Press release

Managing Diversity: The key challenge in today's workplace

Association for Coaching Launches New Book
Diversity in Coaching - Working with Gender, Culture, Race and Age
Editor: Dr Jonathan Passmore

Association for Coaching, London. January 15, 2009: Business managers need to raise their game when it comes to dealing with people who are different to themselves. Many organisations operate internationally, or do business with other countries with different cultures. All will have diversity within their own workforce - people of different ages, gender or race who have different values and ways of behaving.

Understanding and working with diversity is the focus of a new book, launched by the Association for Coaching. The book, called Diversity in Coaching, Working with Gender, Culture, Race and Age is edited by Dr Jonathan Passmore, Director of the Coaching Psychology Unit at East London University and is published by Kogan Page, priced £24.95.

Diversity in Coaching provides useful information for any organisation with a culturally diverse workforce. It provides an overview of the different cultures, traditions and religions that motivate people across the globe and features a number of countries and territories including Europe, North America, Australasia, South Africa, Brazil, China, the Middle East, India, Russia and Japan. Authors of the book examine where organisations typically cross the line between business and cultural values and offer techniques to help get the best from a culturally diverse workforce.

Differences in gender also feature within the book with emphasis on some of the key differences between Alpha males and Alpha females. It provides an insight into what drives our business leaders, both male and female and where they can typically fall short.

Age difference is an area often overlooked and misunderstood by business leaders who may have different ambitions and values to their older counterparts. Bob Garvey, author of this chapter comments: “Older people offer invaluable experience, yet as people age, there can be individual developmental and psychological challenges that can result in shifts in behaviour, attitude and motivations. Understanding these issues can enable a different approach to age transition and minimises the tendency to sterotype older people as obstructive, difficult or reluctant to change.”

Jonathan Passmore, editor of the book comments, “The UK's workforce is becoming increasingly diverse and as a result, professional cultures have been forced to merge and embrace diverse skill sets in order to remain competitive. Cultural differences between individuals increase the complexity of the leadership role and leaders need to demonstrate cross-cultural awareness if they are to be truly effective in today’s diverse business environment.”

Diversity in Coaching is the third in a series of books commissioned by the Association for Coaching and is likely to have the broadest appeal to date. Previous books include Excellence in Coaching and Psychometrics in Coaching.

The book will be available from 16th February, 2009, available from www.koganpage.com or www.associationforcoaching.com.

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