When It Comes to Coaching, CAVEAT EMPTOR!

It takes more than a certificate to be a coach

The other day I saw a Facebook ad offering certification as a business coach following a 90-minute “training.”

I have been working full-time as an executive coach since 1980. Prior to that I had been trained and earned a Ph.D. in Psychology, was certified as a Transactional Analysis clinician and trainer of clinicians, and trained in Gestalt Therapy, family systems therapy, bioenergetics, and other disciplines and I both led and participated in workshops and seminars in all of these and more.

As a coach, I predated certifications and participated in training for many of those who went on to start institutes and offer certification. I have trained coaches, both internal to organizations and external, and have been trained by the best, and by that I mean coaches and clients. To this day I have other experienced coaches I go to when I’m stuck or want support and they come to me.

But “certification” after a 90-minute online reminds me of the 1987 song by the Weavers called “You Old Fool” where a husband comes home to find evidence of his wife being with another man and she gaslights him, calling him the eponymous “old fool.” For example, he asks “why is there a hat on the hat rack, where my hat ought to be?” and she replies, “you old fool, you blind fool, can’t you plainly see, it’s nothing by a chamber pot my mother sent to me.” He replies “Ah, I've traveled this wide world over, ten thousand miles or more, but a J.B Stetson chamber pot I never did see before.”

For me, as one who has dedicated his professional life to coaching, that 90-minute certification is a J.B. Stetson chamber pot, including its contents.

With the economic downturn this year and the uncertainty created by the government’s chaotic economic policies, many people have been laid off from corporate jobs and have decided to freelance as “coaches,” despite scanty or no credibility as such. I can imagine some of those leaping at this 90-minute certification. After all, if you have a certificate, you must know what you’re doing, right? Kind of like some MD’s acting like a medical degree gives them expertise in fields not covered in Med school.

As a result, the market is flooded with coaches and with people selling them training, marketing, lead funnels, advertising, everything but baseball caps and t-shirts, but I’m sure those will come in time.

So, a heads-up and a caution to businesspeople looking for coaching to get past internal and external barriers in these uncertain times: caveat emptor – buyer beware. If a coach can’t show a track record of real business results, if they don’t have more experience than simply having been a manager or executive themselves, if they have slick marketing and packages that, on closer inspection seem generic, walk away.

Tom Landry, who knew something about coaching said, “a coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear and has you see what you don’t want to see, so you can be who you’ve always known you can be.” To do that in a way that produces real growth, development, and, importantly, business results takes more than a certificate on the wall. It takes training, supervision, and most importantly experience.