Coaching Associations: Collaborate, Cooperate, or Compete in 2010?

Coaching is on the move—growing and expanding—and, increasingly, the world’s dominant coaching associations are working together to ensure that growth continues.

“There is an increasing recognition that coaching is the most personalized and effective tool to develop human potential,” wrote the ICF’s president Giovanna D’Alessio and president-elect Ed Modell. “In five to ten years’ time, the coaching arena as we know it today may completely change its shape.”

So, what will coaching look like in five years? Or ten?

Will the coaching associations—the ICF, the IAC, the WABC and others—remain as independent entities? Or will they unite, evolve, or even attempt to run one another out of business? For now, coaching’s dominant voices sound optimistic and energized.

“As the new Board of Governors of the IAC comes together and organizes its work and leadership for the year ahead, I am so impressed by the pure intentions of our members,” writes IAC president Bob Tschannen-Moran in a February message to IAC members. “That, it seems to me, is one of the most important integrity points for a non-profit association. I am pleased that the IAC is holding fast and living up to that standard.”

Tschannen-Moran made history of a sort last December, when he attended the international conference of the ICF in Orlando, Florida—part of the IAC’s strategy of “(setting) aside our differences and (working) together for the good of the whole industry—the world in fact,” outgoing IAC president Angela Spaxman told us.

This month, Tschannen-Moran continued to spread that message to IAC members: “the IAC mission is our passion,” he said. “We are not paid for what we do and we are not here to get business or to pad our resumes. We have joined the Board of the IAC to work together and serve the cause: ‘to advance coaching to the highest standards of universal excellence’ and to ‘further the interests of coaching clients worldwide through a rigorous certification of coaches and the highest ethical, professional and business standards.’”

That message sounds very much like the 2010 message from the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches (WABC), which told the Coaching Commons its objective for the new year was “setting the highest international standards of ethics, integrity and professional responsibility for members by engaging in self-regulatory activities that build and maintain public trust,” said Wendy Johnson, the WABC’s president and CEO.

While Johnson declined to specifically address questions about potential competition among coaching groups and associations, she told us her objectives for the year include the WABC’s “independent international certification programs for business coaches (ChBC, CMBC and CBC),” and “an independent international accreditation program for business coach training providers.”

The ICF, which has credentialed over 5,500 coaches and expects to issue credentials to another 1,600 in 2010, expects “steady growth” in its credentialing, despite the furor among ICF members over plans to revise the group’s three-tiered credentialing system—a proposal since delayed and under review by D’Alessio. (Read more here.)

The ICF believes collaboration with other groups may lead to an “international standard” for coaching.

“For the past several years, ICF has been collaborating with other coaching organizations and we see this not only continuing but even increasing in the years ahead,” said D’Alessio and Modell.

“In December 2009, the ICF Board authorized its Regulatory Committee to collaborate with IAC, EMCC and other coaching organizations on potential regulatory and licensing issues that may arise for coaches in the future. We believe that collaboration will serve the best interests of the entire coaching profession as we continue to develop and become more of an integral part of society.”

The EMCC—the European Mentoring and Coaching Council—did not respond to a request for comment for this story. But in his annual message to members, EMCC president Petr Necas outlined his objectives for 2010, including “(working) with other coaching and mentoring bodies to gain self-regulation status of the coaching and mentoring profession.”

What do you think? Are coaches best served by groups and associations working together toward a common goal? Or is there something to be gained from competition?

Watch CoachReporter Mark Joyella’s December, 2009 (3  minute) interview with the IAC’s Tschannen-Moran here:

CoachReporter: The IAC at the ICF from Mark Joyella on Vimeo.