MS in Organizational Behavior and Executive Coaching Curriculum
Master of Science Degree in Management and Administrative Sciences
with a concentration in Organizational Behavior and Executive Coaching
The MS degree and concentration focuses on the description and explanation of how people behave in organizations. The curriculum closes the gap between what is known about why individuals and groups behave as they do and how they can be influenced for performance and developmental purposes.
The master’s degree is delivered online using both recordings and live web conferencing to create a more successful learning experience. This allows students to attend The University of Texas at Dallas no matter where they are in the world.
The MS degree and concentration require completion of a 37-hour program consisting of 10 hours of core business courses and 27 hours of courses in a selected area of concentration. Those candidates who also wish to receive a Graduate Certificate in Executive and Professional Coaching must complete those courses below that are marked with an asterisk and successfully pass the ACTP comprehensive exam.
Core Courses
Students will explore the role of financial accounting information in the economy an how accounting information found in financial statements and annual reports is used in decision-making by investors, analysts, creditors and managers.
The study of human behavior in organizations. Emphasizes theoretical concepts and practical methods for understanding, analyzing, and predicting individual, group, and organizational behavior. Topics include work motivation, group dynamics, decision making, conflict and negotiation, leadership, power, and organizational culture. Ethical and international considerations are also addressed.
The course deals with fundamental aspects of economic analysis. It is not assumed that you have prior knowledge of economics. It is assumed that you have had a calculus course and are at least familiar with basic differentiation. The emphasis will be on fundamental aspects of economic analysis. The background gained in this course will prepare you for additional Economics courses and provide you tools for use in other disciplines such as Finance and Marketing.
Necessary background to understand the role of information technology and Management Information Systems in today’s business environment. Topics include: strategic role of information, organization of information, information decision making requirements, telecommunications and networking, managing information resources, distributed processing, and current information systems/technology issues.
Introduction to statistical and probabilistic methods and theory applicable to situations faced by managers. Topics include: data presentation and summarization, regression analysis, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, and One Way ANOVA.
Concentration Courses
EC100 and EC104 Solution Focused Coaching, Part I and Part II
These two learning modules introduce students to a solution-focused approach to coaching. Topics include: the fundamental processes of coaching, the meta-model of communication, solution-focused theory and practice, the trans-theoretical model of change. At the conclusion of the learning module, students will be able to assess a client’s readiness for change and carry out a structured solution-focused coaching session.
EC101 The Foundation and Structure of Coaching
This learning module provides an overview of professional coaching and introduces participants to the 11 coaching competencies, their significance, and how to apply them in working with coaching clients. It also provides context for coaching credentials, niches and specialties, professional connections, and organizing yourself as a coach. Principles of Solution Focused Coaching are applied throughout.
EC102 The Ethics and Standards of Coaching
This learning module provides an introduction to the role and application of ethics and standards in the professional coaching environment. EC 102 is a foundational class that will assist students in developing the knowledge and resources needed to handle ethical dilemmas that present themselves in the coach-client relationship.
EC103 Strategic Inquiry
This learning module provides students with a model for understanding and working with clients at a deeper level; using strategies of effective inquiry to facilitate understanding and self-directed change. Topics include: language and the brain; the Meta Model (deletions, distortions, generalizations); and the use of effective inquiry strategy. At the conclusion of the learning module, students will understand nine linguistic patterns that serve as stimulus for powerful inquiry so that they will be able to move from surface level to deep structure understanding.
Peer Practice Groups
These classes require students to apply and practice theory and technique taught in learning modules. Students work in small groups under the supervision of an experienced coach.
EC200 Coaching Techniques and Practices
This course is designed to introduce students to techniques, skills and practices that will support them in a very practical way as they apply the Solution Focused Coaching Model while integrating the coaching competencies. Students will observe coaching in action, experience being coached and practice the techniques and skills in between each class with their partners. Students will leave with enhanced practical techniques, skills and practices when delivering coaching to their clients.
EC202 Advanced Strategic Inquiry
This learning module provides students with a powerful model for understanding and working with clients at a deeper level; using a client’s own language strategies to facilitate change. Language patterns provide us with a map to the client’s territory of thought and behavior. Topics include: overview of the Meta Model; 6 of the motivational and working traits; and their use as strategies in coaching. At the conclusion of the learning module, students will be able to use specific inquiries and listening strategies designed to identify patterns of behavior and motivation in the client.
EC204 Group Coaching Methodologies
Group Coaching is one of the most powerful formats in professional coaching. It enables collaboration, and provides a proven forum for clients to learn from the integrated business and life experience of all the Group participants. This learning module teaches class participants what procedures/techniques facilitate a smooth, virtual presentation of material and the use of Group process for successful virtual Group Coaching. Real-world examples are utilized throughout, and the approach is experiential. Participants will take and analyze the results of the Gregorc Mind Profile Assessment Instrument, designed for use with Coaching Groups.
EC205 Career Coaching
This learning module focuses on effective career management and career transition coaching in a changing world of work. Students will learn a process for career transition and career success to apply in work with clients and in their own careers. They will practice coaching skills using the ICF Core Competencies through case studies.
EC206 Developing Coaching-Therapy Distinctions and Effective Practices
This learning module will enable learners to develop an understanding of how coaching and therapy differ, and what they have in common. You will consider how coaching-therapy distinctions guide your approach to your coaching and your structuring of the coach-client relationship. In addition to understanding coaching-therapy distinctions at a cognitive level, this module will ask that you use self -awareness and as a source of knowledge to make coaching-therapy distinctions.
EC207 Coaching and Appreciative Inquiry
This learning module teaches participants how to apply the Appreciative Inquiry and Appreciative Coaching principles, model and techniques to real-world coaching scenarios. This module offers a useful, powerful structure and steps to follow in the coaching process. Participants will also learn how to incorporate systems elements into coaching within organizational settings.
EC212 Cognitive Coaching
This learning module teaches participants how to apply the cognitive coaching model to their coaching practice. We begin by examining the foundations of the cognitive model and how to identify cognitive distortions. Topics include the A-B-C Model, combating irrational beliefs, and uncovering deep structure automatic thoughts. This module will build on concepts learned in the Solution Focused Coaching module and will include a practice lab.
EC214 The Business of Coaching
This learning module teaches participants how to strategically plan and market their coaching business or internal coaching practice from the point of view of the successful entrepreneur. We begin by examining common characteristics of well-functioning entrepreneurs and how they specifically apply to executive and professional coaches. Topics include defining the right marketing approach, making the correct choice about niches and specialties, using technology to manage and grow your practice, how to expand into corporate markets, how to gain media coverage, client retention and referrals, and how to leverage strategic alliances.
MAS 7200. EC2 Coaching Practice Lab, Part 1 & 2
This class requires students to apply and practice the theory and techniques discussed in OB 6350 and OB 6351.
EC301 Coaching in Organizations
This learning module facilitates learning about the contextual viewpoints of coaching in organizations from the external coach and internal coach perspective. Students will discover the context, environment (impinging forces) in which the coach works, including theories of systems thinking, change theory, structural, cultural and generational considerations. We will address issues of creating a coaching culture with leaders and managers as coaches as well as the context of internal/external coaches. We will conclude by exploring the context and approaches for coaching with differing populations of Boards of Directors, CEOs and executives, and managers and supervisors with a primary goal of gaining desired solutions and results.
EC302 Professional Executive Coaching
There is much to learn about the complexity within which executives live and work every day. Their scope of operation includes not only responsibility for hundreds of employees, but also responsibility for reaching broad-based results with serious accountabilities. Whether in a privately held company, or publicly traded organization, the executive leader and his/her executive team need to gain and maintain high levels of leadership and performance results. The Executive Coach partners with executives to develop the desired performance. In this class, we will discuss the distinctions of executive coaching, the often required combination of coaching and strategic performance, the best practices of executive coaching, and an evaluation of what you personally bring to the executive coaching arena.
EC204 Group Coaching Methodologies
Group Coaching is one of the most powerful formats in professional coaching. It enables collaboration, and provides a proven forum for clients to learn from the integrated business and life experience of all the Group participants. This learning module teaches class participants what procedures/techniques facilitate a smooth, virtual presentation of material and the use of Group process for successful virtual Group Coaching. Real-world examples are utilized throughout, and the approach is experiential. Participants will take and analyze the results of the Gregorc Mind Profile Assessment Instrument, designed for use with Coaching Groups.
EC303 Using Assessments in Coaching
This learning module provides participants with an overview of how to use assessments in a coaching relationship. Assessments are often used in coaching to develop the client’s awareness, to jump start the initial phase of the coaching, and to provide data for goal setting and return on investment. Numerous assessments are available to coaches, some at no cost and others costing hundreds of dollars or more. Your decision as a coach to incorporate assessments into your practice may depend on the types of coaching clients you work with, the kinds of assessments your own coach has used in your coaching, and your overall familiarity with assessments. One of the most effective ways to explore assessments and their value is through taking some of these measures yourself in order to evaluate what value they provide.
EC304 Positive Psychology in Coaching
This learning module exposes students to the science around the burgeoning field of human flourishing, which is now known as “Positive Psychology.” The class will cover the inception of the field in the late 1990′s and will track its growth, and particularly its successful application in the field of coaching. Special attention will be paid to separating the idea of “happyology” from Positive Psychology, which is undergirded by important findings around how to assess one’s flourishing, why it is important to learn how to identify and apply so-called “positive interventions,” and how the process of goal-setting is intricately wrapped up in the field of human flourishing. Students will learn about many of the concepts that support and encourage emotional flourishing and goal accomplishment, including grit, savoring, resilience, self-regulation and priming. Takeaways will include the identification of student’s own strengths through the Positive Psychology assessment of VIA Signature Strengths, worksheets on how to identify and encourage positive socially contagious environments, and a deep understanding of why the science of happiness is relevant to every coaching engagement, regardless of the context.
EC305 Team Coaching in Organizations
Summary forthcoming.
EC306 Research Practices for Coaches
This learning module teaches the basic concepts about qualitative and quantitative research practices and discusses how these are applied to the field of coaching. Learners practice an on-going process of informal data collection which is used in the weekly discussion sessions as a basis for exploration of data collection and analysis methods. Learners are provided with several examples of scholarly research in the field of coaching as well as resources for additional reading in peer-reviewed literature.
EC311 Evidence Based Models
This learning module introduces learners to the core theories from psychology, adult development and related fields which underpin the principles and practices of coaching. The concept of evidence-based practice, integrating coaching context, coach and client characteristics and engagement goals is introduced and addressed as a working framework. In each session, participants review theoretical principles and discuss the application of those principles in conjunction with their real-world coaching practice.
EC314 Strategic Alliances for Coaches
This learning module teaches participants how to optimize business and professional success–for themselves and for their coaching clients. Businesses of all sizes can reap significant benefit from the synergies offered by well-defined alliances. This module provides a well-defined, step-by-step, coach-oriented approach to planning, creating, implementing and partnering in powerful alliances. Real-world examples are utilized throughout, and the approach is entrepreneurial.
This course explores the theories, processes, and practical techniques of negotiation so that students can successfully negotiate and resolve disputes in a variety of situations including interpersonal, group, and international settings. Practical skills are developed through the use of simulations and exercises.
Political processes and the development and use of power in organizations including the role of power in decision making, sources of power, conditions for the use of power, assessing power in organizations; political strategies and tactics; political language and symbols, and applications to budgeting, careers and organizational structure.
Course develops students knowledge of coaching and organizational behavior through appropriate developmental work experiences.
PLEASE NOTE: A prerequisite in calculus is required for admission into The University of Texas at Dallas School of Management. Those students who have not taken calculus previously will be required to complete a self-paced, online calculus course during the first 12 months of the program. This non-credit calculus prep course is offered at no cost to the student.
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