ICF Coaches - Take A Stand

Subject:

ICF Credentialing Transition and Proposed ISO Schema

Sounding an Alarm

The recent decision by the ICF Board of Directors to transition to a single ICF ISO credential has sounded an alarm among key ICF stakeholder groups and strategic organizational partners. We are writing you this urgent communication because we resolutely believe that the value and benefit of ICF membership is at stake for a significant population of its credentialed and member coaches, as well as the accredited and non-accredited coach training organizations that support the ICF credentialing process.

We believe that a failure of ICF to act prudently, inclusively, and collaboratively with ICF coaches about their credentials risks fragmenting the organization further and driving coaches away from the ICF to seek their coach credentials from other coaching certification bodies. Even worse, a much wider and growing population of new coaches entering the field will experience no significant barriers to entry, or more importantly, see any compelling reasons to embark on a professional development track towards their continuing coach education, training and ICF certification levels. This would be a grievous loss for ICF as an organization and the coaching profession, especially given the 10+ years during which time our volunteer members have invested tirelessly and passionately to earn, establish, and brand their credentials, which are only just now gaining a solid foothold of recognition, credibility and earning power in the business marketplace.

Dissolving the current ICF credentials (even with a relatively long transition period), while concurrently diverting organizational focus to the branding and promoting of a newly established single credential will cause even greater confusion among the public, media, hiring organizations and corporations, and individual coach-consumers. Moreover, this will create an economic burden and diversion of resources for all credential holders (e.g., recreating print and web based marketing materials, the lost of business opportunity tied to holding an established credential, and the time required to explain these changes to our clients and the public). Finally, we see a very real danger of jeopardizing the competitive brand advantage that the ICF credentials currently offer in the marketplace through the creation of a single credential and the removal of the levels of professional credential distinction.

The Decision to Move to a Single ICF ISO Credential

ICF credentialed and ICF member coaches have reviewed the ICF ISO materials, attended ICF sponsored teleforums about impending changes to the credentialing process, and voiced deep concerns directly to ICF leaders about the due diligence efforts behind the competencies assessment, knowledge gathering, stakeholder consultations and decision making processes.

It is evident that a clear consensus is emerging which indicates that ICF's planned transition to a single credential is unacceptable to a significant population of the ICF membership body. Please go to www.icfcoachestakeastand.org to see a full list of individuals who support this statement.

The Continued Desire to Collaborate

We appreciate that the ICF Board, with the support of the management company staff, has sincerely endeavored to improve the ICF Credentialing system and testing processes. We recognize that the current credentialing system and its examination processes are labor intensive and operationally inefficient, and therefore result in a protracted application and administrative process for certification.

We realize that to create fair and reliable professional coach examinations to support standards of excellence, and a rigorous professional development path with an agreed upon knowledge base of coaching competency models that have been empirically tested and possess a solid inter-rater reliability, is an enormous task that requires careful and considerable research and validation efforts by a variety of qualified professionals. We know that this work is yet to be done and will require a wider pool of coaching stakeholders outside of the ICF credentialed coaches themselves. This will necessitate a concerted effort and collaboration with professional parties who have our best interest at heart and who understand that coaching in its purest form is both a science and an art.

Thus, we are committed to an open, collaborative dialog in order to achieve a shared goal of a credentialing system that serves ICF members, the coaching profession and the public at large. We are committed to upholding the highest standards for the profession which are aligned with ICF's core membership values of integrity, excellence, collaboration and respect.

Our Requests of the ICF Board of Directors

At this time, we respectfully request that the ICF Board of Directors:

1. Table the decision to move to a single ICF ISO credential and put an immediate halt to the implementation process of the proposed transition schema
2. Retain and continue to promote the existing credentialing system of three levels of ICF certification: ACC, PCC and MCC; and at the same time, improve the branding of the credential distinction levels
3. Sponsor the first Town Hall Meeting with an Open Microphone Format about ICF Credentialing at the Annual Membership Meeting at this year's 2009 ICF Conference in Orlando, engaging in a dialog between ICF general membership and the ICF Board of Directors, so that members' concerns are expressed, heard, received and recorded in an open forum that promotes discussion and healthy debate. We ask that this Town Hall Meeting be announced to membership by November 15, 2009.
4. Begin a collaborative, open dialog with all ICF members to understand, explore and participate in the decision making processes related to creating the future of the ICF credentialing system
5. Follow the ICF Town Hall Meeting with a series of Open Town Hall ICF Membership Meetings, on a web platform that allows for instant message chats, providing the opportunity for our worldwide members to speak, weigh in and have their voices heard and taken into account in the final decisions being made
6. Establish a Coaching Knowledge Base Advisory Board of qualified individuals, as well as strategic organizational and academic partners, to work closely with the ICF Board of Directors to assess and examine the coaching body of knowledge that can be annotated and tested for validity and reliability
7. Formulate, document and implement an ICF Leadership Transparency Plan that will:
   1. allow members a greater window and input into their own organization's governance and the decision making process at the Board and Committee Leadership levels;
   2. provide credentialed membership referenda for voting on key decisions related to the future of our credentials; and
   3. establish a management control and membership survey mechanism for the Board and ICF members to periodically and transparently evaluate and track each others' collaborative relationship effectiveness over time.

We ask that the ICF Board of Directors respond fully to each of our above requests by sending an email reply to each of the individuals, as signed below, by November 15, 2009.

Respectfully yours, ICF Credentialed and ICF Member Coaches,