ICF’s D’Alessio: Restoring Trust Is Top Priority

The ICF’s message to its member coaches: we hear you—all of you. “I’ve received incredibly good feedback,” said Giovanna D’Alessio, the ICF’s president. “It was a really good gift for us.”

The gift—delivered in person and in blunt fashion at the ICF’s annual conference in Orlando last December—involved not just the hugely discussed proposal to change the ICF’s credentialing system, but also the structure of the ICF association itself.

“There is a lot of energy and passion and vibrancy in our community and this is really healthy,” said D’Alessio, who conceded the December convention forced the ICF Board to re-think its priorities.

“The challenges we’ve received about governance, leadership and these other areas made us realize we really need to take care about maintaining trust,” she said. “When the trust is broken, it’s very difficult to get it back.”

D’Alessio and the board moved to make trust-building the top priority for 2010, deciding to put off any changes to credentialing systems and standards until 2012 at the earliest.

For now, the ICF will move quickly and decisively, D’Alessio says, to regain lost trust among its membership. “We’re in the process of voting on actions to take place,” she said, indicating that new efforts will be made public and opened to discussion within the next few weeks.

Like what?

“Reliability, openness. A number of initiatives we’d like to happen to address trust.”

Despite the at times rocky atmosphere (D’Alessio describes it as “a little bit of turbulence”) in Orlando, D’Alessio says the interactions she’s had with ICF members in person—and by email and phone—have been extremely positive, especially after the publication of her message to ICF members explaining the decision to table changes in accreditation. “I’ve been traveling a lot and I’ve received 95% messages of support…I’m really delighted to see how the ICF is going through a new beginning. Two years ago we were almost on the verge of a bankruptcy. This time, I’m really lucky to be leading at this time.”

D’Alessio’s mantra moving forward is openness. “I like to take every single view into consideration…a strong culture of feedback, because everything can be useful. The essence of the feedback is a message for me.”

The feedback from Orlando led the Board to its decision to hold off on accreditation (changes) and focus on trust, she said. “The feedback that went beyond our comments on credentialing was useful to the Board. What does it mean? What are we not seeing? It was a really good gift for us,” she said.

She believes the result—to be released in full to members shortly—is a strategy of change that could not have happened if not for the lively debate in Orlando and in the months leading up to it.

“The work we did…opened such incredible opportunities.”