Having reported on the movement to initiate a controlled burn of the Coaching profession in a previous article (“Burning Up the House”), I feel compelled to share a personal vision of the vista that I see through the smoke as the birthing, shaping fire creates a clearing for creative imagination. This is essentially a description of my personal Grail Quest, and an invitation to share.

 The history of human labor is a progression of morphing to adapt to the economic environment and to population pressures. We have gone from the Arborial Browser, to the Hunter-Gatherer, to the Agriculturist/Herder, to the Industrial Worker, to our current state of the Knowledge Worker economy. In each case, when the form of labor no longer aligns with the means of production, History calls forth a new form of labor to fill the gap. Because of the acceleration of human economic development and the explosion of human population, the intervals between phase-transitions continually decreases.

 The roots of the age of the Knowledge Worker stretch back to the birth of Information Technology in the late 1950s / early 1960s. The means of production became more and more information-based, and so the form of labor had to adapt to becoming more and more knowledge-based. It has been almost 50 years now, and that form of labor is about ready to begin its retirement, as are the Baby Boom generation who were its chief practitioners.

 What, then, is next? The most reliable means of predicting the answer to that question is to look to where there is a gap. History will always fill the gap.

 Right behind the Baby Boom generation is a Baby Bust generation, followed by a Second Boom generation made up of the grown children of the Baby Boomers. The Baby Bust era will last about 20 years. As the experience and insight that the Baby Boomers have gathered throughout their careers exits the traditional workforce, the proportion of Wisdom available to support those just developing their careers will drop precipitously. Baby Busters had a plethora of Baby Boomers to support their career development. Second Boomers will have a severe scarcity of Baby Busters to support their development. I call this the looming Wisdom Gap.

 Technology will help fill the gap to some degree by making the transmission of Wisdom easier to accomplish on a broadband basis. The phenomenon of Web 2.0, where Wisdom can be shared broadly through Social Networking is an initial manifestation of History attempting to fill the Wisdom Gap. But the gap will be so wide that Technology by itself will not be able to fill it. It is my firm belief that this is the exact reason that History has called forth the vocation of Coaching – to allow those holding the Wisdom to continue to transfer it without having to continue to fill traditional roles in the workforce. The Coaching vocation is the vanguard of the Wisdom Worker wave. But, to fulfill this mission, Coaching will have to evolve and adapt. As Technology is creating Web 2.0, we in the Coaching vocation need to create Coaching 2.0.

 Coaching 1.0 was created at the tail end of the transition from Industrial Worker to Knowledge Worker. It therefore carries characteristics of both those forms of labor: the procedural nature of industrial work, and the focus on competencies of knowledge work. As the Wisdom Age advances, many of these characteristics cannot help but become vestigial.

 We stand now at the nexus of the Knowledge Age and the Wisdom Age. Therefore, the characteristics of the Wisdom Worker will need to be some mixture of knowledge skills and wisdom skills, with the accent shifting to a greater extent to wisdom skills as the Wisdom Age progresses.

 Over the course of the Knowledge Age we have gained a fair grasp of knowledge skills. But the big unknown is what Wisdom skills are. If we are to lay the foundation of Coaching 2.0 we need to build an academic base capable of developing those skills.

 I believe that the movement arising to look more closely at traditional cultures and their mytho-shamanistic forms of transmitting knowledge is one of the means that we are exploring to understand the characteristics of being a Wisdom Worker. Even at the early stages, this approach is bearing extraordinary fruit. But to be truly effective, we will have to understand how to embed this knowledge inside a modern setting such as a corporation.

 This is the reason I have chosen to embed myself in the work world as a Director of Organizational Development. In many ways, it is a field-trip for exploring the evolution of Coaching 2.0.  I believe that Coaching 2.0 will require that we embed the Wisdom where it is needed, at the point where the work is being done. Coaching must be injected directly into the cellular structure of the organization.

 That is not to say that the Executive Coaching elements of Coaching 1.0 are not needed. Without the Executive Coach reinforcing a climate of Humanism among the executive staff, the efforts of the embedded Wisdom Worker are hopeless. We need both the external coach and the embedded coach, and we need for them to work together. I firmly believe that will be the essential nature of Coaching 2.0.

 So I would like to share with you what I have learned thus far on my expedition regarding the characteristics that will be necessary for the Wisdom worker. I will start with a simple formula for the nature of Wisdom. Consider this the ingredients that I am throwing into the pot. But we will need more in order to have a full-bodied stew.

 Thus far, I would say that Wisdom = Knowledge + Experience + Insight.

 Are these the correct ingredients? Should any be removed? Should any be added? And what is the recipe for cooking it all up?

 We are only at the very dawn of the age of the Wisdom Worker. When we burned up the house we created the fire under the pot. Your additions to the stew, and your personal recipes for its creation, will help assure that it has a tasty breakfast waiting for it when it arises.

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