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A Coach is an employee who holds the Coach badge (125% Readiness) for a specific responsibility. Coaches train and certify other employees on that responsibility, issuing Apprentice (50%) and Proficient (100%) badges based on inspection.
“Coach” isn’t a job title or organizational role. It’s a badge level for a specific responsibility. The same employee may be a Coach for one responsibility, Proficient for another, and a Novice for a third. See The Badge Ladder for the full progression.

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What a Coach does

For each responsibility where they hold the Coach badge, a Coach:
  • Guides development: helps employees learning the responsibility, pointing them to the institutional knowledge (short videos and knowledge articles) and the quizzes they can use to self-assess
  • Conducts inspections: observes employees doing the work and evaluates their knowledge, abilities, and behavior (KAB) against the inspection protocol
  • Issues badges: Apprentice (50%) or Proficient (100%), based on the inspection outcome
See Inspecting a responsibility for the inspection workflow.

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What a Coach doesn’t do

  • Issue Coach badges to other employees. Only an Architect can do that.
  • Issue Architect badges. Those are issued by an administrator.
  • Create or maintain the institutional knowledge, quizzes, or inspection protocol. That’s the Architect’s job.
  • Inspect themselves on the responsibility they coach.

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Becoming a Coach

An employee becomes a Coach for a responsibility through a deliberate progression:
1

Earn Proficient

The employee first earns the Proficient badge (100%) for the responsibility.
2

Train under the Architect

The employee trains further with the Architect, learning not just how to do the work but how to evaluate others doing it against the inspection protocol.
3

Receive the Coach badge

When the Architect decides the employee is ready, the Architect issues the Coach badge (125%).
Certifying more Coaches increases training and inspection capacity for the responsibility. See Architect operations for how Architects train and certify Coaches.

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The Coach view

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Multiple Coaches per responsibility

An organization can have more than one Coach for the same responsibility. This is common and desirable:
  • It spreads the inspection workload.
  • It reduces risk if one Coach is unavailable.
  • Different Coaches may have different availability for employees.
Any Coach for a responsibility can inspect any employee assigned to it. There’s no formal “assigned Coach” per employee.

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Architect acting as a Coach

An Architect for a responsibility automatically has Coach abilities for it. An Architect can choose to:
  • Train and certify new Coaches, who then take over Proficient certification (increasing capacity), or
  • Act as a Coach themselves, inspecting employees directly (filling capacity when needed)

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If a Coach badge is removed

If an employee loses their Coach badge for a responsibility:
  • They keep their Proficient badge. They’re still Competent at the work itself.
  • They can no longer inspect other employees for that responsibility.
  • Badges they previously issued stay in place.

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Rules and constraints

  • To act as a Coach for a responsibility, an employee must hold the Coach badge (125%) or the Architect badge (150%) for it.
  • A Coach can’t inspect themselves.
  • A Coach issues Apprentice and Proficient badges, not Coach or Architect badges.
  • Coaches inspect against the inspection protocol maintained by the Architect.
  • Every inspection and badge issuance records who did it and when.

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Common questions

Yes. Coach status for a responsibility is independent of whether that responsibility is part of your position. What matters is that you hold the Coach badge.
No. Coaches use exIQtive to record inspections, so they need access.
Raise it with the Architect, who owns the protocol. You inspect against the protocol as it stands; changes are made by the Architect.
Effectively, yes. Any qualified Coach for the responsibility can inspect any employee. If you’re unavailable, the employee can reach out to another Coach for the same responsibility.

Inspecting a responsibility

How a Coach runs an inspection.

Architect operations

How Architects certify Coaches.

The Badge Ladder

Novice through Architect.

Personas

exIQtive management roles.

Key Readiness concepts

Readiness, badges, and zones.
Last modified on October 14, 2026