Cross-Cultural Coaching

At the CoachUP conference on Saturday, we were privileged to a lead workshop about cross-cultural aspects of coaching. We started with everyone marking themselves on four aspects of culture - see the photo below to show how diverse we were as a group.

Considering these aspects of culture as coaches can help us work with our coachees in ways that best empower and inspire them. It's more than just noticing the differences, it's thinking about how we can leverage them to make coaching more effective.

For example, when I (Sarah) coach someone who is adept at reading between the lines of nuanced communication (in contrast to me, a very explicit communicator), I can ask them to create a metaphor, visualisation, or drawing that I don't need to understand.

As another example, with coachees who build trust through relationships, there are more acceptable personal social topics of small talk than with someone from a background of forming relationship-based trust. For a coachee of the latter culture, I may ask permission around personal small talk more often in order to build trust.

Thank you to our participants for their insightful discussions! (I've tried to tag as many as possible; please contact me to add others!) Jo Brown, Karla Cienfuegos, Suzy Maben, Mari Carmen Morote Beltrán, Juan Bolado, Laura Rudkin, Lili Chen, Rebecca Scrivener

Read more about the workshop participants' takeaways here: