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Organizational Psychology - Russia. 2014. T. 4. No 1. C. 40-45
ОРГАНИЗАЦИОННАЯ ПСИХОЛОГИЯ
www.orgpsyjournal.hse.ru
Regulating the Coaching Profession
Sylviane CANNIO
Nova Terra Coach Training, Brussels, Belgium
Abstract. With the emergence of the coaching profession, there are attempts to regulate it at a national or regional level. The profession has understood how important it is to self-regulate to obtain a clear framework. The paper explores the difficulty that lies in the agreement on one definition of coaching as many of them prevail. For the ICF and other coaching authorities such as the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC), coaching is a partnership that allows the client to find their own solutions based on their own objectives.
The author explores the experience in large multinational organizations, when coaching means advising and/or mentoring and/or individual training. The approach to coaching is: advising is to recommend a solution to the client, mentoring and training is to transmit knowledge and experience; in coaching, it is to induce a change of beliefs and encourage the client to make their own decisions and to implement them via their own action plan.
Coaching is presented as a true profession, which is duly benchmarked by specific competencies. The most structured approach to the profession was developed by groups of top professionals coming from different countries within the International Coach Federation who strived to determine the coaching core competencies, and to create a Code of ethics. The Code defines the coach’s posture in relationship with the clients and provides guidelines in many professional situations where, for instance, a conflict of interest might emerge. On their side, the 11 competencies are articulated under four main components: (1) Setting the foundation, (2) Co-creating the relationship, (3) Communicating effectively, (4) Facilitating learning and results. These competencies are the benchmark of the certification.
The author explores the issue of coach background: the question is, when dealing with the human matters: does a coach to be a professional psychologist to be a credible, or can they originate from other disciplines, such as economy, law, engineering, science, or art to name a few? Comparing two main schools, and their respective lobbies, the author states that coaching is limited to the 'here and now’ while psy-based disciplines are healing the past, and digging more deep into emotions and feelings. As such, the two professions are perfectly complementary and should work hand in hand as the perimeter of coaching does not allow professional coaches to deal will all human matters.
Against the background of global trends the author looks at the new Russian Coaching Standard to find that it genuinely matches the high standards of both competencies, and ethics of ICF, and adds some extra features, e.g. the competency for coach’s self development, and recommendation for a coach to have supervision not less than twice a year. The Russian Standard combines strong commitment to coaching ethics and values, and broad, inclusive view on coaching embracing different coaching modes and/or styles, as long as they are compatible with the ethics of coaching, and basic coaching functions.
Keywords: regulation of coaching, certification, core competencies, standard of the coaching profession, coaching in Russia, Code of ethics.
Address: Bastion Tower, 21st Floor 5 Place du Champ de Mars, B1050 Brussels, Belgium E-mail: [email protected]
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Thousands of “coaches” are currently operating around the world and others are joining the profession every day. A professional recognized authority - about 12,000 by the International Coach Federation, certifies a growing number of those coaches the world’s largest professional federation encompassing more than 25,000 members in 110 countries. But professionals who simply adopt the name “coach” on top of their profession, usually of management, consultancy, education, or support to the people, represent another growing number. The majority of this last category never pursued any coaching education and consider themselves as professional coach without any particular core coaching competencies.
As such, on the one hand, the category of the ‘genuine’ professional coaches who take the profession seriously accepts to fulfill a series of requirements to obtain their legitimacy on the market. They start to pursue a well-recognized and accredited coaching education. Second they seek for a credentialing, and third they are in permanent education to upgrade their knowledge as they see how complex is this profession as soon as they want to have a real impact their clients, individuals and organizations. On the other hand, there are too numerous self-called coaches who do not give any credential to the profession, claiming that it is easy to step in and to create a fruitful business out of it.
The necessity to regulate
For the ICF authorities, it is now obvious that there will be no way to regulate the coaching profession worldwide. The only possible regulation can be performed at national or regional level. Moreover, as the appellation ‘coach’ is “blurring” around the world, it is impossible to patent it, as it has become a generic term. This is the reason why the profession decided a few years ago to self-regulate. We shall see below how both the ICF and the EMCC co-operate in this domain.
Why is regulation necessary? It is mainly to provide a minimal client protection as coaching deals with people’s mental and emotions and might have a clear impact on their lives. As coaching market is growing, the potential for trials increases. More and more clients might set a claim against an unethical coach (procedures for this exist with the ICF) and the probability is high that a bad coaching could conduct to negative impact or bad sad effects. The judges must be in a position to rely on clear rules, guidelines and jurisprudence. Hopefully, coaching authorities have been documenting cases and their Committees of Ethics are quite active.
The difficulty lies in the agreement on one definition of coaching as many of them prevail. For the ICF and other coaching authorities such as the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC), coaching is a partnership that allows the client to find their own solutions based on their own objectives. An analogy would be that the coach is the taxi driver and the coachee the client who pretty well knows the direction where to go and the main roads how to get there. According to the ICF, and to many true professionals of coaching, the coach trusts their client in their ability to find their own solutions and ways to implement them. There are no advice provided by the coach, only powerful questions, reframing techniques to create awareness by the client, and encouragements to design and plan actions.
In many cases though, especially in large multinational organizations, coaching means advising and/or mentoring and/or individual training.
To make things clear: advising is to recommend a solution to the client, mentoring and training is to transmit knowledge and experience; in coaching, it is to induce a change of beliefs and encourage the client to make his own decisions and to implement them via his own action plan.
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Organizational Psychology - Russia. 2014. Vol. 4. No 1.
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A profession based on core competencies
As said above, coaching is a true profession, which is duly benchmarked by specific competencies. When the International Coach Federation was created in 1995 in the US, its two first tasks were to determine which the coaching core competencies are, and to create a code of ethics. Two working groups were established with top professionals coming from different countries. It took them about two years to create both documents, which can be consulted on www.coachfederation.org.
The Code of ethics defines the coach’s posture in relationship with the clients and provides guidelines in many professional situations where, for instance, a conflict of interest might emerge. On their side, the 11 competencies are articulated under four main componentsl: (1) Setting the foundation, (2) Co-creating the relationship, (3) Communicating effectively, (4) Facilitating learning and results.
These 11 competencies are the benchmark of the certification, as the coach has to demonstrate through sampling one or more coaching conversation that they are implemented.
Two schools - two main trends
The question is, when dealing with the human matters: does a coach to be a professional psychologist to be a credible, or can they originate from other disciplines, such as economy, law, engineering, science, or art to name a few? In this regards, two main schools - and their respective lobbies - emerge.
The first regroups the “psy” professions, from psychoanalysis to psychotherapy, in other words all the persons who have a university degree in psychological sciences. Their action is quite impactful as they are organized in strong lobbies in several countries. Their fight is quite understandable in the light of market protection. For the last hundred years, they were the only one habilitated to treat the human minds. In economic terms, they were benefitting from a monopoly in mental-related issues. A cure for a patient would have been covering several years and, still in economic terms, would represent quite an amount of money. It is said indeed that a treatment on three to ten years amounts thousands of euros.
Since the development of the coaching profession in the 90s, more and more people understand that they may rely on coaching for a series of topics, both professional and personal. They are not mentally disordered, they just need a ‘neutral listener’ who will help analyzing options and encouraging them taking the right decisions. Instead of a “cure” of several months or years with a psychotherapist or psychoanalysis, they may rely on a coaching whose duration can vary from a few weeks to one year, sometimes a bit longer. It must be limited in time and with a well-defined budget. The only psy-based discipline, which is also limited in time, is brief therapy (Palo Alto approach).
In other words, with the exponential development of coaching, the market shares are shifting from psy-based disciplines to coaching.
In fact, both markets should be encouraged concurrently as they are perfectly compatible and complementary. Coaching is limited to the ‘here and now’ while psy-based disciplines are healing the past, and digging more deep into emotions and feelings. As such, the two professions are 1
1 The 11 Coaching Core Competencies established by the International Coach Federation (ICF) are: Setting the foundation: 1. Meeting
ethical guidelines and professional standards, 2. Establishing the coaching agreement. Co-creating the relationship: 3. Establishing trust and intimacy with the client, 4. Coaching presence Communicating effectively: 5. Active listening, 6. Powerful questioning, 7. Direct communication Facilitating learning and results: 8. Creating awareness, 9. Designing actions, 10. Planning and goal setting, 11. Managing progress and accountability.
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perfectly complementary and should work hand in hand as the perimeter of coaching does not allow professional coaches to deal will all human matters.
Two examples illustrate this complementarity:
• in case of a deep professional transition where the person feels lost and empty, a coach might help them define new objectives and first actions to move onwards while the psychotherapist might help look at possible patterns (repetitive life scenarios) in order to create awareness and dismantle them;
• in case of a burn-out (professional mental disruption/deep fatigue), the person should first consult a psychiatrist in order to re-establish the adequate brain chemistry, than a coach to analyze the causes of this fatigue (loss of meaning, repetitive wrong strategies) and establish new objectives/perspectives. The psychotherapist is useful to empty the emotional burden on the person and disconnect from past strategies.
There are many examples of such complementarities; which means that the two professions should collaborate and, of course, set a clear boundary between them. This might be the field for co-operation in the future.
The ICF and the EMCC together in the European Union
In the practice, the “psy lobby” is very active in several countries. Early 2014, there was one more attempt to regulate coaching in Kentucky, USA, introduced by the “psy lobby” to obtain coach-psychologists. This attempt was very quickly counteracted by the ICF. In some other countries, such as Check Republic, the “psy lobby” obtained a law enforcing coaches to be graduated in Psychology. Other countries in the world are on the path to this direction, mainly in Europe, currently the fastest growing market in coaching. Knowing these trends, the ICF and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) joined forces and agreed in July 2011 on a common Code of Conduct for coach and mentor practitioners, and for their representative industry bodies.
The Code established a set of guidelines whose goal is to establish a benchmark for ethics and good practice in coaching and mentoring. It forms the basis for the development of self-regulation for the coaching and mentoring profession. It is drafted with regard to European law such as to be registered on the dedicated European Union database, which lists self-regulation initiatives in Europe. This publicly accessible database is co-managed by the European Commission and the European Economic and Social Committee2.
This initiative is also designed to inform coaching and mentoring clients, and to promote public confidence in coaching and mentoring as a process for professional and personal development, which serves society as a whole. The guidelines for practitioners cover requirements for: (1) Competencies, (2) Training, (3) Continuous professional development, (4) Ethical Standards. The guidelines for professional bodies cover requirements for: (1) Ensuring commitment to ethical standards by their members, (2) A disciplinary and complaints procedure for ethical issues, (3) An independent board to monitor and sanction breaches of the Code of Conduct.
As said Ed Model, ICF President in 2011: “The ICF and EMCC are working hard to make sure there are safeguards in place for those interested in working with a coach or mentor - be it an individual or a business. Both groups are interested in advancing the profession as well as helping to protect consumers.” This was further confirmed by Gregoire Barrowcliff, EMCC’s Vice-President for 2
2 See: www.eesc.europe.eu/?i=portal.e.self-and-co-regulation.
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Organizational Psychology - Russia. 2014. Vol. 4. No 1.
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Regulatory Affairs: “By putting our full weight jointly behind this major initiative for the profession to self-regulate, EMCC and ICF are setting the benchmark for all professional coaches ad mentors”.
In the path to regulation in Russia
Following Russian President's (2012) and Government (2013) initiative to reinforce the recognition of over 800 new professions, coaches in Russia have launched public professional coaching standard development process, and Russian Coaching Professional Standards Development Group became leaders in this process.
The new Standard genuinely matches the high standards of both competencies, and ethics of ICF, and adds some extra features, e.g. the competency for coach’s self development, and recommendation for a coach to have supervision not less than twice a year. The Russian Standard combines strong commitment to coaching ethics and values, and broad, inclusive view on coaching embracing different coaching modes and/or styles, as long as they are compatible with the ethics of coaching, and basic coaching functions (see: Russian Standard Of Coaching as presented in this Journal issue).
The process of Russian coaching standard development proved that the major values of the coaching profession, such as openness, respect, diversity, forward-thinking, enthusiasm and passion for the profession development are the strong base for uniting coaches with different background and experience for the mutual growth.
Credentialing systems become more popular
These initiatives are excellent steps towards regulation. Another good step is that EMCC is currently creating a credentialing process (to certification) to further guarantee the quality and the education of coaches and mentors members. On its side, the ICF is strengthening its credentialing process and has defined a body of knowledge for all the school programs that want to be accredited. The ICF also welcomes a growing number of coaches who want to obtain their credentialing. ICF Accredited Programs in coaching schools attract more and more students, as certification has become a good and fast way for the consumers to make the difference between “genuine” or “non-genuine” coaches. In many countries of Western Europe, corporations and public organizations now require that their coaches be credentialed. It increases the chances of success of coaching paths organized by them - credentialing does not guarantee coach’s talent but, at least, guarantees that the coach (1) pursued a coach training in a recognized school, (2) pledges to respect the Code of Conduct & Ethics, (3) is mentor-coached by a more experienced coach and (4) commits to continue to get trained as this credential is only valid for three years and that a number of coach training hours and supervision hours are required for maintaining the credential.
By stressing the need for continuous education and for strong self-regulation, the coaching profession wants to remain open to top professional. After all, being coached by a former team leader on people management makes it more credible. Though it is not necessary to know the client’s field to be able to coach him, it is a plus-point to be able to ask “the” powerful question, using one’s long experience and, therefore, helping the client to move faster and better. While the psychologists would stress the mental aspect of coaching, a well-educated coach (keen at using psychological tools) with a strong experience in business is far more credible to coach a C-level executive on corporate strategy.
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Organizational Psychology - Russia. 2014. Vol. 4. No 1.
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Coaching is there forever
In 2004, Steve Mitten, ICF President said at the ICF Conference in Quebec: “there will be a time where everyone will have a coach. As you already rely on a lawyer for juridical issues, you will go to your coach when you need to solve an issue, professional or personal”.
Ten years later, we witness an exponential growth of the coaching market around the world and the profession is there to last for two main reasons. First, with the emergence of cellular families (2-3 members only), we have lost the opportunity to rely on family members to speak about our problems, and our friends are not always the appropriate persons to help us solve them. Second, the coaching process is really powerful, fast; its results are impressive and often spectacular. Therefore more and more people can become the ambassadors of good and effective coaching.
On its side, psychology occupies an important place and will always be complementing the coaching approach. The challenge, and it can be done in good collaboration, is to further encourage strong professionalization of all the players of the market and self-regulation by strong professional federations, to favor certification and permanent education, to and to find bridges to further collabrate for the good of the human development.
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