Benefits & Methods: 35 Q & A
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What are the benefits of intercultural coaching?
You gain insight into your own culture, raising conscious awareness of why you are as you are in your culturally linked behaviour patterns. This self-reflexion is necessary to be able to understand people of other cultures better. Some of the work we do is providing country-specific coaching for individual executives. At other times, we are working with an organisation to build a better all-round intercultural capability. Depending on the region of which you need to gain more insight, we provide towards the end of the program that we tailor for each client.
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What kind of results can I expect?
You reduce the use of stereotypes in perceiving others. Your confidence with the unknown will rise. As a result of that, your way of communication with people of other cultures comes more natural. You approach people more openly, leaving discussions more space for different ways of interpretation. Ultimately, it’s about helping people to be more creative.
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What is the process?
We start by asking you questions about your own concepts of how you interpret other peoples statements in situations out of every day life. We then look at different ways of how else statements could be understood in the same, or in other contexts. This process raises your awareness of diverse interpretations which is necessary to understand other peoples reactions to your communication.
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Who needs to be involved?
From the people in leadership positions down to whole special project teams. New staff coming from different cultures. People changing roles. Back to top.
How do I know I need it?
If you expand your team by employing people of cultures that you have not encountered before on a work basis. If you expand your business in a - for you - unknown region. If your new boss comes from a culture you have never worked with. If your team members are of extremely diverging age groups. Or all combined.
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What cultural factors are important?
| People |
Culture |
Context |
|---|---|---|
| age & gender personalities competences experiences interests |
hierarchy communication |
complexity time pressure power issues conflicts |
| What management aspects can be part of the awareness coaching program? |
|
| and issues that are burning in your environment: we tailor the program to your needs. Back to top. |
Where are the answers?
Like with all other coaching programs, the answers are with our clients. We coaches ask the questions that we consider provide the important answers to you.
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Who gives the answers?
You find your own answers. We ask the right questions.
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Is this for groups or individuals?
As the program is steering towards more individualism, we recommend one-to-one coaching with leaders and team members. Maximum group number should not exceed 5 people.
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How do I prepare for the process?
Bring an open mind, the willingness to reflect yourself, your cultural background and intercultural situations, which you could not understand. And foremost, be ready to change your attitude.
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What contributions do I make?
Your main contribution is continous self-reflexion.
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Can the process be disruptive?
Intercultural coaching processes bring continuous change within the involved people. We have not heard of any disruptive effect. It can be compared with a soft change process as your awareness levels will rise sustainably.
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What do employees and teams gain from this process?
If you are in a leading position, your employees will experience a higher level of tolerance in you, which in return unlocks their openness and sharing of ideas with you, among many other benefits. If you are an employee in a team member position, you will experience more understanding for new approaches, different ways of approaching new ideas and an increased level of respectful information exchange.
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How can this process change the way I deal with clients?
It is very possible that you benefit from a long-lasting effect, which will change the way you interact with your whole environment, including your clients. You might observe a better understanding for your clients’ needs without consciously thinking of their needs. Your attitude towards difference and other people’s approaches will automatically lead to better customer relationship management.
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When is the best time to start the process?
(crisis, turnaround or stable situation?)
The best time for launch is when you feel you are able to focus on new ways of thinking. Regardless of the organizational circumstances or timing, the success of intercultural coaching is always dependent on the openness of the individual.
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Are the outcomes of the process different by industry or functional areas?
It really depends on the people. It might be the case that people in areas where communication is traditionally considered important for their success (like sales, marketing, HR and all management levels) will apply their results more quickly than, say, staff with a more technical background, whose communications needs tend to be more about innovation and collaboration, the benefits of which show up over a longer time.
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Does this process work equally well in growth and mature organizations?
As growth organizations tend to live the start-up spirit which stands for opening new frontiers people of these company types may be more open for fresh ideas than employees in long established firms. The process should work equally well, however, the effect in mature organizations might be more obvious.
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Does this method work with any leadership style?
Yes. Every leader type can train to be an intercultural leader.
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Can intercultural leadership prevent dispute?
Intercultural leadership doesn’t need to prevent disputes, we simply help people make a positive outcome. The definition of an intercultural leader is to treat everybody with respect, being a good listener, and trying to be non-judgmental. These behaviours reduce the risk of dispute, but they also enhance the value of healthy debates and challenging ideas.
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How important is language in intercultural leadership?
Language is the key to every leadership. In intercultural leadership respect and tolerance manifest in language, verbal and non-verbal. Language is the manifestation of thinking. It shows whether you think in stereotypes, whether you judge, whether you categorize, whether you have respect for your opposite, whether you have an open mind, etc.
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Does this approach work with any culture?
Yes. It is the point of the program that it works multiculturally and with focus on the individual.
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Does this approach imply universal ideas?
Yes, curiosity about other cultures is universal. What intercultural leadership does is focus on that curiosity, so people use it to work together better. The philosophy behind this program is a universal idea as we see the globalization and Generation “Y” moving into the work scene as the main causes of the need for this program. Therefore, our approach only works in a universally applicable way. In practice, this means, we approach our clients primarily as individuals and not as company members or nationalities.
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Will I need to change my personal leadership style?
You will not need to change your personal leadership style. The whole point of intercultural leadership is to help people respect each others differences, not to eliminate them! Of course, we all grow and change, and there are ideas in this program that might cause people to shift habits and personal style.
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What level of seniority is best for starting the process?
The level of seniority is no issue.
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What does it cost?
We offer day rates and half-day rates for most elements of the program. All programs are developed by definition of your goal that you develop with our support. Rates also depend on the number of people taking part. They do not vary by definition of status or seniority.
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How sustainable is the effect?
The effect is sustainable if you maintain the groove of the coaching program in your mind set. Our experience is that, once people’s sensitivity to intercultural issues grows, they naturally see the benefits of this approach, and their sophistication in using it grows over time too.
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Does the program require a specific state of mind?
An open mind set helps.
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How relevant are my personal circumstances?
As we discuss your circumstances during a first assessment, we will then see whether they become relevant.
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How much time and energy do I invest in the process?
You define the time frame with us, depending on the definition of your goals. Our IT tool will support you keeping you on track, and it tracks your change development.
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Is the process emotionally demanding?
The process might turn out to be demanding to people who are not too familiar to self reflexion.
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How intellectually vigorous is the process?
Self reflexion might be intellectually demanding, if we go deep into the heart of some matters. The process is however no rocket science. It is rather a psychological, cultural, sociological approach that does not require academic knowledge.
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Can I fail to identify an important issue or over-emphasize a non-important issue?
We as ICF certified coaches make sure you don’t. Our focus is on a patient, thorough exploration of all the relevant issues. Over the course of a program, some issues may become more or less critical, but together we are monitoring that.
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Is there a perfect outcome?
Is there a perfect human being?
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What other ways are there to achieve similar results?
None known to us.
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