Coaching Blog

I want to share with you some exciting news with you: School of Coaching Mastery is now offering the SCM Certified Mastery Coach Designation to masterful coaches.

We continue to successfully prepare coaches for IAC Certification, but in view of developments that we’re experiencing in our *laboratory* for coaching mastery, which is SCM itself, we feel a need to offer another path to coach certification.

Here’s one problem that we face: Once a certification standard has been defined and adopted, it already is becoming an artifact of the past. And since coaching is always evolving, we want to know we have a certification that recognizes truly great cutting-edge coaching, while allowing coaches to explore and develop new, unheard-of approaches to delivering transformative conversations.

This has been a difficult issue ever since coach certification was invented.

Given that the bar for great coaching is constantly being raised by the brilliant new coaches who join our ranks every year, it’s necessary that a certification that attempts to measure “mastery” be flexible.

So I am building into our new certification an “inter-developmental” component. In other words, the certifiers won’t just be looking for what we’ve already defined as great coaching; we will also be looking for how each coaching session expands our understanding of coaching mastery.

In other words we expect to learn from you.

This decision was based on numerous events, including listening to the preferences of our amazing students, who coach within their own unique styles and although they are committed to mastery and would love the stamp of approval that certification brings, they don’t want to be cookie-cutter coaches or get stuck in a quantified box called “Coach Certification.”

That wouldn’t serve them. Nor would it serve the coaching profession.

I applaud their courage, creativity and genius. The Certified Mastery Coach designation is for them and for YOU if you want it – and if you can teach us something!

Natalie Tucker Miller, IAC-CC (SCM Master Instructor, IAC Certifier and former President of the IAC) and I have had numerous conversations about this new certification and she will join me, along with Elizabeth Nofziger, IAC-CC (SCM Instructor and IAC Certifier) in preparing and grading coaches to be SCM Certified Mastery Coaches.

As you know, we’ve been successfully preparing coaches for IAC certification for several years. And I’m not suggesting that IAC Certification isn’t still the gold standard. What I’m saying is that even the IAC isn’t a perfect fit for everybody. Some of the greatest coaches I know have been talking to me about the need for a certification with extremely high standards, that has expansion and new possibilities built right into it.

The only way I can see for this to happen is for the certifiers (our certifiers) to relinquish our “expertise” and approach every coaching session with beginners’ minds.

Is this possible? I believe it is!

And I’m so excited, I got started right away with the February Certification Practicum. I'm already grading SCM students with our automatic system, which allows certifiers to score in real time, rather than spending hours listening to recorded sessions, taking notes, analyzing and discussing the details, before agreeing on a numeric score. This feels much more coach-like to me and it gives the certifiers the opportunity to override the grading system, if they feel the coach has demonstrated coaching mastery in a new way.

If you would like to be among the very first to set a whole new standard in coach certification…

Then join me on four Tuesdays, April 7 - 28, 8 -10 PM Eastern/NY Time

You’ll be one of 8 coaches who will coach, be recorded, get feedback and grading on your coaching. If your sessions are strong enough, you can get certified by us, and/or turn in your recorded sessions for IAC Certification.

We already have 4 coaches. We have room for 4 more.

This is the ideal way for advanced coaches to become even more masterful and if you are an outstanding coach then, even if you don’t conform to our pre-conceived notions, if you expand our understanding of coaching greatness, you will likely pass.

Even if you don’t, I promise what you learn will be priceless.

So what price would you pay for this? The 8-hour practicum which I just described is $325. Normally, the certification would separately be $400, but if you register to join this group of pioneer coaches by Friday, you can pay for the 8-hour practicum plus certification and get the certification for half price, if you use the following coupon code:

Save $200. Get both for $525 by Friday, March 27th, if we still have room. Remember we only have 4 seats left.

I want to be clear:

• What you learn in this practicum will be transformative
• You will have a chance to record one coaching session in the practicum
• You'll get verbal feedback, right away
  
• I will grade your session for SCM Certification
• You will get written feedback, using the IAC Learning Guides
• Your recorded session can also be submitted to the IAC for certification
• To get certified by either SCM or IAC, you will have to submit two coaching sessions
• We can help you record your other session for no extra charge
• To pass SCM certification, you will also need 5 letters of reference, either from 5 clients, or from 3 clients and 2 IAC Certified Coaches who have coached you for at least three months (In the future, we will also accept recommendations from SCM Certified Mastery Coaches)
• Two passing sessions and 5 recommendations is all it takes to become an SCM CMC, but you must be a masterful coach

If this feels like something you want to do, I recommend that you register now. SCM students get all of this and much more for fre*e, but I’m opening it to the larger coaching community at a special price and I know it will fill up.

You may also just register for the practicum for $325, but if you decide later that you want SCM certification, you will need to pay the full $400 for SCM Certification.

As I mentioned, SCM Coach Training Program students get both SCM and IAC certifications at no extra charge. They also get up to three 8-hour practicums included in their tuition. We continue to offer the highest standards and value at the lowest tuition of any coach training school, but I can’t emphasize enough that our current fees will be going up.

Here is the link to register for BOTH the 8-hour practicum AND SCM Coach Certification: http://tinyurl.com/SCM-PRAX-CMC

To Save $200, use this code when you register: CERTIFIEDCOACH

To register for just the Certification Practicum for $325, go here and scroll to M12: Certification Practicum and register:  http://www.schoolofcoachingmastery.com/life_coaching_courses.html

For questions about the SCM practicum, certification and our training programs, call: 877-224-2780

Thanks for supporting us and for being committed to coaching greatness!