Frameworks and techniques
By Jedidiah Alex Koh · Revised [date] · [n] entries
Ideas › Frameworks
Four ideas carry most of the coaching and leadership work here, and each has its own page. Beneath them sit the techniques: the named moves, instruments and small models that live inside the four, most of them demonstrable in two minutes of a real conversation. Each is defined here in two sentences and nowhere else on the site, so that when a technique is named on another page, this is where the name resolves. None of them is a brand. An entry earns a page of its own only when it has a definition I would sign, a stated inheritance, a stated extension, a worked example, a published work that teaches it and evidence, or an honest line about the absence of evidence. Until then it is two sentences here, dated, and that is enough.
The Working Set
The full field vocabulary in one place: the five phases of the LEAD Coaching Model and its close, the work that sits beside a one-to-one conversation, the Mastery in Coaching layer, PUTURE and Metaphorium, and the listening skills underneath everything.
Ten groups run through this set. Indigo marks the LEAD core and its team/org neighbour, plum marks Mastery in Coaching, teal marks PUTURE and Metaphorium, and grey marks the close and the listening group, which sit outside any single line.
PHASE 1 · LEAD OUTCOMES
Five Essential Movements
The five small movements of the Lead Outcomes phase: an opening invitation, exploring the landscape, discovering relevance, clarifying the lead outcome, and establishing shared agreement. Taught in LEAD with Clarity, chapter 17.
OMG
A way of opening a coaching conversation in three moves: outcome and why, measures of success, go forward. Taught in the Level 1 programme.
PHASE 2 · EXAMINE
PHASE 3 · EXPLORE AND EVOKE
Two-Lens
It lives in the Explore and Evoke phase; the space between the two lenses is called the Meaning Zone.
3-Axis Lens
Widens a person's view of a situation along three axes: time, perspective, scope. Taught in LEAD with Clarity, chapter 19.
Note The 2024 document "3 Axis of Generative Insights Conversation Model" names the axes differently. Rule which form is canonical before this goes live. Logged in file 34.
Ground Truth Scan
Separates what a person observed from what they concluded, in three levels: observable facts, interpretations, implications. Taught in LEAD with Clarity, chapter 18.
4-Layer Inquiry
Examines a situation through four questions in turn: the situation, the thinking, the feeling, the wanting. Taught in LEAD with Clarity, chapter 18.
PHASE 3 · CONT'D
Metaphoric Bridge
An image, supplied or elicited in the conversation, that carries a person past a defence direct questions can't pass. Connects to Metaphorium.
Scaling Inquiry
A person places their present position on a scale; the coach asks what one step forward would look like. Adapted from de Shazer and Berg's solution-focused practice.
Perceptual Positions
An NLP term for viewing a situation from first, second and third position, extended with three further positions: the future self, the wise mentor, the system.
PHASE 4 · ALIGNED INSIGHTS
Layers of Learning
Learning Depth Ladder
The depth of a learning is set by the question that produced it, ascending rung by rung. Taught in the Level 2 programme.
Meaning Matrix
Locates an insight against four domains of a life: work, the most important relationships, the personal growth journey, and what gives life meaning.
Integration Check
Tests whether an insight holds in head, heart and hands before it's acted on. LEAD with Clarity, chapter 20.
Harvests learning in three layers, in order: what (the situation), who (identity), forward (orientation). Owns the Aligned Insights phase.
THE CLOSE & WHOLE CONVERSATION
Coda Close
5 Graces to Close
Closes a session in five moves: outcome check-in, an authentic celebration, the layers of learnings, the one thing, and partnering to close.
Three moves to close a conversation with honour. Closes a LEAD conversation; taught at Level 1.
PHASE 5 · DECIDE AND ACT
GO 6 Steps
In full, "GO: Six Steps to Leap Forward" — carries an insight into action across three pairs: actioning and design; progress and accountability; threats and resources.
ANCHOR
Embeds a change in five moves: Articulate, Name, Connect, Hold, Return. The Name move is the hinge — small enough it cannot fail.
VIBEE
The five conditions a change survives under: Vitality, Inner Ground, Belief, Environment, Engagement. Taught in the Level 2 programme.
Note The current blog expands VIBEE as Values, Identity, Belief, Experiences, Environment. Rule which is canonical; the blog then follows. Logged in file 34.
Short-Cycle LEAD
The model compressed for the five-minute conversations that make up most of real leadership — all five phases, in a corridor.
PHASE 5 · CONT'D
Between-Session Bridge
Designs what happens between one coaching conversation and the next, so the work continues where the coach isn't.
Commitment Calibration
A person rates, one to ten, how confident they are they'll do what they've just committed to — the action gets redesigned until the number is honest. Chapter 21.
Five Patterns of Non-Linear Movement
How a conversation moves between phases out of order: the spiral, the loop, the leap, the pause, the return.
L.I.A.M. Framework
A team coaching model in four stages: Listen to Understand, Inquire for Awareness, Align from Intention, Move to Progress. Its unit is the team, not the two-person conversation.
Eclectic Excogitate Coaching
A methodology for individual leadership coaching in organizations: four wings (adaptive, integrated, reflective, resilient) and six elements, aligned to the ICF Core Competencies.
Resonance Model
A mentor coach attends to three things at once — the Score, the Voice, the Room — across five movements. A tuning fork that sets a second fork sounding without touching it.
Confluence Model
Supervision where currents meet: the generative current, the culture stream, differentiated confluence, five movements, and a meta-map of the wider field.
Conversational Mastery
A way of being, not a skill set — begins with examining one's own interior architecture. Four conversational states; a three-pillar framework.
Felt Architecture of Coaching
Every conversation has a structural architecture (observable, assessable) and a felt architecture (the moment the room changes) — the second is what the client remembers.
Craft Arc
Four developmental phases — Apprentice, Journeyman, Craftsman, Elder — with credentials as markers on the path, not the path itself.
Co-Creative Coaching Conversations
A conversation made by two people, not delivered by one — the outcome, exploration, insight and action discovered together.
5 I's Reflective Practice
Needs a definitionThe five I's are pending. Reflective practice structure in the LEAD with Clarity appendix; Level 1.
Propitious Moment
The instant a person's system reaches a threshold where what happens next carries disproportionate weight — propitious rather than kairos.
Preponderance
The decision layer of the PUTURE Axis — the invisible weighting behind why a person tilts one way rather than another. Draws on loss-aversion research.
Material First
Ask what an image is made of, not what it means — naming the meaning early closes the world. Lives in the Going In movement.
The way of water (mizu)
Seven qualities held as orientations, not techniques: flow, adaptability, persistence, depth, clarity, nourishment, power. No trade mark — mizu is a Japanese word.
Nihombashi Principle
Named for the Tokyo bridge every Edo-era road was measured from: there's never only one bridge, and every person has more ways across than they remember.
#twsfrag29x-nihombashi-principle.CATS
Needs a definitionCuriosity-based listening. Level 1; subject of a forthcoming book.
Brave Reflective Listening
Needs a definitionFive-step reflective listening technique, first established 2018.
Awaiting definition
- Calibration Pause
- DEPTH Questions
- Three Layers of Presence
- Word Mining · Energy Tracking · Pattern Tracking Log
- Contracting Triangle · Values Embodiment Inquiry
- ECHO · FRAME · CORE · BOLD · RISE
Each becomes its own entry once it has a definitional sentence and a placement.
Observational Intelligence
Observational Intelligence is a working name for a construct under development about how a coach reads a person and revises the reading when the evidence changes. Status: under development; not yet defined on this site. Nothing further is published until the work is settled.
Not yet classified
Some names exist in my teaching or my notes and have not yet been through the classification I apply to everything on this page: whose idea it was before it was mine, what it adds, and what its smallest useful form is. They are listed here so that the list is honest, and they are not defined: LIAM, PI GROW, COACH, CAA, ACCC, ABC. A name moves from this paragraph to an entry above when it has its two sentences, and to a page when it has earned one.
Note: COACH (Clarity, Outcome, Awareness, Communicate, Here) currently appears on the site as a 2019 post with a ™. Decide whether it is retired, folded into the Lead Outcomes group as a technique, or left here; the ™ comes off the post either way (file 25).
How entries graduate
An entry on this page becomes a page of its own only when it has all of these: a one-sentence definition I would sign, containing the name and my name; the three closest prior sources named; one sentence on what it adds that is not a renaming; and a collision check on file; and at least five of these: a diagram, named components in a ruled order, a worked example, stated limitations, a published book that teaches it, a programme that teaches it, a research entry (even "no evidence yet"), and use of the name by someone other than me. Once a year, an entry that has gained nothing is left as it is, and a page that has gained nothing comes back here. That is how the site stays small.
