 '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]
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 ‘For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong.’ (H.L. Mencken) Steve walked along a dry mud path between two fields in rural Uganda. To his left, the field was dry and sun-baked with a few wizened banana plants dotted around. To his right, the field was filled with lush, green banana crops. His Ugandan colleague invited Steve to reflect on: ‘Why is there a difference between the two fields, and what’s the solution for the field on the left?’ Steve wondered, ‘Perhaps the farmer who owns the field on the left isn’t thinking about or seeing his neighbour’s field, or perhaps he's too poor to make a sufficient investment to improve it.’ As I listened to Steve, I found myself wondering if the difference could have been, perhaps, a consequence of different irrigation systems, fertilisation methods or seed quality. A proposed solution: what if the farmer on the left could learn from and replicate whatever the farmer on the right is doing? In effect, I was seeing the issue as primarily technological. Without realising it, I was looking at the question through my own cultural lens and considering solutions that emerge naturally from my own cultural paradigm. And I was missing the point completely. Steve’s Ugandan colleague explained. ‘The farmer on the right lives far away in Kampala. The farmer on the left lives here, on his own land. In this context, if the farmer on the left were to copy the farmer on the right, and if his crop were suddenly to improve, the first thing that could happen is that he would be accused of witchcraft. After all, according to local belief systems, what else could explain such a seemingly miraculous change in his fortunes? This would be both devastating and dangerous for the farmer and his family and could, potentially, put their lives at risk. Assuming that didn’t happen, what certainly would happen is that his extended family, friends and community would see his betterment and expect or demand that he share his new-found prosperity with them. If he refused to do so, he and his family would be accused of being selfish, and ostracized. If he did share his new-found wealth with them all, he would be back to square one again – meaning all the extra hard work he would have to put in to improve his own lot wouldn’t be worth it. The farmer on the right, living in a city, is not subject to those pressures.’ This was a powerful illustration of the complex relationship between culture and development and helps to explain why, alongside other factors such as conflict, corruption, climate change (and sometimes sheer craziness), well-intentioned efforts and investments may be rejected, ineffective or fall apart over time. The key lays in relationship – to work alongside local people in a spirit of humility, curiosity and collaboration to understand: why are things as they are, what their hopes and aspirations are; and what would need to happen if they were to be fulfilled. ‘The facts never speak for themselves.’ (Geoff Pelham) Res ipsa loquitur. A Latin phrase. It means: the facts are so obvious that no further explanation is needed. ‘Anita is under-performing, despite having been trained. She is clearly incompetent.’ Right? Wrong. Anita may well be incapable of doing the job, but the facts (under-performing; trained) don’t necessarily, of themselves, lead to that conclusion. What if, for instance, she’s trying to cover for an absent colleague at the same time as doing her own job, or if elements have changed that weren’t covered by the training? The focus on Anita, in isolation as an individual, is just one way of construing a situation. If we were to zoom-out, as with a camera, who and what else comes into view and what questions could that raise? For instance: Who sets the performance standards? What are they based on? Are they fair, realistic and achievable? What other factors could influence Anita’s performance, such as quality of line-management relationship, access to the right and timely information and resources, critical dependencies on other teams? The facts never speak for themselves. When have you experienced or enabled a paradigm shift, a radical re-framing, a surfaced personal-cultural assumption, that changed everything? How did you do it? What then became possible? Would you like help with thinking outside of the box? Get in touch! [email protected] ‘It’s front-to-back!’, my daughter would say with a smile – when she was two. It was creative genius, depicting the meaning of the phrase, back-to-front, in how she structured the sentence itself. It’s a word play suggesting that something is, somehow, the wrong-way-round. This notion of wrong-way-round itself suggests implicitly that there is a right-way-round. Our notions of right-way-round are usually an indicator of convention, function or perspective rather than something that is, per se.
Take, for instance: ‘The West is in the East if you’re standing in Vladivostok.’ The statement only makes sense if we hold a Eurocentric view of the world, in which countries on the left of a flat, traditional map are regarded as the West, corresponding to directions on a compass, and those on the right are (progressively) East. If we form the map into a globe, however, everywhere is relatively West and East of everywhere else, marked only in relation to other places by relative direction and distance. We could instead take, say, a geo-political view in which places are distinguished or related by location, terrain, access or resources. Or we could take, say, a socio-anthropological view in which places are distinguished or related by history, tradition, language and culture. There is no one, definitive, way of looking at and making sense of what is in the world. Whatever statement I make reveals an implicit personal-cultural construct; a hidden backdrop of beliefs, values and assumptions. How easy do you find it to view things front-to-back at work, to notice, reveal and challenge existing paradigms and perspectives? If you do it well, what then becomes possible? Do you need help with front-to-back thinking? Get in touch! nick-wright.com It’s hard to think outside our own thinking to do the as-yet unthinkable, yet that’s often where real transformation takes place. How do you do it? How do you enable others to do it? What does a kilogram weigh on the moon? Is grass still green when it’s dark? I had this fascinating conversation with a chemistry student last night about what can be known to be true and how. We touched on philosophy, theology and science and I left feeling like my brain had been bent and twisted in different directions. One of the key principles that came through is that we base our understanding of the world on what we believe or know to be true already. It’s a form of projection that creates a psychological sense of certainty and enables us to predict, test and move on. It’s also a phenomenon that can leave us profoundly mistaken – without realising it. I listened to a radio interview with the controversial film director Quentin Tarantino. When asked to comment on the quirky, sudden and often dramatic mood swings in his films, Tarantino responded, ‘Who do you imagine I am directing in my movies – the actors or the audience?’ He went on to paint an image of himself standing invisibly behind the cinema screen like the conductor of an orchestra. The audience watches the film. He conducts the audience. The audience is the orchestra. It was a stunning example of challenging the assumed, reframing an experience, revealing the unexpected. The moral of this story? Not everything is as it appears to be or what we may want or expect it to be. We are easily unaware or deceived. It’s why ‘critical reflective practice’ is so valuable and important as professionals, leaders, managers, teams and organisations. It’s about taking conscious, proactive steps to challenge, test and transform our awareness, assumptions, thinking, stance and practice – enabling greater inspiration, resourcefulness, resilience and effectiveness. (See: Thompson & Thompson, The Critically Reflective Practitioner, 2008; Bassot, The Reflective Practice Guide, 2016). As leader, OD, coach or trainer, what have been your experiences of critical reflective practice? Where have you seen or experienced real transformation, radical re-framings or paradigm shifts? Can I help you develop critical reflective practice? Get in touch! [email protected] ‘A penguin walks through that door right now wearing a sombrero. What does he say and why is he here?’ (Google) I searched Google recently for ‘weird interview questions’ and, among others, the vivid, sombrero-donned penguin example flashed up onto my screen. It was definitely my favourite. I mean…who would think to ask that question never mind try to answer it? Its brilliance lays in its strange unexpectedness, zany imagery and sheer randomness. It’s a fantastic example of lateral thinking, a provocative-evocative approach designed to disrupt ordinary thinking, routines and expectations. A person’s response to such questions can reveal their personal and cultural assumptions, projections, imaginative-creative skills – and sense of humour! It can also stimulate fresh energy, insights and ideas. The jolts we experience mentally, emotionally and physically when we encounter such questions, especially if they come out of the blue…or red…or yellow…or any other colour that may appeal to or disturb us…can feel like, all of a sudden, riding a rollercoaster at breakneck speed with no seatbelt on – like being catapulted, confused, into strange and unusual worlds. Think Jesus and parables, Zen and koans or, if you prefer, Alice and Wonderland. Leandro Herrero (Disruptive Ideas: 10+10+10=1000, 2008) proposes that the impact of a few simple, such disruptive ideas can be like dynamite. They are likely to be controversial and counterintuitive, risk being ridiculed or dismissed – and yet are disproportionate in their ‘potential to impact on and transform the lives of (people and) organisations.’ Sometimes small things really are big. Where have you seen or experienced simple questions, ideas or actions create earth-shaking movement? It was great fun to work with a professional cartoonist. Bill Crooks has a remarkable gift for capturing, expressing or stimulating a thought, an idea or a feeling with a few quick strokes of a marker pen. We were leading a workshop that aimed to reveal and challenge the assumptions that participants bring to customer, client and beneficiary relationships. Bill quickly sketched a large person looking down at a small person through a magnifying glass. He then asked the group, simply, ‘What do you see?’
Participants looked down, thought, discussed then spoke up. ‘We – the organization – are the large person. We are scrutinising the client.’ The inference here was that the organization holds the power, the influence, the prerogative to evaluate and to choose. The wider group agreed. Bill responded provocatively, ‘And what if, unknown to us, the client is connected to unseen networks that dwarf the power, the influence, the prerogative of our organization? Who now is looking down on who?’ It was a sobering moment. Silence hit the room. How easily we make assumptions about ourselves, about others, based on what we see, know or think we understand. Imagine, for a moment, the leader who believes that he or she holds far greater power and influence than individual front-line staff. Hold that thought. And now: think of front-line staff who are connected by social media to key networks and influencers in the organisation’s wider arena. Who now is looking down on who? We are talking here about the dramatic power of re-framing. As we change the metaphorical frame through which we view a person or situation, different pictures, perspectives, opportunities and challenges can emerge, change colour/shape or come into sharper focus. Shift the frame, shift what appears, how it feels and what options become available to us and to our clients. What have been your best experiences of reframing or achieving a radical paradigm shift? How did you do it? ‘Constructive counterfactualisation’. What on earth?! I can almost hear the cogs whirring. This was the title of an intriguing seminar I attended yesterday led by Professor Chris Oswick. The main focus was on how to break out of proverbial boxes that trap our thinking and to find ways to challenge our taken-for-granted assumptions in order to broaden the range of options available to us. It reminded me a lot of DeBono’s lateral thinking – except with much more complicated-sounding language.
The main technique we tried was to create deliberate dissonance, e.g. by, ‘making the strange familiar or the familiar strange’ (Foucault). The idea here is to present the strange (e.g. an idea that contrasts starkly with that which we hold currently) as having some (surprisingly) similar qualities to that which seems more normal or self-evident to us, or to present something familiar and ordinarily unquestioned in such a weird or unusual light as to make it appear and feel strange to us after all. Here’s an example. We often think of global poverty and related suffering as caused or exacerbated by military conflict, e.g. between two or more different ideologies, tribes or nations. We only need to look as far as Yemen in recent months to see this horrifying phenomenon played out in practice. This observation vis a vis ‘poverty & conflict’ could be developed into a hypothesis that, say, military intervention is the antithesis to development. It has a face-value appearance of plausibility about it. Yet now take, for instance, a scenario in which the military provides sufficient security (e.g. from an external aggressor) to allow sustainable development to take place. It flips the equation so that an alternative hypothesis could be juxtaposed that, in X context, military intervention is a necessary condition for development. This way of posing contrasting propositions to create dissonance and challenge accepted assumptions and norms can be powerful. How could you use it as leader, coach or OD? Reflexivity – a research word. It means that when we explore something such as a strategy for the future or an idea for a significant life change, who we are in relation to what we are looking into will influence what we see – and what we don’t see – how we do it and what conclusions we draw from it. This is because our subconscious personal and cultural assumptions and biases along with our psychological filters and defence mechanisms can create blind spots and hot spots.
Gareth Morgan characterised the blind spot phenomenon as, ‘People have a knack for getting trapped in webs of their own creation.’ In other words, we can get stuck in our own way of seeing things. Similarly, Morgan characterised hot spots by, ‘What passes for rationality is often irrationality in disguise.’ That is, we may mask and try to justify our emotional responses by rationalising them. Reflexivity is the skill of identifying and addressing such spots to minimise their influence. Blind spots are what we are not thinking about. They touch on what is invisible to us. They are concerned with (un)awareness. They are created by our beliefs. They reflect the paradigms we hold. If we challenge them, it can feel mind-bending. Hot spots are what we are not talking about. They touch on what is sacred to us. They are concerned with relationships. They are created by our values. They reflect the passions we hold. If we challenge them, it can feel heart-wrenching. Here are some reflexive questions that can help. Blind spots: What are we assuming? What appears self-evident to us and why? Who do we need to involve in our exploratory process? How can we draw in contrasting perspectives and ideas? Hot spots: What are we avoiding? How will we handle power dynamics and vested interests? What will we do if we feel threatened or defensive? How can we hold robust conversations that feel safe? How do you deal with the hot and the blind? ‘Thud…BANG!’ At its worst, it’s every 2.7 minutes. They go off every day, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 9 months a year, where I live. Farmers use these gas guns – which are like small canons – to attempt to scare birds from their crops. They are very loud…and largely ineffective. In an attempt to improve their effectiveness, farmers are increasing the number they install in their fields and the frequency of the bangs. It’s as if more canons and more bangs will scare away more birds.
The problem is: it doesn’t work, it drives local residents crazy and it is actually counter-productive. Research shows that birds quickly ignore the bangs. They realise there is no actual threat. The more the bangs, the more the birds become immune to them. In fact, research also shows that, over time, the birds are actually attracted by the bangs, using them to locate sources of food. So, apart from the dubious ethics of using these guns close to residential areas, what is going wrong here? The simple answer is that these farmers have inadvertently locked themselves into a pattern of faulty assumptions and self-defeating behaviour. Their desperation to protect their crops drives them away from rational thought to a more defensive and defended stance. If they could find a way to step back far enough to revisit the results they desire and the factors that support or undermine them, they could potentially discover new tactics that would make a more positive difference. Organisations call this stepping back to examine and challenge implicit assumptions, to reflect on and address causal and influencing relationships, strategy mapping or creating theories of change. Professionals who apply the same principles to their work call it reflective practice. It’s about being willing to pause-reflect-act in the midst of the busy-ness of doing in order to think widely and deeply, conduct research, learn from experience and produce better results. How do you do it? |
Nick WrightI'm a psychological coach, trainer and OD consultant. Curious to discover how can I help you? Get in touch! 
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