I bet that you could say that you want to feel respected, want to be trusted and trust your co-workers, or that you want to behave professionally and be a good leader. Many of us would have that in common. But do we mean the same things by trust, respect, professional behaviour, good manager? Building […]
You want to be effective in your work, I’m sure. You probably also want to make people feel like they can come speak with you and like they have the support they need in their roles. But even us, the People people, sometimes follow our natural communicating styles, which are culturally influenced, without adapting. They […]
The world is getting smaller as people travel more and more and therefore cultures no longer matter that much, some say. Wrong. They matter more than ever!
You are doing a great job in the location you are in. You know how things work. People like you, clients know and trust you. So, naturally, you are the person the company asks to share that expertise with another office location. It’s just for a short-term assignment and if successful then you will be […]
Very often in global companies nowadays, there is talk about diversity – making sure to be inclusive of various personalities, personal lives and backgrounds, religious traditions and much more. Somehow, many of them don’t mention cultural competence as a tool that can help manage those differences. But let’s think about it a bit more. Our […]
They say that “crossing the pond” cannot be that hard. After all, the same language is spoken, pop culture of either of the countries is known in the other, cultural values seem to be very similar. Others might say that the British and Americans are two nations separated by a common language. So which one […]
Have you ever been in a situation where you encountered a challenging interpersonal situation, and started wondering – is there something more to it you should explore, or maybe it’s just a personal clash that you don’t want to do much about?
We are often faced with many questions when going somewhere new for the first time. What’s it going to be like? What are the people there like? How should I behave so that they accept me and trust me? What should I do to be successful in this new environment?
How many people in the past year told you about their adventures abroad? How many of your friends have ever been working abroad? How many of them had good experiences?
Learning a foreign language as an adult is not impossible. But, honestly, were you never jealous of those bilingual three year olds juggling two (or maybe more!) languages when speaking to different people? Oh how I’d love to be able to do that without the pain of going through the grammar books and vocabulary lessons!