In international organizations, cross-cultural skills are not an add-on, they become part of our normal way of working and have to be embedded into the way we lead, work and collaborate. Our cross cultural training focuses on giving people practical tools and experience in diagnosing their own culture, understanding other cultures way of working and managing any differences and gaps.

We move beyond developing an awareness and understanding of cultural differences to give people tools for understanding the impact of these differences on work behaviours and practical processes for developing new ways of working together.

Cultural differences can stem from national cultures, but also functional or corporate cultures. Our tools can also be useful for people working in cross functional or global account roles for example, where functional or organizational cultural differences are a priority.

Cultural differences can be a source of misunderstanding but they can also be a source of enjoyment, creativity and different perspectives and problems. Our cross cultural training helps people to understand and respect differences but also to move beyond them to get things done. Culture should never prevent as from meeting our business goals, and understanding cultural differences can help us be more creative in how we get there.

Building cross-cultural competence is not just about training. However, a course giving people a model and framework for understanding and solving cultural differences is extremely useful, even for those who are experienced in international working.

Many people learn to work across cultures through trial and error and this can be a slow and expensive way of building confidence. We can help accelerate the learning of your people by giving them some practical tools, confidence and a language for discussing and resolving cultural differences at work.

Our culture Abacus tool identifies the five major areas where cultural differences have an impact on work behaviours. Participants can use this tool to create a gap analysis of their own culture with some other target cultures. Other tools in our program helped them identify the choices they face in accepting these differences, or building creative new ways of working together.

Our cross cultural training programs are not lists of tips or “dos and don’ts” these are available for free on the web or in apps or through inexpensive books. Our programs focus on building skills and experience in using practical tools to resolve specific business issues.

We can tailor the program to your specific business issues and the particular countries you are interested in.

Programs can focus on managing different cultures alone, or they can be embedded as a module within broader programs on global or virtual working or matrix management

The three benefits that participants in this training most often mention include:

• better international meetings, decision-making and implementation of actions
• improved communication, both face-to-face and through technology.
• increased confidence to discuss and resolve differences with their international colleagues

If you’d like to see how our cross cultural training can be tailored to your specific issues and cultures, please speak to one of our specialists.