Coaching across cultures
Written by Richard Cook & Philippe Rosinski
Philippe Rosinski is a leading authority in executive coaching, team coaching and global leadership development sought by leading international corporations.
He has pioneered a global approach to coaching that leverages multiple perspectives for greater creativity, impact and meaning. The Harvard Business School chose his groundbreaking book Coaching Across Cultures as its featured book recommendation in the category of business leadership. A Master of Science from Stanford University, he is also the first European to have been designated Master Certified Coach by the International Coach Federation.
Richard Cook is the founder and Director of Global Excellence Ltd, a UK based global provider of intercultural and diversity training and consultancy services for corporate clients. An international OD cultural management consultant, specialising in helping clients achieve success in global business environments, Richard has worked with international clients for the last twenty-two years and has lived and worked in North and South America, Japan, Africa, the Middle East and Europe for extended periods on international assignments.
Richard has considerable experience working with senior management and with managers responsible for international teams. Richard’s beliefs and values reflect a pursuit of excellence through delivering consultancy, training and coaching that is challenging, of optimum quality, and meets the specific needs of clients. He is also a qualified Master NLP practitioner.
This article by Richard Cook and Philippe Rosinski includes several extracts directly from the book ‘Coaching Across Cultures’ written by Philippe Rosinski - New Tools for Leveraging National, Corporate and Professional Differences, published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing and reproduced by permission.
The Recent Discipline of Coaching
Coaching is a pragmatic humanism. Coaching values well-being and fulfillment. It emphasizes self-care, quality of life, and human growth. Coaching is also a method to enhance performance and a leadership style that gets results.
Coaches help people find practical solutions to the concrete challenges they face: how can people make the most of their time, improve leadership and communication, achieve ambitious work goals, have a better life balance, understand and use emotions, develop their creative thinking, overcome harmful stress, establish constructive relationships, and so on?
Coaching and interculturalism have existed till now as separate disciplines, missing cross-fertilization opportunities. In his work and Philippe has endeavoured to systematically integrate these two domains with the goal of building bridges between coaching and interculturalism to the benefit of both professions.
The global & cross-cultural context
Facing increased competition and changing conditions, corporations and other organizations have to achieve more output with fewer resources. They need creativity and flexibility to deal with unexpected challenges and to seize new opportunities. They can no longer afford to waste their human talent. Instead, they must nurture, develop, and deploy their human capabilities, while making themselves attractive to the best talent. Until recently, coaches have relied on common sense, communication techniques, and psychological perspectives (such as behavioural psychology and emotional intelligence). Given the amazing challenges in a global and turbulent environment at home and abroad, this is no longer sufficient. Traditional coaching has assumed a worldview (i.e., American and, to some extent, Western European) that doesn’t hold true universally. Culture must now become part of the equation. Although the concept of culture sometimes evokes nations (e.g., British culture, French culture), the Coaching Across Cultures approach considers cultural groups of various kinds, the most common ones (apart from nations) being corporations (e.g., Unilever and Bestfoods) and professions (e.g., artists, teachers or professors, engineers, and business managers). In other words, the Coaching Across Cultures approach is not solely written for working across cultures in an international sense but also for those working with people from different organizations and backgrounds. This said, the Coaching Across Cultures approach is in fact more concerned with cultural perspectives (e.g., alternative ways to communicate) and what can be learned from them than, say, describing the cultural characteristics of particular nations, corporations, or professions.
The evolution of coaching
Because coaching is about helping people to unleash their potential, integrating the cultural dimension in your coaching process makes it possible to deploy even more potential by tapping into various possible worldviews and also by expanding your repertoire of options. Coaching across cultures should not be viewed as a new coaching specialty. It is, rather, a “paradigm shift,” an enlargement of coaching as most people have practiced it to date. In our international and intercultural society, coaching across cultures represents a positive and inevitable evolution of coaching. Consequently, it is destined to become mainstream.
Communicating across cultures
One key problem is that each person brings with them a set of expectations as to how to approach the communication. The danger is to assume that the communication style and the core values that underpin that style will automatically be accepted as the most appropriate by people from other cultures.
However, there are significant cultural differences in terms of ‘best practices’ associated with communicating with others in a coaching context. If such differences are not appreciated and managed, the resulting frustrations and misunderstandings can lead to confusion, a sense of discomfort and to frustration and poor results.
On the other hand, when those differences are embraced as an opportunity and as a source of richness new options and more choices become available to all parties.
Leveraging cultural differences
Coaching across cultures means looking for opportunities to unleash more human potential by leveraging cultural differences. The outcome is increased performance and fulfilment. The following case study illustrates how this can be done.
Case Study 1
Mark Philips, a British director of the U.K. operation of an international corporation, was asked to manage the European Nordic Region. The regional head office was based in Stockholm, and most employees were Swedish. These Swedes had acquired a negative reputation among other European staff members, resulting from a series of misunderstandings due to poor inter- cultural awareness on all sides. During the coaching sessions, the coach encouraged Mark to learn more about Swedish culture.
Stepping into the ‘others’ shoes’
Rather than assuming a lack of commitment from the Swedes, Mark was challenged to view the puzzling behaviours he had observed through the lens of Swedish culture itself and to proactively look for the merits of their cultural orientations rather than the pitfalls. Mark realized, for example, that the Swedes’ absence of agitation and frenzy (which he was accustomed to) had some advantages. For Swedes, being referred to as kolugn (calm as a cow) is a compliment. It suggests virtues of patience and of maintaining one’s cool no matter what happens. Mark had initially been infuriated seeing Swedish employees calmly sipping their cups of coffee and taking a lot of time off, apparently unaffected by the business pressures to deliver results quickly.
As it turns out, this is not laziness; Swedes simply value their leisure time highly. Furthermore, Mark found that independence is also important to Swedes, who want to be their own masters. They do not show off or try to appear different. Yet, they simply back out when coerced. However, Swedes are comfortable with very direct communication and in fact expect straightforwardness. Consequently, Mark stated his expectations precisely and quietly, while offering his support if they needed help. He gave the Swedes time to reflect on how they would go about meeting specific business challenges. They eventually agreed on a plan. The Swedes proved very reliable at carrying out the project as stated. Their fellow European colleagues started to appreciate them.
Mark was able to earn the respect of Swedish employees. Even more important, Mark went beyond adapting his behaviours to fit into the Swedish culture. He was inspired by the Swedes and what he was learning from them. Life balance is something Mark decided, having seen the Swedish example, to make a top priority for himself. Moreover, he learned from the Swedes the virtues of being patient and of calmly putting issues on the table without beating about the bush. He blended these traits with his own British cultural traits and thus enhanced his leadership repertoire.
As this example shows, the coach’s aim was not only to unleash human potential (as a traditional coach would do), but also aspire to make the most of alternative worldviews. In reality, coaches and leaders may not always be able to emulate individuals who manage to find richness in cultural differences. But it is important to become aware of your own cultural characteristics, decipher underlying worldviews of others, and use cultural differences constructively as this case study shows.
Coaching with a national and corporate cross-cultural focus does not yet prevail. It should be apparent that traditional coaching has implicitly reflected particular norms, values, and basic assumptions that reflect the originating culture of the field of coaching, the United States, and do not necessarily hold true universally.
Where coaching has come from
Until recently, coaches have relied on common sense, communication techniques, and psychological perspectives (such as behavioural psychology and emotional intelligence). Given the amazing challenges in a global and turbulent environment at home and abroad, this is no longer sufficient. Traditional coaching has assumed a worldview (i.e., American and, to some extent, Western European) that doesn’t hold true universally. Culture must now become part of the equation.
An integrated approach
By integrating the cultural dimension, coaches will unleash more human potential to achieve meaningful objectives and will be better equipped to fulfill their commitment to extend people’s worldviews, bridge cultural gaps, and enable successful work across cultures.
Whether you are a manager using coaching or a professional coach, whether you are coaching other people or just yourself, you cannot ignore these cultural components in communication. Moreover and beyond communication, culture has an impact on every human activity: how we view time, think, organize ourselves, define our purpose, relate to power, and so on.
Case study
Let us take a look at an example where a merger has taken place.
Leveraging Unilever and Bestfoods Cultures
Research has shown that “over one merger out of two fails. Two out of three do not produce the value creation promised during the operation. The question of people and company culture is by far the number one failure factor.” In 2000, Unilever acquired Bestfoods for just over US$25 billion. The operation was among the twenty largest mergers and acquisitions worldwide that year.
Rather than de facto imposing its culture, Unilever understood that to make the merger work, cultural differences between the two companies had to be well understood. A task force, with the help of the Hay Group, identified the following differences, realizing that there were many exceptions to those generalizations:
| UNILEVER | BESTFOODS | |
| MINDSET/BEHAVIOURS | Conceptual/intellectual focus Egalitarian/risk averse Diffuse/collective accountability Stretch the mold Reflective observation Rationa |
Operational focus Work to high risk/reward equation Sense of personal accountability Break the mold Active experimentation Intuitive |
| DECISION-MAKING STYLE | Consensus decision making Slower decision making Decentralized, but with strong corporate influence | Individual/small group decisions Instant decisions Decentralized, high level of regional autonomy |
| INFLUENCING / POLITICS | Question decisions and analyze Adept at managing corporate politics | Just do it (compliance/coercion) Naive in managing organizational politics |
The integration team recognized that all the orientations had potential merits. They considered amalgamating the best of both cultures but soon realized that a context was necessary to make that evaluation. The overall vision and strategy provided the context. What was called for was a new corporate culture that would draw characteristics from Unilever and Bestfoods.
To that end, an enriched cultural repertoire has started to develop, leveraging Unilever and Bestfoods cultures. For example, Unilever executives are learning to make quicker decisions whenever extra analysis would only impede action. Bestfoods executives are developing a habit of constructively challenging decisions to avoid engaging in a hasty, inadequate course of action.
The intellectual versus operational focus was noticed by the coach with several senior executives being coached from both companies. They were urged to learn from the other culture to enrich their original company culture. For example, one Unilever executive was challenged to describe his vision in more specific terms and to spell out his operational priorities. Meanwhile, a Bestfoods executive was invited to articulate a general philosophy and a compelling business case, building on his intuitive ideas and concrete initiatives in order to bring his colleagues on board with his novel approach.
Time will tell how successful the Bestfoods acquisition will prove to be. But it is clear that this eagerness to learn from the other merging company has already strengthened Unilever–Bestfoods. Talent from the acquired Bestfoods has been retained and developed, rather than alienated, as is too often the case.
Smooth sailing?
Of course whilst coaching across cultures is a source of richness, it does come with a price. It is much more comforting and reassuring to stay within your familiar coaching and work environment. In working internationally it is inevitable that you will experience alternative worldviews and mix with people from different cultures. This will often feel challenging and you may experience higher stress. After all, you are venturing into new territories. Who said expanding our horizons was easy? The benevolent presence of a cross- cultural coach and a support network can help you on that journey. The promise of a richer future and the excitement of learning should also help you accept and surmount the obstacles along the way.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the coaching requirements of both individuals, section & department heads, global team managers as well as senior executives involved in succession planning will increasingly need to be viewed thorough an interculturalist lens. Mono-cultural coaching will only be applicable for those not involved in any way whatsoever with the global market. As anyone in the world of business will tell you, this number is steadily decreasing. In the future, coaching, in whatever form it may take in an organisation, will need to take account of different cultural perspectives and worldviews simply to be effective and for the business to be profitable. The quicker we achieve this – the better for everyone.
Making contact with the author
To find out more about the Coaching Across Cultures advanced executive coaching seminar and to take the free Cultural Orientations Framework online assessment, please visit www.philrosinski.com
The author of Coaching Across Cultures can be contacted at:
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To find out more about how to prepare and develop people for the global business environment get in touch with Richard Cook at:
richardcook@global- excellence.com
