What is AceUp’s Competency Framework?
AceUp has identified the 12 areas that our clients most often ask us to help their leaders grow in. Our coaching program helps participants make 1 meaningful behavior change per quarter in a given competency.
Please download the complete AceUp Competency Framework guide here.
- Leading Self
- Improving Time Management, Organization, & Productivity
- Developing Leadership Presence
- Transitioning from Subject Matter Expert to Leadership
- Leading Others
- Communicating Effectively & Influencing Stakeholders
- Growing Emotional Intelligence
- Managing Conflicts & Difficult Conversations
- Leading Change
- Facilitating Effective Change Management
- Regulating Stress & Building Resilience
- Collaborating Across the Organization
- Leading Organizations
- Leading with a Growth Mindset
- Developing a Coaching Approach to Management
- Building & Leading Inclusive Teams
While all of our intake surveys and group coaching programs are based on the Competency Framework, we do not expect our coaches to be experts in every competency in order to coach clients on them. Just as you don't need to be expert at a coachees' job or in their industry. The goal here is to help coachees focus on raising their awareness in these competency areas and design experiments to modify/improve their behaviors in these areas.
Why does AceUp use a competencies-based framework for coaching?
For three core reasons: first, we believe that it is better for AceUp to identify and coach around competencies in response to our clients' and coachees' needs and goals. The goal is that this ongoing process of listening and learning will help us validate, refine, and grow our library of competencies through time and further map out behavioral skills that can help our client companies in an unprecedented way. Second, a big part of our value proposition is that we can deliver measurable results using proven tools and methods. It is much easier to deliver, support, and measure coaching related to well-defined competencies and behaviors than it is with more generalized offerings like “leadership development,” “diversity training,” or “life coaching.” Third, our clients look for a clear, robust, and evidence-based framework with measurable outcomes, and the competencies have been extremely helpful in delivering all of that.
What does AceUp base its competency framework on?
We’ve based it on three equally important pillars: our client’s requests, evidence, and our coaches’ experience. First, we looked at 120 intake questionnaires filled out by client company decision-makers and identified the most common needs and goals. Second, we looked at other competency frameworks (there are dozens) and saw that many of them had no clear evidence foundation for theirs, so decided we’d go with a 4-part model that was much easier to grasp, support with evidence, and program around: Leading Self, Leading Others, Leading Change, and Leading Organizations. Finally, we asked coaches who had already been delivering trainings for us in several competencies to help us identify the core problems, goals, and behaviors related to each competency and to help us design the offering for each.
What is AceUp telling client companies that the framework will help coachees achieve?
Based on years of experience and research, we’ve settled on a really basic and achievable model: we are trying to help coachees make measurable progress in ONE behavior per quarter. Why one? Because the best research on habit formation and behavioral modification shows that it takes most people at least 2 months to develop a new behavior or sustainably change a bad one. The more time and resources we focus on ONE change, the easier it is for the coachee to make meaningful progress in it. We’ve also found that this narrow focus does not limit coachees’ growth. Most of them tell us that improvements in a communication behavior, for example, leads to improvements in management, listening, and process improvement. So the deeper we take them into one area, the more ripple effects it seems to have in others.
How is AceUp using competencies currently?
Here is a sampling of how we are using it at different stages of an engagement cycle:
- Pre-Contract: Sales and Marketing use the Competency Framework to help prospects identify which areas of AceUp’s expertise can bring to best help their people to develop and their company to grow.
- Onboarding of coachees: Coachees fill out intake questionnaires which show them the competencies, ask them which they want to focus on, and why. The completed questionnaires are shared with any coaches they choose to schedule a consult call with.
- Consult calls: Coaches and coachees can decide how much time to spend discussing the chosen competencies and how they relate to the coachee’s goals.
- Coaching session: Again, it is up to the coachee to decide how much time to spend working on competency-related goals. Since their employer is hiring us to help them develop in certain competencies, we recommend that they are coached on at least 1 goal related to those. They are also free, as always, to pursue goals related to other competencies or interests, as well. As their coach, you are free to offer anything related to the competency that you feel is relevant, but are not expected to “teach” or train them in it so much as coach them to develop the related skills and behaviors that they are most interested in.
- Group coaching session: The group coaches are expected to be much more explicit in their focus on the competencies, as those are the “content” that the group coaching sessions should be sure to deliver. That said, our model holds that only 50% of the time should be spent on information and content. The rest should be devoted to coaching activities and reflections. As always, the group coach is free to decide which of these would be most helpful and impactful for the participants, and the participants should always be coached to find their own meaning and relevance in the competencies. We certainly do not believe that one tool fits all the same way, or that they should all choose or use the same training tool. The sessions are more designed to inform and inspire them to try new approaches to pursuing their goals.
- Quarterly assessments: At the end of each quarter, coachees will be given a survey that will ask them about their progress in the competencies. They will be asked to share progress and examples from both the competencies chosen by their company/explored in the training sessions AND from any other competencies or areas they have chosen to develop. Naturally, they do not have to reveal anything personal or that they consider private- the goal is simply to help them reflect upon their efforts and progress over the previous quarter(s).
- Celebration event (Group Coaching Programs): At these events at the end of an engagement or contract, participants will be encouraged to share their biggest breakthrough or discovery with peers. Again, it is completely up to them to decide how much and what to share. These events offer a great opportunity for their group coaches and 1-1 coaches to help them pull back, take a wider view of their work and coaching journey, and discover new insights.
Why should I care about AceUp’s competencies? I use my own framework with different competencies.
Your unique expertise and experience are invaluable to us and why we asked you to join AceUp. We ALWAYS want you to leverage them to do your best work with your coachees! We aren’t asking you to abandon your own frameworks, but rather to explore the competencies and look for ways to both support and supplement them with what you know and love doing in your coaching. And we’ll be asking you throughout the year for ideas on how we can make the competencies and behaviors clearer and easier to coach on them effectively. Even when we have fully-developed group coaching curricula for each competency, both the group coaches and you will have considerable freedom in how you help your coachees apply them. Plus, we are hoping that you’ll see this as a chance to learn and grow with us. This framework will help you and AceUp get a LOT more business!
But this isn’t how I coach. Do I have to limit my coaching to competencies and behaviors?
Absolutely not. Your coachees will decide what they want to focus on in their work with you. Naturally, if their company hires us to help their leaders develop a coaching approach to management– one of our most requested competencies –they will be assessed every quarter on those skills and behaviors, so you both should spend at least a part of your sessions working on skills and goals related to that. However, that doesn’t restrict them or you from focusing on any other areas they care about, whether it’s work-related or personal. The more progress they are making in the areas that matter most to their companies, the more support they’ll get to continue coaching on that and other areas. So focusing part of your coaching on competencies is win-win-win: good for the coachee, good for their company, and good for you.
What if my coachee asks me a question about a competency that I can’t answer?
This is most common after a group coaching session. We make sure that all 1-1 coaches on an engagement with group coaching have access to the group coaching materials that coachees will be receiving. If you are still unable to answer a question that they ask, you can tell the coachee you’ll get them an answer, and in the meantime, ask your coachee what they have learned or understood about the competency and can do with that. Please feel free to always reach out to support@aceup.com when and if this happens.
What if I have a question that isn’t answered on this FAQ?
Please send it to support@aceup.com and we will work on getting you an answer as soon as possible.