CultureConnector – Argonaut

An intercultural look at central Africa’s largest country

Richard Farkas — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 17:16:14 +0000

We’re glad to share the the expertise of some outstanding intercultural consultants in CultureConnector and it’s a privilege to introduce a new voice in our community, someone with intercultural experience both deep and wide, driving success in projects requiring results across some of the world’s most challenging cultural gaps.

Chloé Maurice, intercultural expert and operational leader across multiple continents

CultureConnector’s material on the Democratic Republic of Congo, is now available to all learners, thanks to the extensive insights and analysis of Chloé Maurice, Cultural Correspondent and consultant at Mosaic Haven (check back soon for activity at this new venture).

The new material attempts to give a brief introduction to the cultures inside the DRC. With its population of more than 100 million including a diversity of ethnic and social groups, this country significantly extends our coverage of Central Africa. Look out for more cultures of this fast-growing continent, coming to CultureConnector soon. Current coverage is always up to date in the CultureConnector cultures page.

Three new routes into the cultures of Africa

Richard Farkas — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 19:07:36 +0000

Three outstanding intercultural consultants have produced a remarkable set of learning material on Algeria, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, now newly available in CultureConnector.

Abayneh Haile, educator in international communication

Advising on the development of CultureConnector’s material on Ethiopia, Abayneh Haile is an entrepreneur based in Addis Ababa, founder of a Bridge Centre for Professional Development. Bridge CPD serves international organisations operating out of Ethiopia’s capital, a city home to many institutions which consider Addis Ababa to be the head quarters for operations across the entire continent of Africa. Now in CultureConnector, you can discover the uniting characteristics of members of Ethiopian culture as well as the complexities of the diverse peoples who live there, not least the Oromo, the Amhara, the Tigrayans, Somalis, Guragi and even the influence of the Ethiopian diaspora elsewhere in the world. Create your CultureConnector account to start learning about Ethiopian culture.

Anissa Lamrani, intercultural trainer

Switching smoothly between Algerian, French, British and international perspectives, Anissa Lamrani was the cultural intelligence driving CultureConnector’s new material on Algeria. She has long experience developing intercultural training programmes in the corporate world and now works on a wide range of projects for higher education institutions, while also finding time to volunteer in the third sector. CultureConnector’s profile of Algeria weaves together the major influences shaping Algerian culture, including Islam and the cultures of the Middle East, the French colonial era and the struggle for independence, the indigenous Berber traditions as well as more recent trends in the young generation and expatriate Algerians. Create your CultureConnector account to start learning about Algerian culture.

Tamara Makoni, interculturalist and entrepreneur

Combining a talent for communication and culture, Tamara Makoni is the originator of the sensitive and qualitative portrayal of Zimbabwean culture in CultureConnector. A rich blend of modern urban institutions in a high-functioning business sector alongside excluded yet resourceful people engaged in the daily struggle for survival in the informal economy, Zimbabwe is a microcosm of the global race for development and the diverse speeds at which that is happening. In CultureConnector’s new material on Zimbabwe, you can discover the (to newcomers) hidden hierarchies of traditional cultures which run parallel to formal, above-the-surface hierarchies in Zimbabwean institutions, tips on how some foreigners have succeeded in bridging the social distance with new contacts in Zimbabwe, and much more practical and analytical information on the culture. Create your CultureConnector account to start learning about Zimbabwean culture.

The new profiles cover a total population of 175 million including a diversity of ethnic and social groups within these nations and relationships with other cultures, near and far. We’re extending our coverage of Africa fast. Look out for more cultures of this fast-growing continent, coming to CultureConnector soon. Current coverage is always up to date in the CultureConnector cultures page.

Three new routes into the cultures of Africa

Richard Farkas — Sat, 30 Oct 2021 19:59:32 +0000

Three outstanding intercultural consultants have produced a remarkable set of learning material on Algeria, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, now newly available in CultureConnector.

Abayneh Haile, educator in international communication

Anissa Lamrani, intercultural trainer

Tamara Makoni, interculturalist and entrepreneur

The flexible French

Richard Farkas — Mon, 14 Jun 2021 11:59:00 +0000

A generation has passed since Kathryn Libioulle-Clutz arrived in France as a young American business consultant. We asked for her perspective on what’s changed in French culture.

More entrepreneurs

“France has become really supportive of entrepreneurial culture. They are really trying to foster small businesses and help startups to flourish. The French State has simplified accounting rules. It has been pushing lots of different kinds of funds and pépinières, the little groups and incubators helping new businesses to get started administratively, get funding, find mentors et cetera.”

Télétravail gradually replacing presence in some workplaces

By comparison with other European countries, employers in France traditionally seemed reticent about allowing employees to work from home. Presence at work is important here. But even before the coronavirus hit France, télétravail was increasing and France was catching up fast. “This is not just because of covid. The change was in the air already before that.”

“It’s becoming a much more flexible work environment,” says Kathryn. “There are large numbers of places where entrepreneurs can go, have working spaces, where they can exchange with each other, have mentoring networks. These are mini-communities for entrepreneurs. It’s happening. It’s a very dynamic environment.”

What young people want

“In France, young people want to do their own thing, not get stuck in a big corporate structure. They have very strong ideals. A lot of business schools run courses to help young people set themselves up as entrepreneurs.”

In 2017 Emmanuel Macron campaigned for the presidency with the slogan ‘La France doit être une chance pour tous’ (everyone in France deserves a chance). Young people in particular felt blocked by a bureaucratic system designed to regulate big business but the same regulation was falling heavily on the grassroots startup community. “Macron campaigned on a ‘startup nation’ platform, in response to young people. The regulations on business life are hard to change in France, but he has invested in the business side of things”.

More myths to bust

“Today, France is much more open to foreigners,” continues Kathryn. “The French now understand that, in terms of business, France must think more internationally. There is still a ‘stay-in-France, buy-local’ mentality, but at the same time, young people are going and doing internships in the UK or China, for example. Everyone wants international experience.”

“French people are more used to having foreigners in their workplaces and are becoming more receptive to their foreign colleagues’ perspective. When I arrived in France, 20 years ago, the attitude was very much ‘when in France, do as the French do’. That’s still true, but it is shifting. Everyone’s slowly adapting to the wider world.”

The keys to French culture

Kathryn has advice for a newcomer into French culture.

Recognise common values and different styles

“Observe. Understand what your own cultural perspective is. Recognise that while you share the deeper values with your French colleagues such as fairness and honesty and so on, the way those values are expressed in France may be very different from the way you would express them.”

Go for lunch

One stable part of French culture which Kathryn reports is well preserved in today’s workplace is the lunch break.

“Nowadays it is not the end of the world if you take a rushed 15-minute lunch break in France. Lunch is less of a big deal than it used to be. But a good lunch is still something that everyone feels entitled to. It’s a good way to get to know your co-workers and to build informal relationships. Lunch can be the crucial time-out which unblocks difficult negotiations. No-one is going to want to work with you until they really get to know you. Lunch helps to build some of that trust.”

Learn French

“And yet your most important key for unlocking French culture is this: learn French. Even if your French colleagues are fluent in English, learn French.

But here is something that has also changed a lot. When I came to France, I met the attitude ‘nice try with your French’ when foreigners fumbled with less-than-perfect French language skills. But now the French are trying to learn English and they are sensitive about how bad their English is, so they are much more sympathetic when foreigners try to speak French.”

A little less conservative at work

Kathryn led the review and updating of CultureConnector’s profile of France in 2020 and her re-write included a newer perspective on risk-taking in French culture.

“There is a little bit more taste for risk-taking these days, especially among young people, but in general French employees are still conservative in comparison to many countries outside Europe. They want steady employment with good retirement benefits.”

Hearing Kathryn’s insights as a professionally-objective observer of French culture, it quickly becomes clear that she’s also very much a participant who identifies ever more closely with her adopted nation.

“Moving to Nantes in the West of France put me in a situation where everyone around me is French – and traditional French. It has given me a deeper appreciation of the aspects of French culture which I thought were not so great: the sense of entitlement to State benefits, the willingness to go on strike, the education system. Now I understand the logic behind these cultural phenomena.”

“The French don’t care what others think of them.” Not true!

“The French are more curious than they used to be about what foreigners think of them. The emergence of low-cost airlines and globalisation of business have led to French people having more experience of being in other cultures, of leaving France. The desire to connect and compare is stronger in Paris and in the French border- and port-cities.”

“Meanwhile, like many countries, France also has a strong geographic centre where people are more satisfied to continue doing things the local way, without much interest in ideas from outside.” Vive la différence!

Walking the talk as an interculturalist

Executive coaching and team development programmes fill Kathryn’s calendar for most of her work week, as well as leadership development for high potentials which are becoming more common in French corporations. Writing pieces on French culture was a step outside her normal work in 2020.

As well as updating and expanding CultureConnector’s resources on France, Kathryn is continually enhancing her own skills as coach, and applying intercultural techniques in new scenarios.

“Culture is often a good starting point with international clients when I am trying to create team cohesion or even when I get called in to resolve a tension between co-workers or with a boss – tensions that are often labelled as a cultural difference.”

“You can start out with culture and then other factors come into play. Understanding international differences has been very important.”

“When I am coaching, I need to use intercultural techniques myself.” Kathryn lists a few items in her approach:

understand how direct the culture is, how they express their thoughts, how comfortable they are disagreeing
recognise how they deal with hierarchy: in some cases initially they will see you, the coach, as a “higher-up”
know how to build trust: should you achieve that in the professional context of the coaching session? or should you go to lunch with them?
read everything you can find about the culture, talk with people who have experience of the culture, and like I tell my clients too: observe and learn from the people you’re sharing these working moments with.

New perspectives on French culture

“It was great fun thinking about cultural change in France and being part of the review in CultureConnector. We had to recognise that some things had not changed. The French are still bureaucratic (take for example of the filling-in of forms during the corona crisis). They still like a good argument. They will still punish you for making mistakes or for sloppy-thinking in debates.”

“On the other hand we could recognise a great many things which had changed. There is more acceptance of trial and error. The French spend less time spent testing ideas at the concept stage. They expect faster innovation.”

“They want to take more ownership of their own careers. Sometimes they even allow a little optimism to creep into conversation.”

“More and more workplaces are rejecting the traditional command-and-enforce model and instead embracing personal responsibility at work, though still small in number.

“In some sectors, teamwork has become less competitive and there is talk of trendy concepts such as ‘co-creation’.”

“And shock of shocks: you may even see lunch being served during a business meeting in a conference room!”

Kathryn Libioulle-Clutz is an independent executive coach and consultant and for CultureConnector is Cultural Correspondent for France. The updated profile of 2020s France is available now in CultureConnector.

Like feedback?

Richard Farkas — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 10:28:56 +0000

We’ve introduced a powerful new feedback feature for the CultureConnector community.

Now in CultureConnector users can pass comments to each other in many directions while staying in control of their data.

Trainers to learners
Learners to trainers
Learners to management and training providers
Trainers to the Argonaut team

Tell your trainer what you think

It’s quick and efficient to give feedback in CultureConnector. As a learner, you can drop in a comment about your home culture, or a comparison with one of your chosen cultures, or your overall experience. The comment will immediately appear for your trainer.

Say what you really think

Giving feedback demands sensitivity and trust that the comments will only reach those who should hear them. Sometimes anonymity can improve the quality of feedback. We’ve enabled commenters to decide who can read the comments, be it the organisation’s management, the trainer, the training company or simply the people developing CultureConnector.

Quick and easy for community members

Now it’s easier than ever for trainers to contribute ideas, corrections, criticisms and likes to CultureConnector. The new feedback box appears in specific screens, so you don’t need to describe the topic or feature you’re commenting on. Simply say way you think, and continue with your day. It takes just a few seconds.

Customising how you ask the question

If you’re a business customer using CultureConnector, you can configure comments according to your business needs, asking for feedback in a way that is relevant and valuable for your work.

Feedback on feedback

CultureConnector feedback will auto-adapt to the way you are giving feedback and to your role. We hope that you’ll see the feedback form exactly where and when you want it, without any annoying moments. We’re checking the analytics and feedback daily. Let us know what you think of the new feedback feature.

Check your feedback now

If you are a trainer using CultureConnector, you can check your feedback in the Trainer Dashboard area. Organisation managers and business customers will also find feedback in their own admin panels.

Thanks for sharing!

In the Argonaut team we are joyfully running in a never-ending race to keep our cultural content up to date. Cultures change continuously and sometimes rapidly. Our community has always had a key role in helping to keep CultureConnector as the most up-to-date source of country-specific intercultural information. Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far. Now it’s even easier to join a winning team in this race!

Return on investment in intercultural training: three insights from modelling training impact

Richard Farkas — Thu, 17 Sep 2020 09:51:30 +0000

Project notes on the development of CultureConnector’s tool for modelling training impact in the intercultural field.

For a curious mind, it’s thrilling when something unexpected happens. There’s something new to be probed and understood. So it was with our project to model the real-world economic impact of intercultural training.

After years exploring the available, relevant research and testing different approaches to the mathematical model, I expected diminishing returns from each addition research sprint. The law of diminishing returns is the observation which says the deeper you dive into a new thing, the less reward you get for each additional kick.

The opposite happened. As the model started to spit out results to our research questions, the answers became more interesting and more enlightening.

Here are three striking observations from this work so far.

1. The power of an intercultural lunch and learn

What is the gold standard training format for intercultural competence? A full 3-day module on a year-long leadership development programme, perhaps? A multi-year relationship with an inspirational coach? A multi-channel, multi-session blended learning programme, based on adaptive online learning tech? Yes, these promise impressive results for the learner. Gold standards indeed.

By comparison, a lunch-and-learn intercultural briefing, delivered to busy executives under heavy time pressure, seems like the poor cousin of those Gold Standard formats.

But wait, our training impact model is telling a different story. Based on a new analysis of the cost-side of the ROI equation, a rapid injection of new intercultural knowledge can generate excellent return on investment for organisations which use this method. While the absolute returns on a lunch and learn may be smaller than a full transformational intervention, the rate of return on investment is one of the best, and certainly a good pathway towards more ambitious forms of competence development.

2. An intimate training for 508 participants

The joy and the challenge of modelling intercultural competence are the network effects inside organisations. When a freshly-trained participant starts a collaboration with a colleague who has a low level of intercultural competence, some of the benefit of the training is enjoyed by the non-participant, who gains from more effecient interactions with the trained colleague, and potentially other benefits in achieving their mutual goals.

In this way, intercultural training can impact hundreds of non-participants, who are colleagues of participants. The number in the pool depends on the diversity of the organisation and the participants, the level of isolation of clusters of participants and other assumptions, such as the amount of outward-facing interactions. There can even be benefits of intercultural training for people of the same culture where differences are individual, not cultural.

When your training class attracts just an intimate (small) number of participants, keep in mind that potentially hundreds more who don’t attend will also benefit.

3. The trainer’s bill is a small part of the investment

You can charge the top-end of your price range for your time and provide a gourmet lunch for participants, perhaps with travel and comfortable accommodation, but still the trainer’s and logistical expenses are likely to be dwarfed by the cost of taking productive employees away from their core work tasks, while they participate in your training.

Line managers and anyone with profit and loss accountability knows this. There is some price sensitivity in the market for intercultural training, especially when the procurement department get involved (they are probably not at your meetings to learn about icebergs or onions …). However, what we can see from our model is the importance of looking at the impact side, when an organisation chooses a supplier or selects its own internal training methodology.

Squeezing the trainer’s bill down will have little effect on your return on investment rate. You can truly shift the needle on your return on investment by working together with the intercultural consultant to set the training up for success in achieving performance gains.

The CultureConnector intercultural training impact modelling tool is now available as an early-access programme for customers and contributors in the CultureConnector community.

Data-driven development model for intercultural skills

Richard Farkas — Tue, 07 Jul 2020 20:29:15 +0000

It took us years to develop it, but we can bring it to you now. This week we launched a data-driven development (DDD) model for intercultural skills.

This was long in the pipeline. Its goal is that trainers, coaches and organisations can develop intercultural skills much, much faster.

Faster outcomes

The model is set of algorithms which work with cultural data under-the-hood as part of the CultureConnector engine. It supports trainers and learners to find an efficient path to success in the real world. This makes possible an acceleration of the impact trainers and coaches can achieve with learners. It’s not a traditional standalone model or a framework for training.

Flexible implementation

We’re proud that CultureConnector’s flexible toolkit supports a wide diversity of training, coaching and self-directed learning approaches. The new Achievements feature, which is built on the DDD model enables trainers to continue to design and deliver training expertly targeted to their customer needs and to local market conditions. Achievements help stakeholders track and optimise the learning journey.

We’re all looking to achieve more in less time. Now CultureConnector can help interculturalists fast-track their business results.

Available for all

Check out CultureConnector’s Achievements feature now by clicking your next step. If you don’t have an account with CultureConnector, create one today.

Your next step

It’s included at all licence levels, even the Free licence. If you’re training with CultureConnector, you’ll also see the new feature embedded in your one-to-one training view.

Free intercultural training tool

Richard Farkas — Mon, 27 Mar 2017 12:33:09 +0000

While it may be true that the best things in life are free, that’s not true in business.

Business almost by definition is about agreeing a price, investing and getting the return. It is about risking real money, not about gratis exchange. Heck, wise business people even pay money to save money.

Intercultural training is a business too, mostly. Cross-cultural trainers and consultants generate value – lots of it, in the case of the best in our profession. So we should be surprised to find an intercultural service like CultureConnector that’s free. How can it exist and why does it?

The more you pay, the better it gets

Value of a free service graph (classic view)

If you’ve got great skills as a buyer (or an efficient procurement team to back you up), you’re already matching price with value. You should be in a world where the more you pay, the better service you get. For every extra step up the price scale, you’re getting a greater return on your investment. This is the classic idea of price.

So why should you be interested when you find something’s free?

Fast and free

It’s time to update that classic view of price. Zero price no longer means zero value. Thanks to our experience with Google’s search, WeChat, Twitter, Wikipedia, SurveyMonkey, WhatsApp and many more, we now know that free-to-use business services can be high-value business services.

These free services are a good option when there is no time for a procurement process or if your organisation’s licensed tools don’t fit your needs.

For short-term, tactical and local needs, a free tool has the advantage that you probably do not need to make a business case or to wait for a decision before you can start using it. But it has been hard to find the equivalent in the intercultural field.

Why we run a Free intercultural e-learning service

Even a service which is free must have value

Since 2016, CultureConnector has included a free intercultural training tool. It’s our Free service and it’s one click away. Anyone working with other cultures can sign up and get started immediately.

As a business, we exist to raise the chances of people succeeding in other cultures. We do this by removing the barriers to entry into intercultural competence programs, whether through price, accessibility, motivation, training or availability.

For specialist practitioners, we offer the free service as a chance to engage new customers, to showcase their work, build up the business case in collaboration with their client and charge appropriate fees when that business case is accepted.

For L&D managers with a vision but no budget we offer the free service as a frictionless way to kick-start online intercultural learning for their organisation.

And for anyone with an interest in developing themselves, we offer instant high-quality insights into whatever cultures they choose.

How it works

CultureConnector’s free service is designed for anyone who could benefit in their work:

you need no authorisation or special access codes to sign up
you get a profile which you can unlock for free
unlocking your profile enables not only full country comparisons but also peer-to-peer or coach-to-client comparisons, breaking down national stereotyping by offering a frame of reference which is not tied to country archetypes
in a face-to-face situation the workshop leader, teacher or coach can sit with participants and discuss the meaning and strategies arising from the personal cultural profile
there is no trial period: access to your profile stays open

Check out our licence options to decide whether CultureConnector’s free cross-cultural training tools are right for you.

Of course you’ll run into some limitations which can be removed by upgrading. In CultureConnector, the two key advantages of upgrading will be:

To aggregate a class’s results to create a group profile
For the trainer to have access through CultureConnector to participant profiles, rather than the need to physically sit with participants and look at their own logged-in accounts.

When is the right time to invest in intercultural training?

Free services give you the chance to make a strong business case for investment

Our free online service makes it easier for you to make the investment decision at the right time for your business.

You can use the free service to build your business case, set clear goals, target a measurable return on investment and pilot some processes in collaboration between client and provider or internal stakeholders.

Your free-to-use period can be as long as you need it to be and you may even find that you can grow the value during this period, as you set up ways of working and learn from each pilot case.

When you get the final investment decision, we move back to that classical model of price: it’s important now to invest a realistic figure in a great service and best available partner.

Beware low prices

You may rightly say “free is my favourite price” while you are exploring and innovating with intercultural competence development. But free is probably not a great long-term strategy for you, if you have ambitious targets for business results. Investing more really will get you the best partner, the best experience for your participants and the best impact for your business.

Don’t make “low-price” your next step from “free”. Consistently low prices indicate low value. Your zero-budget period on a free service should have given you a strong business case and brought you to a decision to fully fund your intercultural competence development. If you are stuck in the low-price, low-value zone, we invite you to use our free service as a stepping stone to raising your game and taking your intercultural training to a new level, high on the classic price-value line.

Switching from free to low price can paradoxically mean a drop in value, when low prices are an indicator of poor results

Twelve ways to make sense of cultural differences when training teams, leaders and expatriates

Richard Farkas — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 14:36:50 +0000

Before the first coffee break in an intercultural training session, you may have already covered the main introductory and culture-general ideas, such as stereotypes, culture shock and the iceberg.

Twelve cultural differences for intercultural trainers

Here are the 12 differences we use to introduce cultural diversity, in a comparative way.

Space, or personal openness. From a trainer’s point of view, this raises great discussion points about practical issues, such as the impact of social media at work, social situations, partnering and building trust. This touches on deeply-held beliefs about family, personal v private life and what’s relevant in a work situation.

Use of time, or following agendas and schedules. Training participants get this cultural difference quickly too. Everyone has a story to share, possibly fresh from the very day of the training. How many minutes pass before someone is late? What’s the right way to follow an agenda or to view a project plan?

Time spans, or attitudes to tradition and future visions. In most organisations there is a change process happening, and it might even be the reason for the training. Depending on the kind of change, some will want to follow the vision while others might prefer to hold on to traditions, or look to the past for inspiration. This can be a sensitive but rich topic in training situations.

Fate, or responses to challenging circumstances. Most teams and individuals will have experience of dealing with negative events. They could be global and economic, business restructuring, crisis or more local, for example uncertainty after the loss of a key person. The responses differ, and belief in our ability to influence events is an important factor here. Trainers have a great opportunity to explore the sources of motivation for training participants when the going gets tough and the commonly accepted responses in different cultures.

Rules, or interpreting laws and regulations according to the situation. Following the rules and not following the rules can become a source of great frustration in everyday cross-cultural life. Understanding of this cultural difference is especially relevant in working life in contract negotiations and implementing agreements. Many training participants have already identified this as a problem in their work and practical examples are quick to emerge in discussions during training.

Power, or dealing with bosses and junior people. Almost every training participant is rightly concerned to have a successful relationship with their boss, or the team that works for them. Participants with some experience are often willing to share opinions on what works and doesn’t work. Training participants are typically also motivated to understand better how hierarchies work across their whole organisation, the supply chain, public authorities and customer organisations. Skill at dealing with senior people from other cultures and showing leadership across cultures are often part of the business reasons for running intercultural training.

Responsibility, or taking the initiative. This key difference relates to very practical matters: what gets done and who decides on a day-to-day business. Getting the right amount of authority to decide your own work is sensitive and a key part of motivation. Cultural expectations differ. For trainers willing to tackle sensitive topics and achieve change, the result can be a breakthrough in understanding, collaboration and performance in multicultural teams and relationships with managers.

Group membership, or team roles, networks and long-term obligations. How much should team members be expected to put the team’s interests before their own? And what are the many loyalties inside and outside of work which affect decisions at work? Answers to these questions vary across training groups, especially groups of mixed cultural background. For trainers there is an opportunity to set up group exercises and pose dilemmas which highlight the different approaches to group membership.

Tasks, or nature and role of personal relationships at work. Some people focus on tasks from the very beginning, while others need to form a relationship before giving full effort. By looking at this key difference, a trainers can help people with project roles get their projects moving faster, and can show people in joint ventures and new partnerships the way to build trust and get things done. The topic is a fundamental one: why do we come to work and how do we judge success? It is also practical one about how to run meetings, schedule work and so on. This is a real cultural difference that can also affect the dynamic of your own training delivery.

Directness, or communication style. Even when business fundamentals are solid and operations are culturally-adapted and sensitively managed, communication style can still divide and shock. Feelings about the wrong amount of respect, politeness and truth can be very powerful, influencing the tone of overall cooperation. For trainers, this is a relatively easy difference to simulate quickly in a training situation. But it is not just about the words people choose to use. It is also about how much communication is hidden below the surface, or mediated through third-parties and unofficial channels, so there are practical implications for training participants too.

Conflict, or how to move from different interests via disagreement to agreement and harmony. Whether it is named as a “conflict”, “disagreement”, or something more subtle, this key difference occurs in the real world and it may be a conflict of some kind that inspired your intercultural training. Some of your training participants may be professional negotiators with general skills for negotiation and conflict resolution. But there very different expectations and practices between cultures. This is a fertile topic for simulations and case studies in training.

Problem solving, or the role of data v opinion and logic v instinct in arriving at decisions and solutions. Since many great solutions are built on a combination of inspiration and research, trainers case use this key difference to demonstrate how diverse teams can outperform monocultural ones.

The 12 key differences represent very practical ways in which a person can improve their confidence, performance and satisfaction working across cultures. For trainers using CultureConnector, there are rich opportunities for giving training participants practical tools for navigating the differences in specific cultural situations yet to be encountered after the training.

Key differences

Everyone who uses CultureConnector gets a cultural profile based on 12 key areas where differences and common ground can mean success or failure in cross-cultural work. Here’s a brief look at the profile you’ll get from CultureConnector.

Resources for trainers

Requiring licence

Trainer Help – free access to practical information and guides if you have a current Trainer Dashboard licence
Accredited trainer resources – deeper dive and practical training exercises, with material, based on the 12 key differences. Requires current accredited trainer status.

Free

More about training with CultureConnector
How to integrate e-learning into your training
Training material introducing the 12 key differences in PDF and PPTX format. Use it freely in your coaching and training.

Ready-to-use training material introducing the 12 key differences in Powerpoint format

Intercultural competence for managers

Lucie Houde — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:36:39 +0000

What to do if the practices which have been successful in a monocultural context don’t generate the expected results in an intercultural context?

Find the areas of greatest difference

First, review the dimensions of culture which may be the cause of reduced success in intercultural situations. Maglia Anthony Davis You can get a clear start at tackling the problem if you can identify dimensions within which your employees or clients are significantly different. Introducing new techniques for building on cultural diversity is the key to intercultural effectiveness.

What is a cultural dimension?

This wheel shows the 12 cultural dimensions that have the greatest impact in the workplace, following the approach in CultureConnector.

Cultural dimensions matter if you are trying to achieve results across cultures. They are categories of behaviour heavily influenced by both culture and individual aspects which impact success across cultures. Let’s take Power as an example. new balance 996 homme pas cher It concerns the relationship between senior and junior people. Air Max 2017 Rosso Uomo If your employee comes from a culture where respect for authority is absolutely dominant, you may find the employee is:

uncomfortable being trained or managed by a less experienced or younger person
confused by a senior or junior person interacting in collaborative style
unwilling to question your methods.

Developing the manager’s abilities for cross-cultural work

Intercultural competence is a success factor in working with employees who have recently arrived in the country, employees from native communities in countries like Canada, and with international partners. NIKE AIR HUARACHE A manager or leader with employees from any culture can deal with them more effectively if he or she:

is aware how their own culture affects their managerial methods
identifies the cultural dimensions most relevant to each employee
finds common ground on which a trusting relationship can be built
helps the employee see how the differences affect the work
press the right buttons to motivate and influence the person in a way that is adapted to the cultural differences

While the personality and values of most individuals remain relatively stable throughout their life, employees can adapt to new cultural situations. Robert Griffin III Baylor Jerseys They can adjust behaviour, especially when new behaviours bring results. Employees find it easier to adapt their behaviour when they are supported by a manager who understands them and understands cultural difference well. Dan Connolly

Targeting the manager’s time

Individuals, cultures and diversity on one dimension scale

Tools like CultureConnector give us the possibility to create personalised cultural profiles of clients and employees in order to target management attention. In some cases the tool moves beyond diagnosis towards giving techniques for improving personal intercultural effectiveness. Nike Air Huarache There are various tools on the market. Nike Free Run 5.0 Blu Uomo We chose CultureConnector (formerly Argonaut) for the ease with which we can locate several individuals on a scale and preserve the value and uniqueness of each person’s cultural profile. Managers can even start for free, getting to know the cultural dimensions most relevant in their teams and receiving some suitable methods for dealing with them.

CultureConnector – Argonaut

An intercultural look at central Africa’s largest country

Three new routes into the cultures of Africa

Three new routes into the cultures of Africa

The flexible French

More entrepreneurs

Télétravail gradually replacing presence in some workplaces

What young people want

More myths to bust

The keys to French culture

Recognise common values and different styles

Go for lunch

Learn French

A little less conservative at work

“The French don’t care what others think of them.” Not true!

Walking the talk as an interculturalist

New perspectives on French culture

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Say what you really think

Quick and easy for community members

Customising how you ask the question

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Return on investment in intercultural training: three insights from modelling training impact

1. The power of an intercultural lunch and learn

2. An intimate training for 508 participants

3. The trainer’s bill is a small part of the investment

Data-driven development model for intercultural skills

Faster outcomes

Flexible implementation

Available for all

Free intercultural training tool

The more you pay, the better it gets

Fast and free

Why we run a Free intercultural e-learning service

How it works

When is the right time to invest in intercultural training?

Beware low prices

Twelve ways to make sense of cultural differences when training teams, leaders and expatriates

Popular culture-general topics for intercultural training

Twelve cultural differences for intercultural trainers

Key differences

Resources for trainers

Requiring licence

Free

Intercultural competence for managers

Find the areas of greatest difference

What is a cultural dimension?

Developing the manager’s abilities for cross-cultural work

Targeting the manager’s time