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Episode 154: Credentialing Without Bias: How ICF Is Building a More Equitable Coaching Future with guest, Carrie Abner

• Garry Schleifer

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What does true fairness look like in professional certification? Carrie Abner, Vice President of ICF Credentialing, pulls back the curtain on a groundbreaking initiative that's transforming how coaches around the world become certified.

Four years ago, amid growing social conversations about equity, ICF leadership asked themselves a challenging question: were they truly living their values when it came to fairness in their credentialing process? This moment of reflection sparked a comprehensive equity assessment that would examine every aspect of how coaches earn their ICF credentials. The project, completed in October 2024, reveals both courage and commitment from an organization willing to look critically at its own practices.

Working collaboratively with ICF's DEIB team and an academic researcher specializing in diversity, Abner's team developed sophisticated methods to collect data, listen to stakeholders, and identify potential barriers in their processes. What they discovered led to meaningful changes: expanded assessor diversity to match growth in global markets, enhanced exam accommodations that benefit all candidates, and free exam tutorials that demystify the testing experience. Perhaps most importantly, they established ongoing feedback mechanisms that ensure continuous improvement.

"Most things that matter take courage," Abner notes, reflecting on the vulnerability required to examine established systems for hidden biases. The assessment represents more than just procedural tweaks—it's a fundamental shift in how ICF approaches credentialing, balancing rigorous standards with accessibility and cultural awareness.

For coaches preparing for ICF credentials, these changes mean a more equitable path to certification. For the coaching profession as a whole, ICF's work demonstrates how organizations can move beyond good intentions to create measurable improvements in fairness and inclusion.

Share your experience with ICF's credentialing process—they're listening and using your feedback to drive positive change. Connect with Carrie Abner at carrieabner@coachingfederation.org or explore ICF's resources at coachingfederation.org.

Watch the full interview by clicking here.

Find the full article here.

Learn more about Carrie Abner here.

Pearson Vue and ICF Testing Resources here.

Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/

Garry Schleifer:

Welcome to Beyond the Page, the official podcast of choice, the magazine of professional coaching, where we bring you amazing insights and in-depth features that you just won't find anywhere else. I'm your host, Garry Schleifer, and I'm excited to expand your learning as we dive into the latest articles, h ave a chat with the brilliant author behind them and uncover the learnings that are transforming the coaching world. When you have a chance, join our vibrant community of coaching professionals as we explore groundbreaking ideas, sharing expert tips and techniques and making a real difference in our lives. This is your go-to resource for all things coaching, so let's dive in.

Garry Schleifer:

In today's episode, I'm speaking with Vice President of ICF Certified Coach at Carrie Abner, who's the author of an article in our latest issue Coaching Anti-Racism and the Backlash Against DEI. The article is entitled Ensuring Fairness ICF's Commitment to Equity \In Credentialing. A little about Carrie. She has her CAE and is an Associate Management Executive with a passion for bringing together diverse communities to generate and execute a common mission. Perfect place for you at ICF to do that, Carrie. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Carrie Abner:

Thanks so much for having me. I'm delighted to be here, Garry.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah. Well, it's interesting how this article came about, because we were having a conversation about something entirely different and you were telling me what you had spurred, and we're going to find out more about that today, and it really piqued my interest because it hit right smack into two of my main values, which is fairness and equity. So why don't you tell me a little bit more about your work and how it came about?

Carrie Abner:

Yeah, absolutely. So I had the honor and privilege, as you know, of leading ICF's credentialing programs and so about, let's say, about four years ago, obviously at the time there were so many social conversations around equity that were taking place and it got us to thinking in our programs, gosh, are we living the values that we espouse? Are we walking the talk as we're kind of publishing our commitments to equity and fairness? And certainly there's a huge overlap in the equity conversations and what we do on a daily basis as credentialing professionals, which is to provide a fair, valid, reliable credentialing program. So it got us to thinking about this and we requested some special budgetary funds to support what we call an equity assessment.

Carrie Abner:

And what an equity assessment is, it's a process and a standardized kind of research methodology to kind of take a look at a program. In this case it's our credentialing program, but it could be any number of programs within an organization Peel back those layers a little bit and to look at ways in which either a process or a program may present an unintended disadvantage to certain groups and populations. I will tell you, you know, the thought about putting this forward to the board for consideration and adoption, felt a little vulnerable, like we are asking to peel back our layers and to see all of you know see what may exist there.

Carrie Abner:

But we felt it was really important to do so. So we put forward that proposal and thankfully the ICF Global Board recognized the importance of the effort and approved it. Now they asked us to kind of hold off.

Carrie Abner:

They said wait just a second, Carrie. Practice patience, which is not typically my thing, but they said it was at the time that ICF was developing their DEIB program and their staff team and so they said let's get that staff team up and running and that would provide a really beautiful collaboration opportunity for our credentials and standards and the DEIB team to work together to conduct this equity assessment. So that's exactly what we did. We kicked it off in 2023. We wrapped it up in October of 2024. And we're really glad to share kind of what we learned through that process, a little bit about the methodology of that process and what we're doing as a result of it, which is, to me, the most exciting thing.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, oh my gosh, that's awesome and thank you so much for your patience and for sticking with it and then having it happen, so I love it. It wasn't a no, it was just like a hold on, let's align the stars a little more. And, yeah, why not? You know you do a DEIB study before the DEIB group is, but then you could always say, well, they were because of the study, but no.

Carrie Abner:

Well, it worked out beautifully. We had such a great experience working with our DEIB team. We also brought in a consultant who is a researcher. She's an academic researcher who focuses on diversity, equity, inclusion, and she also happens to be an ICF credentialed coach. So boom, boom, boom. She was the perfect person to help us with this project. Her name is Angie and she was just phenomenal to work with. She helped us out as well, and it was a beautiful partnership between the three entities. So it was great.

Garry Schleifer:

Well, we'll shout out to Angie and the DEI group too. So great job. And I mean I know because I've talked to you about it, but why don't you tell us some of the surprising things that you learned as an outcome of this?

Carrie Abner:

Well, when we started working with Dr. Angie Carter, our consultant, and Akina Finch and the DEIB team, you know one of the things that came to the forefront very quickly is that, gosh, we need more data. So that was very clear up front that we needed to collect some important data so that we could even make fair evaluations of where we were in our process. And so we worked for probably three or four months. A lot of our effort was getting the mechanisms in place to ask really good questions of our candidates, our credential holders and other stakeholders within our community and then to get to collect that data and to analyze it. So that was a big effort up front.

Carrie Abner:

So we added important questions to some existing surveys. We also included some of those same questions that help us tease out, kind of where some of our gaps are to new surveys that we distributed and conducted, which was really helpful as well. We also did some important stakeholder mapping in a more formalized way that was really helpful to us as well to think through in a really methodical way kind of where the potential gaps could be, who we needed to ask questions of, and then we zipped it up and we listened. So we asked really great questions and then we listened. Sounds a whole lot like coaching.

Garry Schleifer:

Right, I am sitting here going, Oh, sounds like coaching.

Carrie Abner:

Yeah, yeah, and it was really valuable and we learned some things through that process, and I can talk about some of the different surveys and the focus groups and interviews that we conducted, but we learned some important things through that process that are helping us make some changes to our program. We've already made some of those changes and we're continuing to make some other changes. But to me, you asked about what was one of the big surprises. To me just the act of the exercise of determining what questions we needed to ask and integrating those questions in a standardized way to our surveys, to our focus group protocols, et cetera. That is something that is going to help us in the long term because the more information that we get from our community of stakeholders, the better informed decisions we can make about how to improve our program on a continuing basis, not just right now through t his particular phase of the project, but for the long term.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, wow, amazing. And thank you for referencing like focus groups and more surveys and great questions. I was just thinking, did you notice or were you called out on any biases?

Carrie Abner:

Sure, sure yeah.

Garry Schleifer:

Like within the group, maybe even.

Carrie Abner:

Oh, within. Myself, not personally, but certainly like ICF was called out on some biases and that was the whole point of the process, right. It took some courage to go through this, but most things that matter take courage, right?

Garry Schleifer:

Right, yeah, yeah, Wow, no, that's great. So what were the some of the like okay, maybe not wow, but oh well, that confirmed that one. Or maybe there were wows. Give me some examples.

Carrie Abner:

Yeah, let me take a quick step back because I want to talk a little bit, like to put some context to the wow's, because there were some.

Carrie Abner:

Yeah, so one of the things that's really critical for any kind of professional certification program is that two concepts come to the fore, which is fairness and impartiality. At the end of the day, a certification program in ICF's terminology, we call it credentialing, but it's a professional certification program, regardless of the professional practice is equality assurance to consumers of that practice. For instance, the American Medical Boards is a certifying body. I mean, of course, it's a regulated profession and there's a license that's required, but it's a similar type of process and they want to make sure that doctors who are practicing are practicing safely and not putting their patients at risk. We're doing the same thing. It's a different practice, but we want to make sure, at the end of the day, that ICF credentials go to individual coaches who have, through a standardized evaluation, have demonstrated they have the knowledge and the competence to practice coaching safely, to provide a quality service to their coaching clients. So essentially, we're a quality assurance mechanism and that's a really important thing.

Carrie Abner:

Okay, to do that well, you have to be committed to validity and reliability, that is to say, impartiality and fairness in the process, so that every candidate who is qualified, who meets the qualifications, has an equal chance to demonstrate their competence through the process. That sounds easy and it's really hard to do.

Garry Schleifer:

I was going to say it does not sound easy. It's easy to say, but not easy. How about that? It's easy to say but harder to deliver on.

Carrie Abner:

Exactly, and it relies on having processes and mechanisms to measure competence in a valid way, in a standardized and valid way. So that's at the core of any kind of professional certification program and body that is committed to, you know, providing high quality certifications that meet, you know, accepted global standards for practice. So there's a large overlap with that and with the equity work. It's so important to what we do in order to provide our credentials with integrity. That is crucial, it's fundamental, and so, you know, one of the things that we started kind of taking a look at and asking about is we looked at our performance evaluation process, we looked at our exam and you know our exam is one of the mechanisms that's designed specifically to provide that equity and fairness to all candidates. It's a standardized exam, so it provides us an ability to measure precisely knowledge and competence in a standardized way across all candidates. But there are ways that we can do that even better and those are some of the things that came to the fore.

Carrie Abner:

So when we started asking questions of our candidates, particularly those in the performance evaluation process, we looked at demographics, where our candidates were coming from. We also did surveys of our assessors to find out some important demographics of our assessor community and what we found which was kind of a no-duh thing is that we've grown quite a bit in recent years and we haven't grown uniformly across the world. We have markets that are growing disproportionately faster than other markets and so it's important for us to make sure that we have some equal representation in our assessor community that matches where our candidates are coming from. So that makes sense, right, but it was an important finding from this process. So one of the things that we've done is we've added new assessors. We've recruited, trained and onboarded new assessors in particular markets where we're seeing some rapid growth in our candidate population, primarily in Asia, so that we have not only kind of on paper demographics are matching, but it's also really important from a cultural standpoint that we have assessors who understand the cultural nuance of coaching in particular markets who can provide that assessment process more fairly. It's important that we have assessors who have language capacity in the languages where candidates are coming from. So that's been a big finding.

Carrie Abner:

One of the findings that you know we came to through this process is some of the work that we've done in recent years, not all of it has been a fan favorite by our candidate population, but some of the work that we've done in terms of our exam development and security and administration practices actually have been a strength. They've added value from an equity and fairness perspective. Having a proctored exam adds fairness to our process. It's not always the most beloved part of our process, by any stretch of the imagination, but it adds fairness.

Garry Schleifer:

Carrie, very honestly, who really loves having a test okay.

Carrie Abner:

No one. No one.

Garry Schleifer:

There you go. Said no one.

Carrie Abner:

Exactly, but it does add fairness. It's an important part to make sure that every candidate is assessed in similar circumstances and have an equal chance of demonstrating their knowledge and competence. However, we did find from our focus groups and interviews with candidates that, while we've added a lot to our exam accommodations request process, there's more that we could do, both in terms of the structure of our exams and how they're delivered, as well as particular exam accommodations, the documentation that we require and all of that. So we've made some important changes there as well, which have, you know, not just benefited candidates with disabilities, but some of those changes have benefited all of our candidate population. So it's kind of using universal design practices to help improve our exam experience for everyone and, in the process, also improving the experience for candidates who may need a special adjustment or an accommodation to meet their needs.

Garry Schleifer:

Well, on behalf of my business bestie out in California. She knows who she is. I really wanted this because of her accommodation requirements as she heads into her PCC testing. So stay tuned over there at ICF or whatever. I'm not exactly sure what she needs, but I know she needs a couple of accommodations. So thank you for that. What I'm also hearing is that there's some processes that need to stay in place, like where are the areas of growth and how many assessors do we have to meet that right? Like continuously being aware of where we're growing, where the needs are right. So there's things like that.

Carrie Abner:

And that's where kind of that early work on data collection, identifying the data that we needed and creating mechanisms to collect that data consistently and building that into our standardized process, that's what I think is going to support us to continually make those improvements in the long term, because we've integrated that. It's not just a one-off right, it's it's part of our natural process now, which I think will help us to listen consistently to identify the changes in the population, the changes in our program that need to be addressed in different ways.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, so how much of the findings have been acted upon?

Carrie Abner:

Yeah, so we've acted upon several of the findings, if not, I would say the majority of them. So we had three big kind of buckets of findings. Again, the performance evaluation process. So we've added new assessors to our assessor community in those markets where there's the greatest need, and we're continuing to do that. We've also integrated another finding that we had and this kind of bleeds across categories. We had and this kind of bleeds across categories, but there was a consistent thread or theme in the data that you know additional training would be helpful, and so we've added dedicated training around cultural diversity, cultural competence, as well as accessibility, so identifying some of those accessibility needs, not only for our own staff. We've had several intensive trainings over the past year with our staff team on those topics as well as on exam accommodations in particular. But we've also integrated some of those training processes for our assessor community as well. So we're doing some more dedicated trainings around those topics. We've also integrated several improvements to our exam experience. Again, most of those have benefited all of our candidates. So the feedback that we've received in some cases from candidates who needed an accommodation, have helped to make the exam experience better for all candidates.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, I saw that in the article.

Carrie Abner:

Yeah, we've extended our breaks. We're pilot testing some new functionality in one of our exams, which so far is going really well. In the ACC exam, we're pilot testing new functionality in the exam platform that allows candidates to highlight text, to strike through text and to change the color display on the monitor. So if it's easier to read with blue font on a yellow background rather than black and white, candidates who are taking that particular exam can make that adjustment. They want to strike through a response option, for instance, to take that off the table as they're trying to answer a question. They can do that, or they can highlight text in a question.

Carrie Abner:

If that turns out to be as positive as it looks so far, we're going to be integrating that into all of our exams in the next publication cycle. So that will also be a big improvement, and we've also, one of the things that we heard through this process is that more exam prep would be helpful so that candidates knew what they were walking into before they sat down for their exam. Taking an exam, as you talked about earlier, is one of the most anxiety-provoking experiences. I've done it to earn my CAE. It was really anxious, I was really anxious and then I had to wait for six weeks to hear my results. Thankfully, we're able to get results on the day of but a lot of testing programs make candidates wait for a long time. But we want to reduce that to the extent possible. Now for a variety of reasons, to remain in alignment with best practice standards, we as ICF credentials and standards, specifically cannot offer exam prep because it would present a little bit of a conflict of interest, because we are the testing body, we have the testing content, so we can't provide exam prep.

Carrie Abner:

Now other parts of ICF. And then, of course, external vendors can provide test prep, and that's great, but one thing that we can do is provide more information to candidates about the exam experience. So we've recently published what we call exam tutorials, which are 20-minute free opportunities for candidates, mentor coaches, whoever really wants to take it can go into the exam platform and pull up the ICF credentialing exam tutorial or the ACC exam tutorial or the team coaching certification exam tutorial. They'll see what the testing platform looks like.

Carrie Abner:

They'll have a process to go through the functionality of the platform so they don't have to spend time on the exam day kind of figuring out how to navigate. They can test using some of the sample questions so they can work through some of the sample exam questions.

Garry Schleifer:

There are some sample questions then.

Carrie Abner:

There are some sample exam questions on our website and then in this tutorial they're presented exactly as they will be, you know, as a question would be during the actual exam. So they can go through that process as well and it's free, so you can do it as many times as you want before your exam appointment to get you comfortable with how things are going to look and feel on the day of. That can be crucial in kind of mitigating some of the stress and anxiety.

Garry Schleifer:

Is this for the MCC as well?

Carrie Abner:

It's for all three of our exams. So if you have to take an exam through Pearson VUE, these exam tutorials are available on the ICF landing page in the Pearson VUE website and I can share that link with you directly so that candidates can go straight to it. But it's a huge benefit, in addition to, of course, our candidate guides and all of the information that we provide to candidates to prepare them for their exam appointment.

Garry Schleifer:

Wow, you're just so excited and jazzed about this, even after all that hard work. Thank you for the commitment to that. When are you going back to the constituents to say like remeasure with the questions?

Carrie Abner:

Constantly. Yeah. So we've integrated some of those questions into our ongoing credentialing candidate surveys and we run those surveys every quarter for any candidate who's gone through the process and taken an exam, regardless of their results. So we want to hear from candidates who passed, we want to hear from candidates who didn't receive a passing mark. We want all of that feedback. So that's on an ongoing basis. We're also conducting surveys with our assessor community on an annual basis, because that community doesn't change quite as quickly as our candidate population. So that has built into our process now, which is really valuable. And we pay attention. I read every word, every comment that is submitted as part of those credentialing candidate surveys every quarter.

Garry Schleifer:

So there's no AI Carrie behind it.

Carrie Abner:

Nope, nope, and there are a lot of words that are submitted, so it's really cool.

Garry Schleifer:

Especially the ones that don't get a passing grade.

Garry Schleifer:

I have a lot more to say than the ones that pass.

Carrie Abner:

But it's so important to get that feedback and we're not able to act on every single comment that's submitted, of course, but we pay attention, we do do some analysis of those comments and the feedback so that you know those trending themes come to our attention very quickly and clearly so that we can make those process improvements where we're able to do that, as long as they don't compromise exam security. Yeah, we want to make sure that the candidates have again, w'll go back to that theme. Taking a high stakes proctored exam is the least favorite activity of most people I know, and we want to make it as a pleasant experience as we possibly can. It's still going to be a high anxiety experience but we want to mitigate any extraneous anxiety. That's part of that process.

Garry Schleifer:

Well, on behalf of someone who's heading into preparation for MCC, I thank you because you've taken a fraction of the anxiety away because now I have a place to start. Speaking of which you mentioned that, but what else would you like our audience to do as a result of the article in this conversation? You suggested going to the website coaching federation. org. And what?

Carrie Abner:

Lots of resources there on the website. Also check out those exam tutorials on our landing page on the Pearson VUE website and I can share that link with you as well. One of the most powerful things that the population and our credential holder population can do, which we have valued so much through this process, is to share your voice. So when you get a survey, if you have the time to pause and share your feedback, share your experience with us. That makes a difference and we know it takes time and we really value those who set aside some time to provide their experience and their insights so that we can improve our process on an ongoing basis.

Carrie Abner:

It's so valuable.

Garry Schleifer:

So to our listeners ICF is listening. Speak to them.

Garry Schleifer:

Awesome, Carrie thank you so much. What's the best way to reach you?

Carrie Abner:

You can reach me at carrieabner@ coachingfederation. org.

Garry Schleifer:

Awesome. Again, thank you so much. I can just see your heart and all of your energy surrounding this whole project and ongoingly. So thank you very much, not just for the article and the conversation, but for what you've done and what you're doing.

Carrie Abner:

Thank you, Garry. That means a lot, and it is, this is where my heart is, so it's a pleasure to be able to share it with your readers and with your listeners, and so thank you for the opportunity to be here with you today and have really enjoyed our conversation. It's always good to see you.

Garry Schleifer:

And you too. We'll see you soon and we'll be putting those links in the chat below this conversation, so stay tuned. That's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app, most likely the one that got you here. If you're not a subscriber to choice Magazine, you can sign up for a free digital issue by scanning the QR code in the top right-hand corner of my screen. If you're listening and not watching, go to choice-online. com and click the Sign Up Now button. I'm Garry Schleifer. Enjoy the journey of mastery.