Ufhrd Europe Conference 2012

UFHRD EUROPE CONFERENCE 2012

FINAL PAPER SUBMISSION

Title: Going Global – Coaching with a Global Mindset

Author: Wendy Wilson

Organisation Affiliation: Oxford Brookes University Business School, Oxford, UK

(MA in Coaching and Mentoring Practice)

Address: Hill Top Barn,

Elsfield,

Oxford,

Oxfordshire,

OX3 9UH,

United Kingdom

E mail:

Stream: Comparative and Cross-Cultural
Dimensions of HRD

Submissions Type:Fully Refereed Paper – Final

GOING GLOBAL – COACHING WITH A GLOBAL MINDSET

Wendy Wilson

Abstract

Globalisation, both socially and economically, is redefining the way we work and communicate, presenting critical challenges to a corporate sector rapidly adjusting to a new global paradigm. Successful organisations will be those that embrace and encourage a more fluid ethos by becoming more globally minded in outlook in creating a more flexible, adaptable, globally mobile and diverse workforce. From a coaching perspective this may lead to an increased demand for coaches to take a more integrated and global approach to coaching practice to support the more complex client portfolios that are emerging due to this shift change in organizational development.

The purpose of this constructive grounded theory study is to explore the concept of global mindedness from the perspective of the cross-cultural coaching profession and investigate how an understanding of the construct might be helpful to the coach in supporting the client to thrive in today’s complex and fluid global business environment.

Established definitions of global mindedness are explored and discussed and fresh data is constructed from focus group interviews with cross-cultural coaches regarding the individual meanings that they attach to the concept of global mindedness and its relevance to cross-cultural coaching practice.

Findings reveal a significant gap in the data relating to coaches’ perception and comprehension of the global mindedness construct. This is explored through a second engagement with the literature and a re-examination of the data. This leads to the construction of key themes providing fresh evidence of the developmental aspect of the construct and how the criticality of an experience can lead to a transformation of the self and the development of a global mindset.

The implications of these findings are discussed from both a coaching and Human Resource Development (HRD) perspective regarding whether these professions are ready to develop a global mindset to embrace the challenges posed by a new global paradigm.

Key Words:Mindset, Global Mindedness, Globalization, Coaching, Cross-cultural coaching, Global leaders

The Global Problem

‘Globalisation’ is the buzzword of the 21st century and as the second decade of the new millennium dawns, continued recession in the West is accelerating the shift in global economic power to the emerging economies. Today’s business world is one of increased complexity and constant change; an interconnected, interdependent global economy operating in one contiguous world. This massive realignment of economic activity is redefining boundaries and creating a global workplace (Cohen, 2010).

A recently published PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report, ‘The World in 2050’ (PwC, 2011) paints a very clear picture of this changing world order. It predicts a renewed dominance of China and India and a reversal of the shift in economic power not seen since the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th Century, which caused the original shift to Western Europe and the USA. It is estimated that by 2020 the largest E7 emerging economies (including Brazil, Russia, India and China) will be bigger than the current G7 economies and it is highly likely that within the next 7 years China will have overtaken the USA as the worlds largest economy.

With this new global paradigm come critical and immediate challenges to companies around the world as they decide how to plan for an increasingly globalised and highly competitive future, a future that will require significant changes to people management practices.

‘Successful organizations in 2020 will be those that prepare today for a very different future’ (PwC, 2010) and to this end PricewaterhouseCoopers’s 2010 report ‘Managing People in a Changing World’ provides four key recommendations that could have important implications for the future development of the coaching profession. The report calls for businesses to create a more flexible, adaptable and creative workforce; to plan for a globalised future by cultivating a globally mobile workforce; to increase investment in talent management by nurturing talent from across the organization to create culturally diverse teams; and most importantly, to reassess current leadership development programmes and their suitability for creating effective ‘globally minded’ leaders that can keep pace with a global business environment.

Hofstede defines ‘culture’ as “the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another” (1991, p. 6) and this call for increased cultural dexterity and the development of a new global mindset within organizations is evidence that culture and cross-cultural and intercultural communication issues now play a major role in our lives and our work. It is also a timely call to the coaching profession. From a coaching perspective this proposed shift change in organizational and management development will lead to an increased demand for coaches to take a more integrated and ‘global’ approach to their practices to support the more complex client portfolios emerging from this shift change in organizational development.

The purpose of this research study therefore was to investigate how an understanding of the nature and processes of ‘global mindedness’ might be helpful to the coach in supporting the client. I wanted to explore its dimensions, its influencing factors, how it might be cultivated and what outcomes might arise from it. As a qualified coach I was interested in exploring this issue from the perspective of the coaching profession. I wanted to test the temperature of coaching, to assess coaches’ current level of awareness and their interpretation of what global mindedness means to them. I wanted to find out if they had considered these global challenges that organisations need to address and whether they believed it relevant to their coaching practice.

My keen interest in cross-cultural coaching and intercultural communication issues is the result of having been globally mobile for ten years in Russia, the Middle East and America during the period of rapid globalization before and after the Millennium. My own experience of frequent moves, transitions and cross-cultural adaptation during times of rapid change, uncertainty and often turbulent political unrest opened a window through which to re-examine my own world view from a more global perspective. It has also facilitated my desire to support other globally mobile individuals in managing uncertainty and change.

As the workforce across the world becomes more diverse, individuals at all levels are now faced with the challenges of dealing with cross-cultural differences (Arora et al, 2004). From the perspective of the coaching profession, I believe that coaches will increasingly find themselves working with a more complex client portfolio, engaging with individuals from different cultural backgrounds and whose identities will have been derived from different contexts (Thomas, 2008). For this the coach will need to have a better understanding of how cultural and intercultural communication issues might impact on the coaching process and will require a more global mindset to help navigate the client through the complexity of our rapidly globalizing world.

I chose a qualitative methodological research approach to this investigation because I wanted to examine how the particular issue of global mindedness is perceived by a specific group of participants (coaches) and an interpretive, constructive grounded theory approach was used as my principal method of data collection using semi-structured, recorded focus group interviews.

It is important to clarify at the outset that I use the terms ‘global mindedness’ and ‘global mindset’ interchangeably throughout this report. This is intentional and shows that I perceive both as having the same meaning, which I interpret as ‘a way of thinking’. The terminology is also used interchangeably throughout the literature with a preference for the use of the term ‘global mindset’ within business and management literature.

The Research Approach

The Existing Literature:

I am aware that in grounded theory research there has been considerable debate between grounded theorists regarding where to place the literature review and whether to delay it until after completion of analysis to encourage the researcher to articulate their own ideas. (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Glaser,1998; Corbin and Strauss, 2008; Charmaz, 2006). I wish to clarify that I initially explored some of the relevant literature at the very beginning of this project before making the final decision to use grounded theory as a methodology. I have chosen to place this initial and brief review of the literature at the beginning of this grounded theory study because I believe it has helped me to define my research focus and to identify the gaps and it also helps to set the stage enabling the reader to engage with my research perspective.

Using the following key search terms – Mindset, Global Mindedness, Globalization, Coaching, Cross-cultural coaching, Global leaders - an initial review of the literatureexplored the established definitions of global mindedness, including its dimensions, possible influencing factors and common emergent research themes across different disciplines such as international education (Sampson and Smith, 1957; Douglas and Jones-Rikkers, 2001; Hett, 1993; Olsen and Kroeger, 2001, Hunter et al, 2006), study abroad programmes(Wright and Clarke, 2010), international relocation and expatriation (Javidan et al, 2011), global business management and development(Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1989; Kefalas, 1998; Kedia and Mukherji, 1999; Jeannet, 2000; Gupta and Govindarajan, 2002; Arora et al, 2004; Levy et al, 2007; PwC, 2011), cross-cultural coaching(Abbott and Rosinski, 2007) and leadership development(Rhinesmith,1993; Dekker et al, 2005).

This literature review has highlighted that there exists a substantial gulf in perception of the global mindedness concept across different disciplines and that there is no integrative overarching descriptive model to facilitate the study of specific domains of related global mindedness characteristics. Researchers lack guidance and an organizing theory or framework and this is creating a fragmented field of study with no common language to describe integration of findings. There is lack of clarity, which leads to conceptual ambiguities and contradictory findings.

Attempts to define the construct are mainly confined to business management and development literature and there is a lack of studies across other disciplines leading to diverse perceptions of the concept.

There isa nature versus nurture debate between the influence of international experience (Pucik et al, 1992) versus personality type (Bird and Osland, 2004; Arora et al, 2004) and the development of a global mindset and there is also a cultural versus strategic approach to the construct. Studies tend to be conceptualized within two dimensions of the global environment – the cultural perspective which focuses on cultural diversity and managing across cultural boundaries, and the strategic perspective which focuses on the strategic complexity that stems from globalization (Levy et al, 2007). There is also inconsistency regarding the core properties of a global mindset.

There are a limited number of empirical studies to date and nearly all studies take a quantitative research approach (Sampson and Smith, 1957; Hett, 1993; Murtha et al, 1998; Gupta and Govindarajan, 2002; Arora et al, 2004; Nummela et al, 2004; Bouquet, 2005; Jeannet, 2000; Beechler et al, 2004). Few studies have provided empirical evidence that links a global mindset to individual characteristics (Hett, 1993; Arora et al, 2004; Javidan et al, 2011) and very few studies have taken a qualitative, interpretative approach using extensive semi-structured interviews in the field (Arora et al, 2004; Javidan et al, 2011)

This initial review of the literature helped to clarify my research aims which were twofold - to respond to the call from Levy et al, (2007) for further theory building and empirical work on the global mindset construct to be conducted in more diverse settings by researching the construct from within the field of cross-cultural coaching and also to address the gap in qualitative research by undertaking a qualitative, interpretive, constructive grounded theory approach in the search for meaning using semi-structured focus group interviews.

The Methodology

Global mindedness is a theoretical construct and as such is an abstract concept. Nevertheless the term is now frequently used within business and management circles to imply some sort of preferred state of mind, yet it is often referred to and described as being some sort of an entity, an asset, something which one needs to acquire, to have, to be in possession of. I wascurious to find out what ‘it’ might be, leading to this deeper exploration of the concept and how others might perceive it.

A grounded theory methodology seeks to inductively distil issues of importance for specific groups of people, creating meaning about those issues through analysis and the modeling of theory (Mills et al, 2006). It is also an appropriate methodology to use when a theory is not available to explain a process (Creswell, 2007). I was particularly drawn to the social constructivist perspective of Charmaz (2006), which “emphasizes diverse local worlds, multiple realities and the complexities of particular worlds, views and actions” (Creswell, 2007, p. 65) and also recognizes that “the ‘discovered’ reality arises from the interactive process” (Charmaz, 2000, p. 524). This more flexible approach which recognizes that interaction between the researcher and the participants is necessary in order to understand the meaning of the experiences shared during the research process (Charmaz, 2000, Lincoln and Guba, 1985) was best suited to my research question which explored the complexities of cross-cultural issues, the abstract nature of the global mindset concept and the meanings the participants assigned to these issues which are framed within the context of their own lives.

In my view an event such as an international conference offered an appropriate field setting in providing a forum for a large gathering of like-minded individuals from a similar cultural setting. The flexibility of the grounded theory method would also allow me to be led by the data. I could initially focus my attention on data gathering from a large number of participants engaged in one area of coaching practice (cross-cultural coaches) and immersed in one particular field setting (the conference events) and then, depending on where the data led, I could subsequently sample across different areas of coaching practice or other related professions either within the same or in other field settings in order to approach theoretical saturation.

The Sample

The study sample consisted of five focus group interviews of between 5 and 8 coaches each plus 8 individual interviews. Four focus groups specialized in
cross-cultural coaching and/or training and global relocation and one specialized in UK based executive coaching. Collectively 35 professional individuals were interviewed (30 women and 5 men). The age range was observed as being approximately between the ages of 35 and 60 years and a total of 10 nationalities were represented.

Of the four cross-cultural focus groups, two were conducted at the 2011 Families in Global Transition (FIGT) conference in Washington DC and two were conducted at the 2011 European Relocation Association (EuRA) conference in Palma, Majorca. The FIGT conference provides an annual forum for globally mobile individuals, expatriate families and intercultural researchers to meet, discuss and research relevant intercultural and transition issues relating to global mobility. The EuRA conference is an annual forum for European based relocation organisations that facilitate the relocation of globally mobile individuals to gather, network, train and discuss best practice for supporting their clients. Both events annually bring together a large cross-section of ‘globally minded’ people in one place, drawing a collective interest in global mobility, intercultural and transition issues, development of best practice, training and research and as such provided a large potential data sample directly related to my research topic.

Both the FIGT and EuRA conference organisers generously agreed to sponsor my attendance and to facilitate my research project by making available time within their conference agendas to enable me to recruit and conduct my focus groups. A purposive sampling method was implemented to recruit volunteers for the focus groups to gather the opinions of my target population – individuals who were engaged in the coaching profession as either executive or cross-cultural coaches. If they were not coaches by profession then a prerequisite was for them to have an appreciation and understanding of its purpose and function within their own particular professions.

Random sampling methods were implemented within the sample frame at the FIGT conference for the purpose of conducting a pilot focus group on site within the conference setting and within the sample frame at the EuRA conference in order to capitalize on the opportunity of having a large international and varied professional delegate demographic all gathered together in one place. This provided an ideal pool of participants to dive into, thus enabling me to engage in the flexible process of theoretical sampling in order to develop any emerging initial concepts.

Subsequently and for the purposes of theoretical saturation, I also collected data from a different field setting, a fifth focus group which was conducted in Oxford, UK and included experienced UK based executive coaches who did not engage specifically in cross-cultural coaching issues or global mobility. I accessed this group through purposive sampling via my own personal coaching contacts.

Collectively these focus groups represented a cross-section of coaching and training approaches, experience and expertise and in this regard the decision to use focus groups in the research design ultimately served its intended purpose in providing a perspective on ‘community of practice’ and shared perceptions and assumptions.

Data collection and analysis

The data was constructed through my interaction with these research participants and is the result of a three-stage process of data collection, analysis and theoretical sampling following Charmaz’s (2006) recommended analytical coding process for constructive grounded theory research.

I followed the suggested guidelines of Krueger and Casey (2009) for developing effective focus group questions and I constructed a discussion question guide consisting of opening, introductory, transitional, key and ending questions. In doing so I was mindful of the unpredictable nature of focus group discussions which required me as the moderator to adopt a flexible approach by always allowing the discussion to flow and take its own course even if that meant that the respondents did not necessarily address my principal questions in the right order or that the conversation went off topic. My role during the interview process was that of both facilitator and guide.