To certify or not to certify... Is that the question?
Are certificates for practitioners in Organization Development or Behavioural Economics/Science a good thing?
The call for some form of qualification for Organization Development (OD) practitioners is not new, but their volume has been swelling lately. Also recently, concern about the ethics of nudging and of the application of findings from behavioural science has led to proposals for a code of practice for Behavioural Economics (BE) practitioners. Enforcing such a code would likely also require some form of certification.
Would a formal stamp of approval in either domain be a good thing?
Paul Thoresen and Koen Smets attempt a good cop, bad cop routine (or a Socratic dialogue if you prefer!) to explore some of the issues and — more importantly — to kick off the discussion.
Do join us in the comments!
Koen: I have to say, I am naturally a bit suspicious of certification in general. My concern rests on three questions: (1) who does the certification, and with what legitimacy? (2) What are the criteria and the process of certification? And most importantly: (3) what purpose is certification seeking to realize? What is the problem you’re trying to solve… and is it really a problem? Is there a problem with poor quality or dodgy ethics with too many practitioners, and you need to keep the charlatans out? Or is there a problem with too many riff-raff entering the field, and you need barriers to keep things pure? I guess this is the most important question. If you have a good answer to this one, then you can probably come up with a decent answer to the first two. Do you think there are good reasons for certification?
Paul: An example is that the Organization Development Network (ODN) has plans to have a new OD certification up and running in three years. A good group to do a certification (an assumption on my part) and they will use their new Global Competency Framework as the basis. I am not a mouthpiece for that organization, but it seeks to have “accepted professional standards and competencies in the Global OD Practice Framework™. Achieving and maintaining OD certification will further elevate a practitioner’s credibility in each of the core capabilities as business advisor, credible strategist, informed consultant, system change expert, and efficient designer.” I am only mildly “pro” certification, but if there is an accepted basis for the certification it can help the practitioners to show a level of competence and (potentially) help anyone who might utilize OD professionals. There are a lot of OD professionals out there just making it up as they go.
Koen: Hmm, that doesn’t really address my question about the real need for doing so [laughs]. And there is a big ‘if’ in what you say: “if there is an accepted basis”. I see two things that worry me a little here. First, clients will have trust whoever is doing the certifying. That’s a matter of reputation of course… Does the ODN have authority with the people who use OD practitioners? What if other, rival certifications start popping up? That would not look good on the profession. But I think even more fundamental is the idea that passing some kind of test is unequivocal evidence of competence. If you look at existing certifications, from licences to drive a heavy goods vehicle to licences to practise medicine, most of us have come across people with a licence but without much discernible competence. So maybe it’s an entry ticket — but do we need that? If a certificate is not a reliable indicator of competence, it might be doing more harm than good.
Paul: You worry a lot my friend. Let us assume the ODN has the credibility to certify (I know, it may not be safe to assume, but for the sake of argument we put it in the assumption bucket). After 50 years as an association, one would hope they at least have the expertise to understand the profession. My understanding is that this is not the first attempt at OD certification by other groups. None of the previous ones have really taken hold. I know, not a particularly good sign for the current initiative. But when I have a dialogue with people who are opposed to certification I hear answers like:
- How do you certify an art?
- We all do different things, so that cannot be certified!
- What if I flunk “The Test”?
- I have 30–40 years experience, why do I need a certification?
- It is just a money grab by the certification body or bodies that be!
- That is just “The Man” trying to control us again…
These are not really “rational” arguments to me. Well maybe that last one, ha ha! There should be time in the profession, and education requirements which could be complementary, a written exam and more importantly — a way to demonstrate the skills. I do not think a certification for something like OD or BE should be just a knowledge test. But if it allowed for shadowing, sending in audio/video, examples of facilitation, then there would be opportunities to demonstrate competence. That makes the barriers to entry much higher for all involved though of course and a more laborious process for the certification body. And more meaningful.
Koen: Wouldn’t that make the certification process cumbersome, lengthy and inevitably very expensive? The fundamental challenge is to come up with a mechanism that doesn’t produce false positives (rating a practitioner as good when they’re not) or false negatives (good practitioners who don’t pass the test). That’s a tall order. And I do have some sympathy with the objection that says you can’t certify an art. Both OD and BE are really complex domains, with extremely varied applications. I find it hard to imagine a test, even one that had all the bells and whistles you mention, that would clearly separate the wheat from the chaff, bearing in mind this complexity. It would more likely give everyone involved a false sense of security, and take away the incentive of clients to check out who they hire.
Paul: Yes, that certainly is the crux of the issue. I do not know if all false positives and all false negatives could be eliminated. It certainly leads to your favorite topic of trade offs! In the meantime- to carry out a comparison, it might be similar to my past life as a counselor. At certification Level I you showed a combination of acceptable education and experience, did an assessment and had to do a basic demonstration of skills (we sent in an audio tape). After a few years in grade so to speak you could move up to Level II which included a need to have had continuing education in key areas, an oral exam, and other requirements. OD and BE are different but maybe level I would be similar to a Driver’s License and Level II is more like The Knowledge (for London cabbies) in terms of complexity and detail…
At the end of the day, though, I think there is the question of competence, but there is also the question of ethical behavior in application of principles. Here is one example of a Code of Ethics from the ISOD group. There are an awful lot of practitioners out there running around with hammers (solutions) looking for nails (problems). This issue is not going to go away as the train is leaving the station for the ODN initiative, and there are more calls like this recent (un)scientific twitter poll shows.. albeit NOT definitively [laughs]
Koen: Ha, I saw that poll. But (not surprisingly) lots of people pointed out that there are two questions being asked, so quite what it tells us is not clear. What it does show is that opinions are divided. And to paraphrase our Prime Minister, in my view no certification is better than bad certification. I think that we should not go down the route where some august body judges the worthiness of a practitioner, and less still where it restricts access. And when we start talking about ethics — an increasingly hot topic in Behavioural Economics — then a code of practice has to be enforced to have any teeth. Do we need an unofficial police force to ensure that practitioners adhere to a code produced with little or no democratic credentials?
Then again, what this discussion has made me realize is that there is a really strong case for capturing, and making available, evidence. Part of that could be academic or professional qualifications, and even specific tests. But maybe it can also include things like publications, articles, blogs, talks, testimonials, recommendations, case studies and so on. That would allow prospective clients to consult the evidence, and they would be the ultimate judge, not some self-important organization. The clients would decide who to hire, based on what they find important and what they don’t. What would you say about that?
Paul: Well, yes I was one of those who pointed out that there were two separate questions in that poll, hehe. I guess I have a belief — that a meaningful certification would have more than a test — and my belief could be wrong. A certification that is only a test of some sort would have very limited value. I like the idea of a portfolio and think it could be wrapped into certification. By the way, I have heard of public portals where people can have a profile, and then clients and others can provide ratings, testimonials, etc. Like an eBay rating from sellers, or endorsements on Linkedin — but of course a lot more reflective of reality [laughs]. So,
- A portfolio of sorts as you describe, in addition to
- An understanding of knowledge via test, and
- A demonstration of competence (audio, video, and/or simulation etc)
- Plus a code of ethics to adhere to
would potentially be of benefit for prospective clients, practitioners, and society at large. This is going with your initial three questions, I am assuming the certifying body is credible and competent, and that there is a need for certification.
Koen: Yeah, something as broad as what you describe, well organized and accessible, may well be helpful to clients, practitioners and the professional domains of OD and BE alike. You are still making big assumptions, though! And there are other issues that would need resolving. What about working internationally? Many practitioners, certainly in Europe, work across multiple countries, often for multinational clients. A truly global certification mechanism sounds very ambitious, but how else could it work?…
Paul: … And what would be the sanctions for breaking the certifying body’s rules, for example? Maybe practitioners should be liable for malpractice (and need to carry insurance)?
Koen: Sounds like we’ve raised more questions than that we’ve answered here… But maybe that’s not bad thing. We set out to kickstart the discussion around certification, and it’d be cool if readers picked up the baton and carried it on in the comments to this piece. The lines are open!
(written by Paul Thoresen and Koen Smets)
Thank you for reading our Socratic dialogue. If you enjoyed it, please tap or click the 💚 icon to recommend it so others can find it more easily, and share it far and wide. But most importantly: please share your views, advocacy and concerns in the comments! This is an important issue that will benefit bigly from wide discussion. See you below! (P&K)
