Executive coaching – across cultures
Senior business people often experience a sense of isolation, particularly at board level. Many lack the facility to talk through potential areas of concern, personal performance or the best way to undertake a new role. Working internationally often entails the need to adapt to new responsibilities and different organisational structures, as well as working closely with colleagues from other cultural backgrounds. A cross-cultural coach can help executives to improve their performance and become an effective team member.
Once executives are past the ‘honeymoon’ phase of their international posting, they are often surprised to discover how painful, protracted, tiresome, complicated and time-consuming it can be to work in a global environment. They wish they had known more, and had been better prepared, so that they could have anticipated stressful situations and recognised the problems before they arose, or at least before they escalated into serious difficulties.
Foreign assignment preparation and coaching
Companies may spend more than £100,000 to send a manager and his/her family halfway across the globe, but are sometimes not willing to provide any funds for cross-cultural awareness training and coaching. Cross-cultural adjustment plays an important role in the well-being of the expatriate and his/her family, and it will ultimately effect the successful completion of an international assignment.
Vivianne Näslund worked with a senior American executive, employed by a major multinational, who was sent to Sweden with nothing more than a basic guidebook. He became extremely frustrated at the Swedish way of doing business and started to criticise and blame his Swedish employees, leading to a major breakdown in communication and severe stress for everyone involved. Only at that point, when the relationship had gone badly wrong, was Näslund called in to help.
© Bridgehead Associates 2006
