Qualified, Not Just Certified: Beyond the Certificate

One of the biggest roadblocks I’ve had to navigate throughout my professional career has indeed been knowing my worth. Far too often, I’ve struggled with the self-imposed limits of not completing a college degree. Sometimes, though, the companies I was employed by actually had those limits built firmly into how they defined advancement opportunities. That said, I’ve racked up a solid list of certifications over the years; some of which I still have framed certificates for laying around collecting dust, and some that got lost over time. Here are a few, in no particular order:

• Six Sigma Yellow Belt (through a Master Black Belt at Tenneco)
• Total Quality Management (internally at Tenneco)
• ISO-9001 (serving as an internal audit for years at Tenneco)
• Applied Ergonomics (through a company called HumanTech at the time)
• Lean Manufacturing Customized Program (University of Michigan - College of Engineering)
• DDI - Certified Facilitator (Development Dimensions International)
• SHRM-CP (Society for Human Resource Management Certified Professional)
• CHBC (Certified Human Behavior Consultant with Personality Insights)
• ACHBC (Advanced Certified Human Behavior Consultant with Personality Insights)
• Maxwell Leadership Certified Team Member (including stints as an Executive Director and serving on the organization’s President’s Advisory Council)

I'm sure there are quite a few others that I could list if I had time (or cared to) dig through old file folders or boxes from days gone by. While just this list could look relatively impressive on a resume or LinkedIn profile, I’m confident that the variety or number of certifications listed are of little interest to you on any given day. What I’ve come to understand in no uncertain terms is that there’s not a certification on the planet that offers value unless the individual holding it can deliver results. Without being qualified to actually help others understand and apply to subject matter, holding a certificate is little more than a feather in your cap.

I’m not exactly sure of the timing, likely somewhere between late 2013 and early 2015, Rod and I had a conversation about an open training and development manager position at the company he worked for at the time. Through the nearly fifteen years we had worked together, he was very familiar with the skill set I had developed. Since we weren’t in the same location the last few years we were with the same company and he had been with his new company for a while at that point, he was reaching out to see if I had ever finished my degree in Human Resource Management - which was initially an expectation when I moved into that field from behavior-based safety. Just a few months after taking on the role, I found myself working 12-14 hours each day so the coursework had taken a backseat. I carried a 4.0 GPA through what I had completed, but I wasn’t far enough along for Rod to make a case to his corporate team to consider me. I lacked the degree, but he knew I was far more qualified than anyone else who applied. No harm done; he and I still have a great relationship to this day.

Just a few years after that conversation with Rod, I remember sitting in a management team meeting led by the consultant my employer had been working with for a while. I had been with that organization for just over eighteen months and had been fairly involved with most of the group meetings he facilitated during the day or two he was on site each quarter. While much of what he covered made sense overall, I asked for a practical example for something he shared in that meeting. I was hoping to get more context for how we could implement it through anything he shared detailing how he had seen other clients put it in place. He refused to provide any examples, saying that it would be different for everyone. Well, duh, but having a starting point - rather than a random idea he had read from a book - would have been helpful. At that point, I had grown frustrated with the number of ideas we had discussed without seeing any of them implemented or sustained. I made a comment about needing to see a tangible return on the investment the company had made with him (albeit it most certainly wasn’t my money or my decision), and he replied that if we could see at least a tenfold return then we should renew his contract the following year. Being certain nothing of the sort would ever be achieved, I barked something back at him about not allowing him into the building the next day if it were up to me. Most of the management team looked at me like I had an elbow growing out of my forehead. One of the most senior members of that group, although not in an ownership role, quietly folded his arms in agreement and said, “Yep.” That fellow traveled all over and flashed his credentials for anyone who would look at them, but I have yet to see a measurable return any of the organizations he worked with could tie to his time with them. Certified? Apparently… Qualified? Not that I ever saw!

In all the years I trained teams on behavior-based safety, I never had a formal certification. I did, however, have a ton of hands-on experience - both in administering that process and in the type of work being done as we conducted behavioral observations. Soon after moving into human resources, I found myself doing nearly all the interviewing and hiring with external candidates, disciplinary actions with existing team members, and a host of other tasks that fell in my lap. Although I had finished the degree showing I was certified, I had significant experience throughout the organization that helped me become qualified. Truth be told, the influence I had earned yielded a level of real leadership qualification that only comes through experience; a credential alone will never produce that.

As much as my experience helped, in the HR role and in so many other areas since, the mentors I’ve had access to have been even more important. Before we look at that in more detail though, I’ll challenge you to identify one real-world skill that you have and consider how you can ensure that qualification produces results that will likely never come from someone who just holds a certification…