Appreciation of East-West cultural differences helped ensure a successful partnership between Singapore Civil Service College and Henley Business School. By Jane Campion

Henley adapted its Certificate of Coaching to help the college train coaches to support fast-track development for the future leaders of Singapore’s 74,000 civil servants and 50,000 statutory body employees.  

“We needed a collaborative and transparent partnership; flexibility to customise a programme without losing its core essence; a clear focus on our desired objectives and target coaches; care in selection of coach candidates, and strong monitoring of progress,” said Singapore Civil Service College director of leadership development, Paul Lim, who presented the case study at the APECS conference with Henley programme director Patricia Bossons and lead tutor Denis Sartain.

A key challenge was understanding relationships which, in a collectivist culture like Singapore’s, means forming a relationship first and never sitting down in business with a stranger. 

Sartain explained: “In the West we come to coaching as individuals. Singaporeans focus on broader goals above self and have a greater emphasis on role.

“In the East, grey hair equals wisdom so mentoring is inherent. We had to deal with this upfront because participants thought ‘if I have experience why on earth would I not share it?’.

“The intention was not just coaches supporting a leadership programme, but working for a higher purpose – the good of Singapore – which put coaching into a larger context,” said Sartain.

Fourteen of the original 18 coaches were deployed. They were required to have a minimum of eight years’ coaching, strong, clear communications, evidence of clear logical thinking, motivation, and be citizens or residents. Three modules ran locally and supervision ran via teleconferencing from the UK over six months. 

Coaching at Work, Volume 5, Issue 4