Coaches and the users of coaching services who are aligned with the virtual culture conceive of coaching as a vehicle for the engagement and use of knowledge and expertise that is being produced and modified at an exponential rate in our postmodern world. This organizational arrangement, labelled “change” by Rosinski, “values a dynamic and flexible environment, promotes effectiveness through adaptability and innovations, and avoids routine, which is perceived as boring.” Those aligned with this culture tend to value a global perspective and make extensive use of open, shared and responsive learning systems. They are participants in what Thomas Friedman describes as a “flat world” which has abandoned organizational and national boundaries.
If Susan Stracker were aligned with the virtual culture, she and her fellow coaches and leaders associated with this culture would embrace man, untested assumptions about their ability to make sense of the fragmentation and ambiguity that exists in the postmodern world. Susan would undoubtedly be quite wise and skillful in making use of digital technologies. She might even do some of her coaching via the Internet and is likely to work with clients who are also technologically savvy.
Susan would be frustrated in working with clients who are not readily accessible via some portable digital device and would be inclined to work quickly and decisively with clients via many different media. Coaches and leaders who are oriented toward the virtual culture are likely to conceive of the coaching enterprise as linking the leader’s learning needs to technological resources that enable the leader to access a global market and learning network. As a virtually oriented coach, Susan would be actively engaged in setting up her own network of coaches and in accessing coaching resources from throughout the world.
The Tangible Culture
Leadership Values: Tradition/Heritage/Appreciation
Criteria of Leadership Success: Meaningful, Trusting and Sustained Interpersonal Relationships/ First-hand observations of institutional success: “you have to see it to believe it and to know that it is real”
Coaching Orientation: Focus on relationships in the here-and-now. Coach serving as trusted source of support and inspiration
Nature of Coaching Clientele: Long term coaching relationships (often working with established and family-owned businesses)
Criteria of Coaching Status: Working over a long period of time with high profile and influential clients
Nature of Coaching Impact: The containment of anxiety: helping challenged leaders to set appropriate boundaries and sustain important (often courageous) acts.
Coaches and the users of coaching services who are aligned with the tangible culture conceive of coaching as a vehicle for the identification and appreciation of an institution’s roots, community and symbolic grounding. This organizational arrangement is at the opposite end of the continuum from the virtual culture. Labelled “stability” by Rosinski, it “values a static and orderly environment, encourages efficiency through systematic and disciplined work, and minimizes change and ambiguity which is perceived as disruptive.”.
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