Become a Culturally Competent Coach_Final
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>> Hey again.
In the last lecture, we talked about
the why of cultural sensitivity,
specifically why it's important
and beneficial to our clients.
This information is super important
but of little use if we don't actually apply it.
In this lecture, we're going to talk about
the how of cultural sensitivity,
how to identify and shift your own biased attitudes
to become a culturally competent coach.
Then I'll walk you through the four step process
that you can use in sessions to be considering
of your client's cultural identities.
You don't need to know lots of information
about different cultures in order to have
a cultural competency.
The key is actually to have an understanding
and appreciation of your own cultural conditioning
and awareness of your attitudes around people
who differ from you.
As coaches, we need to be willing
and able to fully put aside our own perspectives
in order to receive our clients
and their stories without bias.
We can't put aside our own perspective
if we can't even recognize that it is a perspective.
This concept is easy to understand
but can be difficult to put into practice,
that's because we take for granted
our own cultural values, attitudes, and biases.
Cultures are obvious on this surface,
what we wear, the foods we eat, and so on.
But our cultural attitudes and values operate on autopilot,
typically below our level of conscious awareness.
Also, this process can be really uncomfortable
because it requires us to be brutally honest with ourselves
and examine how we judge and feel about people
who are different from us.
No one wants to feel like
they're racist or sexist or homophobic.
So it can feel disturbing and disappointing to admit
that we really don't feel comfortable working
with a certain population or to acknowledge
that we hold a stereotype about a group of people.
But emitting these things doesn't make as bad people,
the truth is we all have biases
about different societal groups
that we've learned and internalized over time.
We're all born as blank slates,
but as we develop, we pick up beliefs and attitudes
either from direct experience, passed on from our families,
or learn from in our communities,
the media, and our culture at large.
As we seek to understand our differences
and understand the world, we end up labeling others.
Our culture informs us of who we are
and who others are in the world relative to us.
Whether we want to or not, we adopt the messages
we repeatedly hear playing in the soundtracks of our lives,
especially when we're young.
Unless we identify and challenge them,
they'll remain lurking in our subconscious minds,
and they'll interfere with our ability
to effectively coach.
We should never discriminate
when it comes to who we sign as clients,
but we do need to know our challenges and limitations
regarding who we can comfortably and competently work with.
Our clients deserve the best coaching experience possible.
If we're confronted with our own bias,
we need to at least acknowledge our limitations
so that we can try to overcome them
or provide a referral to a colleague
who can better serve that person.
Now when we coach to a target market, naturally,
we're not going to work with everyone
from all walks of life.
If you're a coach for pregnant women,
for example, it's pretty safe to say
you won't be working with men, children, or the elderly.
But within your target market,
you'll be exposed to much diversity over time,
Hispanic women, polyamorous women,
black women, Islamic women,
women with PhDs and women with eighth grade educations,
women with near genius IQs and women
with learning disabilities, lesbians,
heterosexual women, and the list goes on.
Some of you may be hearing that list
and notice yourself already cringing
with discomfort at important words.
Take note of that,
which words or categories of people create
that feeling of discomfort
because those areas provide the most opportunity for growth
for you as a coach and as an individual.
It's great if you have knowledge
about different backgrounds and orientations,
but what's crucial for us as coaches
to be clear on is our attitudes.
Take a moment and honestly answer the following questions.
What types of people
or characteristics of people make me uneasy?
What group of people would I rather not work with and why?
What types of people do I find myself making jokes about
or passing judgment on in my life?
What stereotypes do I give weight to?
Listen, I know that nobody wants
to admit this kind of stuff,
but we need to dare to be bold as coaches.
Pause the lecture right here,
grab a piece of paper and a pen
and reflect on these questions.
Ask yourself, "Considering where I'm at right now,
what groups of people might
I have some difficulty working with and why?"
Nobody ever needs to see this piece of paper but you,
so be as honest with yourself as possible.
All right, how did that go?
I commend you for your bravery
to be brutally honest with yourself.
Now that you've acknowledged your assumptions,
you can begin to work on shifting any attitudes you hold
that don't serve you.
This works the same way
you challenge any limiting belief in your life,
which by now, you know all about.
For each attitude you want to shift or shed, ask yourself,
where did this come from?
Was this gleaned from an experience
I had with one individual from this group?
Did my parents raise me to think this way?
Was this a cultural message
I was taught from my community or the media?
Like your limiting belief, once you know where it came from,
you can challenge its validity, come up with an alternative,
and find opportunity to seek experiences
that will reinforce a new pattern of thinking.
In the meantime
while you're working to shift these attitudes,
you'll at least be aware they exist.
So when you meet people who challenge your limits,
whether inside or outside of your professional life,
you can start being mindful of your biases.
Now there will be little red flags
and you can practice catching yourself
by telling yourself things,
for example, "Okay, I know I have a tendency to think
that black women are intimidating
but I realize this is rooted in an experience
that doesn't accurately represent reality.
So let me see how this encounter is different."
You may still be approaching with that bias
but at least you're presenting
with the willingness to challenge and shed it.
So part of knowing yourself is having an awareness
of how you perceive other cultures
and people different from yourself.
This is what we just went over.
The other part involves having an awareness
of your own culture.
What is your culture?
In this day and age, many of us
come from a heritage of blended ethnicities,
races, religions, and so on.
And our backgrounds are unique and diverse.
So when I say, what is your culture,
I mean, what is your unique culture?
What different backgrounds do you hail from,
and how have they blended together
to create your upbringing?
We often take for granted these facets of our lives,
but we all have a rich and interesting story.
When we take the time to stop
and notice and appreciate where we come from,
we start to gain an appreciation for the stories
of others we meet.
The activities in this module will help you get in touch
with your cultural identity,
and I encourage you to take time and effort to do them.
So now you'll be able to coach
with much greater cultural sensitivity
because you'll have an understanding of your own attitudes
and a willingness to appreciate and learn about others.
Wondering how to incorporate
all of this into your own coaching sessions?
Here's our four step process designed
to easily keep you on track to coach
with cultural sensitivity.
One, assess individual differences.
Simply put, ask questions, lots of them.
Get curious about your clients and their history.
We assess for cultural differences by assessing
for individual differences.
This isn't about investigating stereotypes,
it's about asking everyone the same types
of exploratory questions.
"What was your experience like as blank?
What was it like growing up blank?
What is it like for you to be blank?
What do you personally value?
What does your family value?
Is there a conflict between the two?
How does your culture play a role in your life?"
Every time we ask about a client's values,
there's a cultural component to it.
It's more enriching to know
what it's like to experience body image issues
as an underweight lesbian black woman,
for example, than just to try to understand
body image issues in a vacuum.
You're not going to offend your clients
by going there because you're not making any assumptions,
you're letting them tell you how it is,
they'll appreciate it,
most people gloss over this stuff
because it's uncomfortable.
Two, acknowledge cultural differences.
Now that you have your client thinking
about the influences in their lives,
you want to help them connect the dots to see
what they do with these messages.
The question you want to really get at
and explore is basically this,
"How does this perspective guide your behavior?
Understanding the why about things can be enlightening.
We all have a perfectly good reason
for why doing everything we do,
but sometimes, on this surface,
it makes no sense or seems counter-intuitive.
When you can guide someone to a place
where they realize they've been thinking
and behaving in ways
that are a direct result of the messages
they've been fed and see the messages
as a product of their culture
rather than a product of their own,
they can evaluate whether or not it's serving them,
and explore what it might mean for them to reprogram
or shed this message.
Three, adapt your coaching strategy to tailor
your intervention appropriately.
This is about letting your client lead on
what they want to do or not do with this information.
No matter what you think is right or necessary or good,
it's important to adapt your program in a way
that is sensitive to each client's cultural values
and attitudes.
Like, for example, even if you think
that your client is totally stifled
by her culture's expectations of women's,
it's never appropriate for you to suggest
she abandon her traditional worldview.
Your job is just to create a safe space
to help her explore what she wants to do.
You can do this by asking questions, like,
"How can I best support you while respecting your values?
Or "If what you're seeking from coaching is at odds
with your family or your cultural values,
what will go in about this look like for you?"
For some clients, it can be beneficial
to spend time deconstructing cultural and media messages,
and learning how to reject them and replace them
with their own empowering beliefs.
Others may just want to focus on the work.
Some clients may be grateful for the opportunity to explore
how they've been oppressed or discriminated against,
or how their cultures function in their lives.
Others may not be willing or interested to go in there.
And that's okay,
we tailor interventions by letting our clients lead.
Four, evaluate.
Check in frequently for feedback to make sure
you're operating in your client's worldview
and that you haven't gravitated back onto your own.
Remember, our perspective functions on autopilot
so that they'll drift back if they go unchecked.
You can ask questions, like,
"Has discussing this been helpful for you?
How is this progress going for you?"
Or "Is there anything I or we could be doing differently
that would make this better?"
Just like we don't want to make assumptions
about our clients,
we don't want to assume that what we're doing is helpful
or that it's working for them.
And if we ever make mistakes
and say something that comes off
as offensive or insensitive,
we need to just give a genuine apology
and seize the moment for feedback.
So to recap, we can weave cultural competency right
into our day-to-day work
by assessing individual differences
through a cultural lens,
help our clients acknowledge
and understand their cultural differences,
adapt our coaching strategies flexibly in response,
and regularly pause to evaluate what we're doing.
As you become more tuned into your own culture
and your own attitudes, it will be easier to understand
how these mechanisms function in other people's lives.
To help you begin to sort out your own cultural identity,
head back over to the Learning Center right now
to complete the cultural competency checklist
and the Cultural Iceberg worksheet.
Thank you so much for watching,
and we'll see you next time.