Intercultural Coaching Webinar

On 2 February, Sonja Wekema shared about the importance of intercultural coaching in a webinar hosted by NOBCO, the Dutch EMCC (European Mentoring & Coaching Council). The turnout of coaches at the webinar was astounding, with 155 coaches expressing interest and almost 120 in attendance. This represents a growing trend among coaches recognizing their need for specifically intercultural tools and training beyond their regular coaching tools. Initiator Rixt Kuiper organised the webinar, which was opened by Dr. Riza Kadilar and Marieke Jellema, the chairs of NOBCO and EMCC respectively. Rixt brought two excellent panelists on board alongside Sonja: Christian van Nieuwerburgh, PhD, a professor of coaching and positive psychology at the University of East London and published author on interculturally-sensitive coaching, and Marco Blankenburgh, International Director of KnowledgeWorkx. Together the panelists answered challenging questions like, "Aren't the tools we have as coaches, like empathy and humility, enough to coach in an intercultural context?" They introduced the coaches to the intercultural spotlight, showing them how essential it is to be both emotionally and interculturally intelligent, then discussed how to co-create shared culture (the third cultural space) with clients in order to enhance the coaching engagement. The webinar was an excellent introduction to intercultural coaching, with an overwhelming majority of participants indicating they wanted to continue the conversation to learn more.