How is coaching growing in China? Slowly, says Dinah Gardener, of a culture that views the Western concept with suspicion. But a combination of best practice and Chinese wisdom could be about to change all that
Coaching in China is beginning to take off. Twenty per cent of delegates at the inaugural Asia Pacific Coaching Conference in Singapore in September were from China and Hong Kong. But it’s early days yet.
Coaching with Chinese characteristics is still finding its feet as Western-trained coaches chase business along with the myriad multinationals crowding into China’s economic powerhouse. Who can argue with an annual GDP growth rate of 10 per cent averaged over the past 30 years?
With its 5,000 years of history, its unique Confucian-based social traditions and, more recently, a one-party state system, no one expects China to take on the Western concepts of coaching without tweaking them a little. “The best coaches in China are those who can blend Western best practice with Chinese wisdom and social mores,” says Frank Gallo, an American who offers business coaching in China via his own company, Calypso Consulting.
Gallo, author of Business Leadership in China: How to Blend Best Western Practices with Chinese Wisdom, headquartered Calypso Consulting in the US in 2004 and registered it in China a year later.
Google the words ‘China’ along with ‘business coaching’ and you get scores of small coaching companies and individual entrepreneurs advertising their services. Most are in the capital, Beijing, and the economic capital, Shanghai. Business coaching, however, is not yet a buzzword in the local language. Use Baidu, the top Chinese search engine, and input the characters for jingli
fudao (business coaching in Chinese), and top of the list is a chain of private tuition schools for primary school children, followed by a Taiwanese website.
In China, business coaching is still very much the domain of the largely English-speaking multinational world. “I would say coaching in China is still not popular; there’s a long way to go,” says Hong Kong native Bonnie Chan who runs her own executive coaching company, the Bonnie Chan Coaching School, from the former British territory. “The main demand is from multinational companies operating in China.”
It’s because Chinese people are still struggling to understand what it is and why they need it, she says.
Coaching is better understood by many as mentoring, according to Stephen Murphy and Jon Echanove who’ve set up the Academy of Executive Coaching’s new business in China. There is a thirst for knowledge and re-applying someone else’s knowledge is seen as quicker than developing one’s own approach.
They explain that as China’s economy grows while global profits get squeezed, localisation becomes necessary for multinationals seeking to develop local management to replace expensive expatriates. These bilingual local managers need an effective way of managing their transition as organisational leaders – enter coaching.
With a large, unregulated market, the development of accredited coaches is a significant professional need and business opportunity, particularly as in the next decade the Chinese government aims to transform China from a manufacturing-based to a knowledge-based economy, where development tools such as coaching will play a major role.
Small steps
Although demand from domestic companies is still low that does not mean local staff are not exposed to coaching. Dalida Turkovic, who set up Small Steps China in 2002, which among other services offers business coaching, says many multinationals are sending local staff her way. “I am working with quite a lot of young Chinese fresh out of university. They call them
the ‘new leaders’. These are people who work for high-ranking multinationals and these companies are investing in them from the beginning,” she explains.
Beijing-based Small Steps China puts a decidedly Chinese twist on coaching by using qigong martial arts as a tool for development.
The two top cultural issues for her Chinese business clients are: “Their belief that you can’t manage bottom up, and learning how to say no.”
Part of the reason coaching has been slow to catch on is that the concept has not been clearly understood and it may even be looked at in a negative light. “Coaching for development is just not something that has been done much in China so it is still treated with suspicion,” says Gallo. “It is often seen as remedial and there is a stigma to being coached. One Chinese leadership expert told me that ‘our leaders may be polite if being coached, but deep in their hearts they do not believe they need it. They certainly do not want it’.”
Barriers
There are misconceptions about coaching. Jeff Hasenfratz, from coaching firm Mindsight, writes: “They [Chinese staff] may perceive it as less a development vehicle than a means of remedying their ‘faults’. Worse, it may be viewed as a harbinger of potential dismissal.”
Turkovic, however, says understanding is growing via a trickle-down effect. When Chinese staff in multinationals are coached, they often respond well, and so the concept is beginning to spread. “They are very quick to catch on; maybe some of them have had some education in the West as well”, she says. “They are much more open to the whole concept.”
It used to be that HR departments in local companies didn’t know what coaching was. Now they have a clearer idea.
Chan thinks actively promoting the philosophy of coaching in China could work, especially via international organisations such as the International Association of Coaching (IAC) and the International Coach Federation (ICF). While the IAC has not yet established a presence in mainland China, the ICF has chapters in Shanghai and Beijing and counts more than 70 members in the country, according to Ann Jarvis, ICF’s marketing manager. “I would say coaching could be adapted widely in China and that is also my mission,” says Chan.
A critical part of this work will be countering misconceptions and prejudices. Coaching does not naturally fit with traditional Confucian (hierarchical) culture.When coaches work with Chinese staff they often need a couple of pre-sessions to explain the process. “We have an orientation programme: what coaching is and how it works,” says Turkovic.
The key concepts are usually about the roles the coach and client need to assume. They may see the coach as a teacher, and themselves as a student being tested, says Chan. “But the coach and client have an equal position. They should respect each other. So this requires a little bit of an adjustment.”
Turkovic expands. “A client may take a perspective that by asking questions I am really testing them and I am looking for the right answer. So it takes a while to break that belief. Then there is a belief that they should be asking me questions and that I as a coach am there to provide the answers.”
Another issue for Chinese clients is trust. It takes a little bit more time to build up a rapport with the client, says Raf Verheyen, a Shanghai-based coach with Progress-U. “Everything is based on relationships and you need to get them to open up to you. If you try to do it too soon they shut down. In the coaching process in Europe it’s immediate… if you have chemistry you can just start. Here we usually take one or two sessions [to establish that rapport] before we get started.”
He adds that Chinese clients are often reluctant to answer truthfully because they are worried they might get into trouble.
Chan agrees. “Our Chinese clients take time to trust us. By that I mean to trust that the coaching is going to work and that they trust the individual coach. But once you get them to trust the process then the second part comes naturally.”
Making a difference
With such cultural barriers, clearly, before coaching can really take off in China there needs to be more Chinese coaches with the right experience. “You need 10-15 years’ multinational experience, speaking fluent Mandarin and English, and there’s not that many here yet,” says Verheyen.
Support networks are also lacking. Apart from the ICF’s two chapters, most coaches tend to build and use informal networks. These, says Turkovic, are more organised in Shanghai than Beijing. Coaches in the capital tend to be worried about losing their clients to a competitor and are less keen to help each other.
However, Chan is optimistic about the long-term prospects for business coaching in China.
“I would say that for the next five years, if international organisations and multinationals put effort into promoting coaching, and, perhaps with the help of Hong Kong, we can set up a certification programme in Chinese. I think that would make a big difference. After five years there will be wonderful Chinese-speaking coaches in China.”
Coaching at Work, Volume 5, Issue 6