Are We All Certifiable?

Several overlapping activities have brought us deep into the world of professional certification this year.  We’ve taken a detailed look at the value of certification for tradespeople who do hard, manual work that is progressively becoming more technical and more demanding in terms of quality.  We’ve looked into, and questioned, the approach to certifying “higher end” designers of electrical systems on highly sophisticated defense systems, and, in our non-professional lives, we’ve gotten into the analysis of choice and value for schools (certification for young people) for our children.

Through all of this examination, the consistent conclusion to be drawn is that there really always is more than one way to skin a cat.  Although, “formalization” of our training and education seems to represent the entropy of progress,  there are always conflicting examples of pathways to success.

The primary principal that we have found is that the true value of certification primarily comes back to the essential training, knowledge sharing, and even mentoring component of any good certification program. If these aspects are truly solid, directed towards goals, and continuously improved by the “certifying agent” then there is usually great value to both the person certifying, and the entity requiring certification. 

But every program with good intentions also seems to have a dark side, and the line between righteousness knowledge and quality expansion and self-serving information embargo is thin but heavily veiled.  Too often we have quickly (too quickly) uncovered a collusion between the specifiers and the certifiers that place undue hurdles to getting the job done in an efficient and effective manner.  Again, good, quality training for a reasonable price is an essential feedstock for the labor pipeline in any industry, but when this approach morphs into a restrictive monopolistic approach by the certifiers and becomes married to a (somewhat lazy) one size fits all attitude by the specifiers, then we are donning our own collective sea anchor of administration and up front cost.

I caught a great Q&A with Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, last night. It amazed me when he said that Google is presently spending $1B to set up a nationwide certification program for IT folks.  He touted it as workforce conversion and retraining (new economy jobs) and pointed out the massive need for this relatively simple skill set.  In spite of my present skepticism (or at least ambivilence) regarding the general topic of certification, I thought this was a great idea…….then it dawned on me…..its all about BRAND and QUALITY. The only way certification is worth it is if its administered and “backed” by an unquestionable BRAND.  Building that brand it the hard part…..there has to be the sweat equity in a brand that has so much value that there is NO WAY the owners of that brand will allow it to receive a black eye because of a certification program.   Just like everything else…..No easy answers.