Speaker 1: 0:00

The coach has this idea. It's taking it from therapy of unconditional positive regard. But I think we take it further. It's not just saying, oh, I'm just going to give you unconditional positive regard. I'm not just going to say you're great, I'm actually going to hold the truth that there are as great as within you which I can't see and therefore I have to. I give you respect. I'm there with curiosity, I'm almost there with the sense of wonder, so I don't really know what it is that's right in front of me.

Speaker 2: 0:37

Welcome to the cultural agility podcast, where we explore the stories of some of the most advanced intercultural practitioners from around the world to help you become culturally agile and succeed in today's culturally complex world. I'm your host, marco Blankenberg, international Director of KnowledgeWorks, where every day, we help individuals and companies achieve relational success in that same complex world. Welcome again to the Locking Intercultural Agility podcast, and today we have an important topic that is focused on coaching, and we have actually two of my favorite coaches and partners and friends in our virtual studio today. Matt Tranchaud and Sarah Anthony are here with us. Thank you so much for joining us, really appreciate it and we're going to talk about intercultural coaching, also coaching, the bigger picture of coaching and our own journeys and how the intercultural side of coaching has become a really integral part of how we function and operate as professionals and as coaches. So I want to give you the chance to introduce yourselves briefly and then we'll dive into the topic. So maybe, sarah, if you want to kick us off.

Speaker 3: 1:56

Yeah, absolutely. So. I'm really happy to be here, firstly, and very honored to have been asked and to be working with you, marco, and obviously Matt, on this topic, because it's something that's very dear to my heart and to our hearts. So I've been I've obviously been a coach for two, many years I can't even remember it's been a good like it's tens, rather, you know, and 20s rather than, rather than a few years, and it goes right back to my time working as a leader and coaching people in my organization and in different organizations that I worked for, but also then becoming an accredited coach, going on that journey of learning more about coaching, developing my coaching skills in that way, doing the inner work for coach and then training people to become coaches as well and working with organizations, individuals, and one of the things that will probably come to later is kind of us meeting you and integrating with the intercultural way of working and what that's brought to my coaching. But I think I'll leave that a little space for us. Later We'll get to it.

Speaker 2: 3:23

Yeah, we'll get to it, great, thank you. Thank you, Sarah. It's good to have you on this, on this recording, on this conversation, matt.

Speaker 1: 3:32

Oh, sarah, I feel you've stolen my thunder because I can say a lot of the very, very same things. But, mark, it's great to be here, thank you. I mean, coaching has been like an integral part of my work and my life. Can I feel that, even before I learn coaching, see one of those things, one of those professions that I think is a vocation, at least for me? It means who it's looking for something that would provide depth to the work I was doing already with teams and my senses? I found it. Sarah, I know she and I have talked about this kind of thing and that's actually why not only do we do coaching, but we do coach training. It's also why we're engaging with you because, yeah, the work that you're bringing into cultural space is just adding depth to that.

Speaker 1: 4:21

Personally, I live in Dubai, in the UAE. I've been here since 2006. We met a long time ago, marko, and then we kind of rekindled the friendship in more recent years. One thing I'm aware of in this space that we have here is that all of us are interculturally married, so this stuff is real to all of us, and so I'm glad to be here with friends. Thanks, marko.

Speaker 2: 4:48

I was thinking about that. Yes, thanks for raising that, because indeed we don't just do this professionally, we try to practice it at home as well, and we all three of us know how challenging that is. Yeah, and I love what North Point is doing because I was formally introduced to coaching through the two of you. So I'm really grateful for that because I still remember I have been, I drifted into the coaching space as a consultant and you might remember those early attempts at being a coach where I really had to bury my consulting hat and really learning to step into the coaching space. So I'm really grateful that I had the opportunity, through your expertise and through the certificate in professional coaching, the CPC, to do that, and that's why I think we are actually on this conversation together.

Speaker 2: 5:52

One of the reasons why Now, today is not just about coaching. I mean, the world of coaching is growing globally. The world of coaching is respected by managers, by leaders, by organizations more and more and, as a result, even credentialing as a coach has become important. So getting a coach certificate that I've officially recognized like the CPC, through the International Coaching.

Speaker 2: 6:17

Federation. But then people say, well, I'm already a coach. You're talking about intercultural coaching today. What's the difference? Why bother with yet another program that I need to invest time and money in? So what is intercultural coaching and how does it distinguish itself from sort of more traditional coaching and any certification you can get in that field?

Speaker 1: 6:44

Thank you, mark, welcome to mine. For me for this, it was actually to give us like a micro history lesson, and that's to say that coaching really as a profession began in the 1980s, began in the US. There were people doing some new kinds of work there and the ICF was formed. International Coaching Federation, or Coach Federation as it was then, was formed from some of those early practitioners with a sense of like you know, we need to formalize this, we need to provide some functionality, we need to actually put down some sense of what is this thing that we're doing and how do we know we're doing it. And as part of that, they created what I call the ICF core competencies, and we're 11 at the time, and what I bring this up is that I think it was about two years ago.

Speaker 1: 7:30

Two to three years ago the ICF had been through a process to review all of the competencies in light of many factors, including the fact that coaching was now no longer a solely either American or, you might say, western pursuit, and as a result, they recognize that they needed to recraft some of the other competencies and they actually married down from 11 to eight, and these now new eight competencies are much more open when it comes to different cultures, particularly as you, and that knowledge works. I see I describe it Previously. Other cultures had to like, shoehorn their, their cultures in or shoehorn coaching into their cultures, and it worked, but it had to be, had to be pushed or manhandled in. And now we're finding that with these new competencies, that is, that actually there's a little more space that coaching can fit into multiple different cultures, and so therefore there's a need to actually bring much of the culture and intercultural work out of the unconscious space into the conscious space that that approaches can actually consciously engage in different cultures.

Speaker 2: 8:44

Hmm, thank you for that.

Speaker 3: 8:47

mini history, lesson I do I mean, I would agree with Matt. What I would additionally, I think, like to add in is from a more personal perspective. Coaches are finding themselves, as you said earlier, coaching in a more globalized world and coming across situations that perhaps that they weren't initially, they they would be coaching people from their own cultures, but now we're all coaching lots of different people working in diverse situations. Working, you know, it's a lot more complex and and we don't necessarily with coaching as without, kind of the intercultural layer on top of that, we don't perhaps have all of the tools that we could have to help out in those complex situations and to understand what's going on, both in a as a coach, with our clients, and also helping our clients with the situations they find themselves in as they work with different teams from different areas of the world.

Speaker 3: 10:00

So what I think is we're offering, you know, the opportunity to get over some of those stereotypes and those broad assumptions that we can make about different. You know, oh, a person from, you know, scotland is like this and the person from Africa is like this, but to give us some frameworks for being more adaptable, customizing our experience, communicating and collaborating in a better way, and I think being a coach requires that deeper work as well. You know, as a coach, we're not just looking at oh, I'm a coach and I can label myself as a coach now and I have no further work to be done. Actually, we need to be looking further within ourselves of what is the next step we need to take, and I feel for a lot of people it is that intercultural step of understanding people from different cultures, because the world is so globalized, because business is so globalized and because our clients are from all sorts of different places now, and that has definitely increased over the past few years.

Speaker 1: 11:12

Actually, I was leading a session of coach training. We had a cohort of students and as part of that we from time to time we do coach demos to demonstrate some of the coaching skills, and the person who volunteered was also a gentleman from the Gulf region. The topic he brought in essence, said. I took me some time to get to it, but the essence of it was that he'd realized that some other people of a similar culture to him in his office may have said some things about him which other people then would have heard and thought less of him.

Speaker 1: 11:51

And I subsequently, in reflecting on the session, realized that before intercultural intelligence training and this body of work, I don't think I would have given it the crew and say deserved. I probably would have thought to myself oh, that sounds a bit silly and perhaps in other cultures that could be seen that way, but in his culture it was actually really important because it led to his reputation and what we were thinking about it. And so, because I had the training, I was able to hold this situation with the weight they deserved and coach him around and help him come to some decisions around it. Yet he made some decisions that you recognize that in his mind. He'd been naive in the past, needs to be a bit more conscious and aware of others were. Receiving on the cell phone makes him different decisions going forward. Hmm, it is always just did coach him. What went into cultural, what came in, was allow me to hold, with value and with sufficient weight, the top of the hills bring in a way that was important to me.

Speaker 2: 13:04

Absolutely, and I mean you think about the pandemic it actually has resulted. First people thought, oh, we're gonna get less into cultural and actually what I see happen? We've become more into cultural Because now you can work from any place, with any company, with colleagues anywhere in the world. And the same seems to be happening in the coaching space. The coaches just follow the work fabric of the work ecosystem that people are creating and, as a result, one figure I read was that out of the coaches that are in the ICF, roughly 30% of them say I coach across cultures regularly, and that's quite a significant number of all the coaches globally.

Speaker 1: 13:44

And I think, and I think that under estimation, Okay, if I can briefly build just minutes about the pandemic, but not just the pandemic, like you know.

Speaker 1: 13:59

Sorry to bring up a more somber note, but some of us are happening in the world now, say Ukraine and Russia, and right now Israel, and mass all that stuff, no matter where you fall on it when you're working with others from other context, even if they are not directly affected by it. There's probably some some way in which there, some less, we've got some sort of cultural tools into, cultural tools of that we can lay our hands on as coaches. We're either going to miss stuff or we're not going to be able to support our clients in the most powerful positive way, or, in the worst case, we're going to actually bring our own Misconceptions into the room and actually do more harm than we could do. Good, yeah, and the big picture I see is that we're shifting the world from what you might call a unipolar world we had America being the dominant force the multipolar world where you've got, you know, strengths and powers from all over the world and all different places, all different cultures. So this is really important, really, really.

Speaker 2: 14:59

Yeah, and that puts us in a dilemma, because then one way of operating is not the preferred way of operating anymore, and that's where cultural agility becomes really important, when the way intellectual property, the way goods, the way people move across borders is quite radically different between nations, and that has impact for how we do our work and how many tools we need to have in our toolbox. So, in order to think a little bit deeper about the intercultural side of coaching and why it might be important to get equipped to do that better, I'd love to just hear a little bit about your own story. Why was it? We already mentioned you know all three of us are interculturally married. That's another growth lesson that continues the rest of our lives where being an intercultural coach could be helpful, although your spouse might get fed up with you if you ask one more coaching question. But still what? Tell me a little bit about your story. Why did you drift into the intercultural coaching space, into the intercultural intelligence certification, adding that perspective to your own coaching practice?

Speaker 3: 16:16

How did that happen for you. Well, I mean match like I first of, do you want? I mean, I feel in some ways Matt does come first in this because he, you know it did come from our relationship with you, first off and and he delved into that world sooner than me and and did the ICI certification and then that led in certain directions. But I think you know, through our relationship with you, marco, we came to realize that there was more depth that we could get to in the coaching world and that the work that you were doing was really important for all the reasons we've already said in many respects. You know the fact the world is becoming more globalized, the fact that the ICF are starting to recognize that there are more people in the world than just this kind of corner of the world when it was originally set up, but also that a lot of the previous competences didn't fit, and we've had lots of discussions about the ones that we didn't enjoy from an intercultural perspective, and I think I just came to realize that I need, I needed some more tools to enable me to have those kind of conversations.

Speaker 3: 17:38

I was coming across situations and maybe I didn't even realize it until I had the certification sometimes, but there were also some time, you know.

Speaker 3: 17:47

So a lot of that is looking back going oh, I could have dealt with that in that way. Now I have this information, but there was an understanding that I needed something a bit more to help me with some of the relationship situations that either I was coaching around or that I was finding myself in, whether that be relationships with my husband and his family, whether that be also and I don't coach my husband or his family. I've given that up a long time ago but also recognizing the in in work situations, because because even I can be speaking to someone who is from the same culture in inverted I'm doing the inverted commas there for those who can't see us and I can still and I can still have a completely different cultural background to them and there can still be things where I miss things or they. You know we miss one another in our communication. So it's learning to start being more adaptable and recognizing that and I recognize that I needed that.

Speaker 3: 19:04

I think the intercultural marriage did start that process of thinking oh OK, there's things going on here I'm not perhaps doing right, and then once again in inverted commas there, and how can I do the best in my personal relationships? And then how can I pass that on to my clients? How can I do better with my clients in helping them to recognize the things that are coming up, the assumptions that they might be making that are based upon culture rather than their skill or their ability and those other areas? So that was one of the big things that led me in that direction and, as I said, now I look back and I see so many situations where I'm like why could I handle that so much easier? I may be dealt with the situation, I may be helped to overcome it somewhere, but I could have done it easier with a better if I had had some of these tools at that time.

Speaker 2: 20:08

And Matt earlier on mentioned that it's not just a profession, it's a vocation, and I can feel that in the way you speak about it as well. It's a way of life. Absolutely, matt. What about you?

Speaker 1: 20:20

It's your journey being Sarah, my ears picked up when you talked about doing it, right yeah, and you made me realize that, like you and I, in our coaching work, in our coaching teaching more like we talk about being a student of oneself, but this is an ongoing journey that we never actually get to. You know 100 percent self knowledge that we're always learning, and so I mean, mark, this is testament not only to the depth of coaching knowledge but also the depth of in the culture, like you can't get to the end of it, there's always more. And so, like, sit here today, genuinely say I'm so much more into culturally aware and connected than I was 10 years ago, but I'm almost more certain that I'm nowhere near as into culturally connected and aware that I will be in 10 years time. But it's a definite journey here as far as the person that comes up to me.

Speaker 1: 21:14

The second thing is that you asked what drew me into this.

Speaker 1: 21:18

It was a sense that it was something that was going to fill a gap. But I had a number of coaching sessions, particularly with people from sufficiently different cultures, and like having successful coaching session in coaching series but then a felt gap. So like one of the gaps was working with a gentleman from the Gulf and getting to the point of the coaching conversation and I was like OK, so we've talked about this stuff, you've seen your insights, but now what steps you take, how you are, what things you want to choose to do in order to hold yourself, to move yourself forward and hold yourself accountable. It kind of felt that that moment that he shifted from great clarity and openness and those kind of things to then trying to avoid things, it felt like I was chasing him round and round and never actually getting anywhere. We can go on to some of the why later. It was that kind of experience that led me to like I'm sure there's other ways of doing this that are more effective in this cultural setting than what I've been doing so far.

Speaker 2: 22:30

Yeah, yeah, and you're starting to already talk about what does it look like in practice, and I think that's what our audience is also interested in. How does this work? What's the before and after effect? You know, how does it make practical difference? So you started to use an example, matt, and that story in and of itself is it's helpful to have, for instance, the, the ICI framework, like the three colors of worldview and the 12 dimensions of culture, to actually understand why he was hesitating to make a commitment right there and then Right, yeah, would you mind continuing the story? Yes, that's a practical example of how it makes a difference.

Speaker 1: 23:17

Exactly, and so how the story ends like my story isn't, oh. And then I learned ICI and then I carried on with the same client. If it was great, I didn't know, it wasn't that quick. But what I subsequently learned and then be able to put into practice with other people from the same kind of culture, is recognizing that decision making is done differently in different cultures. So one of the one of the top dimensions polarity is about decision making and is it made? Do you make it yourself, by yourself, or do you make it in collaboration and conversation with other people, in a more of a collective sense? And the second one is much more cultural to this region. I mean, I definitely subscribe to what you say, marko, that you don't label people with a region, you don't say, oh, you are this culture and there are some broad, big pictures. So, yeah, definitely found that people working from the Middle Eastern region often prefer to take decisions when they've had an opportunity to discuss it with other people who are significant and important to them.

Speaker 1: 24:23

I mean, I'm in the field of coaching because I actually want to see people shift, transform and have impact, and I've seen how you can often do that more effectively than just training. You can teach people stuff and they can get great. That's wonderful, but unless there's actually those transformations which you're preaching and give, in some ways I get what's the point. And so, as a coach, I get to inquire, give feedback, ask questions to help people move forward. So, to come back to the situation, to now know the ability to say, hey, you've got some insights Now, rather than what we do to take it forwards. It can be simple. And what are some next steps you need to take so that you can make it a certain?

Speaker 1: 25:11

When I first got exposed to ICI in this work, I probably would have asked who are the people in your network that you need to speak to so that you can make a decision? And it worked, yeah. But at the same time, I realized later there's always prescribing their behavior in their culture, and as a coach, I want to hold the lightest touch possible. So these days, I'd recommend that there are multiple ways to make a decision, one of which is to make a decision here and now, in a moment, another of which is to go and speak to people who I trust. I'm sure there's third and fourth and fifth and way as well. So I can hold it very lightly and say for you what's the best way for us now to be able to make a decision about what's the next step to take.

Speaker 2: 26:00

Yeah, it's a very practical example. Sarah any other ways that the intercultural way makes a difference. What would be a practical example.

Speaker 3: 26:10

I mean, one of the things I'm thinking about there is that Matt's example was very much him as a coach and the way he kind of uses words with his clients, and that is definitely one of the ways that coaching and bringing intercultural skills into coaching can be helpful. But it can also be helpful with the intercultural situations that our clients are having. So I mean, I'm just reminded of a recent coaching session with someone that won't obviously mention any names, where the client was dealing with a situation within their team and they were having problems getting some of the stuff done that they wanted to get done and why aren't they acting upon this, why aren't they doing something about it? And being very task-oriented in her approach to the situation, and I was able then to kind of help her recognize that perhaps she wasn't balancing out some of the relationship side of things that would be important to other cultures. Now I don't think I laid it out quite as directly as I am doing there.

Speaker 3: 27:28

We had a conversation around what might she not be seeing what was important to other people in her team about this, and she came to a conclusion through over the course of an hour together.

Speaker 3: 27:42

But perhaps she was not considering some of the building trust with her team so that they would be willing to do the tasks and they could still get the outcome that she wanted, but by using the relationships and helping them to feel like she trusted them, but also balancing out those relationships.

Speaker 3: 28:06

And so that was for me, as I went through that, that was a direct use of one of the 12 dimensions in there, helping me to recognize what might be going on. But again, I held it lightly in my hand so I wasn't necessarily saying that I used questioning to just get underneath what's going on, what was important to her about getting this task done, what might be important to them in the team and what perhaps might be missing. And through doing that I was able to have her realize that perhaps the relationship side of things were missing. So she changed her approach and the result two weeks later when we got back together was that she had actually managed to kind of change the way she was doing things and get better results. It is a journey again. It's not like she's going to immediately turn around and build trust within a two week period, but she had started adapting the way she was doing things and so there was a better understanding growing between her and her team members.

Speaker 3: 29:18

So, that was one thing that kind of stood out for me in the telling of the story.

Speaker 2: 29:24

You mentioned the word trust, which is a huge thing in the intercultural space. It's a huge thing around the globe. But one of the things that we've talked about in the certificate for intercultural coaching is what to listen for, and you gave a great example of how you help your clients think through the why and which questions should they ask themselves in order to start asking those from their colleagues. But this whole idea that trust revolves around how we understand respect, how we understand reliability, how we understand what openness might look like, and, especially in coaching, openness to give and receive feedback, for instance, is a tricky one, especially interculturally. And the last one is about honesty. So, when you think about just those four words and, as an intercultural coach, helping your client explore, well, what do these actually mean for me and what do they mean for my team, and how do I figure out what it means for each individual team member and how does that help us to build the bridge of relationship? So, yeah, it's a very practical way to apply things, absolutely.

Speaker 3: 30:36

And different for everyone. Exactly, yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:40

And only through conversation do you actually find out. But also what I find it requires structure, and I mentioned in the beginning that I had the privilege of joining the certificate of professional coaching with North Point and I came there as I would say a pretty good consultant, a decent trainer and somebody with a lot of intercultural intelligence, knowledge, not always application I still fail sometimes in that. But I had to go the other way. So you drifted into the intercultural space as coaches, I drifted into the coaching space as an interculturalist. If there are people who say, well, I've lived internationally for X number of years and I've been in senior roles in country X, y and Z, I know this stuff what would you say to them? Still, even at an experienced and senior level, getting equipped as a coach, how would that impact them? How would that be beneficial?

Speaker 3: 31:49

Go for it, Matt. I've talked for a while.

Speaker 1: 31:52

I'll go, and then you add on everything.

Speaker 3: 31:54

I miss.

Speaker 1: 31:55

I mean the first answer, mark was so much.

Speaker 1: 32:03

I was speaking to a potential student today, someone who's actually going to join on next cohort, and he's someone from a similar culture to myself but lived in the region a long time.

Speaker 1: 32:17

But he spent he's in his 60s looking to in some ways shift his career, being out of corporate and getting to a place where he could do what's more fulfilling to him and more at purpose this kind of space. So this person I was speaking to didn't need this advice but affected I'll tell you what he was saying he was recognizing that he has got all this experience but he needs additional tools so that he can step into other people's spaces. He recognized that he needed to, that if he was to do anything that's going to be more transformational, more impactful, more fulfilling, more at purpose, he needed to step off the place of I'm the expert, I know what I'm doing and I'm making it happen. To do that in a place of like, let me get curious, let me ask questions, let me help the other person make decisions for themselves and move themselves forwards. That's coaching in a nutshell in some ways, and then you add on into cultural pop-up and that makes it more.

Speaker 2: 33:19

That's great.

Speaker 3: 33:22

What I'm reminded of is and Matt made the point earlier about being students of oneself how that's one of our kind of guidelines that we drive towards as coaches. And I think for me, like, even if we get so many people who think they know how to coach, because they think they know how to do intercultural stuff and think they know how to do so many different things, but they haven't integrated themselves fully into it, they haven't lived through the experience of going on that learning journey and it's very easy to say, oh, I'm a coach and have read a book and think that you know how to do it. You have read a little bit up on intercultural philosophies and strategies and think you know how to how to implement them. But there's something about living through that, applying them, getting feedback, speaking to experts, being integrated into that process of learning and wanting to develop yourself. And, without exception, every single person who comes on our CPC, I hear them say, oh, I thought I was a coach but I'm not.

Speaker 3: 34:46

And I would probably say that also applies to intercultural coaches who have some intercultural experience as well, who will probably say I thought I knew all the different ways to use this, but the application of this material into a coaching course that's made for coaches to become interculturally aware and to grow interculturally is different than knowing it intellectually, and so there's the difference between the intellectual knowing even having been in the situations and experiencing, to then applying it to yourself and to others.

Speaker 3: 35:30

And one of the things I'm really proud about that we do both in our certificate and professional coaching, which we call CPC or the CIC the certificate and intercultural coaching that we do alongside yourself, marco is that we help someone to get there by integrating it within themselves.

Speaker 3: 35:52

First we model it, we help them to really recognize these patterns and things that are going on within themselves, the gaps within themselves, the areas where they have strength, and then we get them to apply that model that with other people and to get the feedback of doing that in a safe space, and then kind of it goes further out and they have more impact, further and further out. And I think that for me is the difference between experiencing it in my everyday world and then going and purposely practicing it and getting really good at this stuff and being able to help others, because so many coaches are there for the reason and the purpose and the vision of helping other people to become better at things. But you can only really do that once you've been willing to do that deep in the work on yourself first.

Speaker 1: 36:50

And Sarah, you actually answered something else that or had another answer to what Marco was saying. If I can build on what you're saying, marco, you asked like why was someone who's got all this experience to do it is it might be speaking to others? It's not my personal experience, but my experience of speaking to others who may be spent 20, 30 years in the international corporate environment is that there's a longing in them, often unspoken, for like there must be more, yeah, and there must be more. That isn't just lots of hard work and me bashing my head against whatever it is to push the move a needle and push it forward. Learning coaching does have the effect of breaking something open, because it's a new way of thinking, a new way of doing a new way of being.

Speaker 2: 37:37

It's one thing of the challenge of being a coach, or continuously becoming a better coach, is you can't do that work without being a student of oneself, as you say.

Speaker 2: 37:50

Some people walk away from that.

Speaker 2: 37:52

Other people love that because it forces you to look at yourself and you challenge yourself, and that's a beautiful thing. One thing I've always appreciated about what North Point has done is that it's one of the few coach certifications in the form of the CPC that wasn't born in a western nation, although it was born in Dubai, and that in and of itself and I've seen it, so you could, I think, matt, you said that the CPC is, is inter-culturally informed. That attracted me without having the fancy language to explain it like we do today, but that attracted me from the beginning and that's also why I think sort of the, the, the Strategic Alliance, was born and the ability to develop the blending of our two worlds through the certificate and intercultural coaching came about, and I think that that was just a beautiful journey in and of itself, because you have that edge over many other certifications out there that you are already standing in a super cosmopolitan global environment, and that was the birthplace of the program. So yeah, anything you want to say about that, or, yeah, it could.

Speaker 1: 39:16

maybe it could only happen in that place like Dubai, maybe not only Dubai, but this like Dubai and also part of our own is my story with North Point and the CPC is that we both got trained by other Beijing schools, vastly different from each other, and that when Sarah and I got together and start talking about all this stuff and just realizing you know some of the strengths, some of the weaknesses on each of the different systems and realizing that, yeah, in many ways the systems have we been taught we didn't have this language then, but I would use this language now the differences that we've been taught were in a cultural echo chamber or in a cultural niche and then.

Speaker 1: 40:03

But the interplay between Sarah's experience and Sarah's training of mine, and the fact that we both realize that in our coaching practice we'd step beyond and out of the limited set of space that we've each been given and found ourselves in a somewhat similar place, even before we started to work on CPC. So right from the beginning there was this sense of like. We need to be able to have open and deep conversations about who the person is and who are who the people are.

Speaker 2: 40:34

Now there's this one thing that we didn't touch on, but it's very important actually in the way we equip people. You're talking about a cultural echo chamber, but we also have the tendency to, when we talk about culture, to talk about the average American and the average Australian and Brazilian and etc. Etc. You alluded to it, matt, earlier on. You had a disclaimer. I said well, I'm not saying that all people from the Gulf region are the same. So in our work we have said, no, every person is a uniquely wired cultural human being and we've seen the impact of that in training and advisory work and in doing organizational cultural work. But I must say I personally have seen the biggest value actually in the one-on-one interaction in a coaching situation. So could you speak more to that? That recognizing as a coach that I am a uniquely wired cultural human being I bring that into the coaching relationship but also recognizing that your coachee is a uniquely wired cultural human being, how does that shift the way you connect with yourself and the way you connect with the coachee in the relationship?

Speaker 1: 41:51

What comes to mind is another one of our tenants, which is that people are and sometimes it's a really weird word, so we say objects of greatness. What we mean by that is that there is greatness within each person, and it's also what makes you unique. And so the coach themselves is a person, is an objective brainer, and so is the coachee and also all the people the coachee engages with. So, from our perspective as coaches, I'm there in the room, be it face to face or virtually, with the other person. I'm mindful that this person has so much within them. I'm mindful that I can't see it all. They can't see it, they can't see it all. And so it's one of the ideas that really supports at least me and, I think, us to actually receive people non-judgmentally.

Speaker 1: 42:46

The coachee has this idea. It's taking it from therapy of unconditional positive regard. But I think we take it further. It's not just saying, oh, I'm just going to give you unconditional positive regard, I'm not just going to say you're great, I'm actually going to hold the truth that they are as great as within you, which I can't see or I have to give you respect. I'm there with curiosity, I'm almost there with the sense of wonder, because I don't really know what it is that's right in front of me.

Speaker 3: 43:18

And I think sometimes the best coaching happens when they don't know and you don't know. And because you're in this unknown space and you're free to experiment, just hold lightly what they're saying, put it back at them, ask some questions, be curious and just help them through what Kogma they might be trying to get through at that time. And just because if we go with an attitude of I know how to do this, I know what to do, I know which direction they should go in, then we are not allowing them to, even if we're right and occasionally that might be the direction they decide to go in but we are taking away their ability to believe in themselves and that they can do it for themselves, and coaching is about helping them to realise that. I think the other thing is that obviously you have assessments to help you to learn about your own cultural wiring, and those assessments have been really great for getting me to be self-aware of myself as a uniquely wired cultural human being.

Speaker 3: 44:45

I don't know if I said all those words in the right order. And it also let me realise that there's an interplay. It's not just about oh well, I'm more of an innocent, skilled world view and therefore I must be a direct communicator and actually I'm rubbish at this and I'm rubbish at that. It's more about learning that there are differences out there and being able to then recognise that when it turns up in a coaching session. And so I have said fairly often, several times, that power and fear world views are the lowest the lowest on my assessments for me, and I found them difficult.

Speaker 3: 45:34

Now I've learnt to find them less difficult because I've learnt to take the fear out of the power of fear and to actually recognise the good that's in that and the positive that can come from that world view and to look at it with different eyes, which perhaps I didn't even realise was there before.

Speaker 3: 45:58

And doing so. If I had worked with someone who had more power, fear in their kind of chart, in their assessment that, I would perhaps find some of those conversations difficult in the past, but now I've been able to adapt, to understand and say, ok, this isn't negative, this is actually quite positive. Let me work with them for their strengths, for what's important to them, and take myself out of that equation with things that I believe to be true because of what I have, the assumptions that I've held previously, and so I come to this with more of an openness about what is possible for our relationship, no matter where we lie on that scale, and I think that for me is that acceptance and that willingness to say OK, you see things completely different to me and that's OK.

Speaker 3: 46:59

How do you see it? Because I see things this way. But how do you see things and what does this mean for you, and helping you to come up with your answers in your way that work for you, rather than, oh, you need to fit into my box.

Speaker 2: 47:19

Yeah, yeah, and what you're mentioning about the use of, for instance, the language of the three colours of worldview in this skilled honor, shame, power, fear, that language in and of itself is neutral, but what I learned about change management, for instance, one of the ingredients of change is you need to have the language to articulate yourself to actually be able to say, ah, that's what that is. So, having a neutral language through the three colours of worldview, through the cultural mapping inventory, the 12 dimensions of culture, we actually start to have words to describe our differences and that makes them entities in the conversation, in the relationship, and that allows us to then use that to make change happen in ourselves as coaches, but also, of course, help the coachee to explore what that might mean for them.

Speaker 3: 48:17

So, yeah, it's not only at that time when things come up, because sometimes I'll be coaching someone and the situation's just come up. But I'm able to then perhaps bring them some knowledge and say, here, where do you think you are in this? You know what's going on for you, right? Other times I may choose to bring in that work first off and say, ok, it sounds like the issues within this organisation are a bit more from an intercultural perspective, or they may even be aware we can bring in that knowledge upfront. But I may be coaching someone just purely around, anything like with the example I gave earlier. I wasn't in there for an intercultural piece of work with that person, but it came up anyway and that's you know. That often does come up in that way. So me being aware of it helps me to better serve my coaches in those situations where it does come up.

Speaker 2: 49:21

Yeah, and I like what you say because you're in essence indicating that in some cases it just flows organically through the conversation. In other cases, you might actually introduce it as a tool and could be even the assessment either one of the assessments and you use the assessment as a way to reflect on their situation or the relationships that are trying to manage. So, both organically, making it part of how you coach, or, a little bit more formally, bringing it in as a tool, is really powerful. Now Matt wants to say something else.

Speaker 1: 49:58

Just to summarize on something, just to say, because a lot of coaches are about mindset, and so, marco, in your work you talk about cultural critic versus cultural learner, and so it's super important, as a coach, to be a cultural learner, to be consciously a cultural learner, because, like I and I just picked up on this earlier when you were talking about we may assess that person's cultural right, but if we're doing so, we'll be in cultural critic, so we need to actually keep being cultural learners.

Speaker 3: 50:25

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 50:28

Great point Now. The CIC was launched during a very difficult time the certificate in intercultural coaching and we've had a trickle but a very passionate and enthusiastic four cohorts, who are by and large vocational, about having gone through it and they really made it part of their lives. And I still remember one of the participants now is actually doing a PhD on the efficacy of intercultural coaching for educators, for instance. One of the gentlemen that has joined used to be more on the counselling side of the equation and I still remember you know counselling is really important but he realized he said he thought that every conversation required a counselling approach and then he finished the certification and he realized most situations do not require a counselling approach and he's super enthusiastic about, you know, using the intercultural approach to coaching.

Speaker 2: 51:38

It's beautiful to see people bring those nuances into the way they practice. When you think about the certificate in intercultural coaching, we already sort of talked about who might be a person that might join that program. But if you had a chance to speak to our audience, what would you say to them? Why join the program? Who should join? What's the impact going to be?

Speaker 3: 52:05

Well to speak. I mean one of the things some of the people who have been through the program haven't necessarily been fully fledged coaches. They've had some coaching experience, but not fully fledged coaches before. And I know, like I was speaking to one of the participants the other like a couple of weeks back and he said to me I wish I'd had more coach experience going through it.

Speaker 3: 52:31

So we generally ask for people because this isn't teaching you how to coach. Our CPC teaches you how to coach. If you want to learn the basic coaching skills and to build on that foundation and to get really good at coaching, that's the place to do that. But this brings on that extra level on top of your coaching ability to really be able to deal with those intercultural situations that we've talked about before, to recognize them, to see when it's coming up, all the things that we have talked about, all those situations where we've realized that our coaching alone actually needed something with a bit more depth, and to add that learning on top. For me, that's what it does. It's almost like an advanced level of coaching. So we'd love to have people who are already coaches on this. Now there are a couple of situations where we have allowed people who've had some practical experience in that. But even then I've had people come back to me and go. I wish that I'd taken that to standing in coaching first.

Speaker 3: 53:42

So because actually I would have gained so much more.

Speaker 3: 53:46

So, I think, to be already coaching, to already be experiencing some of these situations where you recognize that perhaps I don't have all the tools to deal with these types of situations, or to be working with a client the way that Matt described earlier and thinking there's something missing here.

Speaker 3: 54:09

I think I'm missing something in the area of working with my coachees. Perhaps I'm working interculturally and I don't recognize some of the things that are coming up, or I can't move them to action or I can't help them with certain things then this is a great certification for you to become involved with and to learn and, without a shadow of doubt, every single person who comes off the back of this gains in a big way in terms of the depth of their coaching and the situations that they're able to resolve with their clients and the relationships that they have with their client, because I always see it as it's not just about helping someone with intercultural situations and issues. It's actually about helping someone with relationships and being able to do on a deeper level, but also managing your own relationship with your client in a much deeper level and much deeper way.

Speaker 2: 55:11

Yeah, thanks for clarifying that and also that it's sort of a progression, so the certificate in professional coaching. If you haven't had that depth of understanding of what coaching actually is, then start there and then, if you do have that, to join the. Cic certificate in intercultural coaching.

Speaker 3: 55:33

If you have coaching skills, you don't have to be from our school. It's open to all coaches who want to then add that deeper level.

Speaker 1: 55:45

Matt anything to add. The learning and practice of coaching has a way of opening oneself up to noticing more things, so you begin to notice how you think and how you feel more consciously, or you pick up nuances in relationships and others, the other privacy you wouldn't have, and so this adds another layer on the people. Who most benefit are folks who are coaching but also are on that journey of like. Yeah, I know how this has already helped me and I want to engage, I want to serve in a wider and deeper level. It brings my back to what we talked about at the beginning of the conversation. Like the world is changing. It's getting more multipolar, it's getting more intercultural, and if you're also a person who wants to actually make a positive difference in the world, then this is going to help.

Speaker 2: 56:44

Yeah, and it's beautiful to see sort of the alumni network. We're pulling together some of our alumni in our office over the weekend and it's just beautiful to see how that group of people is growing slowly and it's kindred spirits and there's always lots of energy and lots of creativity and just a beautiful group of people that is growing and I'm really grateful that we have been part of that together and the way you've equipped me and the way we've embraced each other through the strategic alliance. So I'm looking forward to the future.

Speaker 3: 57:25

Can I just add something else about the last question, but one other person that this is for is for those who want to specialize in the intercultural side of things. Now, obviously, there's an ICI certification, which is from KnowledgeWorks, and I think that if someone wants to learn that depth of coaching and in many ways I feel like I should ask you a question, marco, what you got from coaching on to your intercultural experience, what did it give you that you didn't have before? Because I think that is one of the areas that some people want to stay in that consultant space and that's right for them, and they want to just have the experience of ICI, which is such a powerful framework. There will be others who really want to take it to that next level and to coach. So what did it give you?

Speaker 2: 58:23

if you don't mind me asking, I think the most important thing is really that in consulting, it's about analysis and advice.

Speaker 2: 58:34

Those are typically the two main words, but the analysis is almost transactional often so, and even when I look at classical consulting interviewing it's very transactional, very data driven and task driven and the questions are typically not so good, especially not on the relational side and really digging into why is this organization operating the way it does or why do they have this particular dilemma. And I think a coach like approach gets you so much closer to the crux of the matter. And by using that coach like approach, by being question oriented and bringing the process, not the content, actually you get to a point where people open up about things that in classical consulting you would never find out about. And I think that's one thing. The other thing is really it's so much more fun because the pressure is off, I don't need to continuously be the smart guy, bring the content, I can just bring a process and it illuminates and it opens up doors that they've never walked through and they start to see things, and it's so much more fun. It doesn't you know.

Speaker 3: 59:58

So, yeah, Thank you for letting me do that.

Speaker 2: 1:00:07

Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the cultural agility podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, share it with someone. The best way to help us out is by leaving a review on your favorite podcast app or channel, or forward and recommend this podcast to people around you. As always, if any of the topics we discussed today intrigue you, you will find links to articles discussing them in greater depth in the podcast notes. If you would like to learn more about intercultural intelligence and how you can become more culturally agile, you can find more information and hundreds of articles at KnowledgeWorkscom. A special thanks to Jason Carter for composing the music on this podcast and to the whole KnowledgeWorks team for making this podcast a success. Thank you, nita Rodriguez, ara Aziz-Bakyan, rajitha Raj, and thanks to Vip and George for audio production, rosalind Raj for scheduling and Kali Pstraus for marketing and helping produce this podcast.