A Developmental Perspective in Coaching

The Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara is among a small cadre of coach training and learning organizations in North America emerging in the late 80’s and early 90’s, each with roots in specific fields of study and applied theoretical orientations. Like others, we began building our coach training and education programs when the term ‘coaching’ was largely understood in the sports arena and the nascent field of coaching was frontier territory at the cross section of leadership and organizational development, human development, behavioral change, consulting psychology and various philosophical domains. As the profession matures we are able to appreciate the diversity and richness of our multidimensional roots and the value of a broad pool of theoretical orientations informing this burgeoning field of coaching.

Coaching has emerged at a unique time in history; few new professions have been born into such a change-dominated world. In the past, professionals have always functioned with a set of basic skills and concepts that they use repeatedly throughout their careers (medicine, law, nance). Coaching is radically different in that it has emerged as a field that, as its central function, facilitates change and development. For this reason alone it’s imperative that our profession has a coherent and explicit understanding of how change happens and how we support and leverage continuous change at the intersection of development.

At The Hudson Institute, our primary theoretical roots are in adult development, human systems thinking and change theory. Development is an ongoing process for the individual that is inextricably embedded in all levels of human systems ranging from the internal system of self to the broader systems of teams, organizations, and extending beyond into cultures and today’s global forces. Development throughout our adult years as leaders, managers and individuals is at the heart of growth and change in all facets of our humanness and at all levels of human systems.

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