Business
decision-makers worldwide are well on their way to a consensus: Cultural
competency learning programs for new expatriates and their family members
are wise investments in the productivity of their overseas assignees and,
in turn, in the long-term success of their global ventures.
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By
whatever name -- cultural adaptation, cultural adjustment, cross-cultural
orientation, cross-cultural awareness, or intercultural training -- such
programs reduce the inherent risk of sending a valuable employee into an
unfamiliar cultural environment and
hoping that he or she will rapidly
regain prior performance levels.
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Since the late 1990s, GROVEWELL
has been perfecting a method for intensifying the learning and enhancing
the performance of expatriates - and of executives, managers, and
professionals who are remaining at home but are directly involved in business
on
a global scale.
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Coaching
for Global Advantage, our culturally calibrated coaching
approach, enables a corporate leader to adapt
and perform to his or her highest potential when encountering the unpredictable
demands of global business, including the unfamiliar mindsets, values,
and practices of business counterparts encountered during an assignment
abroad...or at home.
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Culturally Calibrated Coaching for Expatriates
GROVEWELL
developed Coaching for Global Advantage because we recognized
that our professional field, "intercultural communication," typically inspired
programs in which participants were given sets of facts about the
unfamiliar (host) culture and about the adaptation process. Even
though the content was research-based and sound, such programs inadequately
met the needs of our individual clients, most of whom were on expatriate
assignments and all of whom were facing a diverse and shifting array
of challenges involving global leadership and interpersonal relationships
across cultures.
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To put it differently, the
outcome of traditional cross-cultural training programs tended to be cultural
awareness.
We knew very well that cultural awareness, by itself, is necessary
but
not sufficient for an assignee abroad to rapidly regain his or her
customary effectiveness. One-on-one coaching is significantly more
effective, especially when it draws on two resources for excellence:
executive coaching, which
focuses on the company's, and the coachee's, specific challenges, and
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intercultural consulting,
which focuses on developing practical cross-cultural competencies.
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Effective Cultural Adaptation: The Role of
the Coach
There's a third source of excellence,
too: GROVEWELL's coach.
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Our coach must be finely
attuned to the coachee, able to flexibly respond to his or her strengths
and needs within the contexts of culture, community, company, assignment,
family, and personality.
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Our coach must be resourceful,
have a broad repertoire of skills (especially interpersonal communication
skills), and possess exceptional empathy gained through maturity and global
living & working experiences.
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Finally, our coach must have
an mature, experience-based understanding of family dynamics because coaching
"trailing spouses" - female or male! - is at least as important as coaching
assignees.
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This is why our partners
insist on employing expatriate coaches who have corporate leadership experience
gained in two or more cultures, and personal maturity gained through a
diversity of life experiences. The average age of our coaches is
40-50. The vast majority of them are also global leadership coaches.
We believe that no other provider of expatriate services routinely assigns
coaches who are the equal of ours.
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The GROVEWELL
coach's challenge is, How can this particular assignee best be
supported in regaining peak effectiveness in this unfamiliar environment?
This mindset generates a range of performance-enhancing and developmental
possibilities, only some of which have anything to do with a curriculum
about cross-cultural differences and adaptation.
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Cultural Competence: A Variety of Delivery
Modes and Content
Although our quarter-century
(well, almost!) of service to global corporate clients has emphasized coaching
for executives and managers at home and in new environments, we also design
and deliver intercultural training,
both pre-departure and/or
post-arrival, for groups of assignees and/or their "trailing spouses."
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We
also provide special coaching for these expatriate assignment challenges:
assignees
and trailing spouses returning home after living & working abroad
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assignees
and trailing spouses leaving one host country for a new host country
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children
of assignees ("third culture kids") ages 5 through 18 [not available in
all world regions]
The above
three special competency programs are delivered only as coaching, not as
group training.
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"Genuinely Global" Expatriation and Repatriation
Services
At GROVEWELL,
we take pride in describing our work as genuinely global.
This means that our services have been deliberately
crafted to be global-minded in content and approach, not merely a Made-in-America
product that's "global" in availability. Why
do we make this claim? Because one of our partners is an interculturalist,
the other is an anthropologist, and the two of them together make certain
that their associates and coaches, worldwide, have extensive international,
intercultural living & working experience.
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Read
400-word professional biographies of all our associates worldwide at Grovewell.com/associates.
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For details, select
from the options in the lefthand column (black background).
- Business
leaders' testimonials about our coaching:
To read these, click here.
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Overview
of our leadership coaching approach:
For a 2-page PDF, click
here.
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Or simply
talk
with us:Pick up your phone and call the partners at +1-718-492-1896.
