Coaching between cultures

23/9/2025

‘A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.’ (Mahatma Gandhi)

I’m designing a coaching workshop for a group of 12 participants from 8 countries this week including people from South East Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe. The participants all work for a Christian international non-governmental organisation (INGO) and are keen to develop coaching insights and skills they can use with their own colleagues and more widely.

I’m aware that coaching generally is grounded implicitly in Western cultural assumptions, such as the value and desirability of independence and a nurturing of individual autonomy and agency. The organisation is familiar with John Whitmore’s GROW model so I’ve had a go at adapting that model to reflect people and cultures with a more collectivistic orientation.

Here are sample questions associated with GROW, framed as individual-oriented questions then reframed as collective-oriented:

Goal (Individual): What do you want to achieve? How does your goal align with your values? If you achieve your goal, how will it help fulfil your wider aspirations? (Collective): What outcome would most benefit your team, family or community? How does the goal align with the values and expectations of your group? If this goal is achieved, how will it strengthen relationships?

Realities (Individual): How is the current situation affecting you? What barriers or obstacles are you facing? What personal strengths and resources can you draw on? (Collective): How is the current situation affecting your group? Who or what is affecting your group’s ability to resolve this? What group strengths and relational networks can you draw on to address this together?

Options (Individual): What different strategies could you try? Which options excite or motivate you the most? What else could you do if your first idea doesn’t work? (Collective): How can you involve others in shaping a solution? How might the people who matter most to you view these options? What possible ways forward would be most acceptable or beneficial to the group?

Will (Individual): What are your practical next steps? On a scale of 1-10, how confident are you that you will do it? How will you keep yourself accountable as you move forward? (Collective): Who will you talk this through with to reach a decision? How will you gain agreement from those who are important to you? Who will you involve to ensure accountability and follow-through?

What do you think?

7 Comments

Sarah Linton

24/9/2025 11:58:42 am

This is such a thoughtful adaptation. I love how you’ve bridged Western and collectivist perspectives. It makes the model far more inclusive and relevant. Thanks Nick.

Ben Carver

24/9/2025 11:59:59 am

Hi Nick. That's brilliant! You’ve basically turned GROW into GROW-TOGETHER. Feels like you’ve found a way to plant roots in collective soil while keeping the model’s fruit. Well done.

Dr. Esther Mwangi

24/9/2025 12:04:49 pm

Hello Nick. What you’ve done here is both timely and important. The adaptation of the GROW model to include collective‐oriented framing aligns with a growing body of research emphasizing cultural competence in coaching. For example, “Learning Across Cultures: Perspectives on Embedding Cultural Competence in Coaching Education” (Carter et al, 2025) argues that coach education must move beyond “one size fits all” frameworks to include models that respect relational and communal values. Furthermore, this is consistent with findings in “The power of coaching in the professional learning and development of school leaders: an ecological framework and critical insights from a systematic review” (Collins, Murphy & Brown, 2025), in which coaching’s effectiveness is shown to be highly contingent upon the ecological context: that is, social, cultural and relational networks around the individual.

When coaching interventions ignore these surrounding systems, they often fail to achieve sustainable impact.
Your reframed questions around “collective realities” and “group accountability” also tap into research on collectivism vs individualism and emotion regulation (Current Psychology, 2024), which shows that individuals from collectivist cultures frequently orient their emotional strategies toward group harmony and relational expectations rather than purely personal goals.

A possible extension: you might consider exploring prototypes of coaching models that are locally generated rather than adapted from Western-origin models. For example, in China there is ongoing work (e.g. Carson, Howie, Li & Collins, 2025) on how global coach education is being adapted to Chinese cultural expectations; how notions of face, hierarchy, relational obligation and indirect communication affect how coaching is understood and practiced. Overall, your adaptation of GROW seems well‐grounded in what recent scholarship is calling for: greater cultural resonance, relational accountability and recognition that the “self” in many cultures is embedded in larger webs of family, community and collective identity. I encourage you to build into your workshop space opportunities for participants to voice what “collective strength,” “group accountability,” or “relational barriers” look like in their contexts so that the questions are not just adapted abstractly but rooted in real lived experience.

Kwame Adusei

24/9/2025 12:05:53 pm

Nick, I find this reframing deeply respectful. You’ve taken a tool rooted in one worldview and opened it up to reflect the lived realities of cultures where interdependence is central. It reminds me that coaching is not just about methods but about honouring the stories and values that shape people’s lives.

Michael Tan

24/9/2025 12:06:46 pm

As someone who has worked across Africa and Asia, this reframing makes a lot of sense. I’ve often felt a tension when using Western coaching tools that don’t fully fit. Your adaptation gives me language and structure that feel culturally authentic, and I know my teams would feel more seen and understood through this lens.

Julio Andrade

24/9/2025 12:14:49 pm

Hi Nick. I’m very impressed by the way you are consciously shifting GROW’s assumptions toward collectivist values. This isn’t just a cosmetic tweak. It has the potential to change what coaching feels like and what it produces. If I may, let me offer some theoretical grounding and some suggestions to deepen your approach:

Theoretical grounding:

Cultural competence in coaching education. The article Learning Across Cultures (Carter et al., 2025) provides a framework for embedding cultural competence, meaning not only awareness of different cultural norms but also reflexivity in coaches to notice their own assumptions.

Emotion regulation and value dimensions. Research in Current Psychology (2024) finds that people who more strongly endorse collectivist values tend to use certain emotion regulation strategies differently: suppression is more acceptable or more frequently used where vertical collectivism or expectations are strong; conversely, horizontal collectivism (valuing equality and group harmony) relates less to suppression and more to supportive relational regulation. That suggests your adapted GROW questions may be better received or more effective if they acknowledge not just who in the group matters (family, authority, elders) but also how people are expected to express concern, dissent or agreement.

Organisational context and coaching culture. The article Developing coaching cultures: an exploration of the enacting practitioner perspective (Emerald, 2024) shows that when coaching is embedded as “the way things are done” (i.e. baked into practices, artefacts, leadership behaviour), it shapes member expectations of coaching. If, however, coaching is an add‐on or interpreted as “Western style individual therapy disguised as coaching,” resistance or disengagement can arise.

Suggestions to deepen or strengthen your adaptation:

Dialogue about culture and values: Early in the workshop, invite each participant to map out what “collective good,” “group values,” “relational accountability,” etc., mean in their country or context. This could help avoid assuming similarity across collectivist cultures (since collectivism itself varies notably across Asian, African, Middle Eastern contexts).

Flex within the model: Allow participants to oscillate between individual and collective framing depending on the goal or context. Sometimes individual goals are necessary; sometimes group goals are more powerful. A flexible sliding scale might help.

Hierarchy and power dynamics: Many collectivist cultures are also high in power distance (hierarchical structures). You might include questions in your “Realities” or “Options” that explicitly surface relational or power issues: Who holds decision‐making authority? Who needs to be consulted or included? How comfortable are people with speaking up or dissenting in their group?

Local metaphors or narrative tools: Using stories, proverbs or communal narratives from participants’ own cultures often helps internalise coaching ideas. Possibly ask people to bring their own cultural stories of collective achievement and collective failure (what helped, what hindered) and use those as coaching material.

Measure impact relationally: Given your shift, include group‐level outcomes and relational indicators (cohesion, trust, collective decision‐making, shared ownership) in tracking follow‐through, not only individual progress.

Layla Mansour

24/9/2025 12:16:19 pm

Your reframing is creative, though I wonder whether adapting GROW might still keep us constrained within Western structures. Have you considered exploring indigenous coaching or mentoring approaches from the very regions your participants come from? That could bring even richer authenticity and resonance.

Coaching between cultures

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