Discover Your Coaching Niche

This article examines whether with coaching we should use a different approach with clients from different cultures, or are in fact coaching concepts globally applicable to all?

The question that lies behind this article is – is coaching a universal process, are its methods and structures universal, or should the coaching approach be adapted to fit with different cultures, to ensure its success?

According to a Coaching Federation survey of 2006, 76.6% of coaches operated in the US, UK, Canada or Australia.

From this statistic, it’s pretty clear where the majority of coaches are.  So let’s admit it, with coaching, we’re talking about a predominantly US-originated discipline which has successfully made the transition to the UK and Europe. 

But are the underlying assumptions and principles universal, or are some of them best adapted when using coaching with other cultures?

Defining Our Terms 

We may not often ask ourselves this question, but what is this thing called coaching?  To help us, let’s distinguish the coaching process from the coaching approach.

The Coaching Process
It’s hard to argue that at least the core coaching process is not universal. 

Who can argue that defining your current state or situation, your desired state and the possible paths that will get you there is not accepted globally.  This is simply an outline of any generic change process.

Coaching Approach
But aside from this, the coaching approach also involves drawing out solutions from the coachee, and holding them accountable for actions that they said they’d carry out.  The coaching process is a facilitative one, where the most is made of the resources held by the coachee.

We often contrast coaching with consultancy, where there is an implied imbalance of knowledge, skills and experience between the consultant and the client.

We assume that in coaching, there is a meeting of equals, with both sides bringing their unique experience and perspectives to the relationship.  And if we think further about how the traditional coaching relationship works, we can see there are a number of unspoken assumptions.

Coaching Assumptions

The coaching approach and the coaching relationship, for example, assumes:

• The coachee will take responsibility for their actions, to commit to a plan agreed between coach and coachee.
• The coachee is able to determine whether they have the skills to carry out a series of actions.
• The coachee will keep his or her word.
• That coach and coachee are normally held as equals in the partnership.
• The coachee is a self-reliant self-starter, working under their own influence.
• People who can take decisions about their own future, without checking endlessly with other people, like family, friends and colleagues.
• That the coachee is goal or outcome oriented, that change and achievement is important to them.

The question is, are these assumptions universal, or do they vary to any significant degree across cultures?

We will explore this further in the next part of this article.

Comments are closed.