In this age of instant connectivity,
we live in a world seemingly without
boundaries. Globalization has
changed our executive clientele
demographics to international road
warriors, transnational navigators
and global executives who work with
cross-cultural and diverse teams
just about everywhere on earth.
Others are expatriates working in
foreign countries on short-term
assignments with families in tow.
This phenomenon has helped to
internationalize and legitimize
coaching as an effective intervention
to help global executives adapt
and thrive in new and foreign
environments. In addition to
traditional pre-departure training,
global companies are increasingly
adding cross-cultural coaching as
part of their onboarding programs
for global executives to quickly land
on their feet and perform effectively
in these foreign terrains. When this
happens, we get the privilege to
connect with clients from different
countries and cultures and
diverse backgrounds.
Our foundational coaching
skills, such as empathy, building
rapport, listening, questioning and
challenging will, of course, continue
to form the bedrock of our coaching
repertoire; however, by themselves
they are simply not enough to deal
with this new breed of clients who
work and live in an increasingly
volatile, uncertain, complex and
ambiguous (VUCA) world.
To coach in a VUCA wo rld, we need
to build up our own cross-cultural
competence so that we can coach
more effectively across cultures and,
frankly, stay relevant.
Working with clients who
are not of the same national,
geographic, ethnic, sociopolitical
or even generational backgrounds
necessitates that we don our “bifocal”
cross-cultural lens to help our clients
recognize their own cultural biases
and address the stereotypes and
perceptions they encounter from
locals in their new environments.
From Minimizing to
Leveraging Cultural
Differences
We tend to minimize the impact
that culture has in coaching
relationships and the quality of
coaching conversations. In a recent
study I conducted, I interviewed 5
experienced Executive Coaches from
the USA, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore
and China to understand how they
coach clients of different cultures.
None of them used a different
approach or model to engage their
cross-cultural clients, but all said that
they should. However, they also said
they believe there is no one reliable
model to help them coach crossculturally. A few of them responded
that “people are just people
underneath all the differences.”
I beg to differ. If you take a look at
Milton Bennett’s 1998 intercultural
sensitivity development model
(below), it illustrates that people’s
attitude toward cultural differences
could span from being ethnocentric
(seeing the world through my culture)
to ethnorelative (seeing the world
through multicultural perspectives).
I like how Philippe Rosinski, MCC,
takes Bennett’s model further
beyond intercultural sensitivity to
add a seventh stage of development,
leveraging cultural differences, to
create positive synergies and unity
in the midst of diversity. This, in my
opinion, is the sweet spot for coaches
whose mandate is to help our global
executives reach a stage of adaptation
that not just allows them to survive in
Coaching World
I N T E R C U LT U R A L S E N S I T I V I T Y D E V E L O P M E N T M O D E L
16
Source: Bennett, M. (1998), The Development of Intercultural Sensitivity, p. 25.