Tee Barnett Coaching Training (TBCT)

Build and upskill your coaching practice with Tee Barnett Coaching Training
 

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Applications for the first cohort are now closed. You can see a full write-up of how the first cohort went here. 

 Express interest in future cohorts below

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Program overview

This pilot program is a multi-component training infrastructure for developing your own practice as a skilled coach. You could think of it as a proto-accelerator or proto-incubator for solo practitioners, which also includes access to business architecture that is essential for building and maintaining a stand-alone practice.

The infrastructure targets key developmental bottlenecks of coaches, including early client acquisition, real-world practice, training and oversight by multiple senior coaches, co-created learning plans, reputational benefits, business architecture, and more. 

The program is a key piece of a higher-level mission to boost the total number of skilled practitioners supporting people doing scalable good.

Tee Barnett Coaching Training (TBCT) will include:
 

• A tailored curriculum co-created with cohort coaches

• Systematic and consistent client referrals for engaging in real-world skill building

• 1-to-1 coaching training calls with Tee

• Regular cohort calls with other cohort coaches

• Free access to office hours with Tee

• Peer coaching training calls

• Turnkey technical systems for building and expanding your practice  (partnering with Anti-Entropy) 

• Other guidance and resources becoming a coach, setting up and/or enhancing your practice

• Potentially also offering observation hours and guest senior coach interactive workshops

– Duration – the first cohort is expected to last about 6 months, though timelines may vary depending on the intended growth plans agreed upon with each individual cohort coach. 

– Pricing – costs of the program are currently reduced for the first cohort, pegged at roughly the equivalent of two personal coaching sessions per month with Tee. 

– Location – remote, though the option may open up for TBCT to sponsor travel and accommodations for periods of in-person coaching training.

> Take a few minutes to signal interest here

Spirit of the pilot 

Concepts conveying the vibe of the program: early-stage pilot, co-creationary, integration & synthesis, complementarity, self-aligned

One-line summary: this is an early-stage coaching development program that provides infrastructural support for those in the process of establishing and enriching their coaching practice.

The working design of the training infrastructure is partly a function of the early-stage nature of the program, but also a portfolio of deliberate philosophical and methodological stances that encourage coaches to collaboratively sculpt their own learning process. For example, each cohort coach’s ‘curriculum’[1] will be the end result of a collaborative selection process between Tee and the coach themselves, with both parties iterating upon chosen materials and methods that will culminate into a highly personalized experience within the program. 

Cohort coaches can expect much that comes with the territory of participating in a pilot program. On the one hand, participating in the ‘founding cohort’ can be thrilling and come with distinct benefits of the timing. On the other hand, there will be anticipated friction points associated with infrastructure and systems being under construction.  

Potential positives include: upsides of less overall standardization, more collaborative involvement in the design of the training infrastructure, more direct involvement by Tee, lower monetary costs, network and impact benefits that come with being part of the ‘founding’ cohort, etc. Potential negatives include: downsides of less standardization, less efficiency because the infrastructure isn’t settled and will likely be revised, less reputational signals (in some contexts), less certainty on program outcomes, etc. 

Philosophy of Approach

Contrary to what the wildly imaginative title of the program would suggest, Tee Barnett Coaching Training (TBCT) isn’t built in the image of Tee’s private coaching practice. We'll shift into a more literary tenor in order to communicate the philosophy that underlies the training infrastructure, fleshing out the implications of this approach concretely towards the end of the section. 

We can confidently assert that great coaches almost certainly had to take the long way in their developmental journey. Many, if not all, eventually had to part with notions like objective maps, silver-bullet guidebooks, or a strictly linear sense of progress. The developmental journey of a great coach is probably more like an odyssey of subjective sensemaking, with the most effective coaches mastering how to pass along the treasures that they’ve come across and synthesized.

Odysseys of this variety are often endured with a sober acceptance that the path may perpetually be unclear or incomplete, even without any definitive final destination. Those with a particular kind of spirit continue on. And it is this indomitable spirit driving the design of our training infrastructure, that which commits to the odyssey for the betterment of themselves and others. 

Continuously delivering fresh perspectives as a coach often requires skillfully meshing variety in inspiration with sensibilities of discernment. While innumerable existing approaches, methods and techniques exist, few will have the same effects, especially across different people and contexts. In much the same way subscribing to a particular discipline or paradigm can be limiting, we’d also encounter constraints in being indiscriminately open to all notions of human perception and development. 

TBCT balances this plurality of notions and discernment with a blend of firmness and humility that’s specific to this program. There’s firmness in privileging some tools over others. But there’s also a humility in admitting that we haven’t discovered (or will never discover) all tools, or claim to have fully mastered the tools we have found. 

The training infrastructure is shaped by the sentiment above through a portfolio of philosophical and methodological choices. Our particular portfolio prioritizes cultivating subjective sophistication as a coach. In other words, a training program for the refinement of your own sensemaking compass, and hopefully in turn, the skill and wisdom to guide others in refining their own compasses.

It’s an infrastructure that allows for coaches to integrate their preferred coaching methods, modalities, tools and intentions in a way that is ultimately intended to be effective when delivered to others. The turn from ‘grow in your preferred direction’ to ‘make it effective’ implies the presence of a supportive but also challenging process that intends to cause coaches to forge their own personal synthesis with their craft. 

Subtle choices regarding the inclusion, integration and synthesis of various approaches are made along dimensions that are more granular than entire disciplines or paradigms. For instance, it wouldn’t look like “how can I train to be an IFS coach”, but instead “what parts of IFS theory fit within my theory of mind and reliably work well for my clients?” It’s not really about this procedure or that procedure, it’s more about your personal experience with the effects of a given procedure. It’s more about what parts of the procedure are better highlighted, refined, modified, or discarded. 

Another way to get a better feel for the program would be to say that it isn’t “Tee shows you his way of coaching,” or “how to coach according to such-and-such discipline,” or even the purely agnostic “choose-your-own adventure with a coaching certificate at the end.” This style of approach reflects the belief that Tee is well-suited to construct this infrastructure and facilitate developmental progress for coaches on this path, in contrast to more authoritative positioning that might cut against integrating a plurality of traditions, paradigms, modalities, methods, approaches and intentions. 

But you will find evidence of our stances and choices all over the place, including the recruitment and selection of applicants, choices made in co-creating a cohort coach’s tailored curriculum, suggestions and guidance regarding development of coaching skill and business architecture, etc.

Here’s a sample list of how these stances and choices would surface within the program:
 

• Conceptions of coaching 

  • More like – engaging in wide-ranging and mutually enriching relationships with clients as a meaningful presence within their continuous process of self-discovery and self-actualization

  • Less like – purely a service for troubleshooting the practical and emotional problems presented by clients

• Self-development philosophy 

  • More like – Treating the cultivation and refinement of experiential observation and interpretation as critical to understanding (leading to better outcomes) 

  • Less like – doubtful of all self-interpretation and/or suspicious we can never really know what’s going on for ourselves. Defaulting to, or habitually relying upon, external judgment and decision-making generators 

• Coaching methodology

  • More like – gaining sophistication and facility with how the unconscious and semi-conscious mediate perception 

  • Less like – taking self-reports and explication at face-value when working with clients​

• Coaching intention

  • More like – truth-tracking and truth-seeking interventions and methods of interpreting reality 

  • Less like – forced mindsets or ideologies that privilege attainment of outcomes over engaging with reality

• Coaching development

  • More like –  encouraging the synthesis and synergizing of multiple modalities 

  • Less like – developing specialization within a single modality, or only developing the most basic general coaching skills

• Establishing a practice

  • More like – advocating for business architecture that meshes in a healthy way with client interests 

  • Less like – (un)intentionally perpetuating arrangements, or angling to upsell, for the purpose generating consistent or additional income

Intended Outcomes

Here’s a non-exhaustive recap of the program outcomes that were interwoven throughout the previous sections: 

• Program participants clarifying and securing the role that they want coaching to have in their lives [2]

  • For aspiring coaches, it could mean achieving the ability to establish a viable practice.

  • For existing coaches, it could mean stabilizing their practice and taking it to exciting new heights, both in terms of personal and client outcomes

• Notable and demonstrable growth in coaching skill as co-determined between the cohort coach and TBCT. Indicators of this growth can include a selected mixture of skill bars set by the program, participant-driven goals, business viability of the practice, client satisfaction according to feedback, and others. 

• Proliferation of coaches who emphasize and capably facilitate self-alignment and internal integration in the creation, clarification and actualization of aspirations for clients

• Proliferation of coaches excited to grapple with (and guide others in grappling with) cultivation of virtue and the ethical/moral ramifications of consequences

• Establishing a scalable practitioner upskilling apparatus that boosts the total number of skilled coaches supporting people doing scalable good 

• Normalizing wide-spectrum and value-aligned relationships with coaches as a crucial component of one’s process of self-discovery, self-actualization and attainment of aspirations

• Generating memetically potent proofs of possible perspective, especially among those who influence group entities and cultures (e.g. promoting mental models that close the implementation gap between self-alignment and performance) 

The set of participant-specific and program-wide intended outcomes are moving targets that are subject to definitional clarification and revision, but increasingly specified and granular targets will be derived from the scaffolding outlined above. 

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More about the training infrastructure

For those who can see potential in coaching to be a great fit for themselves as well as a compelling way to proliferate good in the world, this training infrastructure puts critical elements of the practitioner development journey within arm’s reach. 

All of us have unique psychological starting points that are only partially decipherable. The totality of what coaches bring to bear on any given coaching interaction will have a mixture of intended, unexpected and often confusing effects. This easily labeled, but incredibly high-dimensional interaction – a coaching session – can be a very difficult experience to make sense of. Even basic questions can feel tricky to answer, such as “what just happened?”, “did I make a substantive difference?”, “why do they (not) keep coming back?” or even “do I actually enjoy coaching?”. 

How coaches make sense of their experience is critically influential in their developmental journey. The training infrastructure is designed to meet coaches at these pivotal growth edges. From increasingly better positions of clarity across their many frontiers for potential growth, coaches can make better decisions within their practice. 

An overarching goal of this program for cohort coaches is securing the role that you want coaching to have in your life. For aspiring coaches, it could mean achieving the willingness and ability to establish a viable practice. For existing coaches, it could mean stabilizing your practice and taking it to exciting new heights. We traverse the pathway to these success states principally through the acquisition and cultivation of skill, in contrast to over-emphasizing the power of credentialing or various marketing techniques. 

Special care and attention is also paid, however, to setting up the appropriate business architecture (online presence, systems unifying scheduling softwares, invoicing, payment, follow-ups, etc.) as important for the sustainability of the overall practice. 

Program pricing

How Much – the program is currently priced at $750 USD per month over the course of roughly 6 months. Payment is requested in monthly installments [3] over the course of the agreed upon duration [4], which typically spans about 6 months. 

Offsetting the cost – working with clients almost immediately serves a double function of being an important tenet of the program for engaging in real-world skill building, and is also a means of reducing or eliminating the costs of participating in the program for cohort coaches [5]. TBCT will seek to provide systematic and consistent client referrals at a frequency co-determined by Tee and the cohort coach [6].

For an initial period of three months, clients referred to cohort coaches can expect to pay a guaranteed rate of $50 – $100/hr. USD. The exact rate within that range will vary as a matter of agreement between the supervised coach and client.[7] Know someone who would be interested in working with supervised coaches at a discounted rate? They can apply here. 

What’s Included – The monthly cost of the program is the equivalent of two 1.5-hour coaching sessions with Tee per month at his standard rate. In addition to receiving three hours per month of 1-to-1 coaching from Tee focused primarily on coaching development, cohort participants also receive access to the entire training infrastructure mentioned above. 

Bird’s eye view of pricing dynamics – highlighting some of the operative dynamics and program intentions could contextualize both the program pricing and the overall mission. 

This program is drawing energy and resources from i) the tapping into a common desire to take active steps toward self-improvement among both cohort coaches and clients, ii) tapping into a collective willingness to make trades in order to try things out, iii) bets about what people are happy to trade given assumptions about the potential value of coaching and coaching training. 

In short, the training infrastructure model aims to scale personal growth options (coaching and coaching training) by reducing the number and severity of various tradeoffs at several key junctures. The hope is that altering the landscape by easing these tradeoffs will catalyze a number of collective upward spiral dynamics. Concretely speaking, demand for coaching could increase as the price to test it out drops, more would-be coaches get to test out the occupation and build skill models in lower stakes environments, and skill and trust networks get strengthened by consolidating a training infrastructure. 

Meet the current cohort