Barnabas File

In a Doctor of Ministry seminar recently, I addressed one particular topic for the first time—coaching across cultures.  With the increasing interest in multi-culturalism, cross-cultural communication, and globalization, professional life coaches are asking if their processes translate well into other cultures.  One reason that I raised the issue was that the majority of the class members were Korean-speaking listening through simultaneous translation! Our culture molds us in significant but often subtle ways.  As we coach people from another culture or teach coaching principles to individuals from a non-Western cultural background, we must be sensitive to varying concepts such as time, authority, and communication styles.  In his book Coaching Across Cultures:  New Tools for Leveraging National, Corporate & Professional Differences , Philippe Rosinski identifies a number of cultural orientations that must be considered in a coaching relationship...