February 21, 2024 • 61 mins
When cultures collide within the coaching arena, the game changes entirely. That's why this episode, featuring Matt Trenchard and Sarah Anthony, peels back the layers to expose the intricate dance of intercultural coaching. We uncover how these experiences enrich our professional coaching, inviting a deep-seated respect and endless curiosity for the untapped potential in every individual we encounter.
Venture with us through the labyrinth of global interactions where challenges lurk and opportunities abound. From the personal anecdote of coaching in the Gulf region to the collective repercussions of the pandemic and the Ukraine-Russia conflict, we examine the pivotal role of cultural agility. It's not just about refining coaching strategies to align with cultural norms; it's about embracing the journey of personal growth that underpins the transformative power of coaching and intercultural intelligence.
Our conversation culminates in a celebration of a growing tribe of coaches, armed with intercultural agility through the Certificate in Intercultural Coaching, ready to spearhead change in a world brimming with cultural nuances. We explore how recognizing individual cultural uniqueness can enhance the coaching dynamic, leading to deeper understanding and stronger connections. Tune in for a rich exploration of how intercultural coaching can amplify your impact, creating ripples of positive change in a beautifully complex, multipolar world.
Sign up for the webinar on Intercultural Mindfulness in Coaching on March 6 at: https://mailchi.mp/knowledgeworkx.com/mindfulness
Learn About Becoming an Interculturally Agile Coach: www.intercultural.coach
In this episode, you will learn:
-- The History of the Coaching Profession and its western roots.
-- How interculturally agile coaching helps coaches amplify their impact.
-- How to use intercultural coaching to help your coachee navigate complex intercultural situations.
| Learn More about:
-- Intercultural Mindfulness in Coaching
-- https://www.intercultural.coach/post/the-business-case-for-intercultural-coaching
-- https://www.intercultural.coach/post/creating-coaching-cultures
-- Brought to you by KnowledgeWorkx.com
-- Looking for a book to take your cultural agility to the next step, check out the Ultimate Intercultural Question Book brought to you by KnowledgeWorkx.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Trenchard (00:00):
The coach has this idea.
It's taking it from therapy ofunconditional positive regard.
But I think we take it further.
It's not just saying, oh, I'mjust going to give you
unconditional positive regard.
I'm not just going to sayyou're great, I'm actually going
to hold the truth that thereare as great as within you which
I can't see and therefore Ihave to.
I give you respect.
(00:21):
I'm there with curiosity, I'malmost there with the sense of
wonder, so I don't really knowwhat it is that's right in front
of me.
Marco Blankenburgh (00:37):
Welcome to the cultural agility podcast,
where we explore the stories ofsome of the most advanced
intercultural practitioners fromaround the world to help you
become culturally agile andsucceed in today's culturally
complex world.
I'm your host, marcoBlankenberg, international
Director of KnowledgeWorks,where every day, we help
(00:58):
individuals and companiesachieve relational success in
that same complex world.
Welcome again to the LockingIntercultural Agility podcast,
and today we have an importanttopic that is focused on
coaching, and we have actuallytwo of my favorite coaches and
(01:20):
partners and friends in ourvirtual studio today.
Matt Tranchaud and SarahAnthony are here with us.
Thank you so much for joiningus, really appreciate it and
we're going to talk aboutintercultural coaching, also
coaching, the bigger picture ofcoaching and our own journeys
and how the intercultural sideof coaching has become a really
(01:42):
integral part of how we functionand operate as professionals
and as coaches.
So I want to give you thechance to introduce yourselves
briefly and then we'll dive intothe topic.
So maybe, sarah, if you want tokick us off.
Sarah Anthony (01:56):
Yeah, absolutely.
So.
I'm really happy to be here,firstly, and very honored to
have been asked and to beworking with you, marco, and
obviously Matt, on this topic,because it's something that's
very dear to my heart and to ourhearts.
(02:17):
So I've been I've obviouslybeen a coach for two, many years
I can't even remember it's beena good like it's tens, rather,
you know, and 20s rather than,rather than a few years, and it
goes right back to my timeworking as a leader and coaching
(02:37):
people in my organization andin different organizations that
I worked for, but also thenbecoming an accredited coach,
going on that journey oflearning more about coaching,
developing my coaching skills inthat way, doing the inner work
for coach and then trainingpeople to become coaches as well
(02:58):
and working with organizations,individuals, and one of the
things that will probably cometo later is kind of us meeting
you and integrating with theintercultural way of working and
what that's brought to mycoaching.
But I think I'll leave that alittle space for us.
(03:18):
Later We'll get to it.
Marco Blankenburgh (03:23):
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.
Matt Trenchard (03:32):
Oh, sarah, I feel you've stolen my thunder
because I can say a lot of thevery, very same things.
But, mark, it's great to behere, thank you.
I mean, coaching has been likean integral part of my work and
my life.
Can I feel that, even before Ilearn coaching, see one of those
things, one of thoseprofessions that I think is a
(03:54):
vocation, at least for me?
It means who it's looking forsomething that would provide
depth to the work I was doingalready with teams and my senses
?
I found it.
Sarah, I know she and I havetalked about this kind of thing
and that's actually why not onlydo we do coaching, but we do
coach training.
It's also why we're engagingwith you because, yeah, the work
(04:17):
that you're bringing intocultural space is just adding
depth to that.
Personally, I live in Dubai, inthe UAE.
I've been here since 2006.
We met a long time ago, marko,and then we kind of rekindled
the friendship in more recentyears.
One thing I'm aware of in thisspace that we have here is that
(04:37):
all of us are interculturallymarried, so this stuff is real
to all of us, and so I'm glad tobe here with friends.
Thanks, marko.
Marco Blankenburgh (04:48):
I was thinking about that.
Yes, thanks for raising that,because indeed we don't just do
this professionally, we try topractice it at home as well, and
we all three of us know howchallenging that is.
Yeah, and I love what NorthPoint is doing because I was
(05:13):
formally introduced to coachingthrough the two of you.
So I'm really grateful for thatbecause I still remember I have
been, I drifted into thecoaching space as a consultant
and you might remember thoseearly attempts at being a coach
where I really had to bury myconsulting hat and really
(05:36):
learning to step into thecoaching space.
So I'm really grateful that Ihad the opportunity, through
your expertise and through thecertificate in professional
coaching, the CPC, to do that,and that's why I think we are
actually on this conversationtogether.
One of the reasons why Now,today is not just about coaching
(05:56):
.
I mean, the world of coachingis growing globally.
The world of coaching isrespected by managers, by
leaders, by organizations moreand more and, as a result, even
credentialing as a coach hasbecome important.
So getting a coach certificatethat I've officially recognized
like the CPC, through theInternational Coaching.
(06:17):
Federation.
But then people say, well, I'malready a coach.
You're talking aboutintercultural coaching today.
What's the difference?
Why bother with yet anotherprogram that I need to invest
time and money in?
So what is interculturalcoaching and how does it
(06:37):
distinguish itself from sort ofmore traditional coaching and
any certification you can get inthat field?
Matt Trenchard (06:44):
Thank you, mark, welcome to mine.
For me for this, it wasactually to give us like a micro
history lesson, and that's tosay that coaching really as a
profession began in the 1980s,began in the US.
There were people doing somenew kinds of work there and the
ICF was formed.
(07:05):
International CoachingFederation, or Coach Federation
as it was then, was formed fromsome of those early
practitioners with a sense oflike you know, we need to
formalize this, we need toprovide some functionality, we
need to actually put down somesense of what is this thing that
we're doing and how do we knowwe're doing it.
And as part of that, theycreated what I call the ICF core
competencies, and we're 11 atthe time, and what I bring this
(07:27):
up is that I think it was abouttwo years ago.
Two to three years ago the ICFhad been through a process to
review all of the competenciesin light of many factors,
including the fact that coachingwas now no longer a solely
either American or, you mightsay, western pursuit, and as a
(07:48):
result, they recognize that theyneeded to recraft some of the
other competencies and theyactually married down from 11 to
eight, and these now new eightcompetencies are much more open
when it comes to differentcultures, particularly as you,
and that knowledge works.
I see I describe it Previously.
(08:09):
Other cultures had to like,shoehorn their, their cultures
in or shoehorn coaching intotheir cultures, and it worked,
but it had to be, had to bepushed or manhandled in.
And now we're finding that withthese new competencies, that is
, that actually there's a littlemore space that coaching can
(08:30):
fit into multiple differentcultures, and so therefore
there's a need to actually bringmuch of the culture and
intercultural work out of theunconscious space into the
conscious space that thatapproaches can actually
consciously engage in differentcultures.
Marco Blankenburgh (08:44):
Hmm, thank you for that.
Sarah Anthony (08:47):
mini history, lesson I do I mean, I would
agree with Matt.
What I would additionally, Ithink, like to add in is from a
more personal perspective.
Coaches are finding themselves,as you said earlier, coaching
(09:08):
in a more globalized world andcoming across situations that
perhaps that they weren'tinitially, they they would be
coaching people from their owncultures, but now we're all
coaching lots of differentpeople working in diverse
situations.
Working, you know, it's a lotmore complex and and we don't
(09:31):
necessarily with coaching aswithout, kind of the
intercultural layer on top ofthat, we don't perhaps have all
of the tools that we could haveto help out in those complex
situations and to understandwhat's going on, both in a as a
coach, with our clients, andalso helping our clients with
(09:54):
the situations they findthemselves in as they work with
different teams from differentareas of the world.
So what I think is we'reoffering, you know, the
opportunity to get over some ofthose stereotypes and those
broad assumptions that we canmake about different.
You know, oh, a person from,you know, scotland is like this
(10:16):
and the person from Africa islike this, but to give us some
frameworks for being moreadaptable, customizing our
experience, communicating andcollaborating in a better way,
and I think being a coachrequires that deeper work as
well.
(10:36):
You know, as a coach, we're notjust looking at oh, I'm a coach
and I can label myself as acoach now and I have no further
work to be done.
Actually, we need to be lookingfurther within ourselves of
what is the next step we need totake, and I feel for a lot of
people it is that interculturalstep of understanding people
(10:59):
from different cultures, becausethe world is so globalized,
because business is soglobalized and because our
clients are from all sorts ofdifferent places now, and that
has definitely increased overthe past few years.
Matt Trenchard (11:12):
Actually, I was leading a session of coach
training.
We had a cohort of students andas part of that we from time to
time we do coach demos todemonstrate some of the coaching
skills, and the person whovolunteered was also a gentleman
from the Gulf region.
The topic he brought in essence, said.
(11:33):
I took me some time to get toit, but the essence of it was
that he'd realized that someother people of a similar
culture to him in his office mayhave said some things about him
which other people then wouldhave heard and thought less of
him.
And I subsequently, inreflecting on the session,
(11:56):
realized that beforeintercultural 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 thoughtto myself oh, that sounds a bit
silly and perhaps in othercultures that could be seen that
way, but in his culture it wasactually really important
because it led to his reputationand what we were thinking about
(12:21):
it.
And so, because I had thetraining, I was able to hold
this situation with the weightthey deserved and coach him
around and help him come to somedecisions around it.
Yet he made some decisions thatyou recognize that in his mind.
He'd been naive in the past,needs to be a bit more conscious
and aware of others were.
(12:42):
Receiving on the cell phonemakes him different decisions
going forward.
Hmm, it is always just didcoach him.
What went into cultural, whatcame in, was allow me to hold,
with value and with sufficientweight, the top of the hills
bring in a way that wasimportant to me.
Marco Blankenburgh (13:04):
Absolutely, and I mean you think about the
pandemic it actually hasresulted.
First people thought, oh, we'regonna get less into cultural
and actually what I see happen?
We've become more into culturalBecause now you can work from
any place, with any company,with colleagues anywhere in the
world.
And the same seems to behappening in the coaching space.
(13:24):
The coaches just follow thework fabric of the work
ecosystem that people arecreating and, as a result, one
figure I read was that out ofthe coaches that are in the ICF,
roughly 30% of them say I coachacross cultures regularly, and
that's quite a significantnumber of all the coaches
globally.
Matt Trenchard (13:44):
And I think, and I think that under estimation,
Okay, if I can briefly buildjust minutes about the pandemic,
but not just the pandemic, likeyou know.
Sorry to bring up a more sombernote, but some of us are
happening in the world now, sayUkraine and Russia, and right
(14:07):
now Israel, and mass all thatstuff, no matter where you fall
on it when you're working withothers from other context, even
if they are not directlyaffected by it.
There's probably some some wayin which there, some less, we've
got some sort of cultural toolsinto, cultural tools of that we
can lay our hands on as coaches.
We're either going to missstuff or we're not going to be
(14:29):
able to support our clients inthe most powerful positive way,
or, in the worst case, we'regoing to actually bring our own
Misconceptions into the room andactually do more harm than we
could do.
Good, yeah, and the big pictureI see is that we're shifting
the world from what you mightcall a unipolar world we had
America being the dominant forcethe multipolar world where
(14:52):
you've got, you know, strengthsand powers from all over the
world and all different places,all different cultures.
So this is really important,really, really.
Marco Blankenburgh (14:59):
Yeah, and that puts us in a dilemma,
because then one way ofoperating is not the preferred
way of operating anymore, andthat's where cultural agility
becomes really important, whenthe way intellectual property,
the way goods, the way peoplemove across borders is quite
radically different betweennations, and that has impact for
(15:22):
how we do our work and how manytools we need to have in our
toolbox.
So, in order to think a littlebit deeper about the
intercultural side of coachingand 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?
(15:43):
We already mentioned you knowall three of us are
interculturally married.
That's another growth lessonthat continues the rest of our
lives where being anintercultural coach could be
helpful, although your spousemight get fed up with you if you
ask one more coaching question.
But still what?
(16:04):
Tell me a little bit about yourstory.
Why did you drift into theintercultural coaching space,
into the interculturalintelligence certification,
adding that perspective to yourown coaching practice?
Sarah Anthony (16:16):
How did that happen for you.
Well, I mean match like I firstof, do you want?
I mean, I feel in some waysMatt does come first in this
because he, you know it did comefrom our relationship with you,
first off and and he delvedinto that world sooner than me
(16:37):
and and did the ICIcertification and then that led
in certain directions.
But I think you know, throughour relationship with you, marco
, we came to realize that therewas more depth that we could get
to in the coaching world andthat the work that you were
doing was really important forall the reasons we've already
(17:00):
said in many respects.
You know the fact the world isbecoming more globalized, the
fact that the ICF are startingto recognize that there are more
people in the world than justthis 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
(17:22):
discussions about the ones thatwe didn't enjoy from an
intercultural perspective, and Ithink I just came to realize
that I need, I needed some moretools to enable me to have those
kind of conversations.
I was coming across situationsand maybe I didn't even realize
it until I had the certificationsometimes, but there were also
(17:46):
some time, you know.
So a lot of that is looking backgoing 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 bitmore to help me with some of the
relationship situations thateither I was coaching around or
that I was finding myself in,whether that be relationships
(18:08):
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 timeago but also recognizing the in
in work situations, becausebecause even I can be speaking
(18:32):
to someone who is from the sameculture in inverted I'm doing
the inverted commas there forthose who can't see us and I can
still and I can still have acompletely different cultural
background to them and there canstill be things where I miss
(18:53):
things or they.
You know we miss one another inour communication.
So it's learning to start beingmore adaptable and recognizing
that and I recognize that Ineeded that.
I think the interculturalmarriage did start that process
of thinking oh OK, there'sthings going on here I'm not
(19:14):
perhaps doing right, and thenonce again in inverted commas
there, and how can I do the bestin my personal relationships?
And then how can I pass that onto my clients?
How can I do better with myclients in helping them to
recognize the things that arecoming up, the assumptions that
(19:34):
they might be making that arebased upon culture rather than
their skill or their ability andthose other areas?
So that was one of the bigthings that led me in that
direction and, as I said, now Ilook back and I see so many
situations where I'm like whycould I handle that so much
(19:56):
easier?
I may be dealt with thesituation, I may be helped to
overcome it somewhere, but Icould have done it easier with a
better if I had had some ofthese tools at that time.
Marco Blankenburgh (20:08):
And Matt earlier on mentioned that it's
not just a profession, it's avocation, and I can feel that in
the way you speak about it aswell.
It's a way of life.
Absolutely, matt.
What about you?
Matt Trenchard (20:20):
It's your journey being Sarah, my ears
picked up when you talked aboutdoing it, right yeah, and you
made me realize that, like youand I, in our coaching work, in
our coaching teaching more likewe talk about being a student of
oneself, but this is an ongoingjourney that we never actually
get to.
(20:40):
You know 100 percent selfknowledge that we're always
learning, and so I mean, mark,this is testament not only to
the depth of coaching knowledgebut also the depth of in the
culture, like you can't get tothe end of it, there's always
more.
And so, like, sit here today,genuinely say I'm so much more
into culturally aware andconnected than I was 10 years
(21:02):
ago, but I'm almost more certainthat I'm nowhere near as into
culturally connected and awarethat I will be in 10 years time.
But it's a definite journeyhere as far as the person that
comes up to me.
The second thing is that youasked what drew me into this.
It was a sense that it wassomething that was going to fill
a gap.
But I had a number of coachingsessions, particularly with
(21:26):
people from sufficientlydifferent cultures, and like
having successful coachingsession in coaching series but
then a felt gap.
So like one of the gaps wasworking with a gentleman from
the Gulf and getting to thepoint of the coaching
(21:46):
conversation and I was like OK,so we've talked about this stuff
, you've seen your insights, butnow what steps you take, how
you are, what things you want tochoose to do in order to hold
yourself, to move yourselfforward and hold yourself
accountable.
It kind of felt that thatmoment that he shifted from
great clarity and openness andthose kind of things to then
(22:08):
trying to avoid things, it feltlike I was chasing him round and
round and never actuallygetting anywhere.
We can go on to some of the whylater.
It was that kind of experiencethat led me to like I'm sure
there's other ways of doing thisthat are more effective in this
cultural setting than what I'vebeen doing so far.
Marco Blankenburgh (22:30):
Yeah, yeah, and you're starting to already
talk about what does it looklike in practice, and I think
that's what our audience is alsointerested in.
How does this work?
What's the before and aftereffect?
You know, how does it makepractical difference?
So you started to use anexample, matt, and that story in
(22:54):
and of itself is it's helpfulto have, for instance, the, the
ICI framework, like the threecolors of worldview and the 12
dimensions of culture, toactually understand why he was
hesitating to make a commitmentright there and then Right, yeah
, would you mind continuing thestory?
Yes, that's a practical exampleof how it makes a difference.
Matt Trenchard (23:17):
Exactly, and so how the story ends like my story
isn't, oh.
And then I learned ICI and thenI carried on with the same
client.
If it was great, I didn't know,it wasn't that quick.
But what I subsequently learnedand then be able to put into
practice with other people fromthe same kind of culture, is
recognizing that decision makingis done differently in
(23:39):
different cultures.
So one of the one of the topdimensions polarity is about
decision making and is it made?
Do you make it yourself, byyourself, or do you make it in
collaboration and conversationwith other people, in a more of
a collective sense?
And the second one is much morecultural to this region.
(23:59):
I mean, I definitely subscribeto what you say, marko, that you
don't label people with aregion, you don't say, oh, you
are this culture and there aresome broad, big pictures.
So, yeah, definitely found thatpeople working from the Middle
Eastern region often prefer totake decisions when they've had
an opportunity to discuss itwith other people who are
(24:21):
significant and important tothem.
I mean, I'm in the field ofcoaching because I actually want
to see people shift, transformand have impact, and I've seen
how you can often do that moreeffectively than just training.
You can teach people stuff andthey can get great.
That's wonderful, but unlessthere's actually those
(24:41):
transformations which you'repreaching and give, in some ways
I get what's the point.
And so, as a coach, I get toinquire, give feedback, ask
questions to help people moveforward.
So, to come back to thesituation, to now know the
ability to say, hey, you've gotsome insights Now, rather than
(25:02):
what we do to take it forwards.
It can be simple.
And what are some next stepsyou need to take so that you can
make it a certain?
When I first got exposed to ICIin this work, I probably would
have asked who are the people inyour network that you need to
speak to so that you can make adecision?
And it worked, yeah.
(25:24):
But at the same time, Irealized later there's always
prescribing their behavior intheir culture, and as a coach, I
want to hold the lightest touchpossible.
So these days, I'd recommendthat there are multiple ways to
make a decision, one of which isto make a decision here and now
(25:44):
, in a moment, another of whichis to go and speak to people who
I trust.
I'm sure there's third andfourth and fifth and way as well
.
So I can hold it very lightlyand say for you what's the best
way for us now to be able tomake a decision about what's the
next step to take.
Marco Blankenburgh (26:00):
Yeah, it's a very practical example.
Sarah any other ways that theintercultural way makes a
difference.
What would be a practicalexample.
Sarah Anthony (26:10):
I mean, one of the things I'm thinking about
there is that Matt's example wasvery much him as a coach and
the way he kind of uses wordswith his clients, and that is
definitely one of the ways thatcoaching and bringing
intercultural skills intocoaching can be helpful.
(26:30):
But it can also be helpful withthe intercultural situations
that our clients are having.
So I mean, I'm just reminded ofa recent coaching session with
someone that won't obviouslymention any names, where the
client was dealing with asituation within their team and
(26:51):
they were having problemsgetting some of the stuff done
that they wanted to get done andwhy aren't they acting upon
this, why aren't they doingsomething about it?
And being very task-oriented inher approach to the situation,
and I was able then to kind ofhelp her recognize that perhaps
(27:16):
she wasn't balancing out some ofthe relationship side of things
that would be important toother cultures.
Now I don't think I laid it outquite as directly as I am doing
there.
We had a conversation aroundwhat might she not be seeing
what was important to otherpeople in her team about this,
(27:36):
and she came to a conclusionthrough over the course of an
hour together.
But perhaps she was notconsidering some of the building
trust with her team so thatthey would be willing to do the
tasks and they could still getthe outcome that she wanted, but
by using the relationships andhelping them to feel like she
(28:01):
trusted them, but also balancingout those relationships.
And so that was for me, as Iwent through that, that was a
direct use of one of the 12dimensions in there, helping me
to recognize what might be goingon.
(28:22):
But again, I held it lightly inmy hand so I wasn't necessarily
saying that I used questioningto just get underneath what's
going on, what was important toher about getting this task done
, what might be important tothem in the team and what
perhaps might be missing.
And through doing that I wasable to have her realize that
(28:45):
perhaps the relationship side ofthings were missing.
So she changed her approach andthe result two weeks later when
we got back together was thatshe had actually managed to kind
of change the way she was doingthings and get better results.
It is a journey again.
It's not like she's going toimmediately turn around and
(29:06):
build trust within a two weekperiod, but she had started
adapting the way she was doingthings and so there was a better
understanding growing betweenher and her team members.
So, that was one thing that kindof stood out for me in the
telling of the story.
Marco Blankenburgh (29:24):
You mentioned the word trust, which
is a huge thing in theintercultural space.
It's a huge thing around theglobe.
But one of the things thatwe've talked about in the
certificate for interculturalcoaching is what to listen for,
and you gave a great example ofhow you help your clients think
through the why and whichquestions should they ask
(29:46):
themselves in order to startasking those from their
colleagues.
But this whole idea that trustrevolves around how we
understand respect, how weunderstand reliability, how we
understand what openness mightlook like, and, especially in
coaching, openness to give andreceive feedback, for instance,
is a tricky one, especiallyinterculturally.
(30:08):
And the last one is abouthonesty.
So, when you think about justthose four words and, as an
intercultural coach, helpingyour client explore, well, what
do these actually mean for meand what do they mean for my
team, and how do I figure outwhat it means for each
individual team member and howdoes that help us to build the
(30:29):
bridge of relationship?
So, yeah, it's a very practicalway to apply things, absolutely
.
Sarah Anthony (30:36):
And different for everyone.
Exactly, yeah.
Marco Blankenburgh (30:40):
And only through conversation do you
actually find out.
But also what I find itrequires structure, and I
mentioned in the beginning thatI had the privilege of joining
the certificate of professionalcoaching with North Point and I
came there as I would say apretty good consultant, a decent
(31:02):
trainer and somebody with a lotof intercultural intelligence,
knowledge, not alwaysapplication I still fail
sometimes in that.
But I had to go the other way.
So you drifted into theintercultural space as coaches,
I drifted into the coachingspace as an interculturalist.
If there are people who say,well, I've lived internationally
(31:26):
for X number of years and I'vebeen in senior roles in country
X, y and Z, I know this stuffwhat would you say to them?
Still, even at an experiencedand senior level, getting
equipped as a coach, how wouldthat impact them?
How would that be beneficial?
Sarah Anthony (31:49):
Go for it, Matt.
I've talked for a while.
Matt Trenchard (31:52):
I'll go, and then you add on everything.
Sarah Anthony (31:54):
I miss.
Matt Trenchard (31:55):
I mean the first answer, mark was so much.
I was speaking to a potentialstudent today, someone who's
actually going to join on nextcohort, and he's someone from a
similar culture to myself butlived in the region a long time.
(32:17):
But he spent he's in his 60slooking to in some ways shift
his career, being out ofcorporate and getting to a place
where he could do what's morefulfilling to him and more at
purpose this kind of space.
So this person I was speakingto didn't need this advice but
affected I'll tell you what hewas saying he was recognizing
(32:39):
that he has got all thisexperience but he needs
additional tools so that he canstep into other people's spaces.
He recognized that he needed to, that if he was to do anything
that's going to be moretransformational, more impactful
, more fulfilling, more atpurpose, he needed to step off
(33:00):
the place of I'm the expert, Iknow 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 otherperson make decisions for
themselves and move themselvesforwards.
That's coaching in a nutshellin some ways, and then you add
on into cultural pop-up and thatmakes it more.
Marco Blankenburgh (33:19):
That's great .
Sarah Anthony (33:22):
What I'm reminded of is and Matt made the point
earlier about being students ofoneself how that's one of our
kind of guidelines that we drivetowards as coaches.
And I think for me, like, evenif we get so many people who
(33:45):
think they know how to coach,because they think they know how
to do intercultural stuff andthink they know how to do so
many different things, but theyhaven't integrated themselves
fully into it, they haven'tlived through the experience of
going on that learning journeyand it's very easy to say, oh,
(34:06):
I'm a coach and have read a bookand think that you know how to
do it.
You have read a little bit upon intercultural philosophies
and strategies and think youknow how to how to implement
them.
But there's something aboutliving through that, applying
them, getting feedback, speakingto experts, being integrated
(34:29):
into that process of learningand wanting to develop yourself.
And, without exception, everysingle person who comes on our
CPC, I hear them say, oh, Ithought I was a coach but I'm
not.
And I would probably say thatalso applies to intercultural
(34:50):
coaches who have someintercultural experience as well
, who will probably say Ithought I knew all the different
ways to use this, but theapplication of this material
into a coaching course that'smade for coaches to become
interculturally aware and togrow interculturally is
(35:15):
different than knowing itintellectually, and so there's
the difference between theintellectual knowing even having
been in the situations andexperiencing, to then applying
it to yourself and to others.
And one of the things I'm reallyproud about that we do both in
(35:36):
our certificate and professionalcoaching, which we call CPC or
the CIC the certificate andintercultural coaching that we
do alongside yourself, marco isthat we help someone to get
there by integrating it withinthemselves.
First we model it, we help themto really recognize these
(35:58):
patterns and things that aregoing on within themselves, the
gaps within themselves, theareas where they have strength,
and then we get them to applythat model that with other
people and to get the feedbackof doing that in a safe space,
and then kind of it goes furtherout and they have more impact,
further and further out.
(36:19):
And I think that for me is thedifference between experiencing
it in my everyday world and thengoing and purposely practicing
it and getting really good atthis stuff and being able to
help others, because so manycoaches are there for the reason
and the purpose and the visionof helping other people to
(36:42):
become better at things.
But you can only really do thatonce you've been willing to do
that deep in the work onyourself first.
Matt Trenchard (36:50):
And Sarah, you actually answered something else
that or had another answer towhat Marco was saying.
If I can build on what you'resaying, marco, you asked like
why was someone who's got allthis 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 thatthere's a longing in them, often
(37:14):
unspoken, for like there mustbe more, yeah, and there must be
more.
That isn't just lots of hardwork and me bashing my head
against whatever it is to pushthe move a needle and push it
forward.
Learning coaching does have theeffect of breaking something
open, because it's a new way ofthinking, a new way of doing a
(37:35):
new way of being.
Marco Blankenburgh (37:37):
It's one thing of the challenge of being
a coach, or continuouslybecoming a better coach, is you
can't do that work without beinga student of oneself, as you
say.
Some people walk away from that.
Other people love that becauseit forces you to look at
yourself and you challengeyourself, and that's a beautiful
(38:00):
thing.
One thing I've alwaysappreciated about what North
Point has done is that it's oneof the few coach certifications
in the form of the CPC thatwasn't born in a western nation,
although it was born in Dubai,and that in and of itself and
(38:21):
I've seen it, so you could, Ithink, matt, you said that the
CPC is, is inter-culturallyinformed.
That attracted me withouthaving the fancy language to
explain it like we do today, butthat attracted me from the
beginning and that's also why Ithink sort of the, the, the
(38:42):
Strategic Alliance, was born andthe ability to develop the
blending of our two worldsthrough the certificate and
intercultural coaching cameabout, and I think that that was
just a beautiful journey in andof itself, because you have
that edge over many othercertifications out there that
(39:03):
you are already standing in asuper cosmopolitan global
environment, and that was thebirthplace of the program.
So yeah, anything you want tosay about that, or, yeah, it
could.
Matt Trenchard (39:16):
maybe it could only happen in that place like
Dubai, maybe not only Dubai, butthis like Dubai and also part
of our own is my story withNorth Point and the CPC is that
we both got trained by otherBeijing schools, vastly
different from each other, andthat when Sarah and I got
together and start talking aboutall this stuff and just
(39:39):
realizing you know some of thestrengths, some of the
weaknesses on each of thedifferent systems and realizing
that, yeah, in many ways thesystems have we been taught we
didn't have this language then,but I would use this language
now the differences that we'vebeen taught were in a cultural
(39:59):
echo chamber or in a culturalniche and then.
But the interplay betweenSarah's experience and Sarah's
training of mine, and the factthat we both realize that in our
coaching practice we'd stepbeyond and out of the limited
set of space that we've eachbeen given and found ourselves
(40:21):
in a somewhat similar place,even before we started to work
on CPC.
So right from the beginningthere was this sense of like.
We need to be able to have openand deep conversations about
who the person is and who arewho the people are.
Marco Blankenburgh (40:34):
Now there's this one thing that we didn't
touch on, but it's veryimportant actually in the way we
equip people.
You're talking about a culturalecho chamber, but we also have
the tendency to, when we talkabout culture, to talk about the
average American and theaverage Australian and Brazilian
and etc.
Etc.
You alluded to it, matt,earlier on.
(40:57):
You had a disclaimer.
I said well, I'm not sayingthat 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 andwe've seen the impact of that in
training and advisory work andin doing organizational cultural
(41:17):
work.
But I must say I personallyhave seen the biggest value
actually in the one-on-oneinteraction in a coaching
situation.
So could you speak more to that?
That recognizing as a coachthat I am a uniquely wired
cultural human being I bringthat into the coaching
(41:38):
relationship but alsorecognizing that your coachee is
a uniquely wired cultural humanbeing, how does that shift the
way you connect with yourselfand the way you connect with the
coachee in the relationship?
Matt Trenchard (41:51):
What comes to mind is another one of our
tenants, which is that peopleare and sometimes it's a really
weird word, so we say objects ofgreatness.
What we mean by that is thatthere is greatness within each
person, and it's also what makesyou unique.
And so the coach themselves isa person, is an objective
(42:12):
brainer, and so is the coacheeand also all the people the
coachee engages with.
So, from our perspective ascoaches, I'm there in the room,
be it face to face or virtually,with the other person.
I'm mindful that this personhas so much within them.
I'm mindful that I can't see itall.
(42:32):
They can't see it, they can'tsee it all.
And so it's one of the ideasthat really supports at least me
and, I think, us to actuallyreceive people non-judgmentally.
The coachee has this idea.
It's taking it from therapy ofunconditional positive regard.
But I think we take it further.
(42:53):
It's not just saying, oh, I'mjust going to give you
unconditional positive regard,I'm not just going to say you're
great, I'm actually going tohold the truth that they are as
great as within you, which Ican't see or I have to give you
respect.
I'm there with curiosity, I'malmost there with the sense of
wonder, because I don't reallyknow what it is that's right in
(43:16):
front of me.
Sarah Anthony (43:18):
And I think sometimes the best coaching
happens when they don't know andyou don't know.
And because you're in thisunknown space and you're free to
experiment, just hold lightlywhat they're saying, put it back
at them, ask some questions, becurious and just help them
(43:43):
through what Kogma they might betrying to get through at that
time.
And just because if we go withan attitude of I know how to do
this, I know what to do, I knowwhich direction they should go
in, then we are not allowingthem to, even if we're right and
(44:07):
occasionally that might be thedirection they decide to go in
but we are taking away theirability to believe in themselves
and that they can do it forthemselves, and coaching is
about helping them to realisethat.
I think the other thing is thatobviously you have assessments
to help you to learn about yourown cultural wiring, and those
(44:31):
assessments have been reallygreat for getting me to be
self-aware of myself as auniquely wired cultural human
being.
I don't know if I said all thosewords in the right order.
And it also let me realise thatthere's an interplay.
(44:53):
It's not just about oh well,I'm more of an innocent, skilled
world view and therefore I mustbe a direct communicator and
actually I'm rubbish at this andI'm rubbish at that.
It's more about learning thatthere are differences out there
and being able to then recognisethat when it turns up in a
(45:18):
coaching session.
And so I have said fairly often, several times, that power and
fear world views are the lowestthe lowest on my assessments for
me, and I found them difficult.
Now I've learnt to find themless difficult because I've
learnt to take the fear out ofthe power of fear and to
(45:42):
actually recognise the goodthat's in that and the positive
that can come from that worldview and to look at it with
different eyes, which perhaps Ididn't even realise was there
before.
And doing so.
If I had worked with someonewho had more power, fear in
(46:05):
their kind of chart, in theirassessment that, I would perhaps
find some of thoseconversations difficult in the
past, but now I've been able toadapt, to understand and say, ok
, this isn't negative, this isactually quite positive.
Let me work with them for theirstrengths, for what's important
(46:26):
to them, and take myself out ofthat equation with things that
I believe to be true because ofwhat I have, the assumptions
that I've held previously, andso I come to this with more of
an openness about what ispossible for our relationship,
(46:46):
no matter where we lie on thatscale, and I think that for me
is that acceptance and thatwillingness to say OK, you see
things completely different tome and that's OK.
How do you see it?
Because I see things this way.
But how do you see things andwhat does this mean for you, and
(47:08):
helping you to come up withyour answers in your way that
work for you, rather than, oh,you need to fit into my box.
Marco Blankenburgh (47:19):
Yeah, yeah, and what you're mentioning about
the use of, for instance, thelanguage of the three colours of
worldview in this skilled honor, shame, power, fear, that
language in and of itself isneutral, but what I learned
about change management, forinstance, one of the ingredients
of change is you need to havethe language to articulate
(47:41):
yourself to actually be able tosay, ah, that's what that is.
So, having a neutral languagethrough the three colours of
worldview, through the culturalmapping inventory, the 12
dimensions of culture, weactually start to have words to
describe our differences andthat makes them entities in the
(48:02):
conversation, in therelationship, and that allows us
to then use that to make changehappen in ourselves as coaches,
but also, of course, help thecoachee to explore what that
might mean for them.
Sarah Anthony (48:17):
So, yeah, it's not only at that time when
things come up, becausesometimes I'll be coaching
someone and the situation's justcome up.
But I'm able to then perhapsbring them some knowledge and
say, here, where do you thinkyou are in this?
You know what's going on foryou, right?
Other times I may choose tobring in that work first off and
(48:43):
say, ok, it sounds like theissues within this organisation
are a bit more from anintercultural perspective, or
they may even be aware we canbring in that knowledge upfront.
But I may be coaching someonejust purely around, anything
like with the example I gaveearlier.
I wasn't in there for anintercultural piece of work with
(49:07):
that person, but it came upanyway and that's you know.
That often does come up in thatway.
So me being aware of it helpsme to better serve my coaches in
those situations where it doescome up.
Marco Blankenburgh (49:21):
Yeah, and I like what you say because you're
in essence indicating that insome cases it just flows
organically through theconversation.
In other cases, you mightactually introduce it as a tool
and could be even the assessmenteither one of the assessments
and you use the assessment as away to reflect on their
situation or the relationshipsthat are trying to manage.
(49:43):
So, both organically, making itpart of how you coach, or, a
little bit more formally,bringing it in as a tool, is
really powerful.
Now Matt wants to say somethingelse.
Matt Trenchard (49:58):
Just to summarize on something, just to
say, because a lot of coachesare about mindset, and so, marco
, in your work you talk aboutcultural critic versus cultural
learner, and so it's superimportant, as a coach, to be a
cultural learner, to beconsciously a cultural learner,
because, like I and I justpicked up on this earlier when
you were talking about we mayassess that person's cultural
(50:19):
right, but if we're doing so,we'll be in cultural critic, so
we need to actually keep beingcultural learners.
Sarah Anthony (50:25):
Absolutely.
Marco Blankenburgh (50:28):
Great point Now.
The CIC was launched during avery difficult time the
certificate in interculturalcoaching and we've had a trickle
but a very passionate andenthusiastic four cohorts, who
are by and large vocational,about having gone through it and
(50:50):
they really made it part oftheir lives.
And I still remember one of theparticipants now is actually
doing a PhD on the efficacy ofintercultural coaching for
educators, for instance.
One of the gentlemen that hasjoined used to be more on the
counselling side of the equationand I still remember you know
(51:14):
counselling is really importantbut he realized he said he
thought that every conversationrequired a counselling approach
and then he finished thecertification and he realized
most situations do not require acounselling approach and he's
super enthusiastic about, youknow, using the intercultural
(51:37):
approach to coaching.
It's beautiful to see peoplebring those nuances into the way
they practice.
When you think about thecertificate in intercultural
coaching, we already sort oftalked about who might be a
person that might join thatprogram.
But if you had a chance tospeak to our audience, what
(51:59):
would you say to them?
Why join the program?
Who should join?
What's the impact going to be?
Sarah Anthony (52:05):
Well to speak.
I mean one of the things someof the people who have been
through the program haven'tnecessarily been fully fledged
coaches.
They've had some coachingexperience, but not fully
fledged coaches before.
And I know, like I was speakingto one of the participants the
other like a couple of weeksback and he said to me I wish
(52:28):
I'd had more coach experiencegoing through it.
So we generally ask for peoplebecause this isn't teaching you
how to coach.
Our CPC teaches you how tocoach.
If you want to learn the basiccoaching skills and to build on
that foundation and to getreally good at coaching, that's
the place to do that.
But this brings on that extralevel on top of your coaching
(52:53):
ability to really be able todeal with those intercultural
situations that we've talkedabout before, to recognize them,
to see when it's coming up, allthe things that we have talked
about, all those situationswhere we've realized that our
coaching alone actually neededsomething with a bit more depth,
(53:14):
and to add that learning on top.
For me, that's what it does.
It's almost like an advancedlevel of coaching.
So we'd love to have people whoare already coaches on this.
Now there are a couple ofsituations where we have allowed
people who've had somepractical experience in that.
(53:34):
But even then I've had peoplecome back to me and go.
I wish that I'd taken that tostanding in coaching first.
So because actually I would havegained so much more.
So, I think, to be alreadycoaching, to already be
experiencing some of thesesituations where you recognize
(53:55):
that perhaps I don't have allthe tools to deal with these
types of situations, or to beworking with a client the way
that Matt described earlier andthinking there's something
missing here.
I think I'm missing something inthe area of working with my
coachees.
Perhaps I'm workinginterculturally and I don't
(54:19):
recognize some of the thingsthat are coming up, or I can't
move them to action or I can'thelp them with certain things
then this is a greatcertification for you to become
involved with and to learn and,without a shadow of doubt, every
single person who comes off theback of this gains in a big way
(54:39):
in terms of the depth of theircoaching and the situations that
they're able to resolve withtheir clients and the
relationships that they havewith their client, because I
always see it as it's not justabout helping someone with
intercultural situations andissues.
It's actually about helpingsomeone with relationships and
(55:00):
being able to do on a deeperlevel, but also managing your
own relationship with yourclient in a much deeper level
and much deeper way.
Marco Blankenburgh (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 depthof understanding of what
coaching actually is, then startthere and then, if you do have
that, to join the.
Cic certificate inintercultural coaching.
Sarah Anthony (55:33):
If you have coaching skills, you don't have
to be from our school.
It's open to all coaches whowant to then add that deeper
level.
Matt Trenchard (55:45):
Matt anything to add.
The learning and practice ofcoaching has a way of opening
oneself up to noticing morethings, so you begin to notice
how you think and how you feelmore consciously, or you pick up
nuances in relationships andothers, the other privacy you
(56:06):
wouldn't have, and so this addsanother layer on the people.
Who most benefit are folks whoare coaching but also are on
that journey of like.
Yeah, I know how this hasalready helped me and I want to
engage, I want to serve in awider and deeper level.
(56:27):
It brings my back to what wetalked 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 whowants to actually make a
positive difference in the world, then this is going to help.
Marco Blankenburgh (56:44):
Yeah, and it's beautiful to see sort of
the alumni network.
We're pulling together some ofour alumni in our office over
the weekend and it's justbeautiful to see how that group
of people is growing slowly andit's kindred spirits and there's
always lots of energy and lotsof creativity and just a
(57:07):
beautiful group of people thatis growing and I'm really
grateful that we have been partof that together and the way
you've equipped me and the waywe've embraced each other
through the strategic alliance.
So I'm looking forward to thefuture.
Sarah Anthony (57:25):
Can I just add something else about the last
question, but one other personthat this is for is for those
who want to specialize in theintercultural side of things.
Now, obviously, there's an ICIcertification, which is from
KnowledgeWorks, and I think thatif someone wants to learn that
(57:46):
depth of coaching and in manyways I feel like I should ask
you a question, marco, what yougot from coaching on to your
intercultural experience, whatdid it give you that you didn't
have before?
Because I think that is one ofthe areas that some people want
to stay in that consultant spaceand that's right for them, and
(58:10):
they want to just have theexperience of ICI, which is such
a powerful framework.
There will be others who reallywant to take it to that next
level and to coach.
So what did it give you?
Marco Blankenburgh (58:23):
if you don't mind me asking, I think the
most important thing is reallythat in consulting, it's about
analysis and advice.
Those are typically the two mainwords, but the analysis is
almost transactional often so,and even when I look at
(58:47):
classical consultinginterviewing it's very
transactional, very data drivenand task driven and the
questions are typically not sogood, especially not on the
relational side and reallydigging into why is this
organization operating the wayit does or why do they have this
particular dilemma.
And I think a coach likeapproach gets you so much closer
(59:12):
to the crux of the matter.
And by using that coach likeapproach, by being question
oriented and bringing theprocess, not the content,
actually you get to a pointwhere people open up about
things that in classicalconsulting you would never find
out about.
And I think that's one thing.
The other thing is really it'sso much more fun because the
(59:36):
pressure is off, I don't need tocontinuously be the smart guy,
bring the content, I can justbring a process and it
illuminates and it opens updoors that they've never walked
through and they start to seethings, and it's so much more
fun.
It doesn't you know.
Sarah Anthony (59:58):
So, yeah, Thank you for letting me do that.
Marco Blankenburgh (01:00:07):
Thank you so much for joining us for this
episode of the cultural agilitypodcast.
If you enjoyed today's episode,share it with someone.
The best way to help us out isby 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 topicswe discussed today intrigue you
(01:00:29):
, you will find links toarticles discussing them in
greater depth in the podcastnotes.
If you would like to learn moreabout intercultural
intelligence and how you canbecome more culturally agile,
you can find more informationand hundreds of articles at
KnowledgeWorkscom.
A special thanks to JasonCarter for composing the music
(01:00:51):
on this podcast and to the wholeKnowledgeWorks team for making
this podcast a success.
Thank you, nita Rodriguez, araAziz-Bakyan, rajitha Raj, and
thanks to Vip and George foraudio production, rosalind Raj
for scheduling and Kali Pstrausfor marketing and helping
produce this podcast.
The coach has this idea.
It's taking it from therapy ofunconditional positive regard.
But I think we take it further.
It's not just saying, oh, I'mjust going to give you
unconditional positive regard.
I'm not just going to sayyou're great, I'm actually going
to hold the truth that thereare as great as within you which
I can't see and therefore Ihave to.
I give you respect.
(00:21):
I'm there with curiosity, I'malmost there with the sense of
wonder, so I don't really knowwhat it is that's right in front
of me.
Marco Blankenburgh (00:37):
Welcome to the cultural agility podcast,
where we explore the stories ofsome of the most advanced
intercultural practitioners fromaround the world to help you
become culturally agile andsucceed in today's culturally
complex world.
I'm your host, marcoBlankenberg, international
Director of KnowledgeWorks,where every day, we help
(00:58):
individuals and companiesachieve relational success in
that same complex world.
Welcome again to the LockingIntercultural Agility podcast,
and today we have an importanttopic that is focused on
coaching, and we have actuallytwo of my favorite coaches and
(01:20):
partners and friends in ourvirtual studio today.
Matt Tranchaud and SarahAnthony are here with us.
Thank you so much for joiningus, really appreciate it and
we're going to talk aboutintercultural coaching, also
coaching, the bigger picture ofcoaching and our own journeys
and how the intercultural sideof coaching has become a really
(01:42):
integral part of how we functionand operate as professionals
and as coaches.
So I want to give you thechance to introduce yourselves
briefly and then we'll dive intothe topic.
So maybe, sarah, if you want tokick us off.
Sarah Anthony (01:56):
Yeah, absolutely.
So.
I'm really happy to be here,firstly, and very honored to
have been asked and to beworking with you, marco, and
obviously Matt, on this topic,because it's something that's
very dear to my heart and to ourhearts.
(02:17):
So I've been I've obviouslybeen a coach for two, many years
I can't even remember it's beena good like it's tens, rather,
you know, and 20s rather than,rather than a few years, and it
goes right back to my timeworking as a leader and coaching
(02:37):
people in my organization andin different organizations that
I worked for, but also thenbecoming an accredited coach,
going on that journey oflearning more about coaching,
developing my coaching skills inthat way, doing the inner work
for coach and then trainingpeople to become coaches as well
(02:58):
and working with organizations,individuals, and one of the
things that will probably cometo later is kind of us meeting
you and integrating with theintercultural way of working and
what that's brought to mycoaching.
But I think I'll leave that alittle space for us.
(03:18):
Later We'll get to it.
Marco Blankenburgh (03:23):
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.
Matt Trenchard (03:32):
Oh, sarah, I feel you've stolen my thunder
because I can say a lot of thevery, very same things.
But, mark, it's great to behere, thank you.
I mean, coaching has been likean integral part of my work and
my life.
Can I feel that, even before Ilearn coaching, see one of those
things, one of thoseprofessions that I think is a
(03:54):
vocation, at least for me?
It means who it's looking forsomething that would provide
depth to the work I was doingalready with teams and my senses
?
I found it.
Sarah, I know she and I havetalked about this kind of thing
and that's actually why not onlydo we do coaching, but we do
coach training.
It's also why we're engagingwith you because, yeah, the work
(04:17):
that you're bringing intocultural space is just adding
depth to that.
Personally, I live in Dubai, inthe UAE.
I've been here since 2006.
We met a long time ago, marko,and then we kind of rekindled
the friendship in more recentyears.
One thing I'm aware of in thisspace that we have here is that
(04:37):
all of us are interculturallymarried, so this stuff is real
to all of us, and so I'm glad tobe here with friends.
Thanks, marko.
Marco Blankenburgh (04:48):
I was thinking about that.
Yes, thanks for raising that,because indeed we don't just do
this professionally, we try topractice it at home as well, and
we all three of us know howchallenging that is.
Yeah, and I love what NorthPoint is doing because I was
(05:13):
formally introduced to coachingthrough the two of you.
So I'm really grateful for thatbecause I still remember I have
been, I drifted into thecoaching space as a consultant
and you might remember thoseearly attempts at being a coach
where I really had to bury myconsulting hat and really
(05:36):
learning to step into thecoaching space.
So I'm really grateful that Ihad the opportunity, through
your expertise and through thecertificate in professional
coaching, the CPC, to do that,and that's why I think we are
actually on this conversationtogether.
One of the reasons why Now,today is not just about coaching
(05:56):
.
I mean, the world of coachingis growing globally.
The world of coaching isrespected by managers, by
leaders, by organizations moreand more and, as a result, even
credentialing as a coach hasbecome important.
So getting a coach certificatethat I've officially recognized
like the CPC, through theInternational Coaching.
(06:17):
Federation.
But then people say, well, I'malready a coach.
You're talking aboutintercultural coaching today.
What's the difference?
Why bother with yet anotherprogram that I need to invest
time and money in?
So what is interculturalcoaching and how does it
(06:37):
distinguish itself from sort ofmore traditional coaching and
any certification you can get inthat field?
Matt Trenchard (06:44):
Thank you, mark, welcome to mine.
For me for this, it wasactually to give us like a micro
history lesson, and that's tosay that coaching really as a
profession began in the 1980s,began in the US.
There were people doing somenew kinds of work there and the
ICF was formed.
(07:05):
International CoachingFederation, or Coach Federation
as it was then, was formed fromsome of those early
practitioners with a sense oflike you know, we need to
formalize this, we need toprovide some functionality, we
need to actually put down somesense of what is this thing that
we're doing and how do we knowwe're doing it.
And as part of that, theycreated what I call the ICF core
competencies, and we're 11 atthe time, and what I bring this
(07:27):
up is that I think it was abouttwo years ago.
Two to three years ago the ICFhad been through a process to
review all of the competenciesin light of many factors,
including the fact that coachingwas now no longer a solely
either American or, you mightsay, western pursuit, and as a
(07:48):
result, they recognize that theyneeded to recraft some of the
other competencies and theyactually married down from 11 to
eight, and these now new eightcompetencies are much more open
when it comes to differentcultures, particularly as you,
and that knowledge works.
I see I describe it Previously.
(08:09):
Other cultures had to like,shoehorn their, their cultures
in or shoehorn coaching intotheir cultures, and it worked,
but it had to be, had to bepushed or manhandled in.
And now we're finding that withthese new competencies, that is
, that actually there's a littlemore space that coaching can
(08:30):
fit into multiple differentcultures, and so therefore
there's a need to actually bringmuch of the culture and
intercultural work out of theunconscious space into the
conscious space that thatapproaches can actually
consciously engage in differentcultures.
Marco Blankenburgh (08:44):
Hmm, thank you for that.
Sarah Anthony (08:47):
mini history, lesson I do I mean, I would
agree with Matt.
What I would additionally, Ithink, like to add in is from a
more personal perspective.
Coaches are finding themselves,as you said earlier, coaching
(09:08):
in a more globalized world andcoming across situations that
perhaps that they weren'tinitially, they they would be
coaching people from their owncultures, but now we're all
coaching lots of differentpeople working in diverse
situations.
Working, you know, it's a lotmore complex and and we don't
(09:31):
necessarily with coaching aswithout, kind of the
intercultural layer on top ofthat, we don't perhaps have all
of the tools that we could haveto help out in those complex
situations and to understandwhat's going on, both in a as a
coach, with our clients, andalso helping our clients with
(09:54):
the situations they findthemselves in as they work with
different teams from differentareas of the world.
So what I think is we'reoffering, you know, the
opportunity to get over some ofthose stereotypes and those
broad assumptions that we canmake about different.
You know, oh, a person from,you know, scotland is like this
(10:16):
and the person from Africa islike this, but to give us some
frameworks for being moreadaptable, customizing our
experience, communicating andcollaborating in a better way,
and I think being a coachrequires that deeper work as
well.
(10:36):
You know, as a coach, we're notjust looking at oh, I'm a coach
and I can label myself as acoach now and I have no further
work to be done.
Actually, we need to be lookingfurther within ourselves of
what is the next step we need totake, and I feel for a lot of
people it is that interculturalstep of understanding people
(10:59):
from different cultures, becausethe world is so globalized,
because business is soglobalized and because our
clients are from all sorts ofdifferent places now, and that
has definitely increased overthe past few years.
Matt Trenchard (11:12):
Actually, I was leading a session of coach
training.
We had a cohort of students andas part of that we from time to
time we do coach demos todemonstrate some of the coaching
skills, and the person whovolunteered was also a gentleman
from the Gulf region.
The topic he brought in essence, said.
(11:33):
I took me some time to get toit, but the essence of it was
that he'd realized that someother people of a similar
culture to him in his office mayhave said some things about him
which other people then wouldhave heard and thought less of
him.
And I subsequently, inreflecting on the session,
(11:56):
realized that beforeintercultural 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 thoughtto myself oh, that sounds a bit
silly and perhaps in othercultures that could be seen that
way, but in his culture it wasactually really important
because it led to his reputationand what we were thinking about
(12:21):
it.
And so, because I had thetraining, I was able to hold
this situation with the weightthey deserved and coach him
around and help him come to somedecisions around it.
Yet he made some decisions thatyou recognize that in his mind.
He'd been naive in the past,needs to be a bit more conscious
and aware of others were.
(12:42):
Receiving on the cell phonemakes him different decisions
going forward.
Hmm, it is always just didcoach him.
What went into cultural, whatcame in, was allow me to hold,
with value and with sufficientweight, the top of the hills
bring in a way that wasimportant to me.
Marco Blankenburgh (13:04):
Absolutely, and I mean you think about the
pandemic it actually hasresulted.
First people thought, oh, we'regonna get less into cultural
and actually what I see happen?
We've become more into culturalBecause now you can work from
any place, with any company,with colleagues anywhere in the
world.
And the same seems to behappening in the coaching space.
(13:24):
The coaches just follow thework fabric of the work
ecosystem that people arecreating and, as a result, one
figure I read was that out ofthe coaches that are in the ICF,
roughly 30% of them say I coachacross cultures regularly, and
that's quite a significantnumber of all the coaches
globally.
Matt Trenchard (13:44):
And I think, and I think that under estimation,
Okay, if I can briefly buildjust minutes about the pandemic,
but not just the pandemic, likeyou know.
Sorry to bring up a more sombernote, but some of us are
happening in the world now, sayUkraine and Russia, and right
(14:07):
now Israel, and mass all thatstuff, no matter where you fall
on it when you're working withothers from other context, even
if they are not directlyaffected by it.
There's probably some some wayin which there, some less, we've
got some sort of cultural toolsinto, cultural tools of that we
can lay our hands on as coaches.
We're either going to missstuff or we're not going to be
(14:29):
able to support our clients inthe most powerful positive way,
or, in the worst case, we'regoing to actually bring our own
Misconceptions into the room andactually do more harm than we
could do.
Good, yeah, and the big pictureI see is that we're shifting
the world from what you mightcall a unipolar world we had
America being the dominant forcethe multipolar world where
(14:52):
you've got, you know, strengthsand powers from all over the
world and all different places,all different cultures.
So this is really important,really, really.
Marco Blankenburgh (14:59):
Yeah, and that puts us in a dilemma,
because then one way ofoperating is not the preferred
way of operating anymore, andthat's where cultural agility
becomes really important, whenthe way intellectual property,
the way goods, the way peoplemove across borders is quite
radically different betweennations, and that has impact for
(15:22):
how we do our work and how manytools we need to have in our
toolbox.
So, in order to think a littlebit deeper about the
intercultural side of coachingand 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?
(15:43):
We already mentioned you knowall three of us are
interculturally married.
That's another growth lessonthat continues the rest of our
lives where being anintercultural coach could be
helpful, although your spousemight get fed up with you if you
ask one more coaching question.
But still what?
(16:04):
Tell me a little bit about yourstory.
Why did you drift into theintercultural coaching space,
into the interculturalintelligence certification,
adding that perspective to yourown coaching practice?
Sarah Anthony (16:16):
How did that happen for you.
Well, I mean match like I firstof, do you want?
I mean, I feel in some waysMatt does come first in this
because he, you know it did comefrom our relationship with you,
first off and and he delvedinto that world sooner than me
(16:37):
and and did the ICIcertification and then that led
in certain directions.
But I think you know, throughour relationship with you, marco
, we came to realize that therewas more depth that we could get
to in the coaching world andthat the work that you were
doing was really important forall the reasons we've already
(17:00):
said in many respects.
You know the fact the world isbecoming more globalized, the
fact that the ICF are startingto recognize that there are more
people in the world than justthis 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
(17:22):
discussions about the ones thatwe didn't enjoy from an
intercultural perspective, and Ithink I just came to realize
that I need, I needed some moretools to enable me to have those
kind of conversations.
I was coming across situationsand maybe I didn't even realize
it until I had the certificationsometimes, but there were also
(17:46):
some time, you know.
So a lot of that is looking backgoing 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 bitmore to help me with some of the
relationship situations thateither I was coaching around or
that I was finding myself in,whether that be relationships
(18:08):
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 timeago but also recognizing the in
in work situations, becausebecause even I can be speaking
(18:32):
to someone who is from the sameculture in inverted I'm doing
the inverted commas there forthose who can't see us and I can
still and I can still have acompletely different cultural
background to them and there canstill be things where I miss
(18:53):
things or they.
You know we miss one another inour communication.
So it's learning to start beingmore adaptable and recognizing
that and I recognize that Ineeded that.
I think the interculturalmarriage did start that process
of thinking oh OK, there'sthings going on here I'm not
(19:14):
perhaps doing right, and thenonce again in inverted commas
there, and how can I do the bestin my personal relationships?
And then how can I pass that onto my clients?
How can I do better with myclients in helping them to
recognize the things that arecoming up, the assumptions that
(19:34):
they might be making that arebased upon culture rather than
their skill or their ability andthose other areas?
So that was one of the bigthings that led me in that
direction and, as I said, now Ilook back and I see so many
situations where I'm like whycould I handle that so much
(19:56):
easier?
I may be dealt with thesituation, I may be helped to
overcome it somewhere, but Icould have done it easier with a
better if I had had some ofthese tools at that time.
Marco Blankenburgh (20:08):
And Matt earlier on mentioned that it's
not just a profession, it's avocation, and I can feel that in
the way you speak about it aswell.
It's a way of life.
Absolutely, matt.
What about you?
Matt Trenchard (20:20):
It's your journey being Sarah, my ears
picked up when you talked aboutdoing it, right yeah, and you
made me realize that, like youand I, in our coaching work, in
our coaching teaching more likewe talk about being a student of
oneself, but this is an ongoingjourney that we never actually
get to.
(20:40):
You know 100 percent selfknowledge that we're always
learning, and so I mean, mark,this is testament not only to
the depth of coaching knowledgebut also the depth of in the
culture, like you can't get tothe end of it, there's always
more.
And so, like, sit here today,genuinely say I'm so much more
into culturally aware andconnected than I was 10 years
(21:02):
ago, but I'm almost more certainthat I'm nowhere near as into
culturally connected and awarethat I will be in 10 years time.
But it's a definite journeyhere as far as the person that
comes up to me.
The second thing is that youasked what drew me into this.
It was a sense that it wassomething that was going to fill
a gap.
But I had a number of coachingsessions, particularly with
(21:26):
people from sufficientlydifferent cultures, and like
having successful coachingsession in coaching series but
then a felt gap.
So like one of the gaps wasworking with a gentleman from
the Gulf and getting to thepoint of the coaching
(21:46):
conversation and I was like OK,so we've talked about this stuff
, you've seen your insights, butnow what steps you take, how
you are, what things you want tochoose to do in order to hold
yourself, to move yourselfforward and hold yourself
accountable.
It kind of felt that thatmoment that he shifted from
great clarity and openness andthose kind of things to then
(22:08):
trying to avoid things, it feltlike I was chasing him round and
round and never actuallygetting anywhere.
We can go on to some of the whylater.
It was that kind of experiencethat led me to like I'm sure
there's other ways of doing thisthat are more effective in this
cultural setting than what I'vebeen doing so far.
Marco Blankenburgh (22:30):
Yeah, yeah, and you're starting to already
talk about what does it looklike in practice, and I think
that's what our audience is alsointerested in.
How does this work?
What's the before and aftereffect?
You know, how does it makepractical difference?
So you started to use anexample, matt, and that story in
(22:54):
and of itself is it's helpfulto have, for instance, the, the
ICI framework, like the threecolors of worldview and the 12
dimensions of culture, toactually understand why he was
hesitating to make a commitmentright there and then Right, yeah
, would you mind continuing thestory?
Yes, that's a practical exampleof how it makes a difference.
Matt Trenchard (23:17):
Exactly, and so how the story ends like my story
isn't, oh.
And then I learned ICI and thenI carried on with the same
client.
If it was great, I didn't know,it wasn't that quick.
But what I subsequently learnedand then be able to put into
practice with other people fromthe same kind of culture, is
recognizing that decision makingis done differently in
(23:39):
different cultures.
So one of the one of the topdimensions polarity is about
decision making and is it made?
Do you make it yourself, byyourself, or do you make it in
collaboration and conversationwith other people, in a more of
a collective sense?
And the second one is much morecultural to this region.
(23:59):
I mean, I definitely subscribeto what you say, marko, that you
don't label people with aregion, you don't say, oh, you
are this culture and there aresome broad, big pictures.
So, yeah, definitely found thatpeople working from the Middle
Eastern region often prefer totake decisions when they've had
an opportunity to discuss itwith other people who are
(24:21):
significant and important tothem.
I mean, I'm in the field ofcoaching because I actually want
to see people shift, transformand have impact, and I've seen
how you can often do that moreeffectively than just training.
You can teach people stuff andthey can get great.
That's wonderful, but unlessthere's actually those
(24:41):
transformations which you'repreaching and give, in some ways
I get what's the point.
And so, as a coach, I get toinquire, give feedback, ask
questions to help people moveforward.
So, to come back to thesituation, to now know the
ability to say, hey, you've gotsome insights Now, rather than
(25:02):
what we do to take it forwards.
It can be simple.
And what are some next stepsyou need to take so that you can
make it a certain?
When I first got exposed to ICIin this work, I probably would
have asked who are the people inyour network that you need to
speak to so that you can make adecision?
And it worked, yeah.
(25:24):
But at the same time, Irealized later there's always
prescribing their behavior intheir culture, and as a coach, I
want to hold the lightest touchpossible.
So these days, I'd recommendthat there are multiple ways to
make a decision, one of which isto make a decision here and now
(25:44):
, in a moment, another of whichis to go and speak to people who
I trust.
I'm sure there's third andfourth and fifth and way as well
.
So I can hold it very lightlyand say for you what's the best
way for us now to be able tomake a decision about what's the
next step to take.
Marco Blankenburgh (26:00):
Yeah, it's a very practical example.
Sarah any other ways that theintercultural way makes a
difference.
What would be a practicalexample.
Sarah Anthony (26:10):
I mean, one of the things I'm thinking about
there is that Matt's example wasvery much him as a coach and
the way he kind of uses wordswith his clients, and that is
definitely one of the ways thatcoaching and bringing
intercultural skills intocoaching can be helpful.
(26:30):
But it can also be helpful withthe intercultural situations
that our clients are having.
So I mean, I'm just reminded ofa recent coaching session with
someone that won't obviouslymention any names, where the
client was dealing with asituation within their team and
(26:51):
they were having problemsgetting some of the stuff done
that they wanted to get done andwhy aren't they acting upon
this, why aren't they doingsomething about it?
And being very task-oriented inher approach to the situation,
and I was able then to kind ofhelp her recognize that perhaps
(27:16):
she wasn't balancing out some ofthe relationship side of things
that would be important toother cultures.
Now I don't think I laid it outquite as directly as I am doing
there.
We had a conversation aroundwhat might she not be seeing
what was important to otherpeople in her team about this,
(27:36):
and she came to a conclusionthrough over the course of an
hour together.
But perhaps she was notconsidering some of the building
trust with her team so thatthey would be willing to do the
tasks and they could still getthe outcome that she wanted, but
by using the relationships andhelping them to feel like she
(28:01):
trusted them, but also balancingout those relationships.
And so that was for me, as Iwent through that, that was a
direct use of one of the 12dimensions in there, helping me
to recognize what might be goingon.
(28:22):
But again, I held it lightly inmy hand so I wasn't necessarily
saying that I used questioningto just get underneath what's
going on, what was important toher about getting this task done
, what might be important tothem in the team and what
perhaps might be missing.
And through doing that I wasable to have her realize that
(28:45):
perhaps the relationship side ofthings were missing.
So she changed her approach andthe result two weeks later when
we got back together was thatshe had actually managed to kind
of change the way she was doingthings and get better results.
It is a journey again.
It's not like she's going toimmediately turn around and
(29:06):
build trust within a two weekperiod, but she had started
adapting the way she was doingthings and so there was a better
understanding growing betweenher and her team members.
So, that was one thing that kindof stood out for me in the
telling of the story.
Marco Blankenburgh (29:24):
You mentioned the word trust, which
is a huge thing in theintercultural space.
It's a huge thing around theglobe.
But one of the things thatwe've talked about in the
certificate for interculturalcoaching is what to listen for,
and you gave a great example ofhow you help your clients think
through the why and whichquestions should they ask
(29:46):
themselves in order to startasking those from their
colleagues.
But this whole idea that trustrevolves around how we
understand respect, how weunderstand reliability, how we
understand what openness mightlook like, and, especially in
coaching, openness to give andreceive feedback, for instance,
is a tricky one, especiallyinterculturally.
(30:08):
And the last one is abouthonesty.
So, when you think about justthose four words and, as an
intercultural coach, helpingyour client explore, well, what
do these actually mean for meand what do they mean for my
team, and how do I figure outwhat it means for each
individual team member and howdoes that help us to build the
(30:29):
bridge of relationship?
So, yeah, it's a very practicalway to apply things, absolutely
.
Sarah Anthony (30:36):
And different for everyone.
Exactly, yeah.
Marco Blankenburgh (30:40):
And only through conversation do you
actually find out.
But also what I find itrequires structure, and I
mentioned in the beginning thatI had the privilege of joining
the certificate of professionalcoaching with North Point and I
came there as I would say apretty good consultant, a decent
(31:02):
trainer and somebody with a lotof intercultural intelligence,
knowledge, not alwaysapplication I still fail
sometimes in that.
But I had to go the other way.
So you drifted into theintercultural space as coaches,
I drifted into the coachingspace as an interculturalist.
If there are people who say,well, I've lived internationally
(31:26):
for X number of years and I'vebeen in senior roles in country
X, y and Z, I know this stuffwhat would you say to them?
Still, even at an experiencedand senior level, getting
equipped as a coach, how wouldthat impact them?
How would that be beneficial?
Sarah Anthony (31:49):
Go for it, Matt.
I've talked for a while.
Matt Trenchard (31:52):
I'll go, and then you add on everything.
Sarah Anthony (31:54):
I miss.
Matt Trenchard (31:55):
I mean the first answer, mark was so much.
I was speaking to a potentialstudent today, someone who's
actually going to join on nextcohort, and he's someone from a
similar culture to myself butlived in the region a long time.
(32:17):
But he spent he's in his 60slooking to in some ways shift
his career, being out ofcorporate and getting to a place
where he could do what's morefulfilling to him and more at
purpose this kind of space.
So this person I was speakingto didn't need this advice but
affected I'll tell you what hewas saying he was recognizing
(32:39):
that he has got all thisexperience but he needs
additional tools so that he canstep into other people's spaces.
He recognized that he needed to, that if he was to do anything
that's going to be moretransformational, more impactful
, more fulfilling, more atpurpose, he needed to step off
(33:00):
the place of I'm the expert, Iknow 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 otherperson make decisions for
themselves and move themselvesforwards.
That's coaching in a nutshellin some ways, and then you add
on into cultural pop-up and thatmakes it more.
Marco Blankenburgh (33:19):
That's great .
Sarah Anthony (33:22):
What I'm reminded of is and Matt made the point
earlier about being students ofoneself how that's one of our
kind of guidelines that we drivetowards as coaches.
And I think for me, like, evenif we get so many people who
(33:45):
think they know how to coach,because they think they know how
to do intercultural stuff andthink they know how to do so
many different things, but theyhaven't integrated themselves
fully into it, they haven'tlived through the experience of
going on that learning journeyand it's very easy to say, oh,
(34:06):
I'm a coach and have read a bookand think that you know how to
do it.
You have read a little bit upon intercultural philosophies
and strategies and think youknow how to how to implement
them.
But there's something aboutliving through that, applying
them, getting feedback, speakingto experts, being integrated
(34:29):
into that process of learningand wanting to develop yourself.
And, without exception, everysingle person who comes on our
CPC, I hear them say, oh, Ithought I was a coach but I'm
not.
And I would probably say thatalso applies to intercultural
(34:50):
coaches who have someintercultural experience as well
, who will probably say Ithought I knew all the different
ways to use this, but theapplication of this material
into a coaching course that'smade for coaches to become
interculturally aware and togrow interculturally is
(35:15):
different than knowing itintellectually, and so there's
the difference between theintellectual knowing even having
been in the situations andexperiencing, to then applying
it to yourself and to others.
And one of the things I'm reallyproud about that we do both in
(35:36):
our certificate and professionalcoaching, which we call CPC or
the CIC the certificate andintercultural coaching that we
do alongside yourself, marco isthat we help someone to get
there by integrating it withinthemselves.
First we model it, we help themto really recognize these
(35:58):
patterns and things that aregoing on within themselves, the
gaps within themselves, theareas where they have strength,
and then we get them to applythat model that with other
people and to get the feedbackof doing that in a safe space,
and then kind of it goes furtherout and they have more impact,
further and further out.
(36:19):
And I think that for me is thedifference between experiencing
it in my everyday world and thengoing and purposely practicing
it and getting really good atthis stuff and being able to
help others, because so manycoaches are there for the reason
and the purpose and the visionof helping other people to
(36:42):
become better at things.
But you can only really do thatonce you've been willing to do
that deep in the work onyourself first.
Matt Trenchard (36:50):
And Sarah, you actually answered something else
that or had another answer towhat Marco was saying.
If I can build on what you'resaying, marco, you asked like
why was someone who's got allthis 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 thatthere's a longing in them, often
(37:14):
unspoken, for like there mustbe more, yeah, and there must be
more.
That isn't just lots of hardwork and me bashing my head
against whatever it is to pushthe move a needle and push it
forward.
Learning coaching does have theeffect of breaking something
open, because it's a new way ofthinking, a new way of doing a
(37:35):
new way of being.
Marco Blankenburgh (37:37):
It's one thing of the challenge of being
a coach, or continuouslybecoming a better coach, is you
can't do that work without beinga student of oneself, as you
say.
Some people walk away from that.
Other people love that becauseit forces you to look at
yourself and you challengeyourself, and that's a beautiful
(38:00):
thing.
One thing I've alwaysappreciated about what North
Point has done is that it's oneof the few coach certifications
in the form of the CPC thatwasn't born in a western nation,
although it was born in Dubai,and that in and of itself and
(38:21):
I've seen it, so you could, Ithink, matt, you said that the
CPC is, is inter-culturallyinformed.
That attracted me withouthaving the fancy language to
explain it like we do today, butthat attracted me from the
beginning and that's also why Ithink sort of the, the, the
(38:42):
Strategic Alliance, was born andthe ability to develop the
blending of our two worldsthrough the certificate and
intercultural coaching cameabout, and I think that that was
just a beautiful journey in andof itself, because you have
that edge over many othercertifications out there that
(39:03):
you are already standing in asuper cosmopolitan global
environment, and that was thebirthplace of the program.
So yeah, anything you want tosay about that, or, yeah, it
could.
Matt Trenchard (39:16):
maybe it could only happen in that place like
Dubai, maybe not only Dubai, butthis like Dubai and also part
of our own is my story withNorth Point and the CPC is that
we both got trained by otherBeijing schools, vastly
different from each other, andthat when Sarah and I got
together and start talking aboutall this stuff and just
(39:39):
realizing you know some of thestrengths, some of the
weaknesses on each of thedifferent systems and realizing
that, yeah, in many ways thesystems have we been taught we
didn't have this language then,but I would use this language
now the differences that we'vebeen taught were in a cultural
(39:59):
echo chamber or in a culturalniche and then.
But the interplay betweenSarah's experience and Sarah's
training of mine, and the factthat we both realize that in our
coaching practice we'd stepbeyond and out of the limited
set of space that we've eachbeen given and found ourselves
(40:21):
in a somewhat similar place,even before we started to work
on CPC.
So right from the beginningthere was this sense of like.
We need to be able to have openand deep conversations about
who the person is and who arewho the people are.
Marco Blankenburgh (40:34):
Now there's this one thing that we didn't
touch on, but it's veryimportant actually in the way we
equip people.
You're talking about a culturalecho chamber, but we also have
the tendency to, when we talkabout culture, to talk about the
average American and theaverage Australian and Brazilian
and etc.
Etc.
You alluded to it, matt,earlier on.
(40:57):
You had a disclaimer.
I said well, I'm not sayingthat 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 andwe've seen the impact of that in
training and advisory work andin doing organizational cultural
(41:17):
work.
But I must say I personallyhave seen the biggest value
actually in the one-on-oneinteraction in a coaching
situation.
So could you speak more to that?
That recognizing as a coachthat I am a uniquely wired
cultural human being I bringthat into the coaching
(41:38):
relationship but alsorecognizing that your coachee is
a uniquely wired cultural humanbeing, how does that shift the
way you connect with yourselfand the way you connect with the
coachee in the relationship?
Matt Trenchard (41:51):
What comes to mind is another one of our
tenants, which is that peopleare and sometimes it's a really
weird word, so we say objects ofgreatness.
What we mean by that is thatthere is greatness within each
person, and it's also what makesyou unique.
And so the coach themselves isa person, is an objective
(42:12):
brainer, and so is the coacheeand also all the people the
coachee engages with.
So, from our perspective ascoaches, I'm there in the room,
be it face to face or virtually,with the other person.
I'm mindful that this personhas so much within them.
I'm mindful that I can't see itall.
(42:32):
They can't see it, they can'tsee it all.
And so it's one of the ideasthat really supports at least me
and, I think, us to actuallyreceive people non-judgmentally.
The coachee has this idea.
It's taking it from therapy ofunconditional positive regard.
But I think we take it further.
(42:53):
It's not just saying, oh, I'mjust going to give you
unconditional positive regard,I'm not just going to say you're
great, I'm actually going tohold the truth that they are as
great as within you, which Ican't see or I have to give you
respect.
I'm there with curiosity, I'malmost there with the sense of
wonder, because I don't reallyknow what it is that's right in
(43:16):
front of me.
Sarah Anthony (43:18):
And I think sometimes the best coaching
happens when they don't know andyou don't know.
And because you're in thisunknown space and you're free to
experiment, just hold lightlywhat they're saying, put it back
at them, ask some questions, becurious and just help them
(43:43):
through what Kogma they might betrying to get through at that
time.
And just because if we go withan attitude of I know how to do
this, I know what to do, I knowwhich direction they should go
in, then we are not allowingthem to, even if we're right and
(44:07):
occasionally that might be thedirection they decide to go in
but we are taking away theirability to believe in themselves
and that they can do it forthemselves, and coaching is
about helping them to realisethat.
I think the other thing is thatobviously you have assessments
to help you to learn about yourown cultural wiring, and those
(44:31):
assessments have been reallygreat for getting me to be
self-aware of myself as auniquely wired cultural human
being.
I don't know if I said all thosewords in the right order.
And it also let me realise thatthere's an interplay.
(44:53):
It's not just about oh well,I'm more of an innocent, skilled
world view and therefore I mustbe a direct communicator and
actually I'm rubbish at this andI'm rubbish at that.
It's more about learning thatthere are differences out there
and being able to then recognisethat when it turns up in a
(45:18):
coaching session.
And so I have said fairly often, several times, that power and
fear world views are the lowestthe lowest on my assessments for
me, and I found them difficult.
Now I've learnt to find themless difficult because I've
learnt to take the fear out ofthe power of fear and to
(45:42):
actually recognise the goodthat's in that and the positive
that can come from that worldview and to look at it with
different eyes, which perhaps Ididn't even realise was there
before.
And doing so.
If I had worked with someonewho had more power, fear in
(46:05):
their kind of chart, in theirassessment that, I would perhaps
find some of thoseconversations difficult in the
past, but now I've been able toadapt, to understand and say, ok
, this isn't negative, this isactually quite positive.
Let me work with them for theirstrengths, for what's important
(46:26):
to them, and take myself out ofthat equation with things that
I believe to be true because ofwhat I have, the assumptions
that I've held previously, andso I come to this with more of
an openness about what ispossible for our relationship,
(46:46):
no matter where we lie on thatscale, and I think that for me
is that acceptance and thatwillingness to say OK, you see
things completely different tome and that's OK.
How do you see it?
Because I see things this way.
But how do you see things andwhat does this mean for you, and
(47:08):
helping you to come up withyour answers in your way that
work for you, rather than, oh,you need to fit into my box.
Marco Blankenburgh (47:19):
Yeah, yeah, and what you're mentioning about
the use of, for instance, thelanguage of the three colours of
worldview in this skilled honor, shame, power, fear, that
language in and of itself isneutral, but what I learned
about change management, forinstance, one of the ingredients
of change is you need to havethe language to articulate
(47:41):
yourself to actually be able tosay, ah, that's what that is.
So, having a neutral languagethrough the three colours of
worldview, through the culturalmapping inventory, the 12
dimensions of culture, weactually start to have words to
describe our differences andthat makes them entities in the
(48:02):
conversation, in therelationship, and that allows us
to then use that to make changehappen in ourselves as coaches,
but also, of course, help thecoachee to explore what that
might mean for them.
Sarah Anthony (48:17):
So, yeah, it's not only at that time when
things come up, becausesometimes I'll be coaching
someone and the situation's justcome up.
But I'm able to then perhapsbring them some knowledge and
say, here, where do you thinkyou are in this?
You know what's going on foryou, right?
Other times I may choose tobring in that work first off and
(48:43):
say, ok, it sounds like theissues within this organisation
are a bit more from anintercultural perspective, or
they may even be aware we canbring in that knowledge upfront.
But I may be coaching someonejust purely around, anything
like with the example I gaveearlier.
I wasn't in there for anintercultural piece of work with
(49:07):
that person, but it came upanyway and that's you know.
That often does come up in thatway.
So me being aware of it helpsme to better serve my coaches in
those situations where it doescome up.
Marco Blankenburgh (49:21):
Yeah, and I like what you say because you're
in essence indicating that insome cases it just flows
organically through theconversation.
In other cases, you mightactually introduce it as a tool
and could be even the assessmenteither one of the assessments
and you use the assessment as away to reflect on their
situation or the relationshipsthat are trying to manage.
(49:43):
So, both organically, making itpart of how you coach, or, a
little bit more formally,bringing it in as a tool, is
really powerful.
Now Matt wants to say somethingelse.
Matt Trenchard (49:58):
Just to summarize on something, just to
say, because a lot of coachesare about mindset, and so, marco
, in your work you talk aboutcultural critic versus cultural
learner, and so it's superimportant, as a coach, to be a
cultural learner, to beconsciously a cultural learner,
because, like I and I justpicked up on this earlier when
you were talking about we mayassess that person's cultural
(50:19):
right, but if we're doing so,we'll be in cultural critic, so
we need to actually keep beingcultural learners.
Sarah Anthony (50:25):
Absolutely.
Marco Blankenburgh (50:28):
Great point Now.
The CIC was launched during avery difficult time the
certificate in interculturalcoaching and we've had a trickle
but a very passionate andenthusiastic four cohorts, who
are by and large vocational,about having gone through it and
(50:50):
they really made it part oftheir lives.
And I still remember one of theparticipants now is actually
doing a PhD on the efficacy ofintercultural coaching for
educators, for instance.
One of the gentlemen that hasjoined used to be more on the
counselling side of the equationand I still remember you know
(51:14):
counselling is really importantbut he realized he said he
thought that every conversationrequired a counselling approach
and then he finished thecertification and he realized
most situations do not require acounselling approach and he's
super enthusiastic about, youknow, using the intercultural
(51:37):
approach to coaching.
It's beautiful to see peoplebring those nuances into the way
they practice.
When you think about thecertificate in intercultural
coaching, we already sort oftalked about who might be a
person that might join thatprogram.
But if you had a chance tospeak to our audience, what
(51:59):
would you say to them?
Why join the program?
Who should join?
What's the impact going to be?
Sarah Anthony (52:05):
Well to speak.
I mean one of the things someof the people who have been
through the program haven'tnecessarily been fully fledged
coaches.
They've had some coachingexperience, but not fully
fledged coaches before.
And I know, like I was speakingto one of the participants the
other like a couple of weeksback and he said to me I wish
(52:28):
I'd had more coach experiencegoing through it.
So we generally ask for peoplebecause this isn't teaching you
how to coach.
Our CPC teaches you how tocoach.
If you want to learn the basiccoaching skills and to build on
that foundation and to getreally good at coaching, that's
the place to do that.
But this brings on that extralevel on top of your coaching
(52:53):
ability to really be able todeal with those intercultural
situations that we've talkedabout before, to recognize them,
to see when it's coming up, allthe things that we have talked
about, all those situationswhere we've realized that our
coaching alone actually neededsomething with a bit more depth,
(53:14):
and to add that learning on top.
For me, that's what it does.
It's almost like an advancedlevel of coaching.
So we'd love to have people whoare already coaches on this.
Now there are a couple ofsituations where we have allowed
people who've had somepractical experience in that.
(53:34):
But even then I've had peoplecome back to me and go.
I wish that I'd taken that tostanding in coaching first.
So because actually I would havegained so much more.
So, I think, to be alreadycoaching, to already be
experiencing some of thesesituations where you recognize
(53:55):
that perhaps I don't have allthe tools to deal with these
types of situations, or to beworking with a client the way
that Matt described earlier andthinking there's something
missing here.
I think I'm missing something inthe area of working with my
coachees.
Perhaps I'm workinginterculturally and I don't
(54:19):
recognize some of the thingsthat are coming up, or I can't
move them to action or I can'thelp them with certain things
then this is a greatcertification for you to become
involved with and to learn and,without a shadow of doubt, every
single person who comes off theback of this gains in a big way
(54:39):
in terms of the depth of theircoaching and the situations that
they're able to resolve withtheir clients and the
relationships that they havewith their client, because I
always see it as it's not justabout helping someone with
intercultural situations andissues.
It's actually about helpingsomeone with relationships and
(55:00):
being able to do on a deeperlevel, but also managing your
own relationship with yourclient in a much deeper level
and much deeper way.
Marco Blankenburgh (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 depthof understanding of what
coaching actually is, then startthere and then, if you do have
that, to join the.
Cic certificate inintercultural coaching.
Sarah Anthony (55:33):
If you have coaching skills, you don't have
to be from our school.
It's open to all coaches whowant to then add that deeper
level.
Matt Trenchard (55:45):
Matt anything to add.
The learning and practice ofcoaching has a way of opening
oneself up to noticing morethings, so you begin to notice
how you think and how you feelmore consciously, or you pick up
nuances in relationships andothers, the other privacy you
(56:06):
wouldn't have, and so this addsanother layer on the people.
Who most benefit are folks whoare coaching but also are on
that journey of like.
Yeah, I know how this hasalready helped me and I want to
engage, I want to serve in awider and deeper level.
(56:27):
It brings my back to what wetalked 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 whowants to actually make a
positive difference in the world, then this is going to help.
Marco Blankenburgh (56:44):
Yeah, and it's beautiful to see sort of
the alumni network.
We're pulling together some ofour alumni in our office over
the weekend and it's justbeautiful to see how that group
of people is growing slowly andit's kindred spirits and there's
always lots of energy and lotsof creativity and just a
(57:07):
beautiful group of people thatis growing and I'm really
grateful that we have been partof that together and the way
you've equipped me and the waywe've embraced each other
through the strategic alliance.
So I'm looking forward to thefuture.
Sarah Anthony (57:25):
Can I just add something else about the last
question, but one other personthat this is for is for those
who want to specialize in theintercultural side of things.
Now, obviously, there's an ICIcertification, which is from
KnowledgeWorks, and I think thatif someone wants to learn that
(57:46):
depth of coaching and in manyways I feel like I should ask
you a question, marco, what yougot from coaching on to your
intercultural experience, whatdid it give you that you didn't
have before?
Because I think that is one ofthe areas that some people want
to stay in that consultant spaceand that's right for them, and
(58:10):
they want to just have theexperience of ICI, which is such
a powerful framework.
There will be others who reallywant to take it to that next
level and to coach.
So what did it give you?
Marco Blankenburgh (58:23):
if you don't mind me asking, I think the
most important thing is reallythat in consulting, it's about
analysis and advice.
Those are typically the two mainwords, but the analysis is
almost transactional often so,and even when I look at
(58:47):
classical consultinginterviewing it's very
transactional, very data drivenand task driven and the
questions are typically not sogood, especially not on the
relational side and reallydigging into why is this
organization operating the wayit does or why do they have this
particular dilemma.
And I think a coach likeapproach gets you so much closer
(59:12):
to the crux of the matter.
And by using that coach likeapproach, by being question
oriented and bringing theprocess, not the content,
actually you get to a pointwhere people open up about
things that in classicalconsulting you would never find
out about.
And I think that's one thing.
The other thing is really it'sso much more fun because the
(59:36):
pressure is off, I don't need tocontinuously be the smart guy,
bring the content, I can justbring a process and it
illuminates and it opens updoors that they've never walked
through and they start to seethings, and it's so much more
fun.
It doesn't you know.
Sarah Anthony (59:58):
So, yeah, Thank you for letting me do that.
Marco Blankenburgh (01:00:07):
Thank you so much for joining us for this
episode of the cultural agilitypodcast.
If you enjoyed today's episode,share it with someone.
The best way to help us out isby 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 topicswe discussed today intrigue you
(01:00:29):
, you will find links toarticles discussing them in
greater depth in the podcastnotes.
If you would like to learn moreabout intercultural
intelligence and how you canbecome more culturally agile,
you can find more informationand hundreds of articles at
KnowledgeWorkscom.
A special thanks to JasonCarter for composing the music
(01:00:51):
on this podcast and to the wholeKnowledgeWorks team for making
this podcast a success.
Thank you, nita Rodriguez, araAziz-Bakyan, rajitha Raj, and
thanks to Vip and George foraudio production, rosalind Raj
for scheduling and Kali Pstrausfor marketing and helping
produce this podcast.
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