Choosing the right coaching education

I’ve been scanning the market for coaching education for some time, and am 95% committed now to starting with Sofia Manning in a little less than a month.

The other program I’ve been considering is the one from Coaches Training Institute (CTI), which starts in August in Malmö, or in September in Copenhagen.

They’re both about the same price and duration, both can give you a certification.

• Price: Manning costs DKK 35,000, or 40,000 if you want both life coach and business coach modules, which I would probably do. CTI costs DKK 40,000.
• Duration: They both take around 6 months with about 3 days per month.
• Certification: The CTI program gives you direct access to being certified by the International Coach Federation (ICF), whereas Manning has her own certification. The training adheres to the ICF standards, though, so you can get certified with the ICF based on the training you’ve had.

They also both have published books. Sofia Manning’s book is Coaching – Det handler om at stille de rigtige spørgsmål (Coaching – it’s about asking the right questions), and CTI’s book is Co-Active Coaching. Both have lots of good content, but to be honest, I’m now reading Manning’s book for the second time, while I’m still fighting my way through the Co-Active Coaching book. I find it mind-numbingly boring. It seems to me too removed from the lives of the people involved, the choach and the coachee, too mechanical.

It’s odd, because the criticism I hear from people who attended the CTI course of the Manning course, is that it’s too rules-driven, there’s too little place for intuition, something I don’t recognize from her book at all. The other criticims I hear is that it’s based on Tony Robbins, and he’s suspect, thus Manning is suspect. It doesn’t get any more specific than that, and sometimes it’s just in the derogatory tone, but I get the impression that there’s some Manning-bashing going on over at the CTI, whereas most Manning-alumnis simply haven’t heard of the CTI education.

In the end, I decided to go with Manning because I enjoyed reading her book more, because she’s widely known which gives my credentials more value, and because my own coach has taken it. It doesn’t hurt that it’s in Copenhagen, not Malmö, and that it starts 6 weeks sooner.

And in the end, I believe that my value as a coach isn’t so much a function of the 17 days spent on one specific education, but a sum of everything I have learned and will continue to learn throughout my life.

If you have taken or are considering taking a coaching education, I’d love to hear what you’ve found, what you chose, and why.

UPDATED: I’ve gotten a response about the certification and have updated the text above. The answer is that Manning has her own certificate, but the training adheres to the requirements by the ICF.