Category: Cross Cultural

Sacred encounters

6/12/2025

‘Learn your theories as well as you can but put them aside when you touch the miracle of the living soul.’ (Carl Jung)

The past 3 months has been an exciting time, developing and running new foundational and advanced coaching courses for an international Christian non-governmental organisation. The former was for people new to coaching and the latter for those with more training and experience. The goal was to enhance the transformational capacity and impact of the organisation by investing in an internal coaching pool, in enabling ‘sacred encounters’.

People took part in these programmes from 12+ countries which ensured a fascinating and enriching cross-cultural dimension and experience. Standard coaching is so often embedded in Western cultural assumptions such as individual autonomy or flat hierarchies. These groups of participants helped us to deconstruct and reconstruct diverse culturally and contextually appropriate approaches that could prove far more effective in their own environments.

The foundational programme covered: What is coaching; When is it useful and how; Coaching and mentoring; Psychological safety and trust; Presence and listening; Asking good questions; Coaching in the Bible; The GROW model; A co-active approach; Guiding principles; Support and challenge; Going deeper with GROW; Coaching as a manager; Troubleshooting; and Action planning. It was fascinating to experiment with adapting GROW to a collectivist culture.

The advanced programme covered: Psychological coaching; Coaching vs counselling; Diverse psychological approaches; Phenomenological approach; Psychological safety and trust; Sinful-wonderful paradox; Christian pastoral coaching; Renewing of the mind; Webs of our own creation; Jumping to confusions; Cognitive distortions; Reflexive coaching; Risks of self-deception; Unlocking fresh thinking. It was designed to dive deeper in the coaching pool.

It also included: Blind spots and hot spots; Capabilities vs conversion factors; Developing personal agency; Expanding range of options; Exploration to action; Troubleshooting; and Action planning. I was impressed and inspired by the active engagement of participants who shared their own experiences, questions and ideas throughout. We ended with pointers towards further resources and an opportunity for participants to choose their own next steps.

Are you keen to develop your coaching insights and skills? Get in touch!

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Coaching through an East-West lens

27/12/2024

24 Comments

'Is coaching too dominated by a Western cultural paradigm? What could we do to make coaching more sensitive and appropriate to different cultures?' Nick Wright (UK) and Dr Smita Singh (India) offer their own reflections here:

I (Nick) first began to ask myself these questions when I was invited to coach three women from different countries in South East Asia: Singapore, Myanmar and Indonesia. I noticed that, when I asked them questions that implied personal autonomy in decision-making, they often looked at me quizzically as if there were something strange in the questions. I was puzzled and didn’t understand what this meant until, later, when coaching a woman from the Philippines, she explained that the questions didn’t really make sense in their cultural contexts, where individual decisions are often subject to wider family and community decisions. She helped me to understand that personal autonomy is a Western cultural construct and assumption – a key difference between individual and collective cultures. This was a profound revelation to me.

Since then, I’ve noticed other differences too when coaching cross-culturally with people in and from different parts of the world. The next most striking and recurring theme has been that of perceived authority in a relationship, and the implications of cultural authority in wider systems. In Western cultures like the UK, we tend to frame the coaching relationship as essentially egalitarian and, as coaches, we typically relate to those we are coaching with that stance. I’ve noticed through experience, however, that this approach can sometimes create discomfort, awkwardness or confusion when working with people from cultures in which higher power-distance relationships are the norm. I’ve learned, for instance, to accept that people in the Philippines will call me ‘Sir Nick’ – a sign of respect – in spite of how alien that feels for me.

A third area, and the one I still struggle to get right, is direct (low context) vs indirect (high context) communication. Western coaches are often trained to ask short, incisive questions and to feed back concise, challenging reflections or responses. In some cultures, however, this style of relating can come across as blunt, disrespectful or rude. As I continue to think through and practice greater cross-cultural curiosity, awareness and competence in these areas, therefore, I’m learning to reframe, e.g. ‘What do you want to achieve?’ as, say, ‘What goals are important to you and the people who matter most in your life?’; ‘We are equals in this process’ as, ‘I’m here to support you in a way that best aligns with your values and traditions’; ‘What is holding you back?’ as, ‘What challenges do we need to address together as we move forward?’

I (Smita) agree that, as coaches, a contextual understanding is absolutely essential. Without it, it’s possible that we may fall prey to our default settings, or to our routine preferences in dealing with coachees. When working cross-culturally, I find it’s a good idea to do some homework beforehand, in exactly the way that consultants do before they engage in the first meeting with a client. This may give us some insight and understanding of cultural dimensions like those Nick has mentioned above, such as power distance and/or individuality versus collectivism. If we discover and use metaphors from the client’s culture or reflect the metaphors a client uses in their own language, it can also accelerate the relational rapport-, credibility- and trust-building processes. This will make it easier for the coach and client to work together smoothly.

As an illustration, I noticed that, when I was writing my book on ‘Accelerated Action Learning’ with Nick and other UK specialists as contributors, I had to adopt a very straight forward and, what felt to me like formal, way of communicating. By contrast, when I talked with coaches in India or other Asian countries it was very different. Asian coaches preferred rapport-building and general chatting before starting with the coaching conversation itself. There are some similarities in the time management of coaching conversations too. Western coaches and coachees are often and ordinarily monochronic in their approach, for example with strict scheduling and punctuality as important values and behaviours whereas, by contract, coaches and coachees in and from Eastern cultures are typically polychronic in their approach, for example viewing interpersonal relationship and being present in the moment as important.

At the bottom line, any winning coaching conversation will be client-centric. I find that, if we start from an appreciation of the coachee’s own cultural frame of reference, we will often achieve better outcomes. Social media and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can provide useful research resources in this area. I’ve created my own simple ‘DFS’ framework that proves useful when working with coachees. D is for Dive into the coachee’s culture and background before the first conversation; F is for Float with that insight and information when you meet, greet and work with the client; S is for Swim to help the client navigate through the labyrinth of their own thoughts, feelings and experiences as swiftly and effectively as possible. In my experience, this culturally-sensitive approach can build and sustain great relationships and outcomes.

What do you think? We’d love to hear about your experiences, insights and ideas of working cross-culturally too!

(Dr Smita Singh is a faculty member at IMT Nagpur Business School in India and is also a management consultant, coach and author.)

[See also: Artificial coaching; Coaching and the poor]

24 Comments

Sacred encounters

Coaching through an East-West lens

Nick Wright

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Sacred encounters

Coaching through an East-West lens

​Nick Wright

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Nick Wright

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