Why did you change your association's articles of association in 2006?
Dominique Jaillon: We started thinking about this change in 2004-2005. At that time, we had 700 members, including a mix of ordinary members and accredited members. This created confusion; companies found it hard to distinguish between members and accredited members. In order to promote recognition of coaching by organisations and companies, and to initiate a process of professionalisation for members, we changed our articles of association to accept only accredited members. It was a difficult decision, as we went from 700 to 280 subscribers. Our lives were more confused, but more comfortable before...
What criteria are used to co-opt full members?
D. J. : A full member must have experience, have made coaching a significant part of his or her activity for several years, work with a supervisor, be familiar with different approaches such as systemic analysis, transactional analysis, NLP, etc. The selection process is important because only about 30 of the applications received for full membership are validated. The selection process is a major one, since only around 30 % of the applications received are validated for tenure. All the more so as those who submit applications generally consider themselves to be "up to scratch".
How do you view the development of coaching?
D. J. : We were, and still are, in a context of rapid market development driven by an attractive word, which unfortunately is sometimes used to rebrand practices that already existed, particularly in consultancy and training. As far as professional coaching is concerned, the outlook remains good: the practice has developed significantly in the private sector since the 90s and is tending to spread beyond the initial sphere of senior executives. But we need to put this into perspective: it is generally said that there are 3,500 people practising coaching in France. But I find that if you add up the members accredited by the SFCoach and by the ICF, you come up with barely 450. That narrows the circle considerably.
