Universities becoming more involved in coach training.

In a recent post on Coachblog.com, David P. Hale, noted the impressive increase in coach training programs being offered at some of our best colleges and universities: Harvard, Stanford, The Wharton Business School, Yale, and George Washington University.

Hale asks: Why Are Universities Getting on the Executive Coaching Bandwagon?

“The hallowed halls of higher education are looking to greatly legitimize executive coaching as a viable industry. In most cases, to reach the upper echelons of executive coaching with Fortune 500 corporations, coaches not only need experience, but also have the training and education to back it up,” answers Hale.

Does that mean non-university training is at risk. Not at all, says the author:

The corporate coaching program being planned by CoachVille, which should be first offered in fall 2008, will offer all of the above positive qualifications. The program will offer in-depth course offerings, plenty of practical exercises, university-level curriculum, and the possibility of becoming involved in cutting-edge corporate coaching specific research.

After evaluating many of the training and certification programs currently available, we believe a shake-up is coming in the world of coaching. With better training will come higher standards, better credentialing, and greater professionalism in the industry. Some organizations and coaches will fall by the wayside as a result. But, overall, it’s a positive trend for coaches, their clients, and the coaching industry.

Executive coach says there’s too much focus on “fixes” instead of “cures.”

Professional coaches are careful not to over-promise, to stick within the framework of coaching, to refrain from turning into a client therapist.

On the other side, there is sometimes a tendency to go with the most obvious quick fix because it demonstrates tangible results. At least we have something to show our client and the world that we add value to the process.

Executive Coach Erika Anderson discusses the differences between fixes and cures in her blog, The Simplist Thing That Works. She tells the story of an executive who bosses decided to get him a coach to help fix a specific issue.

This is my pet peeve about how executive coaching is often conducted: it’s very symptomatic, and rarely gets to the underlying issues. It’s like the person gets told, “you have a cough, a runny nose, and some congestion in your chest. Take these cough drops; here are some Kleenex; and be sure to wear a nice warm coat when you go out. OK, you’re fixed!”

Instead, I believe executive coaching should focus on how those “symptoms” are connected, and therefore what the underlying problem is – and how to solve that. Is it just a cold? Is it pneumonia? Is it allergies? Each of those would require a very different approach to address the real problem.

As in Erika’s scenario, we might run into executives who could use a deeper look into underlying issues but not get the chance to do so. On the positive side, it takes experience and insight to know when a client needs a fix versus a cure. Someone like Erika knows how to make that call. That’s progress.

Coaching blogs and backlinking.

One of the many tools coaches use to promote their services is blogging. According to Technorati, the blog directory, there is something in the neighborhood of 7,000 blogs out there about coaching. Included are 178 blogs about coaching and blogging.

In many cases the effort coaches put into their blogs is all but wasted. Sure, some prospects might visit from a coaching directory or from the coach’s own web site, but basically coaching blogs are not reaching their full potential. Helping clients reach their full potential  is what coaching is all about, right?

One way that coaches can expand the reach of their blogs is through a process called backlinking. As Janine Popick, CEO of Vertical Response, explains in her own blog, backlinking is a simple process in which other web sites and blogs link back to you blog.

What benefit is there in backlinking? Two main ones.

In the first case, visitors to the site linking back to your blog are, in essence, getting an invitation to visit your blog. In other words, more eyes are seeing that your blog exists, and if it is a good link, they might very well come to visit.

The second benefit is that backlinking helps with your search engine ranking. We’ve all heard about “search engine optimization,” SEO for short. By having good quality backlinks to your blog or web site, you are increasing the overall quality of your site and increasing your value to the search engines.

Janine does a great job of explaining what a “quality” backlink consists of, and it’s worth a moment to read her post of the topic.