opinion

Assumptions

Coaching cross-culturally brings an extra level of complexity to the coaching agenda. In particular the issue of assumptions is thrown into sharper relief for both the coaching client and the coach. As coach, I’m already on the alert for assumptions that the client might be making: human beings easily build assumptions into stories and build stories into truths, so we end up by confusing our assumptions with reality. Part of the coach’s role is to challenge those assumptions.

Assumptions by client and by coach

The client’s ‘My boss doesn’t seem to understand me’ can easily turn into an assumption that they don’t fit into the team or the organisation and never will, which they can then turn into an assumption that their career is almost at an end in the current organisation.

Equally the coach’s experience of the coaching client as unable or unwilling to be specific enough about their coaching objectives can become an assumption that the client isn’t committed to the coaching or has unrealistic expectations of it.

Challenging those assumptions demands a testing of the assumption for justification and an enquiry into alternative perspectives.

Assumption or culture?

In cross-cultural environments the coach needs to be both more sensitive and more cautious: once the idea of an assumption is in the air the coach needs to be highly respectful of its source: might it come from a culturally-based belief, for instance? If it does, that belief may well be part of the client’s sense of self – which means it would be inappropriate to challenge it on cognitive grounds. Such challenge may also be offensive to the client.

Self-promotion: a cultural issue

In the Anglo-Saxon culture of the UK and North America it is expected that career progression will depend in part on the individual’s ability to make a case for themselves, to proclaim their strengths and to articulately justify deserving the role they are seeking.

As one travels east, however, that kind of self-promotion is counter-cultural in many societies. Individuals may experience it as in direct conflict with their sense of self, and therefore cannot bring themselves to express their strengths or recount their achievements or the value they have brought to their organisations in the past. This is my experience coaching clients in the Middle East, for example. As a result they may fail to land roles that they are more than qualified for – and the recruiting organisation misses out on their talent.

Systemic roots of the client’s beliefs

Coaching on this issue when the coach and the coaching client come from different cultures could fall in to the trap of challenging what the coach sees as the client’s assumptions, when in fact the issue needs to be addressed from a different perspective. If the coach is able to discover the cultural roots of the client regarding self-promotion as related to their sense of self, the issue may well benefit from being addressed at a systemic level: culture is, after all, a systemic concept. So how could the client relate differently to their culture?

The coaching relationship in a cultural light

The cultural difference between coach and coaching client can show up in the nature of their relationship. Executive coaching is a partnership of equals. It is neither mentoring nor consultancy: far from being a relationship in which one gives the other ‘the right answers’, it is one in which the coach aims to be of use to the client in discovering and creating their own insights and solutions.

However, when the coaching client’s origins are in a society which regards anyone who teaches as godlike (Nepal, for example), in the learning experience that is coaching they may well unconsciously be drawn into regarding the coach as an authority, and therefore miss the opportunity to question or to push back. The coach may find themselves acting in a parental or pedagogic role and may, in the process, lose the equality of the relationship.

The cultural impact of family

The coach needs to be sufficiently aware to pick up on cultural expectations in the family sphere too, which will impact on the client’s expectations of themselves in terms of responsibility to the wider family, and what this might mean for multiple issues, from stress to career development.

The client from a modest African background who has achieved professional success, encouraged by supportive parents who have few financial means, may – at a relatively young age – be supporting an extended family. Their investment in their career will be heavily coloured by a different sense of responsibility and gratitude from that of the European high flyer. The coach needs to be aware of these cultural expectations if they are to work effectively with the whole person.

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Cross-cultural coaching: complexities and pitfalls

In cross-cultural environments the coach needs be cautious about challenging the assumptions that they might otherwise challenge: if the client's attitude or belief comes from their culture of origin, it may be close to their sense of self. Equally, issues such as self-promotion in the context of career development and the client's relationship to their family need to be handled sensitively.

Identity, transition and transformation

What a caterpillar calls death a wise man calls a butterfly. The coaching client travels from their current identity, via transition, to their new identity, and the coach travels with them from their current meaning, via meaninglessness, to their new meaning, equipping them to move through uncertainty to a new identity. This is a journey of transformation. The client makes the change. The coach does not remove any part of them, but works with them so that they release more of their capabilities. As they add to their current identity, they enrich who they are.

Talent management: the human side

Doctoral research reveals that the experiences and aspirations of 'the talent' are often different from their organisations’ expectations of them and aspirations for them. What's the impact on authenticity, integrity and effectiveness when talent management is commoditised and individual interests go unacknowledged?

What kind of leader do you want to be?

What kind of leader are you? And what kind of leader do you want to be? What’s the style that gets you best results and feels right to you? When you return to work after a break you may have a more balanced perspective than when you’re in the thick of the pressure. What are you doing to act on the messages that are now clear to you, to become the kind of leader you want to be and to shape the career you really want?

From peers to direct reports: the senior promotion

When leaders are promoted - and have focused great effort on actually getting the job - there's a risk of not putting enough effort, or not early enough, into making a success of the role once they’re in it. There may be new leadership skills to master - and one of the biggest challenges is to develop new relationships as leader with people who have previously been their peers.

Women, careers and personal safety

Senior women at work, especially those working part-time, may not be as safe as they would like. They need to develop career resilience: a flexibility in being prepared for – and handling - the unexpected, and learning from tough experiences so as to feel more resourced for the path ahead.

Identity and authenticity

For some people change appears unsafe because they fear they'll no longer be who they are. However, it's not behaviour or thinking patterns that define who we are. What inherently and uniquely defines ‘self’ are our deeply held (and possibly unconsciously-held) values, our natural talents, and what we need from our environments if we are to thrive. We each need to understand our true place in the various sets of relationships that comprise our lives - in other words, our systems. Constellations can help.

Resilience and transition: an intimate connection

The relevance of resilience to what can be the challenging process of transition is striking. Leaders have change imposed upon them through, for example, merger or acquisition, or they may be moving into new roles, to new organisations, new cultures, or new countries. During these transitions they need to rediscover their internal resources and call on (or build) fresh sources of resilience. The path to (re-)building resilience can be eased by written narrative and (re-)discovering purpose and meaning.

Building organisational wellbeing

A meaningful approach to organisational wellbeing will go significantly beyond tactics and process. Building and nurturing wellbeing has to be a way of being (albeit complemented by a set of actions) if it is to bring any significant results. It is part of the organisational culture – how people are with each other. Wellbeing is everyone’s issue: it is systemic.

The challenge of leadership: what’s needed now?

The recent Sadler Heath event 'What's Needed Now?' - focused on an 'exploration of listening for the right thing to do' - highlighted big themes for me in relation to the role of leadership, responsibility, dialogue, and connection with the system.

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