Wits Business School (ETDs)

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Browsing Wits Business School (ETDs) by Faculty "Faculty of Commerce, Law, and Management"

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    Coaching as an enabler for South African executives to unlock added value from demographically diverse teams
    (2020) Roberts, Patricia
    This research explores the potential for coaching to enable leaders in South African companies to extract added value from demographic diversity in their teams. The research contributes to an understanding of how coaching can enable South African business leaders to overcome any personal inhibitions they may have related to people from other demographic groups and to shift their thinking beyond the tolerance of diversity to a point at which there is active engagement in pursuit of the added value that demographic diversity can bring. The action research process included seventeen interviews with participants who volunteered to be part of the research coaching. They consisted of two teams in two companies – eight people in one company and nine in another. The participants were demographically diverse leaders of demographically and culturally diverse teams. They all operated in demographically diverse situations, both related to upward and downward reporting lines. The research coaching consisted of six, monthly, three-hour group coaching sessions for each of the two teams and monthly individual coaching sessions for each participant for six months. The action coaching thus took six months (138 hours of action research, excluding pre- and post-coaching interviews) to complete. Participants were interviewed at the start and end of the coaching process about how coaching had impacted their ability to extract value from demographic diversity in teams. Their responses were analysed against the key questions the research aimed to answer. The participants shifted from tending to operate in business as though all people are the same, to acknowledging and honouring difference as a potential value addition to every thinking process. The research outcomes show the potential for South African businesses to operate in a way that encourages the active extraction of value from demographic diversity. It offers recommendations to address this in a way that enables companies to take advantage of the richness of diversity present in South Africa.