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Personally I think getting an MBA is a “certification” for managers.

Terry

My premise is based on points: (1) Business schools are considered professional schools and claim they train people in management, and (2) the often heard (yet as you point out questionable) claim by those in management that it is a profession. If we accept those as valid (and some may not), then certification of managers (as professionals) based on their demonstrated proficiency is a valid thing to consider.

Your point about “an identifiable body of skills and practices” is a good one since they don’t currently exist. But that is the point. Establishing some form of certification would produce an intense debate as to which “skills” and to what degree of proficiency are needed for someone to certified a manager.

I don’t think management is any more art than other professions, such as teaching and law, which also have to produce results through others. Invoking that justification persists the problem. Besides, certifying some basic level of proficiency doesn’t take away the art that may be involved in its production unless one assumes there is a one best way to do things (which would be a mistake).

If we take your advice, and use Drucker’s definitiion, then one way to certify managers could be by testing their ability to produce results through others without diminishing the social capital employed. Indeed, higher levels of ceritification could come with “bigger” results and “expanded” social capital.

Your argument is good, but I have a question about your premise, namely that “management” is a profession, and that it has an identifiable body of skills and practices that can be learned and certified.

I wonder if “management” is not one of those words that is the result of nominalizing a verb. In other words, management is the act of managing or conducting a business (according to my dictionary). If we accept Drucker’s maxim that managing is “producing results through others,” then I think it would be hard to codify in the way that medical specialties are codified and tested. Perhaps it’s more of an art, and arts are notorious for resisting certification.

As to certification in coaching, as a lifelong coach who trained many of the people who then started certifying organizations, I find it odd. Mostly I think what certification means is that a coach has completed one or another program and satisfied their requirements, but I don’t find any consistency between the various programs that would make certification meaningful.