Drawing on many years of fieldwork and research, Dr Ben Koh, the founder of Coach Masters Academy, has developed a proprietary transformative coaching framework known as the Awareness-Clarity-Choice (ACC) Conversation. It is an empirical approach that blends the science of Positive Psychology with the theories of transformative learning to support generative change. 

It is a dialogic conversation that seeks to heighten self-awareness and deepen the learning to draw out the emerging understanding.

The word “dialogic” refers to using a shared dialogue to explore the meaning of something.

The ACC Conversation uses an evocative inside-out approach to encourage people to reflect deeper in order to gain greater awareness, clarity, and understanding. This requires the coach to elicit and evoke people's self-knowledge, bringing it into their conscious awareness so they may use this understanding to create a fundamental shift in their thinking, feeling and actions. 

This is one of the distinct characteristics of the ACC Conversation - the spaciousness for people to sort through their thinking. The thought-provoking questioning process enables them to identify the issue at hand by addressing the dynamic gaps positively and constructively. This optimistic positivity would catapult them to a new understanding level and how they can experience their reality differently.

An inside-out approach to draw out insights

It provides the client with a safe space to explore his current reality objectively and gain a higher level of self-awareness which allows him to continually clarify and deepen his understanding of his being about the story he brings into the coaching space. Through the artful and masterful transformative coaching process, the client can emerge with new insights and learning that empowers him to tap into his strengths and take action to achieve the results that he truly desires.

Transformative coaching process requires the coach to have a high level of attention, awareness and openness to use oneself for the client's service. The coach needs to have the competencies to build rapport with the client, listens actively to the client’s story with non-judgmental compassion and at the same time curious about what is the shift that needs to happen in the broader system that the client is interacting with, what needs to shift in the relationship between the client and the issue he is describing, and for those shifts to occur, what needs to shift right now in the client.

While the coach is holding these questions in mind, he is comfortable with this tension without working out an answer intellectually, but waiting for a felt sense of what is necessary for the intended transformative purpose. The coach's understanding of the client’s situation starts with the broader view of the system he is part of and draws on his experience to stimulate the client to think, feel and explore new attitudes to identify the dynamic gap and create sustainable change. Coaching helps the client unearth and tap potential and creativity; co-ordinate career and personal life; increase the ability to cope with and welcome change; improve concentration, confidence, relaxation and decision-making; remove performance fears and anxieties, and eliminate unhealthy stress at work.

Experiencing a powerful shift in thinking

The transformative coaching approach enables sustainable change by creating a shift in the client’s mindset and emotional framing of their reality; rather than changing their choices within the current set of perceived possibilities which only addresses the situation and symptoms of client’s issues. The coaching process in this form of Coaching moves beyond new awareness and insight, to create a ‘felt shift’ in the space, where the client’s whole way of engaging with his issue has changed, including his verbal and non-verbal language. This newfound energy evokes commitment to action.

Effective personal development happens when one is increasingly clear about what they want, and more importantly, why they want what they want. The “hows” would naturally be developed once these “whats” and “whys” are clarified. The emphasis of defining one’s values and principles and aligning one’s behaviour and decisions based on this foundation would likely be one of the best coaching models to propel one to move forward in maximizing one’s potential when practised professionally. 

In conclusion, a transformational approach can create a more lasting impact than other methods for clients. This is consistent with the systemic perspective in that one part of the system fundamentally changes; the rest of the system will have to adapt to match it. This ultimately will facilitate client gaining a higher level of self-awareness that perpetuates personal effectiveness and development.

Drawing on many years of fieldwork and research, Dr Ben Koh, the founder of Coach Masters Academy, has developed a proprietary transformative coaching framework known as the Awareness-Clarity-Choice (ACC) Conversation. It is an empirical approach that blends the science of Positive Psychology with the theories of transformative learning to support generative change.