5 Steps to Coaching Accreditation | Step 5 - Written Exam

Building a Coaching Culture - #125: 5 Steps to Coaching Accreditation | Step 5 - Written Exam === Lucas Flatter: [00:00:00] Hey, welcome J.R. Flatter: back everybody, JR Flatter here with my Lucas Flatter: co host Lucas, J.R. Flatter: how you doing? This is the fifth session on how to get an ICF coaching accreditation. The other four are on our website or on our YouTube channel if you want to go review Lucas Flatter: those. Thank you J.R. Flatter: Today we're going to focus on the ICF coaching exam in great detail, so Lucas Flatter: welcome. Yep, and just to mention again, we have a PDF checklist that you can check out in the video description. Um, it's going to lay out all these requirements. J.R. Flatter: Yeah, there's a lot of numbers floating around in these five phases and it's hard to keep track of it in your head. So, thanks for doing Lucas Flatter: that. Lucas Flatter: [00:01:00] Okay, the coaching exam is a little bit unique of the other four. J.R. Flatter: So the other four, education, experience, mentor coaching, and the performance evaluation are all done under the umbrella of the accredited program. Or if you went the portfolio path, you gather them all together. The exam belongs entirely to the ICF. It's a separate fee. you schedule exams through the ICF website, and so we have nothing to do with the exam. This is a maturation of the ICF to meet and exceed the international accreditation standards. So I didn't know this until I started digging into it, but there's this international body that says here are the requirements if you want to be an internationally [00:02:00] accredited program. PMP is probably one that comes to Lucas Flatter: mind, J.R. Flatter: uh, welding accreditations, electrician accreditations. Any of those, Grummaster, any of those that are internationally accepted have to go through this body and, uh, comply with their Lucas Flatter: requirements. J.R. Flatter: And the ICF has done Lucas Flatter: that. J.R. Flatter: And so the exam was updated, how it was written and presented, they've engaged a third party proctor so that the ICF isn't. Providing the requirement and, um, testing the requirement, they're independent. Uh, and so that's why it's completely separate from us. We provide the education and preparation necessary to get ready to take the exam, uh, and then you take the exam independent of us. As I said, it's proctored by a third party. Uh, you'll have to schedule, uh, the course through that third party proctor through the ICF website. it's a multiple choice exam. Uh, they [00:03:00] say it's written, but it's actually written, uh, multiple choice in Lucas Flatter: the, J.R. Flatter: uh, exam. Lucas Flatter: GUI. J.R. Flatter: we still use Lucas Flatter: word GUI? Yeah, good to know. J.R. Flatter: so, um, that's that as far as the content of the, of the, uh, exam. It's 100 percent based on things that you've been learning throughout your Lucas Flatter: journey. J.R. Flatter: The core competencies, the ethics and the core values of coaching. And so, I've said before in previous sessions, you don't need to memorize any Lucas Flatter: of that. J.R. Flatter: if you've been engaged in your coaching journey and One thing that we haven't mentioned yet, but I think it's relevant here. Every session that we teach, we talk about a focus competency and the markers associated with that focus competency so that we're reminding you every day, very purposefully, um, of a focus competency and its, its, uh, [00:04:00] contained markers so that by the time you get ready to take your exam, you've gone through your mentor coaching, and your mentor's done the same thing with you, they've gone through a focus competency of that Lucas Flatter: date. For J.R. Flatter: you're gonna have sufficient familiarity Lucas Flatter: to pass this test. J.R. Flatter: We have, you know, hundreds and hundreds of data points of people who have gone through our program, and knock on wood, I have not heard, I wasn't ready, ever, 70 of passing score, so that means you get 7 out of 10 right. And I've gotten feedback as recently as last week, uh, someone who passed the exam wrote me a note, said, hey, I passed the exam, and it was exactly what you had told us it was going to be. and, you know, they got whatever score they got and, and passed. I know from my own experiences, I took the, the, the old test, and I thought I was pretty prepared. I remember guessing, three Lucas Flatter: out of the. J.R. Flatter: ten. I said, I can't differentiate the answers on these Lucas Flatter: [00:05:00] three, J.R. Flatter: but the ICF continues to mature and, uh, I'm getting less and less feedback that, you know, there's no discrimination between the, the answers that they are provided. But the questions will be something like. Which marker is associated with this competency, or which domain does this marker, uh, is part of? of the eight competencies, there are four domains and, you know, the competencies fall within one of those Lucas Flatter: domains. J.R. Flatter: And you'll have sufficient familiarity to know, well, that's the foundation comp, uh, domain, those two competencies, or that's the, growth domain with one competency. Lucas Flatter: so again, J.R. Flatter: Don't treat the exam like you're cramming for a final. Yeah, sit down, review the competencies the day before, get a good night's sleep and a good breakfast. But it's not like you have, you're sitting down and trying to remember the exam. The signs and cosigns of trigonometry or, you know, a particular [00:06:00] date that a battle was fought in a particular country. That's not what the exam's all about. It's a quite legitimate test of, have you been engaged in this coaching journey? And you know, from a very practical perspective, the more you've coached and the more introspective you've been on your coaching practice, The stronger your coaching is going to be, and the stronger your recall of these competencies is going to be. So you asked me very early on in the first or the second session about the difference between Actually learning and, and just, going through the motions. If you've actually learned how to coach and am engaged in good faith on your journey, you're gonna knock this exam Lucas Flatter: of the park. Yeah, presumably you're coming in with 60 hours of education, 100 hours of experience. there's certain, accreditations, like you mentioned the PMP, that it's just like, oh, go pass the test. And in that case, you're behooved to just [00:07:00] cram as much as you can, get the test done in like a weekend. in this case, you can't really do that because you need the hours of education and experience anyways. So, I J.R. Flatter: the Lucas Flatter: And J.R. Flatter: previous session, the hours of coaching is usually what takes people the Lucas Flatter: longest. J.R. Flatter: So even if you have all of your hours of education, long before you have your hours of coaching, stay engaged in the coaching community. Go to the live coach training in the evening, attend the bootcamp. Uh, as a refresher, that's the best kind of preparation that you can make We teach live coach training three days a week, and we have students in there who've been with the cohort for several years, long ago got their accreditations, but they stay in to stay refreshed, You're gonna need continuing coaching, education for your recertification so you might as well stay engaged in the community but certainly between the time you complete your required hours of training and taking the exam [00:08:00] stay engaged. Lucas Flatter: And then I also wanted to shout out to the COOL programs in the military for certification. That was one of the barriers having this proctored exam before it would appear on COOL. J.R. Flatter: yeah there were several things and one of them was they wanted them to comply with the ISO standards. So in addition to comply with the international accreditation, ISO is a quality, uh, measure of quality and so the ICF aligned themselves with the, uh, Lucas Flatter: ISO J.R. Flatter: and with the body. Lucas Flatter: And for those that don't know, this is a way for army, um, active duty only, or, Um, no, all the um, Yeah. Every, J.R. Flatter: it's difficult to explain, but every service has Lucas Flatter: their own, J.R. Flatter: uh, Lucas Flatter: policies, To let people get certifications and then get it paid for through their employers? J.R. Flatter: yeah, KOOL stands for Credentialing Opportunities Okay, yeah, uh, and we're one of the approved vendors for [00:09:00] ICF coaching through the COOL program. you know, we've talked several times about going through an accredited program. Or going through the portfolio path. another advantage of going through, uh, an accredited program is you're going to get results from your exam immediately. if you go through the portfolio Lucas Flatter: path, J.R. Flatter: you're going to submit your transcripts and recordings, and it's going to be 18 to 22 Lucas Flatter: weeks, J.R. Flatter: and then they'll schedule you for the exam. So again, remind everyone. It It might take a little longer than you think, but actually it's going to be much more, much Lucas Flatter: quicker J.R. Flatter: if you go through an accredited Lucas Flatter: program. kind of working backwards from your goals, like it's easier if you have this goal in mind, I want ACC rather than I just want to explore, Yeah, know. J.R. Flatter: yeah, absolutely. if you go on the ICF website, they do Lucas Flatter: have, J.R. Flatter: uh, study materials. Lucas Flatter: Oh, Practice Yeah, Practice J.R. Flatter: tests, study materials. but again I'll [00:10:00] reiterate, if you've gone through the journey in good faith, ready. Lucas Flatter: Yeah, I know there's some Among us that are a little more stressed out by test environments and things. So in that case, yeah, do the practice and try to get rid of the butterflies. J.R. Flatter: Yeah, but I definitely don't recommend staying up until the middle of the night cramming and, you know, coming with sleep in your eyes Lucas Flatter: do that. J.R. Flatter: exhausted. You don't need to do that. Lucas Flatter: Yeah, less, less cramming and more sleep is more J.R. Flatter: for me. Alright, thanks everybody. That is the end of the podcast. Phase five of the five phases of ICF accreditation. of these phases are going to be on our website and on our YouTube Lucas Flatter: channel. J.R. Flatter: Thanks for being here with us and, uh, Lucas, I think Lucas Flatter: you have your J.R. Flatter: last Lucas Flatter: of, uh. yeah, I mean, there are resources on our website, uh, we'll be linking to ICF resources as well, and this should be your [00:11:00] one stop shop for everything that you need in terms of getting your credentials, So Lucas,