About the Centre
Introduction: International Business Coaching
The Centre uniquely focuses on international business coaching:
International business coaching (IBC) gives attention to the multiple and interrelated contexts of coaching engagements that are the daily reality of international business. IBC applies paradoxical thinking in creating with clients new contextual knowledge that is of real value in meeting core challenges.
IBC requires that coaches explore cross-border, inter-organizational, intra-organizational, group, personal and other dynamics to design and implement coaching programs. An IBC approach assumes that each intervention, from one-to-one executive coaching through to large scale organizational change processes and cross border acquisitions, is complex. The IBC contribution is to assist clients in establishing a degree of clarity within the complexity, and not to either (1) become overwhelmed, or (2) resort to simplistic solutions.
International
By international, we mean give attention to implications of globalization. We aim to raise awareness about the influence of systems and culture in all contexts and to invite people to view difference as opportunity. The Centre is represented in seven countries by people of diverse personal and professional backgrounds. Each client has access to global resources and perspectives through the Centre’s global team. Significantly, each representative has his or her own business independent of coaching. Each therefore comes to the Centre with a different worldview which can be applied to creating client solutions.
Business
We are business focused - understanding that sustainable businesses have healthy bottom lines. We also work from a position that healthy businesses are underpinned by strong and well-articulated values that encompass the idea of global citizenship. The global team includes successful business executives, entrepreneurs, and management academics. There is business experience across the commercial, educational, government and not-for-profit sectors.
Coaching
Our major methodology is evidence based coaching, defined by Grant and Stober (2006: 6) as the '... the intelligent and conscientious use of best current knowledge integrated with practitioner expertise in making decisions about how to deliver coaching to individual coaching clients and in designing and teaching coach training programs.' Great ideas have emerged from all cultures on how business should be done and how people can best relate with each other. We view coaching as the best way of connecting great ideas with the day-to-day practice of business. However, the Centre’s position is that coaching is not a ‘pure’ activity. Our work also involves (where appropriate), elements of consulting, mentoring, training and counseling.
Values
The Centre supports and practices values-based leadership. The evidence is that companies that work from strong positive values are successful in the long term. Also, individuals who have values that are compatible with the values of organisations tend to perform better and be more satisfied both professionally and personally. The following values capture the culture and practice of the Centre.
The Centre values multiple perspectives and seeks to include diverse views in decision making. The potential of an individual or group need not be limited by race, gender, age, sexual identity, class, position, family, geography, language, and so on. However, the reality of the power structures in many organisations and societies is that differences on such characteristics have been established – explicitly or implicitly - as ways of measuring capacity and opportunity. Variations across individuals and groups offer possibilities and opportunities and are part of the potential that can be productively leveraged through coaching.
The Centre will support the physical, financial, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being of individuals, organisations and communities. It will consider immediate needs in the context of approaches that promote sustainable well being. Well-being requires a healthy environment and the Centre's actions will be environmentally responsible.
The Centre will be an explorer of ideas to create and share knowledge with others. Knowledge is viewed as dynamic and fluid and inextricably linked to the context within which it is created.
The Centre will trust in the strengths, passions, possibilities and frailties of the human spirit, as it develops new and existing relationships. The Centre will foster trust-based, fluid networks that minimize the need for large structures and rigid contractual obligations.
The Centre aspires to generosity in all situations; committing to act reasonably, without reserve, and with good humour.
The Centre will take calculated risks and push boundaries in pursuing the interests of (1) clients, (2) the broader interests of a healthy international business community, and (3) the Centre’s ongoing success.
Action and Reflection for Results
We accept and embrace the complexity of what we find when we work with individuals and companies. Results matter. We work from an action learning paradigm that aims for the best results possible designed in the form and the language of our clients. Action learning principles set the framework for how these three elements are combined. Action learning involves an ongoing cycle of planning, acting, and reflecting. In IBC, the coach is not a detached observer, though he or she does come from ‘outside’. It is a role of the ‘friendly outsider’ termed by Greenwood and Levin (1998). While acting systematically and with scientific method, the coach is also working relationally and subjectively to ensure contextual relevance.
We create an active space where people can explore and reflect on what is going on and to design actions that will bring new futures for them and their organisations. Action without reflection is as unhelpful as reflection without action.
We take a generous view that goes beyond the present to contemplate what might be possible beyond our own contributions - to what type of communities we want to create and what kinds of professional and personal relationships we want to foster.
Many of these ideas are expanded upon in the Routledge Companion to Business Coaching (2009) edited by Michel Moral (the Centre’s representative in France) and the Centre's Director, Geoffrey Abbott. It contains the best of contemporary theory and practice about this expanding consultancy niche. Geoffrey contributed chapters on Global Virtual Teams, Mergers and Acquisitions, Selecting Executive Coaches, and also on Coaching Expatriate Managers. The Companion is available through www.amazon.com. The International Business Group Coaching Seminars in early 2010 will cover central themes in the book.
Paradox
A basic assumption upon which our work is based is that life is increasingly complex and paradoxical - particularly in international business.
The essence of a paradox is that there is an inherent cycle or loop between related statements that deal with truth and falsity. Once we accept an apparent truth, this truth is rendered false by a related statement. At a simple level, a paradox exists in the statement "I am lying". We accept it as a truth and immediately the acceptance loops into making the statement false.
In practice, the paradoxical nature of international business plays out in the need for us to accept uneasy but vital relationships between things that are apparently in conflict. Consider localism and globalisation, individualism and collectivism, task and relationship, structure and fluidity, and so on. Many of these dichotomies are sometimes culturally defined. Culture and paradox are entwined.
Traditionally, we are asked to favour one over the other - to engage in debate and political intrigue. In business, cultural differences often emerge as stumbling blocks in organisational mergers and acquisitions, and in simple deal making.
The Centre's approach is to accept that such tensions exist - but not to take that acceptance as a reason to enter into debate and rigidly conducted conflicts. We know that vast differences exist in how things can be done or viewed. Sometimes - though rarely - there is a 'right' and a 'wrong', a 'good' and a 'bad'. However, invariably there is a way of moving forward which involves untangling complexity and devising creative strategies that engage with both or all sides. It is not always possible to 'solve' a paradox. There may be a need to allow differing and conflicting views to exist together in order to seed creativity and growth.
A simple example is the idea of 'serious play' that is the modus operandi of the Centre's work. John Dewey, the American philosopher, educationalist and pragmatist of the early 20th Century proposed 'the serious play of the mind' upon an issue as the optimum thinking mode. To get serious change on serious issues, at times we have to be playful - no matter how serious the issue.
Rarely do we start with the aim of compromise. Why encourage someone to be less of what they are? More often we encourage individuals and organisations to extend the range of their activities, their thinking and their emotional lives. The art is in knowing when to give attention to one way of doing, being, feeling or thinking - and when to shift attention to allow alternatives to enrich what is going on.
The Logo
The pyramid has connotations of history, of human endeavour and of solidity and sustainability.
The three points of the pyramid represent human behaviour, thinking and feeling. Also, there are three related areas of the Centre's endeavours:
- International
- Business
- Coaching
Triangular interaction is where we add value.
The sphinx represents mystery, riddles, wisdom, strength and guardianship. Our approach incorporates all of these elements.
References
Grant, A. M. and D. R. Stober (2006). Introduction. Evidence Based Coaching Handbook: Putting Best Practices to Work for Your Clients. D. R. Stober and A. M. Grant. Hoboken, NJ, John Wiley & Sons: 1-16.
Greenwood, D. J. and M. Levin (1998). Introduction to Action Research: Social Research for Social Change. London, Sag