Coaching that ignores the cultural heritage of non-Westernised clients is ineffective at best. Coaching psychologists in New Zealand understand this and are now required to adapt theories to suit Māori clients. Lisa Stewart reports
Tītmatanga o te matauranga
ko te wahangū,
te wāhanga tuarua ko te whakarongo.
The first stage of learning is silence,
the second stage is listening.
Māori Whakataukī (proverb)
Most coaches and coaching psychologists would agree it is important to adapt our theories and methods to suit our clients, and to respect and value their cultural world views and ways of being. But how often do we do this? In New Zealand, such adaptation is required for coaching psychologists.
The New Zealand Psychologists Board1 acknowledges that
“the practice of psychology in Aotearoa New Zealand reflects paradigms and world views of both partners to te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi”.
Registered psychologists (including coaching psychologists) must demonstrate “awareness and knowledge of their own cultural identity, values and practices”, and those of their clients – especially of Māori (the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand) as their Treaty partner. One of the reasons for this approach is to reduce the persistently poorer socio-economic, justice, health and employment outcomes for Māoris.
Tuakana/Teina:
A Māori model of learning and development
The tuakana/teina model is the most well-known and used of a number of traditional Māori methods of learning and development(2). Literally meaning ‘older sibling/younger sibling’, within an L&D context, it is usually interpreted as more experienced/less experienced.
It is more a mentoring model.
Tuakana/teina is based on two important principles: whanaungatanga and ako. Whanaungatanga means the “practices that bond and strengthen the kinship ties of a whānau (family).”
As a collectivist society, Māori love and care for each other, and extended family, in the whānau.
Aroha (love), loyalty, obligation and commitment, are all part of the support system that make a whānau, hapu (sub-tribe) and iwi (tribe) strong. In an L&D context, whanaungatanga means the more experienced learner (tuakana) takes on the responsibility of ‘teaching’ the less experienced learner (teina).
Ako means to learn as well as to teach. Therefore, in the tuakana/teina relationship, the role of learner is reciprocal and shifts, so that the learner becomes the teacher, and the teacher becomes the learner, and back again. The emphasis here is that we learn and grow together.
Collins and Palmer(4) argue that coaching psychology must be underpinned by “psychological approaches and adult learning theory too” (p16). What isn’t often recognised is the Western-centric dominance within psychological and adult learning theories, models and practice. Awareness and knowledge of indigenous and other minority culture theories, models and practice are largely invisible except to those cultural groups. This is changing, however.
For example, Durie5 discussed the distinctiveness of a Māori psychology while McCubbin and Marsella6 discussed the traditional Native Hawai’ian conception of psyche.
While tuakana/teina is well known and used as a model for L&D among Māori communities, and some elements of the education sector in Aotearoa New Zealand, it is largely unknown among the coaching psychology practitioners. However, Tangaere2 discusses its similarity with Vygotsky’s7 concept of scaffolding – a support system in which the teacher provides graduated assistance to the learner. It could easily be understood along with other non-Western psychological theories, approaches and tools within the coaching psychology integrated framework presented by Collins and Palmer.
Te Whare Tapa Whā:
A Maori model of health and wellbeing
If one of the goals of coaching is for our clients to flourish, then we need to question our assumed underlying model of health, wellbeing and flourishing.
A model of Māori health and wellbeing embedded in our Ministry of Health policy, and well-known among Māori and non-Māori psychologists, is Te Whare Tapa Whā (The Four Walls; see p45)8. These walls include taha wairua (the spiritual side), taha hinengaro (thoughts and feelings), taha tinana (the physical side) and taha whānau (extended family).
How strongly a Māori client identifies with their culture (acculturation) will determine which of these walls needs attention in terms of health, wellbeing and flourishing, but Durie argues the wairua (spiritual) side is critical to Māori wellbeing.
Common aspects include: prayer, singing, meeting with Māori elders (simply to be in their company and perhaps listen to their wisdom) and visits home to marae (a tribal village meeting place which includes a meeting house and other ancillary buildings and homes to support the village), to spend time among nature.
Western theories and non-Western clients
Problems that arise when using Western theories, approaches and tools with non-Western clients, include ineffective coaching relationships, poorer coaching outcomes, a lack of cultural safety for the client and negative perceptions of coaches and coaching psychology as a result of clients not receiving culturally appropriate services.
In Aotearoa New Zealand, cultural safety is closely associated with cultural competence, while unsafe cultural practice “comprises any action which diminishes, demeans or disempowers the cultural identity and wellbeing of an individual, family or group”9.
Cultural safety focuses on the experience of the client, whereas cultural competence focuses on the capacity of the practitioner in terms of awareness, knowledge and skill, to be able to provide effective services to clients from cultures other than their own.
If one of the key tenets of coaching psychology (and arguably all coaching) is “enhancing wellbeing”4, then we need to appreciate that “wellbeing” for a client from a Western individualist culture, can often mean something quite different from “wellbeing” for a person from a collectivist culture.
Western individualist values in a coaching relationship, such as independence and personal responsibility for change, may be inadvertently imposed on clients for whom collectivist values, such as interdependence and collective responsibility for change, are the expected norm. Using and applying Western psychological theories, approaches and tools to clients from non-Western or individualist cultures may not achieve the desired outcomes for the client – and could even damage the client’s wellbeing.
One recurring example of practitioners inadvertently imposing Western individualistic theories, approaches and tools on non-Western clients, is the
wide-ranging use of the Socratic method of learning and questioning. There doesn’t appear to have been any critique of the cultural validity of using this method with Māori, or other non-Western clients.
Non-Western learning approaches, such as Confucian learning10, from the Chinese culture, are not known, understood or practised in Western multicultural countries, such as the UK, US and Aotearoa New Zealand.
Looking ahead
Unfortunately, the experience of the client in the case study (p45) is relatively common for Māori and other minority cultural groups in Aotearoa New Zealand.
I’m not in any way suggesting that only Māori theories, approaches and tools be used with Māori clients, or that only Western theories, approaches and tools be used with Western clients. Nor am I suggesting that mindfulness cannot be a fantastic tool to reduce stress for a Māori client. However, in this case, because the client so strongly identified with the Māori culture, it should only have been offered after other Māori cultural solutions had been tried.
As advocated by Peterson11, while ethnic culture should be the starting place for understanding client needs, individual differences still apply, so coaching should be tailored to suit the individual, not the Māori client.
As the ‘professional’ in the coaching relationship, I am suggesting that we understand and learn about other cultural theories, approaches and tools in addition to the Western individualistic ones traditionally taught in our academic institutions. Then, as Collins and Palmer propose, we can truly have the diagnostic skill and insight to apply a range of theories, tools and approaches – but which are culturally appropriate and safe, meet the needs of our clients and help them achieve true wellbeing.
He aha te mea nui o te ao?
Maku e ki atu, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
What is the most important thing in this world?
I say to you, it is people, it is people, it is people.
Māori Whakataukī (proverb)
Lisa Stewart is director/consultant at Māramatanga Consultants in Auckland, New Zealand. Her iwi (tribal) affiliations are Te Atihaunui-a-Paparangi, NgāPuhi, Tūwharetoa. www.lisa@maramatangaconsultants.co.nz
Kia ora = Be well/healthy/hi!
The Treaty of Waitangi is New Zealand’s founding document, made between Britain and Māori chiefs in 1840.
Case study: Ignoring cultural identity
A Māori manager of the Māori strategic relations department within a local government organisation, engaged a coach to help him improve his mainstream management and leadership skills and abilities. He was already fluent in te reo Māori (the Māori language), and in tikanga Māori (Māori customs and protocols). The nature of his work with Māori and mainstream communities, along with the cultural skills he relied on to do his work, were known to his European New Zealander coach.
During the course of the coaching relationship, the Māori manager was overseeing a conflict situation between two of his staff members, which started to have an impact on his own levels of stress. He raised this with his coach, who suggested mindfulness as a stress reduction measure.
Despite the obvious and known cultural differences between coach and client, and despite the requirement of health practitioners in Aotearoa New Zealand to demonstrate awareness and knowledge of Māori identity, values and practices, this coach provided a solution that ignored the cultural identity of the client, as well as the cultural origins of the solution. At no time were Māori cultural solutions explored with the client, including discussion of which wall(s) of Te Whare Tapa Whā needed attention in order to return the client to wellbeing. The client ended the coaching contract, and in typical Māori style, did not inform the coach about how their lack of cultural awareness and knowledge contributed to them ending the contract.
References
1. New Zealand Psychologists Board, Core competencies: For the practice of psychology in New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand, 2011.
2. A Tangaere, ‘Māori human development learning theory’, in P Te Wahāiti,
M McCarthy and A Durie (Eds), Mai i Rangiātea: Māori Wellbeing and Development (pp46-59), Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press, 1997
3. R Pere, Ako: Concepts and learning in the Māori tradition, Wellington, New Zealand: Te Kōhanga Reo National Trust, 1994
4. A Collins and S Palmer, ‘Developing senior executives within a coaching psychology framework’, in Coaching Psychology International, 4(1), pp15-18, 2011
5. M Durie, Keynote address: ‘Is there a distinctive Māori psychology?’, Paper presented at the Proceedings of the National Māori Graduates of Psychology Symposium, 2002: ‘Making a Difference’. Hamilton, New Zealand, 2003
6. L D McCubbin and A Marsella, ‘Native Hawaiians and psychology: The cultural and historical context of indigenous ways of knowing’, in Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 15(4), pp374-387, 2009
7. L Vygotsky, ‘Interaction between learning and development’, in M Cole (Ed), Mind and Society, pp79 -91, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978
8. M Durie, Whaiora: Māori Health Development (2nd ed), Auckland, New Zealand: Oxford University Press, 1998
9. New Zealand Psychologists Board, Cultural competencies: For psychologists registered under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act (2003) and those seeking to become registered, Wellington, New Zealand: 2011
10. R G Tweed and D R Lehman, ‘Learning considered within a cultural context: Confucian and Socratic approaches’, in American Psychologist, 57(2), pp89-99, 2002
11. D B Peterson, ‘Executive coaching in a cross cultural context’, in Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 59(4), pp261-271, 2007
Volume 7, issue 6