As ICF Examines Credentials, MCCs Ask “Where Do We Fit In?”

For years, the MCC credential has  represented a level of professional achievement in coaching—an expert coach, with the experience of coaching—at minimum—dozens of clients through thousands of hours of coaching.

Any process to move away from a three-tiered system of credentialing, some MCCs have feared, would threaten the inherent value in the highest and hardest to achieve credential, a fact made clear by the coaches who signed the ICF Coaches Take a Stand petition: of 762 people signing their name, the largest single group (211) was MCCs.

Losing the significance of the MCC credential, these coaches argued, “would be a grievous loss…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 now gaining a solid foothold of recognition, credibility and earning power in the business marketplace.”

Linda Miller was a founding recipient of the MCC designation, and has trained and coached around the world—always with “Master Certified Coach” a prominent part of her personal branding. Her advocacy for the ICF remains unwavering: “Yes! All the time,” she said.

But at the same time, Miller says she’s less involved in the ICF.

Where once she served on the Board and as an assessor, today, she says she’s “not sure where to fit in anymore.”

“Now what?”

The ICF has set the issue of credentialing—and establishing a two year work plan, complete with ICF members serving on various work groups delving into various elements of the issue—as the “biggest undertaking of the year.” For some coaches, especially those MCCs with the most invested, a key element to consider in 2010 is, essentially, Linda Miller’s: where do I fit in?

Coach Vikki Brock, who signed the ICFCTAS petition, sees a “brain drain” in effect at the ICF, with the most experienced coaches having less day to day involvement with the group.

“The MCC brain drain can be seen at the (ICF) conference each year, where a large percentage of the coaches attending are first timers,” she said. “The MCCs attending appear to be those speaking, former presidents, or those having an exhibit (may be working for a coach training program or selling a product). Remember that there are just over 600 MCCs and that number has increased very little in the past several years.”

This despite an overall rise in the number of ICF credential holders—reaching a worldwide total of 6,000 this year, up from 5,000 in May of 2009. ICF Director of Credentialing and Program Accreditation George Rogers called the 1,000 credentials handed out in the last year the fastest period of growth in the program’s history.

And yet despite historic growth, some feel adrift, with the question of “where do I fit in” leading MCCs to a second question: “is there enough reason to stay in at all?”

Coach Linda Miller says local ICF chapter meetings in Arizona and Seattle seem geared toward newer coaches, not MCCs. “I think it would be very interesting to know if other MCCs feel supported or not.”

“I haven’t been very involved for a couple of years,” said Terry Taylor, a coach, author, and an MCC. “(I) have questioned whether there is value in maintaining my membership…and, in the end, for the very same reason I’m maintaining my credential, I want to belong to a profession that cares enough about itself, its ethics and its service level to clients to establish credentials, accredit trainers and training, and that provides the CEUs I, as a professional, am required to and am interested in acquiring.”

Others have decided that an MCC no longer means automatically remaining a part of the ICF. “After serving three ICF Board terms…and being quite active on the credentialing committee, enough became enough,” said coach Sherry Lowry.

For Lowry, the ICF’s course—and its decisionmaking—led her to question whether the ICF was a model for leadership. “There have been too many missteps in just practical good sense and judgment,” she said. “I suspect there are many, many of us (who) no longer look to ICF as our primary association or organization.”

Lowry renewed her ICF membership in December, but wonders if that was the last time. “While I still carry an MCC credential, I’ve made sure it is not something I find I need as a qualifying element for any of my profit streams. How long I continue to apply to renew it is now an optional choice completely, career-wise.”

Is renewing an MCC credential—with the ICF’s existing credentialing system itself facing a 2012 deadline for some kind of change—a must-do?

Or is shopping around for other groups, other credentials, and other coaching organizations an option for the most experienced coaches?

How do you answer the question, “where do I fit in?” and “what next?”

NOTE: Vikki Brock is a weekly contributor to the History of Coaching section at the Coaching Commons.