Life Coaching School Review: Co-Active Training Institute

Our Website may contain links to affiliate websites. When and if you click on an affiliate link and make a purchase through that link, we will receive commission for any purchases made by you on the affiliate website using such links. Purchases you make through our affiliate links are at no additional cost to you. This means you will pay the same price for the purchase as everyone else.

Co-Active Training Institute.com

Summary:

Ideal for – Coaches who want to focus on leadership development and/or community activism from a lens of empowering conscious powerful, personal choice.

Best Features – The first program accredited by the ICF, Coactive Training Institute has over 30 years of training excellence and experience. They are the grandfather of coaching programs with courses offered in 16 countries and 13 languages. The founders were part of the group who started the coaching industry as we know it.

Class Structure – Follows their unique Co-Active coaching model. There are 3 levels of courses to complete on your way to certification. Classes include significant live practice and feedback time from certified master teachers. Classes are online over either a weekend or 3 to 5 days depending on the length of the days.

Allow about a year to complete all the requirements at a cost of just under $12,000 for certification.

Access to Support – Support from instructors is available at all levels, but is the most notable at the final, certification course. Certification students are connecting weekly for 6 months with other students and their instructors for step by step help as they practice skills.

Courses offered

*Co-Active Training Institute is a higher end program in terms of cost but there are limited scholarships available

Co-Active Fundamentals

$975 / US

20 hour course taught over 3 days

This class is good for anyone who wants to better manage relationships of any sort – with staff, family, children, volunteer groups or even to understand yourself better. You don’t have to be a career coach to benefit from the fundamentals training.

What you’ll learn:

• The co-active model
• The distinctions between coaching, mentoring and traditional leadership styles
• How to improve communication
• Designing cooperative relationships and aligning goals
• 3 levels of effective listening
• Powerful coaching questions
• Emotional Intelligence and capacity
• How to be more successful as a coach

Co-Active Coach Training

$5700/US

4 courses, 24 hours each, taught over 3 day weekends or 5 half day classes

The Co-Active Training level consists of 4 separate courses:        

Fullfillment – helping clients identify their values and their limiting beliefs to create a compelling vision for a fulfilling future.

Balance – How to make choices from personal empowerment for optimal control over how we live our lives.

Process – Gain a better understanding of what’s going on for us internally in the present moment to process, instead of avoid, issues.

Synergy – Learning to embody all the previously learned material in a way that allows intuition to guide client session so you can create more dynamic, impactful coaching interactions.

Each one builds on the previous and gives the experiential material that allows a student to go in-depth with each concept. The length of the class, plus the immersive focus on each step in the Co-Active model gives coaches the complete framework for competence and confidence in their coaching ability.

Certified Professional Co-Active Coach

$5990/US

A six month long cohort which meets once per week to practice, and develop mastery, of the skills taught in the previous courses.

This stage is invaluable for building the skills of a great coach. Students get one on one supervision from a master coach during actual client calls.

At the end of the certification program coaches will have met all the requirements needed to apply for the ICF Associate Certified Coach Credential.

The good, the bad and the (possibly) concerning

Pros –

CTI literally wrote the book on coaching. In this easy to read but impactful short book you learn the secrets of deep listening, shared commitment, and empowered learning .

They are one of the few coaching programs that actively invests in their mission by creating a scholarship opportunity for those aspiring coaches who demonstrate a commitment to leadership and a desire to serve their community.

There is no need to take additional courses specific to any niche of coaching because the Co-Active method can be applied to them all

Lots of class options to meet any schedule

Their website includes a wealth of coaching resources, tools, assessments, templates and more to equip students for a professional level business

Cons

Cost. Not many people have $12,000 to invest in life coach training. There are less expensive ways to get equally comprehensive training and experience. (see my other reviews)

This level of investment may not be suitable for people who don’t currently have a network of people who could readily become high paying clients. Coaches making an average income or above tend to serve business leaders. If your intention is to coach people in lower income brackets, it’s much harder to see a return on the investment in this level of training.

There is very little in the way of help setting up an actual business or developing the entrepreneur mindset needed to build a successful business.   

As a company CTI takes an official stand on political matters that feel more aligned with virtue signaling than authentic inclusiveness. Their mission is to embrace the right of every person to create the life they want to live without judgement. However they do have statements on their blog that use judgmental, critical language in their assessment of the actions of people on one particular side of the political divide.

Conclusion – CTI is very rigorous training in a well-developed and thorough program which will equip students to be exceptional coaches. Based on the small sample of the program I experienced, the thread of judgementalism is always discernible. There is a certain non-acceptance of people who aren’t quite woke enough. If you don’t fit in with being “whole” (their term), the problem is with you, not with the program or their ideology.

This leads to a great question – when learning as an adult, at what point do we need to be humble enough to recognize we need to make meaningful change in our own life and at what point do we stand up for our fundamental values and morals if they don’t match those of the teachers?  I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

Is Co-Active Training Institute right for you? How can you tell before you invest? Design your ideal life coaching career first, then finding the coaching program that fits your needs is simple. Free Roadmap to your Life Coaching Career.