Terry Hildebrandt and Associates, LLC

07/30/2026

Have you ever wanted a simple, no-risk way to experience Adaptive Thinking for yourself?

You can use the new ERA Adaptive Thinking Bot for free, in the privacy of your home or office for two weeks.

Bring it a challenging situation that has left you feeling stuck, upset, conflicted, or unable to act. In 15 minutes or less, the bot will guide you through the ERA Adaptive Thinking process and help you turn difficult feelings into greater clarity and constructive action.

To begin, visit:
https://app.adaptivemastery.com/start?Access_Code=XRQAKG3N

06/19/2026

The Future of Leadership Development Is Human-Augmented AI Coaches

Charles M. Jones and Terry H. Hildebrandt, PhD, MCC, MCEC, Institute for Adaptive Mastery

This week, we attended the 2026 NYU Coaching and Technology Summit: Coaching at Organizational Scale.

The dominant theme was clear: AI coaching has moved beyond experimentation and into enterprise adoption.

Large organizations are increasingly deploying AI Coach Agents to make leadership development accessible to employees who would otherwise lack access to a human coach. These systems are being used for coaching conversations, leadership practice, role-playing, 360-degree feedback delivery, assessment, and skill development.
One surprising insight was that some leaders prefer interacting with an AI coach, even when a human coach is available. Several organizations reported that employees often feel less judged by AI, making them more willing to seek feedback and engage in development.

At the enterprise level, Valence emerged as the leading provider of customized AI coaching solutions. At the same time, a growing ecosystem of companies, including CoachBot.ai, Osmo, and Tenor, is enabling individual coaches and smaller firms to augment their coaching practices with AI.

The conference reinforced a conclusion we have been reaching for some time: the future is not AI coaching versus human coaching. The future is human-augmented AI coaching.

Organizations want to expand access to coaching without sacrificing quality. AI makes that possible. Human coaches remain essential for complex developmental work, while AI provides scalable practice, reinforcement, feedback, and support between coaching sessions.

Several providers, including BetterUp and Korn Ferry, are already moving aggressively toward hybrid human/AI coaching models.
The space is evolving rapidly, and many questions remain. How should coaching be defined? Where does coaching end and training begin? How do organizations encourage consistent engagement with AI coaches? What safeguards are needed to prevent overreliance on AI?

What seems increasingly clear, however, is that AI is not replacing coaching. It is transforming how coaching is delivered and dramatically expanding who can benefit from it.

As part of this evolution, we have developed an AI-powered training coach for Emotional Response-Ability® (ERA), enabling leaders to practice turning emotional stress into cognitive growth and improved performance under pressure.

The future of leadership development has arrived. It is human, AI, and increasingly both.

To see a demo of a CoachBot being used for leadership development, join us for a free webinar on July 1st at 1:30 pm ET.

Register in advance: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Yhqp5832SWuVRV0premWWg

04/06/2026

I'm offering two webinars this month. In both, attendees will learn:

30-50% of leaders derail within 24 months of hire or promotion.

Derailment costs organizations 5-15% of operating performance, most of which is incurred before derailment.

The root cause of almost all derailing behaviors is an erroneous cognitive habit.

How Emotional Response-Ability® (ERA) corrects this erroneous cognitive habit.

The first will take place on Apr 22, at 12:00 PM Eastern and is optimized for CHROs and Heads of Leadership Development. It includes a discussion of how ERA integrates into your existing leadership development stack.

To attend or receive the recording: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/4K-e-dWDSyOJ-tyoytkHHg

The second will take place on April 30, at 12:00 PM Eastern and is optimized for Executive and Leadership Coaches. It includes a discussion of how ERA augments your existing coaching toolkit.

To attend or receive the recording: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/xlnv48pCRh2w6_HO1aV2mw

Here's what attendees had to say about last month's presentation:

"This is truly revolutionary!"
"This is common sense, but not common knowledge."
"Time well spent."

Please invite your colleagues to join you for the webinar.

04/01/2026

I found this this article by Greg Satell very true – Here is a quote:
“The truth is that we rarely change our behavior after being exposed to new facts. When confronted with evidence that contradicts our beliefs, we’re more likely to question the evidence than to update our views. Our brains prefer stability to change. … For leaders, the lesson is clear: Lasting change comes less from the facts we share and more from the networks and cultures we create.”

Lasting change comes less from the facts we share and more from the networks and cultures we create.

02/10/2026

You are invited to join a meeting: Coaching with Emotional Response-Ability. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.

Presented by: Charles M. Jones and Terry H. Hildebrandt
Date: Thursday, February 19, 2026
Time: 3:00–4:00 PM PST
CCE: ICF Continuing Coach Education
Note: Registration is required. Use this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Tt-AhfCERqymm93WNoCKYQ

01/08/2026

Date & Time: Jan 28, 2026 01:00 PM in Mountain Time (US and Canada) - Join us for a free webinar - https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/2F2ejPONTwmCCC_7QIM0Ow #/registration

12/06/2025

Check out my new article on Leadership Inc. on “Shifting from Victimhood to Responsibility”:

Created with the Heyzine flipbook maker

10/04/2025

STOP Managing Your Emotions!

Have you tried Emotional Intelligence training or a Mindfulness App in hopes that this would lower your stress, reduce conflict, and increase accountability?

If yes, you've likely seen that these techniques HAVE reduced stress and conflict BUT have also LOWERED accountability and performance. Interpreted correctly, emotions improve performance. Frustration fuels innovation. Anxiety enhances risk awareness. Guilt drives accountability.

Unfortunately, most people make two costly mistakes:

They misattribute emotions to events and circumstances (“He made me angry”), which locks them into a victim mindset.

They try to regulate their emotions instead of decoding them—suppressing the very signals designed to improve performance.

The truth is simple:
Regulating emotions reduces stress and conflict - but LOWERS performance and accountability.

Decoding emotions transforms stress into creativity, conflict into collaboration, and blame into accountability - while RAISING performance.

Want to learn how leading organizations are applying this breakthrough?

To learn more- check out

STOP Managing Your Emotions!Have you provided your leaders with Emotional Intelligence training or a Mindfulness App in hopes that this would lower their stress, reduce conflict, and increase accountability?If yes, you've likely seen that these techniques HAVE reduced stress and conflict BUT have al...

09/27/2025

Good article on career shifts.

It’s about agility, foresight, and the humility to change course before it’s too late

08/30/2025

Emotional Response-Ability® (ERA) is new!

I use and teach a novel, breakthrough process called Emotional Response-Ability® (ERA). Charles Jones and I have been training executives and co-teaching workshops in the Federal Government and private sector with great success. ERA is a framework for transforming stress into creativity, conflict into collaboration, and victimhood into ownership. Founded on the revolutionary insight that emotions originate in subconscious needs, ERA equips leaders to harness every emotion to increase their effectiveness.
To learn more, here is a one-page introduction with some additional resources: https://www.adaptivemastery.com/thlanding

I invite you to watch a free access, video presentation on the Emotional Response-Ability® methodology.
You can watch this 90-minute webinar in which Charles Jones walks attendees through the ERA process for turning stress into creativity:
https://adaptivemastery.mykajabi.com/offers/KKMofPY7/checkout

I want to offer you a complimentary, individual training session to experience the Emotional Response-Ability® methodology yourself. My calendar availability is online at https://my.timetrade.com/book/7LHTL if you would like to schedule a 60-minute time slot that works for us both.

I have found the ERA process life-changing and a fresh look at leadership development through this lens.

Also, check out the book: Emotional Intelligence for Stress-free Leadership: Turn Emotional Pain into Performance Gain with the TENOR Method – May 18, 2020 by Charles M Jones (Author), Jim Knickerbocker Ph.D. (Author).