What is the GCC process?

The GCC is a year long process in which all the key stakeholders in coaching (consumers, practitioners, educators and industry bodies) will be gathering together to discuss the difficult issues facing us in professionalizing coaching. It is a world-wide collaborative dialogue that seeks to understand the needs of coaching consumers, practitioners and educators in order to develop commonly agreed understandings, guidelines and frameworks for the practice of coaching and the training of coaches.

Some background

Coaching is gradually emerging as a valued intervention in a wide variety of areas. Buyers of coaching are increasingly demanding evidence that its practitioners are well trained and operating according to clear professional standards underpinned by evidence. (CIPD, 2006)

In response to this need, serious attempts to identify competencies for practice, codes of conduct, standards of training and the knowledge base for a profession are being made by a range of organisations, each representing different stakeholders. World wide, there are a significant and growing number of Universities offering postgraduate qualifications in coaching. These universities are also beginning to establish regional groups in order to discuss common understandings and standards in the field.

So there are many stakeholders working toward establishing the profession of coaching. However, these stakeholders have yet to collaborate in any detailed way to establish a commonly accepted knowledge base, training frameworks and standards for professional practice. For this reason the plethora of initiatives are likely to serve to confuse clients, particularly when they are presented as (or perceived to be) in competition with each other, rather than overlapping on commonly agreed standards.

We believe the time is right for the key stakeholders to come together to explore the development of shared frameworks capable of supporting a profession of coaching. These key stakeholders include:
Coaching providers
Coaching buyers and consumers
Universities and coach training organisations
Coaching industry bodies
Parallel professions involved in coaching

Internationally, representatives of Australian, North American and European universities have begun to talk about holding a conference for this purpose. Professional Bodies such as the Australian Psychological Society and the British Psychological Society have entered into the dialogue, along with a range of other stakeholders. Concurrently, the ICF has begun discussing similar issues, most notably in Vancouver in 2006.

We have discussed this idea with a significant number of key stakeholders who have all expressed enthusiastic support for a Global Convention on Coaching. Such a convention would not seek to create one standard imposed on all. Rather, its purpose is to begin to develop frameworks of equivalence and shared interests that have wide stakeholder support.

The Global Convention on Coaching: 7th - 11th July 2008

We shall be holding a five day convention on 7th - 11th July 2008.
The GCC Chairs and Facilitators will be meeting all day on July 6th to do final preparations for the convention.
July 5th and 6th will be reserved for social events for those arriving early.
The venue and other logistics of the convention are currently being organised.

To ensure its success, a process of world wide dialogue via working parties will lead up to the convention and provide the core material for the convention discussion. We are seeking the active involvement of your organisation in both the convention and these working parties.

What might your involvement look like?

The first step is to help create the areas for discussion at the conference. We would like to know what you think needs to be discussed. Attached to this letter is a form to help you do this.

Once the key areas for discussion have been identified, we will create a series of Working Groups made up of 6-10 Convention Members and a facilitator. Their task will be to discuss and create initial scenarios and whitepapers outlining key issues, areas of common understanding and differences and possible ways forward. These papers will be shared with a wider Consultation Group whose role it will be to provide comment and feedback to the Working Groups. This feedback will be key to guiding the preparation and discussion for the Convention. We have developed an on-line dialogue process to assist the groups in this task.

It is important to indicate that while organisations are represented, it is not intended that participants take a partisan position. Rather they are invited to an open conversation about what is good in coaching and should attend with a “willingness to be influenced” by the discussion. The final page of this letter is a form for you to register the level of involvement your organisation would like to have in the Convention.

We would also like to extend the groups involved beyond the initial stakeholders (listed below) to the broader community involved in coaching and coach training, so please feel free to send this letter to groups who you feel may be interested.

Launching the working groups: August 2007

We are planning to launch the working groups in August this year. Working group chairs and facilitators will attend two day workshop to familiarize themselves with the scenario building process (see below) and the online technology. The working groups will be officially launched on the second day of this workshop.

The benefits of involvement

Coaching is already a multi-billion dollar industry world wide. Given the growing use of coaching in areas as diverse as organisational learning and development, health care and personal development, this conference may prove to be an event of major international significance. There are a number of important benefits for all stakeholders in developing core understandings around coaching and coach training.

For those who purchase and consume coaching services, it helps develop greater certainty in selection and evaluation of coaches. It also helps them to identify what sort of coaches are needed for particular issues and when coaching may not be the preferred intervention.

For those involved in training of coaches such understandings can guide the development of curricula, more effective targeting of specific areas of specialty and the assessment of coaching competence.

For coach practitioners shared frameworks can provide commonly accepted credentialing, guiding professional development efforts, and in the self assessment of their practice.

Participating Organisations

We have held discussions with numerous bodies who have members participating in the dialogue. However, no one of these members is there to represent their body. They come to present their experience and particpate in the dialogue. Hence no particlaur stance is promoted and no association is bound by the outcomes of the process. This is central to the success of the dialogue, we particpate as equals, share ideas, produce scenaraios and consult with our respective networks. In this way all can be assured that this is an open process, not one designed to meet predetermined outcomes.

In Europe:
European Mentoring and Coaching Council
Association Europeene de Coaching
Irish Coach Development Network
Association for Professional Executive Coaches and Supervisors
University Faculty from: Middlesex University, Oxford Brookes, City University London, Sheffield Hallam, Charles University in Prague
Association for Coaching
Spanish Association of Coaching

In North America:
Universities across the US and Canada represented by the Graduate School Alliance for Executive coaching (GSAEC)
Worldwide Association of Business Coaches
The Alliance of Coach Training Organisations

In Australasia and Southern Africa:
Universities across Australia represented by the Australia Universities Strategic Alliance in coaching (AUSAC)
Australian Psychological Society
New Zealand Coaching and Mentoring Forum
Comensa (Coaches and Mentors of South Africa)
Society for Industrial and Organisational Psychology, South Africa (SIOPSA)

Other internationally representative bodies who either buy or provide coaching services. These include:
International Coach Federation
Human Resources Associations for example the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
International Business Groups
Management, Organisational and Work Psychology Groups,
A range of multinational companies
Wachovia Bank
NASA
The Teleran Group
Blake Dawson and Waldron

A more complete list will be uploaded here as soon as we get a chance to compile it!

International agreement – Can it work?

Lessons from Apartheid South Africa

Clearly, gathering together all the major stakeholders in coaching in order to begin to discuss common frameworks and standards is a daunting task. There is much potential for the polarisation, division and even disintegration as everyone argues for their own perspective.

Thankfully, discussion processes exist that can help us avoid those outcomes. One such process is the model adopted by the leaders of the opposing factions in South Africa in order to collectively discuss the future for South Africa at the end of apartheid – the Mont Fleur process. This is the model on which we would like to loosely base the Global Convention on Coaching (GCC).

How does it work?

The process itself is relatively simple. Convention Members gather together to identify the key issues and potential ways forward. They do this by developing a series of future scenarios based on different ways of resolving the key questions. For example, in South Africa, the participants developed four potential scenarios for the way South Africa might develop. The first was based on a strategy of avoiding a negotiated settlement. (they named this the Ostrich scenario) The second considered a prolonged transition process which attempted to respond to all parties but satisfied none. (the Lame Duck Scenario) The third sought to buy a way forward via unrestrained spending, (the Icarus scenario) and the fourth envisaged a systematic approach in which key building blocks are put in place to support change. (the Flight of the Flamingos) Through the generation and discussion of these possible scenarios, previously warring parties were able to reach shared understanding and agreement. (For a more detailed account of this process as used to solve complex issues in South Africa and elsewhere, see Adam Kahane (2004) Solving tough problems. San Francisco: BK press.)

What might this look like for coaching?

Once the areas to be explored have been identified, working groups on each area, made up of Convention Members, would develop scenarios based on different ways of resolving the issues associated with their area. For example, the working party on a code of ethics might consider what the future would look like if there were (i) no formal shared codes of ethics, (ii) a single code to which all subscribe, (iii) a core code with variations for different groups, or (iv) disparate multiple codes for different groups and stakeholders. The scenarios for each key issue area would be disseminated to the wider discussion group for feedback and a white paper produced for discussion at the Global Convention on Coaching in July 2008.

A full description of the process can be found here on the Process & Roles page.

Some possible outcomes for the Convention

There are many possible outcomes for the convention - what they are will depend on the dialogue that occurs. It is possible that we may begin to approach agreement on a core set of common standards around the practice of coaching, and the training of coaches! Once again, the task is not to create a single model of coaching or coach training. Rather it is to acknowledge and value the diversity that exists in field, and to begin the discussion about what competencies, knowledge and practice standards coaches already hold in common, and those we believe we should hold in common. The development of more specific frameworks for areas of specialty, such as business coaching, executive coaching, health coaching etc is also a possible outcome. Another possible outcome may be the establishment of an international group made up of the member partners to continue this dialogue.