The Coaching Relationship by Palmer Stephen;McDowall Almuth;

Author:Palmer, Stephen;McDowall, Almuth;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Behavioral Sciences
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2010-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

Example: the UK and Sweden

Consider this example of inter-cultural challenges taken from Rosinski (2003). This concerns two geographically close countries, where the coachee, Will, is a British director of the UK operations of an international company who is assigned to manage the Nordic office where most of the employees are Swedish. Will takes offence at seeing his Swedish colleagues’ perceived lack of commitment, as he interprets it, when the pressure of business is on. Rosinski (2003) argues that being ‘calm in face of adversity’ is a quality cherished in Sweden and considered as a positive skill. However, Will perceives the calmness of the Swedish employees as a lack of commitment. He fails to understand that individuals perceive the world from different viewpoints. This causes friction in the team, as he is perceived as ‘stuck up’ and ‘obsessed with punctuality and detail’. Will’s boss encourages him to work with a coach versed in dealing with international clients to help him appreciate different viewpoints and approaches to work and to look in new directions for interpretations and solutions.

Case study: ‘Marie’

Marie, the business developer for Asia of a prestigious, global, consumer-service company with headquarters in the UK, asks for your help. Marie’s boss suggested that she work with a coach, which is unusual; her company seldom invests much in ongoing training for its people. Marie is thus surprised, and feels privileged to benefit from a coaching programme. You were highly recommended to her, but live in Europe; Marie, a US citizen of Anglo-Saxon descent, asks you if you can coach her in Beijing, where she has lived for the last year.

Marie tells you that she wants to use the coaching to become more effective in developing the business in the region. In a few years, she wants to have established the Asian region as one of the main business centres for her company. She also mentions that she is constantly working, and can never relax enough to simply be; she always has to be doing something: work, reading or study. She wants to share more time with her husband.

With Marie’s approval, you talk with her functional and regional bosses (she reports equally to both in a matrix format) to determine what they expect from a coaching programme. Through these two direct supervisors, you are informed of the following: Marie’s regional boss, Joe, a British citizen living in Beijing, describes Marie as an outstanding professional with an incredible workload capacity, dealing with multiple, complex situations. ‘Marie’, he says, ‘is devoted to the success of the business and obtains outstanding results. She has been sent to difficult, emerging markets in Eastern Europe to troubleshoot problems and has been able to get projects through, resolved, and in a timely manner. Socially, she is charming and pleasant, but at work she is very pushy when promoting her ideas. When she delegates, she relentlessly comes back to her direct reports to see what has been accomplished.’ Joe reports that this, too, is perceived as pushy.

Joe continues, ‘Her Asian teams, from Japan, India, and Beijing, tend to shy away from working directly with her.

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