Developing Global Leaders: Executive Coaching Targets Cross-Cultural Competencies

Leaders working with colleagues from other cultures or heading multicultural teams may find themselves stymied by their own apparent ineffectiveness and bewildered by the reactions of others. A new model of executive coaching can help individuals transform lifelong conditioning and personal assumptions into new beliefs and behaviors needed for cross-cultural collaboration and leadership. The coachee draws on three core ethnorelative values and behaviorscuriosity, cultivation, and collaborationand uses communication skills and reflection techniques to delve beneath the surface of each situation. Through self-awareness and appreciation for others, the coachee becomes a leader who can deftly navigate cultural differences to build rewarding and productive relationships. 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

K AT H E R I N E H A N D I N A N D JANET S. STEINWEDEL

When he communicated long-distance, he scheduled conference calls at what he believed were convenient times for the Swedes, which often required his getting into his office early. To bridge the geographic divide, he made it a practice to travel to the Swedish offices as regularly as he could, meeting with a variety of people and socializing at dinner with one or more of his Swedish colleagues. At the end of a very long workday, he would retire to his hotel room to answer voice mail and e-mail and make calls back to the United States. He had been told the Swedish work culture is very collaborative, with coworkers providing each other a high level of support, and so he was careful not to be overbearing or authoritarian but what he thought of as collaborative. It wasnt long, however, before Bill became baffled by the behavior he saw from the Swedish team members: He felt they were excluding him from their conversations, almost ignoring him. As the lone American on the team, he experienced the situation as isolating and frustrating, them vs. me. He also felt he was burning out from his efforts to stay in touch and meet the needs of colleagues in both countries. In short, he saw his ability to be effective in jeopardy despite the considerable energy and commitment he was bringing to his new role. Bill is just one of an increasing number of executives in their first significant intercultural assignment who encounter befuddling responses to their best attempts to work with their new partners. The approach that led to past successes is oddly ineffective, and company leadership development courses have somehow neglected to prepare them for the subtle challenges of working cross-culturally.

Bill (not his actual name), a U.S. medical doctor

working for a large global pharmaceutical company, was newly assigned as the medical liaison to an all-Swedish clinical project team working on the development of a new drug. As leader of the medical staff, Bills role on the team was to represent the needs and concerns of the physicians, a role without direct authority whose success would hinge on the ability to influence and persuade other team members. Bill continued to work from the United States and travel periodically to the Swedish community in which all the other project team members were located. The Swedish team had worked together on this particular drug for years, and members saw each other daily in formal meetings and informally for hallway conversations and fika paus (coffee break). Geographically and culturally, Bill was the odd man out.

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2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) Global Business and Organizational Excellence DOI: 10.1002/joe.20118 November/December 2006

Twenty-first-century business is nothing like the old days. Rapid change, increasing complexity, the globalization of the world economy, and fluid organizational structures are the new realities of leadership. Each of these situations requires new leadership competencies, including an increased commitment to lifelong learning; an ability to build cross-cultural relationships; and the ability to lead and motivate globally dispersed, cross-functional teams. Few organizations have put the right resources behind building these competencies in the individuals who play key roles in integrating efforts across cultural boundariescompetencies that may be at odds with an individuals deeply held, and usually invisible, assumptions and beliefs, the products of living almost exclusively in ones own culture. The business outcomes are less than satisfactory, the individuals involved find it frustrating, and companies are challenged with retention issues and loss of productivity. This article presents a successful approach to building the competencies required for effective crosscultural working. Through executive coaching, an individual can deal with the issues at the core of cross-cultural working relationships, learning and applying in real time the necessary skills, knowledge, and behaviorsprovided the executive is open to the personal transformation that is likely to take place.

we view time, think, organize ourselves, define our purpose, relate to power, and cope with uncertainty. Because our culturally based values, beliefs, assumptions, and attitudes are so deeply ingrained, they are experienced spontaneously and invisibly. It is only through making these cultural norms consciousbringing them into our awarenessthat we can begin to adapt our behaviors to the needs and expectations of the colleagues we are attempting to collaborate withand lessen our tendency to misinterpret their meanings and motivations based on our own cultural biases.

Rapid change, increasing complexity, the globalization of the world economy, and fluid organizational structures are the new realities of leadership.

The Challenge: Surmounting Cultural Conditioning

Culture is the beliefs and values upon which people interpret experiences (in the world) and base their behavior, individually and in groups. It is through this cultural lens that we make sense of what we see, how we feel about it, and how we define ourselves. Each culture perpetuates a set of beliefs, mores, and views of reality as the best, or idealthe ultimate truth. Our fundamental relationship to the world is driven by this earlyand culturally alienatingconditioning. These cultural drivers have a significant impact on every one of our interactions, including those in the workplace; they determine how

Awareness of cultural differences and the ways in which these differences affect our experiences and interpretations is an important first step toward understanding each other and establishing a positive work environment. Many companies have implemented formal training to sensitize executives and other employees to these differences. Our cultural biases are deeply embedded, however. Translating cross-cultural understanding into cross-cultural competencieswhich equip an executive with the ability to fluidly bridge cultural nuances to promote exchange, collaboration, and appreciative explorationrequires a rigorous process, an intrinsically motivated approach built on a deep commitment of the heart and mind. To achieve sustainable change, the process must lead the executive to honestly explore his or her mental paradigms and belief systems, to challenge assumptions that are counterproductive in the new situation, and to learn new ways to approach and solve problems, including real time application and integration of learning. Executive coaching is just such a process and, we have found, a very effective mechanism for building the cross-cultural competencies needed in todays global companies.

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Executive Coaching: A Process for Change

Executive coaching is a collaborative partnership designed to align professional development with organizational goals and drive performance. Coaching uses a process of inquiry and personal discovery to build the coachees level of self-awareness and responsibility, and it provides structured support and feedback to reinforce the coachees learning. Through this work, executives develop greater insights into their ability to contribute to their department/units goals and the organizations success. Coaching as an executive development tool is most strategic when it is aligned with an organizations leadership development, performance management, and talent management initiatives.

tive information. Coaching promotes learning and sustainable change through action, practice, and execution points, employing active and experiential methods that tend to work best for learning social and emotional competencies (developmental activities that engage all the senses are especially effective).

Cross-Cultural Coaching

Coaching as an executive development tool is most strategic when it is aligned with an organizations leadership development, performance management, and talent management initiatives.

Research by The Conference Board indicates that executive coaching is the fastest growing segment of executive education globally.1 Companies spent approximately $2 billion on executive coaching in 2005, with expenditures expected to double in 2006. Close to 40 percent of FORTUNE 500 firms are integrating coaching into their development initiatives. This client-centered and action-oriented approach has been shown to have a high return on investment, with studies by MetrixGlobal and Manchester Consultants finding an average 500 percent ROI.2 Using self-awareness and reflection, coaching expands the way an executive observes, relates to, and engages the world by challenging the underlying beliefs and assumptions that are responsible for his or her actions and behaviors. Advances in neuroscience have proven that the brain is plastic throughout life: Brain structures and circuits shape themselves through repeated experience. Adults learn best by repeating behaviors that support cogni-

Typically, executive coaching has drawn its techniques from management consulting, psychology, sociology, philosophy, and, to a certain extent, anthropology. Effective cross-cultural coaching whether it be with an executive who is working cross-culturally or who has a cultural background different from the coachsrequires greater crosscultural awareness, multicultural knowledge, and an increased understanding of ones own cultural biases (an area where anthropological studies will likely exert a greater influence as global coaching continues to evolve). The coaching model used most extensively in the United States reflects American values through its emphasis on progress, hard work, and a U.S. perspective around trust. Thus, it entails some objectives and methods of coaching that do not necessarily align well with multicultural values. For example, each culture has its own way of building and interpreting trust. In the United States, trust is often demonstrated through performance over time and delivering on commitments, while in other parts of the worldincluding Arabian, Asian, European, and Latin American countriesbuilding relationships is a prerequisite for professional relationships and interactions. Building trust in these countries may involve discussing nonprofessional topics in more informal settings. Work-related discussions begin after a relationship has been established. Imagine the consternation of a new European or South American coachee who finds that the new U.S. coacha near strangerexpects him or her to divulge deep aspirations, personal goals, and challenges in the very first meeting. We found this to be true in our early work with cross-cultural clients;

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Exhibit 1. Model for Cross-Cultural Coaching

coaching conversations we were already having with executives about their specific cultural challenges and to diagnose the issues they represented and the actions that were successful. What evolved from our hands-on work is a coaching model centered around three core leadership behaviors key to successful cross-cultural working: Curiositystaying curious and skillfully asking questions that will build greater understanding and cocreate relationships Cultivationcaring for and staying with the effort in an intentional way over time Collaborationintegrating the ideas and approaches of others; inquiring, disclosing, and advocating; weaving together an optimal outcome

many tended to need to ease into the relationship by learning more about our lives, a curiosity not shared by most of their U.S. counterparts. We needed to adapt our style and allow a more holistic deepening of the relationship over time, to pace the speed in which we drove the coaching agenda, and to honor each individuals style and approach to the process. If sustainability is the goal, coaching must be customized for the geographic region in which it is being delivered and to the cultural background of the individual coachee, with special attention to the following: How coaching is described within the organization The nuances of the coachcoachee relationship The overall approach, including pacing, content, and process
A Model for Cross-Cultural Coaching

In the model, shown in Exhibit 1, the coachees practice with the three core behaviors is supported by two foundational skills: Communicationopening up communication channels and creating new communication opportunities in order to develop understanding of the new culture and competency working in it Reflectionobserving and evaluating ones own participation in an interaction (How am I being in this interaction? Is this the most useful approach to our goal?) and then reentering the conversation with a new perspective Communication, an essential tool for building and deepening all our relationships, is a logical starting point for the cross-cultural coaching process. Reflection, which is integral to the coaching process, develops self-awareness. It helps us evaluate our actions and reveals the opportunities for modifying our behavior for better alignment with our core values and the organizations role in the larger global community.
Enthnocentric vs. Ethnorelative Behaviors

Although we had come across various tools, books, and feedback instruments that informed our ability to help clients develop cross-cultural competencies, their concepts were not easily communicated to the coachees as a framework for the coaching process. We needed a model with greater simplicity and practicality, and one that reflected values with multicultural application. We began to examine the

The work of Milton Bennett is helpful for framing the three core cross-cultural competencies in the modelcuriosity, cultivation, and collaboration.

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Exhibit 2. Comparison of Ethnorelative and Ethnocentric Behaviors

Ethnorelative Behaviors
Curiosity

Ethnocentric Behaviors
Disinterest Irrelevance Superiority Minimization Trivialization Denigration Distancing Separation Isolation

Cultivation

spectives. Values are the basis for our motivation in life. Without value for other people, information, learning, achievement, etc., we would have no real need to step outside of our comfort zones; we would not learn; and we certainly would not grow. By uncovering his or her own values linked to curiosity, cultivation, and collaboration, the coachee can tap into a reservoir of intrinsic motivation to sustain the effort necessary to understand and learn to work in a different cultural context. Finally, these cross-cultural competencies, knowledge, and values require three qualities in order to sustain cross-cultural effectiveness: respect, appreciation, and humility. These must be genuine and authentic; they cannot be mimicked. The expectation for the executive is not perfection, but rather genuinely caring and genuinely trying, which go a long way in demonstrating good intentions and commitment to his or her international colleagues.
Providing an Outside Perspective

Collaboration

Bennett proposed the terms ethnocentricavoiding, or the inability to see, cultural differenceand ethnorelativeaccepting and seeking out cultural difference.3 The three ethnorelative behaviors in the model facilitate positive organizational and personal outcomes in a multicultural environment, while their opposites, the ethnocentric behaviors shown in Exhibit 2, prohibit the development of effective cross-cultural relationships. Anyone on the receiving end of one or more of these ethnocentric behaviors would experience discomfort, in the best case, or even alienation, in the worst case, making a positive relationship a less likely outcomeif not impossible. We extend the concept of ethnorelative behaviors further, as shown in Exhibit 3, to identify related skills and knowledge, which can be assessed, coached, and measured to provide a discrete focus to the coaching process. The coachees current capabilities and potential in these areas can be evaluated, needs identified, actions planned, and success measured. It is important to note that the three core ethnorelative behaviors in the model are highly valuesbased, as suggested in Exhibit 3. A person may experience curiosity because he values learning and knowledge; cultivate something because she has a love for it or derives pleasure from seeing it grow; collaborate because he values achievement, developing friendships, or other peoples ideas and per-

As part of our coaching process, we make it a practice to conduct thorough 360 interviews in the first phase of working with a new coachee. Interviews with the coachees stakeholdersboss, team members, direct reports, key functional partners, etc.give the coach multiple outside perspectives on the coachees effectiveness in areas important to his or her role. It also allows the coach to identify any blind spots the executive may have about his or her impact on the work group/unit, and it promotes awareness of the intended and unintended consequences of the executives behavior. When cross-cultural working is part of the coachees responsibilities, we include questions on this particular topic in the 360 interviews, drawing from the qualities, competencies, knowledge, and values noted in Exhibit 3. Recalling our earlier discussion on cultural differences around trust, it may be advisable with nonAmerican coachees to do the 360 interviews a little later in the process once relationships have been able to develop more fully.

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Exhibit 3. The Basis of Cross-Cultural Competencies

Ethnorelative Behaviors

Curiosity

Cultivation

Competencies Inquiry skills Listening skills Self-awareness Self-development Discernment Understanding others (needs, customs, values) Patience Optimism
Relationship building Agility (flexibility, adaptability, facilitation) Motivating others Personal disclosure

Knowledge Ones own culture Other cultures

Underlying Values Learning Knowledge

Qualities

Collaboration

The other (what you want to grow and what it requires for growth) How to request and invite rather than tell or sell Personal strengths The others skills, knowledge, capability, etc. Integration as opposed to conversion

Love Pleasure Self-worth

Respect Appreciation Humility

Achievement Learning Developing relationships Others ideas/ perspectives

Applying the Cross-Cultural Coaching Model Lets return to Bill, whom we introduced at the beginning of the article. When Bill initially accepted the assignment as medical director on the Swedish drug development team, he sought out a coach to help him ensure his success in the new role. Once Bill began to sense that he was not being fully accepted as part of the team, the coaching sessions took on a cross-cultural focus. It was at this point that the coach conducted a series of 360 interviews to learn how the Swedish team members perceived Bill and where the problem might lie.

nized that he was trying to do a good job in his new role. While there was ample communication occurring, however, it became evident that team members did not think it was the right kind of communication. They especially did not like his practice of calling or meeting team members individually to attempt to influence their decisions. The Swedes preferred to have transparent discussions and an open exchange of ideas, and then make decisions together as a group. Fortunately, despite Bills frustration over his efforts having failed thus far to produce the desired results, he wanted to understand the reasons why and work through them. He was able to channel this innate curiosity into the process of developing a deeper understanding of his Swedish colleagues and what they needed from him. Bills curiosity and spirit of inquiry opened him to new ideas about himself and his teammates. The coach helped Bill to understand the importance of relationships, not just in the current situation but as the way we all socially construct our lives and experiences, our realitya concept known as social constructionism.4 Changing the way he related to

Bill is very bright, and he was quite comfortable with the technical aspects of the work, finding it relatively easy to engage the team members in challenging technical discussions. Naturally introverted, he had a communication style that led him to connect through one-on-one conversations with individual team members, sharing his perspective about project matters, learning their perspective, and trying to exert some influence on their decisions. It became clear that Bills Swedish teammates admired his technical expertise and sense of humor and recog-

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his Swedish colleagues would change the way they related to him, allowing them all to shape a new future for the team together, which would be true collaboration. Bill was soon able to see relationships not as a byproduct, but as the very foundation of working with othersand especially so in Sweden and other relationship-oriented cultures which helped him move beyond his earlier attitude of me vs. them. The renowned German philosopher Martin Heidegger emphasized that one cultivates what one cares for, like a vine, so that it may better fulfill its own potentialities.5 If Bill could find what he liked, admired, or appreciated about his teammates, he would be able to tap into a deep well of positive energy and motivation for cultivating relationships with them. Drawing from the concept of appreciative inquiry, the coach encouraged Bill to use positive, future-oriented questions and consider the team members past successes with this or other teams so that he could uncover a positive core from which to work with them for future success.6

from the team, he set aside a portion of the team meetings to discuss them, the team members: How were they doing, what was working, what wasnt working? Bill began to express to his teammates what he was feeling and experiencing in a given situationpracticing personal disclosureand encouraged them to do the same. In short, he was laying the groundwork for genuine collaboration. Bills progress in learning to work well with the team was put to the test when the project faced a crisis. Based on the conclusions of his medical staff back in the United States, Bill had to convince the clinical project team that the drug in which they had invested years of effort could not be used in all the ways they had envisioned, thereby seriously limiting the possibilities for the drug in the market. Despite Bills efforts to ensure beforehand that it was the best decision and to fully inform the members about the medical teams opinions and advice, it was not an outcome most members were ready to accept. They were distraught, demotivated, and not very happy with Bill; Bill, in turn, was frustrated with what he saw as their emotional response and lack of rational sense making. To his credit, however, he was patient. He continued to engage them, asking questions, clarifying, and soliciting the support of those members who did accept the medical conclusions. Asking them to bring their Swedish colleagues around to the Americans thinking was a tough requestone that might have strained their national loyalties. But Bill had gained their trust through his efforts in the prior months and was no longer the cultural outsider he had once been. They could see his request for their participation in moving their colleagues through a very difficult decision and an emotional time as honest and motivated by what was best for them all. It took about two months of patient work, but the teamalbeit with heavy heartsfinally reached the consensus that Bills recommendation was the right course of action. Had Bill let his frustration then or earlier in the assignment lead him to any of the ethnocentric

The renowned German philosopher Martin Heidegger emphasized that one cultivates what one cares for, like a vine, so that it may better fulfill its own potentialities.

Over a period of several months, with the help of the coach, Bill learned and then applied what he learned in real time. He put less emphasis on being the technical expert and instead worked to demonstrate that he valued all the expertise residing in the team. And he put more time and energy into learning about the people he was working with. He met with various Swedish leaders in other departments and asked for their advice and insights. He extended the length of his visitstwo to three weeks at a timeto spend more time side-by-side with his teammates, in meetings as well as participating in the informal hallway conversations and fika paus chats. With agreement

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behaviors shown in Exhibit 3had he exhibited superiority because he valued his expertise over theirs, trivialized their perspectives because they werent his own, used his geographic separation to isolate himself further in response to his feelings of being excludedhe would never have gained the trust of the team and succeeded in his role. Instead, he engaged his curiosity, learning to inquire and listen in order to learn. He cultivated a genuine interest in, and liking for, his teammates. He invited their input, ideas, and contributions, adopting an authentic collaborative style. And in doing so, he challenged his own comfort zone and cultural conditioning to create a real partnership with his teammates. He had mastered cross-cultural working.

cies. Through reflection, the second foundational skill in the cross-cultural coaching model, an individual gains awareness of her or his cultural biases, a prerequisite for making deliberate changes in how she or he processes information and relates to others. Zan is a good example of someone for whom crosscultural coaching was invaluable in helping her to push past her cultural conditioning to more fully develop her emotional intelligence and use it to benefit her multicultural team. A Chinese Ph.D. at a global telecommunications company headquartered in a Scandinavian country, Zans passion for science and her R&D accomplishments as an individual contributor led to her promotion to leader of her product development team, of which she had been a member since its inception. She had just completed a leadership development program for high potentials in the company, and her managers felt executive coaching would help her apply the theory presented in the program and expedite her transition into the new leadership role, which posed some daunting challenges for any new incumbent. The company saw the teams new product as critical to maintaining its market share in the face of a growing number of competitors, and the team faced an aggressive schedule for completing its work; at the same time, the organization was downsizing for the first time in its historyincluding cutting a couple of members from the team, which would leave it with fewer resources to accomplish its goal. As the sole female and only Chinese member of this culturally diverse team, she would now lead the Finnish, Swedish, American, British, and Italian contributors who had previously been her peers. Physically small in stature and an introvert most comfortable working alone in the lab, Zan found the shift from individual contributor to leader intimidating. She is inquisitive by nature and as a scientist loves the process of discovery, a talent and interest the coaching process was able to focus inward to help Zan learn to work with a cross-cul-

The cornerstone of emotional intelligence is selfawareness, which is especially important in building cross-cultural competencies.
Cross-Cultural Competencies and Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EI) is central to working and succeeding cross-culturally. EI has been defined as the ability to monitor ones own and others feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide ones thinking and action.7 This includes noncognitive capabilities and competencies that influence our ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures. Research by the Center for Creative Leadership has found that the primary causes of derailment in executives involves deficits in emotional competence: difficulty in handling change, not being able to work well on a team, and poor interpersonal relations.8 We have seen similar trends in our work in the global arena. The cornerstone of EI is self-awareness, which is especially important in building cross-cultural competen-

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tural team. Through inquiry (an aspect of curiosity) and reflection, Zan established her own unique why for wanting to be successful in her new role. She clarified her core values, recognized her key motivators, explored her passion for her work, and articulated a greater vision for herself and her team. She was passionate about the project in which she was working and believed its successful completion was important to the company.

herself. She was at ease communicating with her team about technical matters (the companys working language is English, which the team members speak with varying levels of skill), but she was not comfortable discussing anything personal. The coach encouraged her to use her experiences with her Chinese friends and colleagues as reference points for beginning to reach out to her culturally diverse colleagues and expand her conversational repertoire. Zan began to sense that the team was deeply affected by the impending layoffs, a process that would take four months due to the employee relations laws in the country in which they were working. Team meetings felt tense, and conversations that were once robust had become stiff. No one on the team was talking about the upcoming lossit was the elephant in the room. Zans cultural conditioning left her uncomfortable with emotional disclosure; she believed it to be inappropriate, too intimate, to speak directly to her departing colleagues about their situation. At the same time, her personal sadness over the situation was literally keeping her up at night. She longed to express her appreciation and gratitude for their contributions to the project and how much she would miss them after they left. Solving this conundrum meant leaving her personal comfort zonefor the welfare of the team as well as herself. Zan decided to begin with Mike. In cultivating an understanding of her colleagues and their needs, what she learned about Mike, an American, led her to believe that of the two teammates being laid off he would be the most comfortable with emotional disclosure. From her observations of Mike, she also understood that he needed direct eye contact to feel connected. Drawing on the work she and the coach had already done, and on her innate empathy for Mike, she was able to move beyond her discomfort at discussing her feelings, and to maintain direct eye contact and steady body language throughout the interaction.

She was at ease communicating with her team about technical matters, but she was not comfortable discussing anything personal.

With the coach she explored how her assumptions, beliefs, and attitudes were unconsciously driving her behavior, and in the process uncovered several selflimiting beliefs that were negatively affecting her ability to connect with, and fully engage, her team members. For example, she held the assumption that she wasnt good with people, that she was a scientist, not a people person. Simple meditation practices helped Zan slow down so she could catch her assumptions as they arose in the course of her interactions with colleagues. She also began to see how cultural conditioning was limiting her effectiveness in her new role. For example, she tended to experience direct eye contact as aggressive, and her body language at times sent mixed messages to others. The coach suggested Zan draw on the centering techniques she had learned through her martial arts training in order to experience being fully present in a work interaction, which would make it possible for her to consciously employ steady body language and increase her comfort level with direct eye contact. Zan had nurtured long-standing relationships with friends and colleagues in China, and within this limited circle, she was comfortable expressing

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Mike was moved by Zans honesty and willingness to express her feelings about his leaving the company. It provided him an opportunity to talk about his own disappointment of not being able to see the project through to completion. They discussed the contributions he had made and the impact his departure would have on both the team and the project. He shared his commitment to the team and his desire for a smooth transition, including transferring his knowledge and productively focusing on deliverables during his remaining time on the project. The depth of the exchange with Mike and his response challenged one of Zans basic assumptions about herself. Perhaps she wasnt so bad with people after all. The positive experience gave her the courage to begin reaching out to the rest of the team. She met one-on-one with the British colleague leaving the team, with positive results. She facilitated a discussion with the entire team, which provided an opportunity for an open dialogue about the departures and led to collaboration, in which they all cocreated an exit plan that supported the departing individuals as well as the overall project. She reached out to the individual team members more regularly, including less formal lunch dates, and learned to spend time exploring personal as well as professional issues. This relationship building with individuals gave her more confidence during the team meetings, and she began to feel camaraderie with her teammates. The team, in turn, regained its sense of optimism and passion. Zans emotional intelligence, new cross-cultural competencies, and growth as a leader affected the multicultural team in profound ways. The conversations she facilitated around the impending loss of two team members invited the teams full participation, opened communication about a difficult subject, and built trust, all of which led to greater collaboration within the team. Members became

more inquisitive about one anothers perspectives, and a sense of cross-pollination began to occur. Their goals were cocreated, their roles and responsibilities more clear, and their conversations more honest and robust. In a meaningful act that suggests the team had found a connection to heart as well as mind, it honored the departing teammates at a dinner to acknowledge their contributions and the teams collective achievements. As an important footnote, the team completed its R&D project ahead of schedule.

The business case for diversity is not enough; becoming part of a truly global community means having inclusion as a core business value.

Eradicating Ethnocentric Processes

Although organizations, as described by anthropologists, are the twenty-first-century tribes, all human beings share a fundamental yearning for connection and community. We long for inclusion, not just appreciation of our differences. In our experience, the stance of Americans in relationship with nonAmericans is more often one of tolerance than inclusion, patience rather than curiosity, and perseverance instead of collaboration. The business case for diversity is not enough; becoming part of a truly global community means having inclusion as a core business value. Inclusive organizations helpand expecttheir members to learn and exhibit ethnorelative behaviors. Executive coaching is one means for achieving that aim. But individual behaviors are not the only targets for change. Organizational processes that have evolved in the context of one national culture can pose barriers to members with different cultural roots. For companies with the right level of cultural awareness, making organizational processes more ethnorelative is not necessarily a difficult proposi-

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tion. For example, a global company might choose English as the common language in which to conduct its business, believing that a single language can unify culturally diverse parts of the company. Although individuals with a different native language may speakor learn to speakEnglish fluently in normal conversation, it is quite another matter for them to fully absorb information in meetings with several people talking, advocating a point of view, and challenging ideas. Translating back to the mother tongue for clarification and formulating a reply or question takes a few seconds longer than we generally provide in these types of conversations. This can be extremely frustrating and certainly challenging to those for whom the official language is not their native tongue. Giving participants in such meetings a 35-minute checkin to speak in their home language to their native colleagues allows them to clarify ideas, verify that they heard the same thing others heard, and feel more confident they are up-to-speed with everyone else in the meeting. This, in turn, enables them be more constructive and contribute more effectively, a benefit for everyone. Such an ethnorelative approach is good for long-term intercultural relationship building (although we certainly advocate also learning some of the language of team members from other countries).

that lead to a shared global vision of success for the organization.

Notes

1. R. Carew, Program brochure for 2006 executive coaching conference: Transforming todays and tomorrows leaders (New York: The Conference Board, 2006). 2. MetrixGlobal, Case study on the return on investment of executive coaching, Executive briefing, November 2, 2001; and J. McGovern, et al., Maximizing the impact of executive coaching: Behavioral change, organizational outcomes, and return on investment, originally published in The Manchester Review, 6 (2001), reprinted in 2003 by Right Management Consultants. 3. M.J. Bennett, A developmental approach to training for intercultural sensitivity, International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 10(2) (1986), 179195; and M.J. Bennett, Towards ethnorelativism: A developmental model of intercultural sensitivity, in M. Paige (ed.), Education for the intercultural experience (Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press, 1993). 4. J. Schotter, Conversational realities: Constructing life through language (London: Sage Publications, 1993). 5. V.M. Bentz, Becoming mature: Childhood ghosts and spirits in adult life (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1989), 14. 6. S.A. Hammond, The thin book of appreciative inquiry (Plano, TX: Thin Book Publishing, 1996). 7. P. Salovey & D. Sluyter, Emotional development and emotional intelligence: Educational implications (New York: BasicBooks, 1997), 10. 8. J.B. Leslie & E. Van Velsor, A look at derailment today: North America and Europe (Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership, 1996). Katherine Handin is principal of Global Coaching Alliance, LLC, an international consortium of executive coaches and leadership development consultants. Her areas of expertise include executive development, performance management, and cross-cultural team facilitation. She can be contacted at handin@globalcoachingalliance.com. Janet S. Steinwedel, Ph.D., is president of Leaders Insight, a global coaching and executive development consultancy. Working with individuals, groups, and teams, she creates thinking partnerships focused on effective execution. She can be contacted at janet@leadersinsight.com.

Conclusion

We hope our coaching model provides a simple and actionable roadmap for learning to work cross-culturally. It taps into a fundamental human desire for communitya desire to which curiosity, cultivation, and collaboration are intrinsic. It calls for deep reflection, strong personal commitment, engagement of both heart and mind, and a willingness to change in ways that serve both the individual and the organization. Business success in a global economy will be built upon genuine crosscultural connections and authentic conversations

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