPP1 followed by CPP2 is considered as an equivalent of IDM Gateway (live). It makes students eligible for participation in CPP3. (Students having taken CPP1-2 can also cross over to modules A to D of the Certification Track.) In this way, students entering in the entry-level courses (CPP1/2) can "graduate" to higher-level courses simply on account of their participation, which provides them with increasingly greater challenges. As a result, novices have time to develop an understanding of the social-emotional and cognitive perspectives on clients separately, and are enabled to put these perspectives together in the more progressed or advanced classes.
Since the meaning-making perspective (CPP1) is somewhat easier to grasp and master than the cognitive one (CPP2), novices are advised to start with the CPP1 course. For questions regarding what is the appropriate course to take, write to the Director of Education, Otto Laske ().
Course Materials
Participants in CPP courses receive the following materials:
- Course materials in the form of slides (CPP1/2)
- A slide refresher of Gateway and access to recordings of Gateway Live (CPP3)
- An article introducing the CDF methodology, entitled "On the unity of developmental and behavioral perspectives in Coaching"
- An article helping learners to transition to the developmental mind set, entitled "Mentoring a behavioral coach to think developmentally."
For course times and dates see IDM Course Schedule.
Certificates
CPP course participants will receive the IDM Certificate of Achievement in Developmental Coaching/Consulting indicating the level of their studies (elementary, progressed, advanced). CPP1 and CPP2 are worth 8 ICF CEUs each; CPP3 and CPP4 are worth 12 CEUs each; altogether 40 CEUs along the International Coach Federation (ICF) Portfolio Route.
Registration
Choose the appropriate program (CPP1 – CPP4) from the options below.
Tuition payments are accepted in form of check, money order or major credit card using our secure online system.
Register for CPP1 (four 2-hour sessions)
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Register for CPP2 (four 2-hour sessions)
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Register for CPP3 (six 2-hour sessions)
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Register for CPP4 (six 2-hour sessions)
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