Field Report–The Boom in Coach Training in China

As coaches from around the region—and the world—gathered in Singapore last week for the inaugural Asia Pacific Coaching Conference, the country on many minds was China—big, booming, and hungry for coaching.

“China right now is a very exciting place to be,” said one coach of his work in Beijing. “I think there are these large companies that are Chinese-based, but also have ties and interests in the West that are very hungry for any information, whether it’s Chinese-based coaching or Western-based coaching. I’m noticing a lot of flexibility among these folks—they’re steeped in Chinese culture, but they’re also willing to bring in anything Western that’s helpful.”

So much so, in fact, that fully twenty percent of the delegates to the APCC last week came from China and Hong Kong, a figure that surprised even the conference’s founder, Foo See Luan. “That came as a huge and pleasant surprise for me,” said Foo, who considers China a tremendous potential market for coaching in the next few years.

“There are Americans, there are Europeans going to Beijing to study Mandarin,” said Foo, who hopes to see the coaching community embrace Asia—and China in particular—as a destination to be included regularly in the mix of cities chosen to host major coaching events like the ICF’s annual conference.

For Bronwyn Bowery-Ireland, CEO of International Coach Academy, the trip to Singapore from her base in Shanghai was a celebration—a chance to meet ICA students at an event organized by Felicia Lauw, an ICA “Learning Leader” for ICA’s Chinese coach training program.

The program’s first students graduate this week. “Very proud,” said Bowery-Ireland. “Five fully accredited coaches who did the whole course in Chinese.” The ICA’s also debuted a Chinese language website as part of its expansion into the Chinese market—a topic that had coaches talking late into the night in Singapore.

“It was wonderful to meet so many people of whom many were living within my own city of Shanghai,” said Bowery-Ireland. “Coaching is definitely growing in this region and people talked about the importance of the role of the ICF and groups like APCC to create coaching standards and education around what coaching is. Everyone was passionate about the role coaching can play in this region.”

As Foo See Luan suggested, there is no shortage of Western coaches who see China as a market that can’t be ignored.

“Coaching is definitely growing in this region and people talked about the importance of the role of the ICF and groups like APCC to create coaching standards and education around what coaching is. Everyone was passionate about the role coaching can play in this region,” said Bowery-Ireland.

For CTI, the US-based Coaches Training Institute, China represents a potentially lucrative new market—and one CTI is taking seriously. In July, CTI celebrated the tenth anniversary of CTI/Japan, and held its first training session in China, in Beijing.

For Karen Kimsey-House, CTI’s c0-founder and president, being in China is being at the heart of the evolving coaching conversation. “Any conversation is a global conversation. We need always to be reaching into new environments, and into China.”

Jeff Jacobson, an American teacher-turned-coach who speaks Mandarin, says he never incorporated his language skills or interest in Chinese culture into his coaching—until now.

“I think it’s a big deal. The Chinese market has not been something that CTI has gone into,” “it’s a growing market—that’s an understatement.”

Jacobson had previously taught a CTI course in China for IBM, and then, last month, was one of the leaders of CTI’s first-ever training session in Beijing. “The first ever public course that was a c0-active course in China,” said Jacobson.

“The students are really interested and curious,” said Jacobson, who describes Chinese coaching students as tremendously eager to learn anything that will give them the edge at work.

What about China’s epic history and culture?

Jacobson points to the experience of Japan, where a culture steeped in tradition was nonetheless able to find a way to adopt new techniques developed in the West. “A lot of the Chinese are willing to say we’ve got this Chinese model and we’ve got a Western model, and there’s a place for both.”

The first coaching students in programs like CTI’s tend to come from Western companies doing business in China—they’re bilingual, HR executives or senior managers with extensive experience in both China and the West. “I don’t see this overtaking Chinese culture and seeing it become completely Westernized,” said Jacobson. What he can see, he says, is the eventual evolution of a “Chinese model” of co-active coaching.

Is China the kind of boom market that any coach can take advantage of—or just those with a graduate degree in Chinese history and a conversational grasp of Mandarin? “I can imagine that China seems very daunting,” said Jacobson.

However, Jacobson says he was surprised by the entrepreneurial spirit in places like Beijing—people willing to work with Westerners who don’t know the history or the language, but have something valuable to share.

“I think if people are willing to build some partnerships with people, the potential is incredible.”