This program develops business innovation coaches whose mission is to help small companies grow into large enterprises and ordinary companies become great companies. It is intended for people with at least five years of professional experience in their current field.
Program Introduction
Upon entering the program, you will sign a license agreement. For one year after completion, you will receive supervision to review and resolve issues encountered in actual coaching engagements. Once you formally obtain the Business Model ZEN Coach license, you will receive the complete program and official manual and may provide paid coaching directly to clients.
Coaching is generally conducted one-on-one, though group coaching for 5–8 people is also possible. Starting with the discovery of a client’s problem, coaches support client companies in various ways from business launch through growth. If you are curious about the journeys real companies take to grow, we recommend also reading “From a Small Company Started in a Kitchen to Its Acquisition by Coca-Cola.”
Complete ZEN Coaching Modules (15 modules, 15 meetings in total)
| Stage | Sequence | Module Name | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start (0) | - | Taking the First Step | As the starting point of the coaching relationship, the orientation establishes a shared understanding of the direction of the entire journey. |
| A | 1 | The Innovator’s Perspective | Establish the mindset and attitude required of a business innovator. |
| A | 2 | Coaching Philosophy and Theory | Learn what coaching is, why it is needed, and its philosophical foundations and core theories. |
| A | 3 | Goal Setting and BM Diagnosis | Learn how to set coaching goals and diagnose the current state of a client company’s business model. |
| A | 4 | Coaching Skills | Practice core skills used immediately in coaching engagements, including questioning, listening, and feedback. |
| Reflection | - | Module A Reflection | Review the innovator’s perspective and coaching fundamentals, and assess readiness to advance to the next stage. |
| B | 1 | Reflection on Execution | Reflect on coaching approaches that help client companies translate plans into action. |
| B | 2 | Reflection on the Customer | Deepen understanding of customers and reinforce a customer-centered perspective. |
| B | 3 | Reflection on the Business | Explore together the essence and reason for existence of the business in which the client company operates. |
| B | 4 | Reflection on the Problem | Explore coaching dialogue techniques for discovering and defining the right problem. |
| Reflection | - | Module B Reflection | Integrate reflections on execution, customers, the business, and problems, and organize the resulting insights. |
| C | 1 | Facilitating Ideation | Learn facilitation techniques that elicit innovative ideas from client companies. |
| C | 2 | Reflection on Value | Reflect together on the genuine value delivered by the client company. |
| C | 3 | Reflection on the Ecosystem | Reflect on the ecosystem surrounding the client company and its stakeholder structure. |
| C | 4 | Reflection on the Solution | Validate and refine whether the proposed solution resolves the real problem. |
| Reflection | - | Module C Reflection | Organize insights about ideas, value, ecosystems, and solutions, and prepare for the next stage. |
| D | 1 | Reflection on Empathy | Establish deep empathy for customers and client companies as the foundation of the coaching relationship. |
| D | 2 | Reflection on Growth | Review the client company’s growth journey together and design the next stage. |
| D | 3 | Reflection on Sustainability | Reflect on how to ensure that change endures rather than remaining a one-time event. |
| Conclusion (1) | - | Final Reflection | Review the entire 15-meeting journey, confirm your growth as a customer-centered business innovation coach, and complete the program. |
Why are coaches needed?
- Business partnerships take distinct forms—consulting, coaching, mentoring, and incubating—and these need to be understood separately.
- Consulting alone does not produce innovation. Insight and execution for innovation are complete only when a consulting approach (Push) and a coaching approach (Pull) work together.
- A coach leading business model innovation must begin not with “problem solving,” but with “discovering the right problem.”
- What drives innovation into action is not an “innovative idea,” but “questions that shift perspectives” and “sustained collaborative relationships.”
- Based on the “12 Reflections,” a BM ZEN Coach is a professional who facilitates new insights into a client company’s business innovation and action-oriented learning.
Three conditions for becoming a BM ZEN Coach
1) Clients
The greatest barrier on the path to becoming a professional coach is securing actual client companies to receive coaching. Without client companies that pursue business innovation and hire coaches, professional coaches cannot exist.
2) Expertise
Professional coaches need a philosophy, knowledge and skills, and effective tools to support them. They must thoroughly master the necessary capabilities through intensive training and continuously improve them.
3) Community
Professionals grow together within a professional group. A Community of Practice in which experiences and cases are shared and appropriate supervision occurs acts as a catalyst for professionals to emerge and grow.
The Business Model ZEN Coach Development Program is designed to ensure that all three of these conditions are fully in place.
Capabilities required of a BM ZEN Coach (Knowing · Doing · Being)
- Fundamental knowledge of business model innovation
- BM ZEN Approach — ways of thinking for innovation, structured tools, and innovation methodologies
- Diagnostic tools and methodologies for identifying innovation points (constraints) in a business model (BM Canvas, BM Health Check)
- Tools and methodologies for finding and validating innovative ideas (SOF Ideation, 4×4 BM Patterns, Business Model Map)
- Practice and learning methodology for revealing business hypotheses and systematically validating them through experiments (Visual Action Board)
- The 12 reflection methodologies and innovation framework that drive business innovation
- The philosophy and 11 core coaching skills required of a professional business innovation coach
2026 Training Schedule
- Training capacity: No more than 10 participants
- Format: A 6-day course conducted over three months in three two-day blocks (15 modules + 2 reflections + completion ceremony)
- Block 1: October 24 (Sat)–25 (Sun), 10:00–17:00 — 6 sessions × 2 hours each
- Block 2: November 14 (Sat)–15 (Sun), 10:00–17:00 — 2-hour reflection + 5 sessions × 2 hours each
- Block 3: December 19 (Sat)–20 (Sun), 10:00–17:00 — 2.5-hour reflection + 4 sessions × 2 hours each + 1.5-hour completion ceremony
- Training location: Near Gangnam Station (registered participants will be notified individually in advance)
- Payment methods: Credit cards (all issuers) and bank transfer supported
Prerequisite Courses and Eligibility
Applications are open only to Green Cube or Blue Cube certification holders, or those with at least five years of experience in fields such as planning, product, marketing, strategy, sales, or business development. Applicants who have not completed the prerequisite course (Business Model Professional Course) must submit materials demonstrating relevant experience before entering the program.
Application and Selection Process
1. Submit the following documents in any format in advance
- Documents demonstrating at least five years of experience in fields such as planning, marketing, strategy, or business development (an official certificate of employment may be submitted after admission is confirmed)
- Business Innovation Coach application (including a personal introduction, profile, education, and career history)
2. Interview after passing the document screening
3. Admission decision provided after the interview
Please pay the training fee after your admission has been confirmed.
4. Submission address
Email info@thelab.center (inquiries: 02-3454-1108)
Useful Information
- This program is not linked to a certification. Upon formal completion, participants receive a Partner Coach appointment certificate (certificate of completion). (Linked to the partner agreement)
- Payment by credit card and bank transfer is supported. Add the program to your cart, then complete your order and payment.
- If you require a tax invoice, attach your business registration certificate to an email request and we will issue an electronic tax invoice.
- Cash receipts are also available. Email your mobile phone number or business registration number and we will process the request.
Contact: Email info@thelab.center · Phone 02-3454-1108