Efforts to attract and retain black African professionals in Cape Town-based organisations are often met with challenges. Coaching has been identified as a potential strategic contributor for developing a sense of inclusivity and successful adjustment for black African professionals.
The study investigated the contribution that coaching makes and aimed at understanding the conditions required for coaching to support the adjustment process during relocation.
Too little is known in South Africa of how coaching can impact the adjustment during relocation. There is a need to identify key conditions that would enable a successful coaching process for migrating groups in the larger South African context.
A qualitative inductive methodology approach was followed to guide the study, consisting of 11 in-depth interviews with three different professional groups to elicit various perspectives.
It can be concluded that coaching contributes to black African professionals’ adjustment to living and working in South Africa. The success of the coaching outcome and capability for adjustment depends on the individual, the coach and the environment in which they work. The supporting conditions that were commonly found from the three professional groups were support and space for the individual, while depth and match played a key role according to coaches and human resource (HR) professionals.
This article provides guidelines and recommendations for HR and senior managers in any organisation that experiences a complexity infused by racial and cultural diversity within its internal and external context. The study shows ways in which coaching as a tool can be useful in dealing with cross-cultural dynamics that prevail in South Africa and South Africa-based organisations especially during relocation adjustment.
The body of knowledge contributes to understanding coaching in a diverse society reflected in cross-cultural organisations and the key conditions influencing the coaching intervention during an adjustment process.
The low retention rate of black African professionals who relocate to Cape Town from other parts of South Africa is a cause for concern. In a speech at the Cape Town Press Club, then
There is a need to build inclusive and enabling environments in South Africa where people of all backgrounds feel a sense of belonging. Human resources (HRs) specialists in South African organisations who suffer the consequences of employees leaving because of the perceived barriers to the achievement of employment equity for black African people (Surtee & Hall,
Coaching has been suggested in previous research and other instances as part of a strategy to help with the adjustment for black professionals wanting to live and work in Cape Town (Lundy,
The authors acknowledge that South Africa has faced major shifts at an economic, political and social level in a short span of time. In April 1994, there was a change from an exclusive government to an inclusive dispensation. With this episodic change, organisations had to transform, and this was largely enforced through the introduction of laws such as Affirmative Action, then later Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) (Booysen,
Studies conducted in the South African context, specifically by Myers (
The next section explores theories on social identity, cultural intelligence, race theory and how these are relevant for management coaching as a strategic intervention for employee adjustment and retention.
Social identity influences racial identity, particularly in post-apartheid South Africa, which, in turn, influences self-categorisation and self-concept. It is a ‘cognitive theory which holds that individuals tend to classify themselves and others into social categories and that these classifications have a significant effect on human interactions’ (Booysen,
Cultural Intelligence as a concept has potential in helping to understand cross-cultural dynamics and interactions in our modern world. As a construct, cultural intelligence has only been introduced to management literature recently and thus at present there is no generally accepted definition or operationalisation of it (Ang et al.,
Influencing this study are ideas that coaching combines psychology and politics in order to gain an ‘understanding and sympathy for the coachee’s cultural worldview above and beyond any presenting issue’ (Gordon,
In his earliest teaching, Fanon cautioned against ‘psychology depoliticising the terms of human experiences’ (Hook,
The essence of management coaching is ‘helping leaders getting unstuck from their dilemmas and assisting them in transferring their learning into results for their organisations’ (O’Neill,
a professional, collaborative and outcomes-driven method of learning that seeks to develop an individual and raise self-awareness so that he/she might achieve specific goals and perform at a more effective level. (online)
Given these definitions, HR managers and coaches need to be aware of the perceived barriers, their possible origins and the influence of social identity, especially in diverse workplaces in South Africa, so that these issues can be dealt with explicitly during the coaching process.
In the recent past, there has been an inclination to view organisations as race-neutral spaces (Nkomo,
It was the purpose of the study to explore the contribution of coaching to the adjustment of black African professionals, aimed specifically at understanding the conditions and perspectives of the coaching experience of the participants. With this purpose in mind, this study from a paradigm point of view lent itself to an interpretivist outlook (Babbie & Mouton,
The study followed a qualitative inductive methodology approach with the primary goal of ‘describing and understanding rather than explaining human behaviour’ (Babbie & Mouton,
To achieve the aim and objectives of this research, the design was a case study. Case studies are understood as an in-depth study of how people experience a particular situation or phenomenon (Brink,
This study was carried out using purposive sampling, based on the researchers’ judgement and the purposes of the study (Babbie & Mouton,
Eleven individuals from the three groups of professionals were chosen to participate in this study (HR managers, coaches and coachees). The rationale behind the choices was justified using Laurie’s arguments, which are that change programmes on cultural interventions often fail because they are implemented without the overall company strategy guiding it (Laurie,
Rationale, inclusion criteria and demography for participants.
Professional group | Rationale | Criteria for inclusion | Demography |
---|---|---|---|
HR managers | HR managers are often buyers of coaching services and custodians of the relocation processes. They play an active role in the retention of employees. | Relocation of black African professionals in their role as HR managers in Cape-based organisations Provision of a coaching and/or mentoring programme in their organisation to the black professionals who were relocated. |
|
Coaches | The coaching fraternity can benefit from a better understanding of the extent of their work, specifically during the adjustment process after relocation to Cape Town. | Coaching assignment with black African professionals who relocated in the past 12 months. Affiliation with a professional body such as COMENSA (Coaching and Mentoring South Africa), ICF (International Coaching Federation). |
|
Black African professionals coachees | Captures perception of black professionals as recipients of a coaching intervention in order to understand their experience. | Relocation to Cape Town took place in the past 12 months Minimum of two or more years in a managerial or executive position Had been assigned a coach in that period and had undergone a minimum of four coaching sessions. |
HR, human resources; HRM, human resource manager.
A semi-structured interview process was followed which involved unstructured and generally open-ended, probing questions and which intended to elicit views and opinions from the participants (Creswell,
the perceptions of how coaching contributed (or not) to the process of adjustment by each of the three professional groups
the skills learnt (if at all) in aid of the adjustment
the observations that were made, which provide evidence for the perceptions
recommendations to members of their own professional groups and to the other two groups.
A thematic coding methodology was used to organise the material gathered from the interviews into chunks and segments of text before bringing meaning to the information (Creswell,
The principles of protection of participants from harm, informed consent, the right to privacy, honesty and voluntary participation were adhered to in this study as outlined by Leedy and Ormrod (
This study included three distinct different professional groups to shed insights from these three unique perspectives. The findings are therefore reported, firstly for each group, and then synthesised to illustrate the novel insights with practical implications for coaching interventions in Cape Town, and more generally for South Africa.
To understand the findings better, it is important to give an outline of some of the questions that were posed to the different groupings. For black professionals – the enquiry was about how well they think they have adjusted, the role they attributed to coaching that played a part in the adjustment process and finally any specific skills that they learnt in the process. For all groups, the final question was the recommendations that they would give to each other in aid of maximising the use of coaching. The coaches were asked to describe their client’s experience of their coaching. They were asked to think about what in the coaching environment contributed, the skills the black professionals learnt that assisted in them adjusting to living and working in Cape Town. They had to further substantiate their responses through observations and feedback received from the HR managers. The HR managers were tasked with explaining their organisations’ standpoint on the value of coaching as a strategic contributor, what evidence they saw and the skills learnt which supported the black professionals in their new roles and as new residents to Cape Town.
The inference from the study is that coaching as part of a professional’s development programme contributed to the coachees’ adjustment to the life event of ‘relocating’, changing jobs and living in a new environment. The black African professionals in this study expressed four effective conditions: space, support, match and depth in their reflections, which are illustrated in the findings below. Notably, these are the benefits of having the space to reflect, getting support through the transition, enjoying an independent mirror reflecting their thoughts and gaining alignment professionally and personally. The following quote illustrates this condition:
‘It (the coaching) provided a safe space so to speak.’ (Participant B2, coachee)
‘[…] it’s definitely doing what I expected it to do which is to hold up a mirror to my blind spots’. (Participant B3, Coachee)
The findings from the interviews with black professionals were found to support the views of Hill (
Factors that further assisted in the adjustment process were the level of initiative that coachees took in the coaching process, their openness with their coach, their willingness to be vulnerable and to receive feedback
‘I think it was probably me taking initiative’ … (Participant B1, Coachee)
‘… I needed to hear the negative as much as the positives. It’s not something people receive well but just for me to grow’. (Participant B1, Coachee)
In the study, it seems that black professionals, because of the significant changes in their lives, approached the coaching with some level of ownership. They engaged and wanted to be coached. The importance of executive engagement for coaching effectiveness has been confirmed previously (Hill,
Other aspects that emerged related to the coach themselves, particularly in their objectivity, mutual respect, creating a safe space, depth of coaching as well as the race of the coach. The openness and ease to talk about race, issues relating to racism in the workplace and racial incidents while living and working in Cape Town were bigger when the coaches themselves were black. This was described as follows:
‘It’s not easy to raise a racial issue with a coach who’s white, it’s a lot harder […] having someone black, you can relate on a different level. It made the conversation a lot more honest and I was also open to her criticism on those issues’. (Participant B1, Coachee)
Cornish (
The participants identified that listening, embracing failure and being open to new things were learnt during coaching, and this helped them specifically with the adjustment to their new situation. As one coachee said:
‘One thing I got out of my coaching sessions after a while was that I wasn’t allowing myself the experiences in Cape Town and at work. I was too inward, so I realised the value of being open to trying out things’. (Participant B3, Coachee)
Socially and as a leadership competency, listening and the ability to see growth in failure are seen as key by Myers (
According to coaches, the biggest benefit for the coachees was greater awareness of themselves, insight into how they show up in their new roles, their new environment and their response to others. The following quote illustrates this aspect precisely:
‘It’s not about being a Joburg good black, it’s facilitating how they themselves show up’. It’s really about raising awareness, about their contribution to the work, it’s about their perceptions of themselves’. (Participant C1, Coach)
Increased self-awareness as a personal competency is a key coaching outcome. O’Flaherty and Everson (
Given the loss of confidence that can result when an individual is in a new role, unsure of the new surroundings, different living conditions and lacking familiarity, the building of confidence is important as a coaching outcome. In her study, Bennett (
‘with their anxiety. Could be for example not having a sense of belonging, not having family, out of group. And that brings in lots of anxiety. The way to deal with it is to name it in the coaching’ (Participant C3, Coach)
Bennett (
In a similar vein to the coachees, the match between coach and client, the skill to understand the client, the ability to challenge and to serve as a form of deep reflection for the client were identified as helpful conditions during the adjustment. These findings support Hill (
‘If you do not understand their situation, it will not work … so if you don’t get their culture and you don’t get the culture they work in, then it will be difficult for you as a coach to understand and help them’. (Participant C2, Coach)
Coaches indicated the following skills and competencies as the ones that contributed to coaching helping with adjustment: cultural intelligence and emotional intelligence. From a coach’s perspective, it was stated as follows:
‘They (black African professionals) need cultural intelligence and they need personal and emotional intelligence very quickly to get into the English fabric of the company they’re working in’. (Participant C2, Coach)
The findings underpin that cultural and emotional intelligence are about deep awareness: awareness of self, awareness of other, awareness of own culture, awareness of other’s culture and awareness of how coachees relate to all of these. Earley and Mosakowski (
The coaches found the reflection on how their coaching helped during adjustment of black African professionals who moved to live and work in Cape Town helpful. The awakening that took place is an indicator of the need for coaches to be aware of the explicit issues that particularly black African professionals bring to the coaching session. Coaches acknowledged the coachees’ difficulties with adjusting to the Cape Town life, on the one hand, and the need for them to be effective in their professional roles during times of change, transition and uncertainty, on the other hand.
The main benefit of coaching, according to HR managers, is that the employees (black African professionals) gained clarity, had the space to think about not only their new roles but also their contribution to the organisation, they received much-needed support given the pressures of their leadership roles and they became more conscious leaders. An observation from an HR manager illustrates these points:
‘I watched these guys (coachees) become more conscious about how they are showing up to things. More conscious and self-aware, much more conscious of the impact that they have […] as an executive, as a leader’. (Participant A1, HR Manager)
It has been emphasised by Day (
‘It just gives space to not walk blindly through that life change. When you walk with intent through that transition and when you walk through that transition supported, it’s a fundamentally different experience. I cannot even imagine expecting execs I work with to do these big life changes – moving to new cities, new jobs, new reporting roles, new functions beneath them, whatever it may be, without this type of support’. (Participant A1, HR Manager)
In the eyes of the HR managers, the conditions that contributed to the effectiveness of the coaching were mostly the match between coach and client, setting clear objectives for the coaching process, a safe space and the support the individual received from their work environment. The HR specialists recognise their responsibility to ensure that there is a match between coach and client and the support they can offer as an organisation.
The analysis of the data revealed how coaching contributed to the adjustment of black African professionals. It can be concluded that coaching did contribute positively. This can, however, not simply be assumed to be the case; therefore, the findings specify the conditions that contribute to the successful outcome of the coaching intervention during a relocation adjustment process.
The research objectives guided how themes were clustered and how the findings are presented. Findings were interpreted including past literature or theories that either confirmed or diverged from it (Creswell,
This study revealed that in most of the cases, adjustment was not an explicit goal in the coaching. In the course of being coached the issue of ‘fitting in’, adjusting to both working and social conditions emerged. This presents an opportunity for Cape-based organisations to support employees by seeking coaching in a deliberate manner, with adjustment as one of the explicit goals. This provides the coachees’ difficulties of adjusting to work and social environment of Cape Town started with insights into how their social identities could be shaping their experiences and creating a barrier for them. As they experienced the ‘exclusion’, it became more insightful and useful for them to distinguish whether this was real or perceived exclusion. Cornish (
It seems that the retention of black African professionals can be facilitated through the process of coaching where social adjustment is on the agenda. This is critical as it is one of the determining factors in the settling in of the individual. It gets the individual to reflect upon their self-categorisation lens and those they place on others, determining those lenses that are of use and those that are not. This means that coaching helps facilitate their sense of awareness and ability to empower themselves.
Equally, the organisational environment ought to be prepared and positioned for cultural inclusion and the competence and interest to retain (Livermore,
There is an immense weight upon the individual organisations in recognising that coaching can be seen as a positive contributor to retaining and settling in of black professionals. What is also evident, although not the main point of this study, is the sentiment that Cape Town as a city does not inspire the adjustment and settling in of the said professionals (Surtee & Hall,
The conclusion is that coaching contributes to black African professionals’ adjustment to living and working in Cape Town. The success of the coaching experience and capability for adjustment does, however, depend on the individual, the coach and the environment in which they work. The supporting conditions that were commonly found from the three professional groups were: support, depth, space and match. Below is the synthesis of these core conditions paired with additional sub-conditions that stood out for each of the participating groups.
One main finding is the
The authors recommend that a relocation within South Africa should indeed be managed similar to the relocation of an expatriate, given the complexity of the racial and social identities which was expressed by the participants of this study and which prevailed in South Africa and in Cape Town particularly. Coaching should, however, not be seen as the only contributor but part of a collective of support given to the person. The relocating organisation can assist proactively by supporting the individual via integration in professional networks – for example, industry-related and private groups of interest, therefore exposing them to different people and environments. Literature has highlighted that coaching can have great benefits for both the coachee and the organisation because in their contentedness and general well-being, people tend to perform better as they are well supported and feel acknowledged (Cornish,
In terms of coaches, their coaching contributes directly when there is
Another relevant finding in this study is that for the coaching to be effective, the coach ought to acknowledge and allow a
The fourth condition identified across all groups is the
Coaching for the adjustment of black African professionals.
The practical implications that can be exercised by all three professional groups can be stated as follows:
Plan the coaching process strategically to facilitate the relocation and adjustment process. Avoid it being a reactive and ad-hoc intervention.
Include the development of cultural sensitivity and intelligence as a coaching objective as a means for effective adjustment to different living conditions and diverse cultures.
Coaches need to reflect on their own social and racial identity to expand their own awareness to enable depth and a safe space for exploring coachees identities in the coaching process.
Sensitise staff and managers within the relocating organisation of the cross-cultural complexities and diversity factors based on social identity theories, to enable such issues to be specified openly and courageously.
Black African professionals need to take full ownership of the coaching process and request support before the relocation.
Black African professionals need to plan to develop their own unique leadership style that reflects their cultural strengths and cultural capital and also be familiar with the complexity of diversity.
The research is confined to a limited number of black professionals who currently work and live in Cape Town after relocating to the Cape and having received coaching. Those who have left Cape Town and those who did not receive coaching during their relocation do not form part of this study.
As set out in the definitions, ‘black’ in this study refers to black Africans only. No Indian or mixed-race professionals were interviewed. White professionals as coachees were also excluded from this study. This is because of indications that the most significant problem of adjustment and feelings of exclusion lies primarily among black professionals (Surtee & Hall,
Black professional graduates were also excluded as their adjustment may have a different set of needs which would add complexity to the study. In their first year of work, graduates generally deal with ‘complex issues surrounding identity and transition and the journey is multi-faceted and varied’ (Dunne,
In its focus, this study excluded black professionals from Cape Town. Those who were born, raised and now work in Cape Town in these same organisations that reportedly are unable to retain their relocated counterparts. Much can be learnt in further research about how they view and experience the corporate and social environments and whether this impacts on them continuing to work and live in Cape Town.
Given the limitation of the study, potential follow-up research could revisit those and other Cape-based organisations that have recently embarked on adjustment and supportive programmes for their newly recruited and relocated black African professionals to investigate what the coaching programmes achieved and how it contributed in the longer term. Additionally, those that did relocate to Cape Town and did not receive coaching can be included in further research to determine how their experience differs and to test the identified supporting conditions. This research could lead to tested frameworks and/or techniques that can further guide adjustment cases.
Cultural intelligence is a relatively new management concept with great potential for helping to understand effective skills in cross-cultural and multi-cultural organisations. Further research to investigate and gain a better understanding of cultural intelligence and its relation to the successful application in South African organisations would therefore be valuable to the field of management studies.
In the context of black African professionals during relocation, the findings from this study on contributions and the required conditions of coaching can be used to inform those in HR or other managerial roles and the coaching fraternity.
Coaches have an evidence-based right to claim that coaching can contribute to the adjustment of black African professionals to working and living in this case study, in Cape Town. The findings are useful in understanding the challenges that black African professionals encounter and ways in which coaching can be useful. It emerged that race does matter in organisations because of South Africa’s particular history. The experience of real and/or perceived racism and discrimination in the workplace needs to be acknowledged in the coaching space. The greatest benefit in being explicit about these experiences is that the coach can challenge the thinking and beliefs of coachees, to help them leverage the positives of their own culture and to incorporate useful aspects from other cultures while remaining true to who they are.
As HR professionals have been included in this enquiry, Cape-based organisations can benefit from hearing the importance of supporting newly recruited black African professionals. The HR managers have indicated how coaching can be an answer to an effective retention strategy of individuals who need to adjust in work life, private life and in developing healthy associations.
In closing, this body of knowledge contributes to understanding coaching in a diverse society reflected in cross-cultural organisations and the key conditions influencing the success of the coaching intervention during an adjustment process.
V.T. was a master’s student at Stellenbosch University, USB, and conducted the research as part of her dissertation for the fulfilment of the degree, Master in Philosophie in Management Coaching.
The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.
H.M.L.S. was the supervisor for V.T. during the research project and converted the dissertation into the journal article.