Signing of Philipp Rosinski's book "Coaching Across Cultures"

Foreword for Czech Readers

Philippe Rosinski's book, which you have just opened, is undoubtedly a unique work. Its title contains two terms with which management practitioners are already very familiar – “coaching” and “multicultural environment”. However, it is likely the first time for all of us to learn about the presented concept and to see both terms nicely integrated.

The globalization process, intensified in particular over recent years, has brought a new phenomenon in many Czech firms and institutions. It is the encountering and mixing of various organizational and various national cultures under a single imaginary organizational umbrella. This reality is no longer something exotic that would only concern a few top managers or salespeople in a few multinational firms. For an ever greater number of employees, a multicultural environment has become commonplace, something they work in every day, and it is ever more difficult to find a firm whose business activities would solely be performed within the home environment of the Czech culture. Thus, a multicultural environment is something that most of us live in daily, yet time and again it is a path full of intuition, incidents, trials and errors. While most of us have already read books full of advice on how to cope well with fellow workers or managers, how to assert oneself reasonably and attain your life goals, when trying to cope with the daily work life in multinational firms, we could only get inspired by our more experienced fellow staff or use our intuition and build on our daily experience. We can find books on how to cooperate in an international environment and, thus, across cultures, in many a Czech bookstore, and we do not need to look for translations of world-renowned authors' books only, yet it is the first time that we can hold a book in our hands that will successfully guide us through this way of life, often in a far too rugged and adventurous environment.

Coaching is definitely something for professionals, who can draw upon proven methodological procedures from psychology and social psychology. It might seem that this book is actually meant for a narrow circle of coaching specialists. It will surely be true that those involved in coaching on a professional basis will be among the first eager readers, and I have no doubt they will be satisfied. In this book they will find a well-structured and logically sophisticated methodological tool for coaching not only “in” but, I would say, in particular “for” a multicultural environment. I see the great value of this work in its clearly positive and stimulating function that presents the multicultural environment to the reader as a unique opportunity for personal and professional development. Not as a threat (something that we of course frequently face in our daily lives) but as a chance and opportunity to attain such goals we have often never even thought of before. Coaches can thus see new horizons that they can help their clients see and reach.

The book will definitely also be attractive reading for those of you who do not deal with coaching on a daily basis. You are just interested in the multicultural environment phenomenon, the real life in multinational firms and organizations, intercultural management, and you wish to learn more about the fresh views and approach to the above concepts presented by an author mostly unknown in the Czech speaking world. The book will undoubtedly be a source of inspiration for you, lead you to think about your life and daily work in an international and, hence, multinational environment, identify topics and issues you have not yet noticed or, if you have, you did not consider in any manner special or extraordinary. The book will simply be your guide when living and working in a globalizing world and offer you an interesting, inspiring and successful journey.

Prof. Ing. Ivan Nový, CSc.