Certified Coaches

It is only recently, after I retired from Corporate Life, that I decided to go in for Executive Coaching as a second career. My friends and well wishers encouraged me to go in for Executive Coaching and mentioned that due to the vast experience I have had in HR in Indian and MNCs and that too in different continents, I will have something to really look forward to in this new vocation.

So I set off ( or so I thought ! ) telling people about my new career as a free lance Executive Coach. Until a few people started asking me the following questions :


-- are you a member of ICF ?

-- Have you become a member of CFI ?

-- Are you certified by any of these associations ?

-- Are you a member of the British Psychological Society ?

-- Have you registered with the American Psychological Association ?


I realzed to set off being a certified Executive Coach, especially if I were to look forward to assignments from agencies like the UN and other MNCs, I needed to be affiliated to one or the above associations.


I enrolled for Coach training with Results Coaching Systems ( RCS ), and I must admit that I was really amazed with the intense process of getting myself trained to be a Coach. I suddenly realized that Coaching has a very strong theoretical foundation from multiple disciplines and one cannot simply venture into Coaching without an appreciation of these multiple approaches. RCS follows but one methodology - the brain based approach to Coaching -- so well propounded by David Rock...but there are very many other approaches as well from other disciplines.


People ask me - is certification necessary for Executive Coaching ? From my perspective, I would resoundingly say "Yes". For there has been a very palpable, a very noticeable metamorphosis in me as I transition from an HR avataar to a Coach Avataar.

Goals And Their Unintended Consequences

I have just finished reading a Harvard Business School Working paper written by a group of Professors on the Unintended Consequences of setting Goals in Organizations and the bad side effects that these have on the behavior, ethical attitudes and psychological and mental make up of those who are subject to achieving the goals - http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6114.html

It makes a fascinating reading with examples from the real world like Sears Roebuck and Company, Enron and Ford Motor and Company. And it is a persuasive article on why companies should be careful in insisting upon and rewarding employees based on the achievements of these goals.

I remember when I was the Head of HR of a large US MNC when during a mid year Operations Review the World Wide Head of  Sales and Marketing looked at his goal sheet and realized that 10% of his Management Incentive Payout was linked to Employee Satisfaction Scores. His immediate question was, "How do we ensure that all of us earn this 10% of our Incentive Payout without spending too much energy and effort on our people?"

The examples given by the professors and my own experience tells me that as long as we have Leaders and Managers who believe in manipulating a system no matter what we design and dish out, they will always be misused. It is a good concept to do what the Professors ask us to do - dish these out with lots of caveats - but as they say, "rules are made to be broken" and those who are short on ethical ways of managing and leading will always find a way to beat the system.

But nevertheless a good read !

Will our Indian Politicians commit Suicide ?

Some months ago the Indian Legislature passed a legislation enhancing the salaries and perks of the Ministers and Members of the Indian Parliament by an obscene amount ....83% odd. While a similar increase in any of the private sector firms would have earned the wrath of everybody, the news did not raise the hackles of anybody except the members themselves who vociferously argued that this was not enough, and even went to the extent of arguing that they should be paid higher than the longest and most senior bureaucrat.

Having lived abroad, I reflected on what is done in other countries....Singapore, for example, where I worked and lived for five years, annually reviews the salaries and benefits of its legislators. Every review does not result in a revision. If the salaries are high enough, they are left alone. But they do conduct a rigorous market survey ( called a Salary Survey ), carried out by an independent agency, and compare Ministerial salaries with the ten highest paying companies in Singapore. Once they are ranked from the highest to the lowest, Ministerial salaries are pegged at about 10 to 15% higher than the highest.

There is a reason for this. The Singapore Government believes that their Legislators should not succumb to any temptation of bribes or monetary overtures from any quarter and hence pay them sufficiently well not to be tempted by others.

But the beauty of the whole thing is how are things monitored to ensure that the Legislators are always clean ? Needless to say there are elaborate systems and methods that monitor that no Legislator falls prey to corruption. And if they did...

Public shame and swift punitive action is brought in. So much so the tainted and guilty ministers, in the past, have either shot themselves or stepped off a high office window ledge and plunged to their gory death. They would rather put an end to their lives than face public ridicule and shame.

Questions I have are :

1. Even if we have granted our Indian netas the increase that they have wangled to get will they stop being corrupt ?

2. If they do get caught in corruption, will they do what any self respecting Legislator in Singapore does ?

What do you think ?