The Role of Culture in Coaching
Culture is a fundamental part of our day to day lives and becomes more and more important in an increasingly diversified world.
Culture is also today seen as an important influence in coaching that might not always seem obvious at first sight. Coaches can use culture as a powerful force to bring about change and development in their coaching relationships. A “culture as opportunity” approach can enhance any coaching intervention.
Intercultural coaching is the conscious decision to recognise using culture as a force of change to reach one’s full potential. Coachees can develop cultural integration into their leadership through defining their identity as well as through the application of reflective thought. Intercultural coaching is pragmatic and draws on humanism in the broadest sense. It can help enrich the way we interact with others as well as to stay open and curious in response to an ever more diverse world around us. A coaching approach that turns cultural differences into opportunities can benefit both our individual life, as well as corporate cultures and the overall performance of the workforce within a business. Increased productivity, employees being more creative and innovative, as well as improved teamwork are all examples of why intercultural diversity has a positive impact here.
Cultural differences in coaching express embracing diversity and helping coachees to understand themselves, broaden their perspectives and help them achieve sustainable change by having a deeper understanding of their own context and that of those they interact with. Intercultural coaching supports the idea that there are different views of the world that we have to explore, accept and understand in order to interact with others in the most productive way. This is easy to say on a theoretical level, however in practice you need to be convinced to accept different ideals and viewpoints of others and see those as being as legitimate as your own. This is often hard to achieve in an ever more radicalised world when it comes to opinions and values.
Interculturalist Milton Bennett (1993) describes 6 stages on a path to achieve enhanced cultural sensitivity. In stage one, people ignore differences or deny them. In stage 2 they recognise differences but judge them as negative. Stage 3 sees them recognised but trivialised. Beyond stage three there is a shift to ethno relative approaches. At stage 4 differences are recognised and appreciated. At stage 5 we move out of our comfort zone where we can appreciate other perspectives without moving too far away from our own values and beliefs. Stage 6 describes integration, where the person is able to evaluate situations from various cultural perspectives.
Intercultural coaching can assist coachees to move through these stages. The coach supports the coachee to get to positions beyond stage 4 of the model and to step outside of their own comfort zone to learn to temporarily take on other people’s cultural understanding and viewpoints.
Embracing diversity is to respect the identity of others. It enables us to see issues in different ways to come up with new powerful solutions. It required a high level of self-reflection and questioning, where the coach can assist. It is a balancing act between helping the coachee stay grounded in their reality and stepping a little bit outside the familiar.
Common tools used here in coaching include the Cultural Orientation Framework (CFO) or the global coaching process. The latter includes stages of 1. Assessment (a systematic recognition of the self on cultural sensitivity) 2. Setting targets (define internal and external measures of success on cultural integration) 3. Making progress towards the target objectives (Coach and coachee focus on progress towards the targets).
There are multiple ways to aim towards integration of cultural diversity through cultural coaching both as a business and an individual. However one thing is for sure, it will become ever more important in a diversified world.
