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.

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.

When the crisis is over, we need a strong community of interculturalists to help businesses and society to adjust to new ways of doing international collaboration.

To help intercultural trainers stay in business and their customers continue to benefit from interculturalists’ expertise, we’re providing our service for free.

Applying to use CultureConnector for free during the Covid-19 Corona virus crisis is easy. Shifting from in-person to online training delivery may not be so easy. We’re here to help you help your customer through the transition.

Apply to use CultureConnector for free

To qualify, you must be switching to an online model from a previously-agreed face-to-face training.

Practical answers to the everyday questions of globalisation are provided by the members of the intercultural training community. Let’s keep it strong.

Looking to the year 2025, Manuela Marquis sees a world where priorities have shifted. New skills are in demand: intercultural competence, virtual collaboration, participative leadership. She founded CrescenTalent to help key individuals and organisations who are already targeting the skills needed in the mid-2020s.

Targeting change in the real world

CrescenTalent is beginning a major initiative to make coaching the trigger to change. Coaching, according to Manuela, goes far beyond skills. “The concept of coaching is fundamentally different to training” says Manuela. “Skills may be activated or developed through training, but the target of coaching is direct change in the real world. This is a solution to the oldest problem of training: transfer from the classroom into work.”

Research-based intercultural coaching

Manuela follows published research on business competences. “The World Economic Forum in 2016 was a particular turning point in my thinking,” she reflects. “Since then, the WEF and other organisations have produced important trend data on current developments and predictions about business skills. We are starting to face the realities of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is why I am in collaboration with other intercultural coaches and consultants who want to offer a constructive response to that challenge.”

IMC-coaching, Ceran, ICF, SIETAR, CrescenTalent, ICF and SIETAR

Manuela’s connections to several leading networks mean that she can exchange and develop ideas with fellow professionals from the widest variety of cultures and industries.

IMC, or Intercultural Mobility Coaching is the network of professional coaches with expertise in communication and international management. Ceran is a large training organisation providing intercultural training and consultancy services, with a particularly large community of intercultural consultants. CrescenTalent is a consultancy founded by Manuela. The term crescent originates in the Latin word crescere, which means “to grow”. CrescenTalent focus on developing talent, creating bridges of understanding between humans to boost performance and thus increase competence in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous VUCA world. CrescenTalent help businesses to adapt to organisational and technological change in an international environment. The International Coach Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organization of professionally trained coaches, where Manuela is actively engaged in organising international events for the members in Paris. Finally SIETAR (Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research), an association for interculturalists, is another inspiration for Manuela.

“Teamwork and collaboration come naturally after working in an American corporate environment” says Manuela “and independence and agility are essential to my business. As the founder of a specialised consultancy firm, we need to be agile in order to conduct change-management fast and effectively”.

Serious intercultural business at Disney

Manuela’s intercultural journey began when she left her native Germany at the age of 20. After some time in hotel and event management in London, Cannes and Luxembourg, she took a role at Disneyland Paris, in their giant conventions business. “Opened in 1992, Disneyland Paris was at first known for its theme parks but not for the convention business. An internal training was organised to explain the difference to the employees as the clients’ expectations were totally different. ”

From her position in Disney’s business event management, Manuela soon found herself managing multi-lingual, multi-cultural teams with similarly diverse clients where all the normal challenges of international business are heightened: integration and diversity, high-profile, quality-conscious, on-schedule delivery of complex projects, layers of national and organisational culture, fast-paced formation of new teams, and a focus on recruiting and developing talent locally and internationally.

Training for a multi-cultural business environment

“Disneyland Paris was a good school for me” says Manuela, considering her ten years in the business-convention field. “With guests from all over the world, we dealt with every possible kind of intercultural interaction. But in our business, hierarchy was the cultural difference we experienced most sharply. I moved into training and became fascinated by the concepts and the pedagogy. Training methodology has a big impact on success.”

In harmony with changes in technology

After leaving Disneyland Paris, Manuela trained as a professional coach, got an ICF Certification and dived deeper into the blending of skills and technology. “Today there is less expatriation, more virtual collaboration. This often divides the generations and different individuals on a team. A personalised approach is important to achieve results.” Manuela enjoys getting hands-on with technology and works creatively with teams to implement new tech and establish successful working practices for online collaboration. “These are becoming essential intercultural skills” she suggests.

Measuring the impact of coaching

“My clients, who are often executives, Directors, VPs or HR people, have always had a clear view of what to expect from intercultural coaching”, claims Manuela. These clients often want their employees to listen to outside views, to get a new perspective through a non-judgemental coaching dialogue. “They want increased self-awareness, to find bridges to other people and work better together. In short, intercultural collaboration skills.”

“With technology, today diagnostics can be done very easily. We can very efficiently do “before- and after” -studies.” Many HR departments among Manuela’s clients need help converting their goals into metrics. “There is much more interest now in measurability, but it is surprising how many top leaders recognise the importance of soft-skills and do not demand a data-driven approach to coaching.”

In a typical 5-10 session coaching series, Manuela targets business transformation. She concludes “During one coaching series we can find the strengths and weaknesses in the team and put them on a path towards solving the challenges of international business they decided to address.”

Human Resources professionals are especially well-placed to bring solutions to CEOs looking to boost business through more efficient operations.

In the Argonaut team, we see a strong link between the PWC research and earlier research by the British Council into the business value of intercultural skills.

HR investment in cultural skills targets multiple benefits

The BC research found that HR people across different sectors were investing in intercultural skills in order to achieve more efficiency within teams.

HR people have known for a long time that cultural fit brings greater employee effectiveness, which saves costs and builds revenue in multiple ways.

HR designing intercultural interventions

Now there are increasingly robust methods for building intercultural skills and enabling organisations to achieve more of these business benefits.

This is an opportunity for HR. When a CEO is looking to make operational efficiencies, we know that this often translates into out-sourcing, lay-offs, job-cuts, down-sizing and other measures which can damage employee engagement the longer-term development of the organisation.

HR can bring an alternative which is a proven motor for revenue growth. With well-designed, targeted interventions, the benefits can appear quite rapidly in business bottom lines.

Culture impacts half the Top 8 agenda items for CEOs

And it’s not just in response to economic pressure that HR can bring intercultural solutions to drive revenue growth. PwC’s research shows a “Top Eight” of issues on the CEO agenda where intercultural skills can be the success factor unlocking business benefits in a least half of the categories.

In tough times as well as good times, HR professionals who know how to design high-impact intercultural interventions can be the revenue-boosting heroes of their organisation.

Sources

• PwC CEO Survey
• British Council, Booz Allen Hamilton, Ipsos study

To succeed facilitating virtual sessions means changing the approach compared to working with clients face-to-face.

More from Béatrice

My breakthrough moments as a trainer in the e-learning revolution

This is the story of Béatrice Rivas Siedel’s professional transformation as an intercultural trainer. In two years she moved from being an outsider to the technological revolution in coaching and training, to being a full participant, driver and advocate of blending online and face-to-face learning.

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.

Assuming there’s a culture-specific part to the programme, you’ll need to tackle the key differences which make the culture unique, but still understandable from an outside perspective.

Good ways to introduce a specific culture to training participants include some history, some personal stories and some visual, taste or simulated experience. And then how can we take training participants’ instinctive reaction and curiosity and bring transferable understanding?

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.

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?

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.

Targeting the manager’s time

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.

The Cultural Correspondents are using their deep cultural knowledge, their writing skills and creativity to share their knowledge and demonstrate their professional standing in the industry. That makes it a win for CultureConnector’s users who get great content and a win for its expert contributors who get additional visibility. But the role is demanding and to gain a place among the Cultural Correspondents, you need a few factors.

Here’s what I learnt about making it as a Cultural Correspondent for CultureConnector.

Five signs you could be CultureConnector’s next cultural expert

1. Knowledge of an insider, insights of an outsider. Successful Cultural Correspondents know the history and the latest trends in the culture and much of the detail and variety within it. But to truly identify the relevant issues, they also think like an insider trying to build bridges into the culture.
2. Packaging knowledge into short, powerful texts. Our Cultural Correspondents are great writers. They find the essentials and boil them down into sharp, engaging texts.
3. Fearlessness with challenging tasks. Even with deep cultural knowledge, some writing tasks are not easy. It can demand deep thought and imagination, and sometimes research too. But the key thing each time is to just get started. Writing is iterative: it gets better with every version.
4. Community spirit. Writing can be a lonely task, but usually it gets social too. You need to be in dialogue with your editor and to connect with other correspondents who may have worked on the same task as you. We’re all seeking the same goal, so we’re in a collective enterprise.
5. Understanding the learner. All writers need to write for the reader. That’s especially true when the reader is a busy working person with little time for study but a big need for understanding and context. Experience of working life and training situations enables our most successful correspondents to produce content which really serves the needs of learners.

The rewarding role of a CCCC Cultural Correspondent Community Coordinator

The CCCC title needs shortening, but my experience of the role was not heavy at all. It was my task to help the Cultural Correspondents to get their assignments done. We Skyped and met in informal group sessions which I called virtual coffee tables. We clarified the writing goals and through initial edits condensed the most valuable insights into tight packages of text. I was supporter, assistant, coach, cheerleader, facilitator while at the same time admiring how professional they are.

Our virtual coffee table meetups created a real connection and the feeling of community around the CCs. However, even though we connected using multiple media the fact is that community is not built overnight.

For me the most rewarding aspect of the role is interaction with the correspondents who are located all over the world. Sharing ideas and visions or just simply going through their views about an assignment I felt I always learned something. It is an amazing feeling when you are part of lively network that is truly global.

Get in touch

Get in touch with the Argonaut team if you want to turn your cultural knowledge and writing skills into a business advantage. This could be an important step on your journey to developing and demonstrating the 7 most-requested talents of an interculturalist.

I could see that our Cultural Correspondents welcomed the fact that their knowledge has great value and will stay in demand in the Cultural Correspondent community.

MORE ABOUT JOINING

It’s a cool-headed reality check against the idea that diversity always brings benefits in business. In fact diversity brings enormous potential benefits, but unlocking the potential requires something that not all teams and organisations have.

Diverse teams outperform homogeneous teams, but not automatically

DiStefano and Maznevski’s work showed that most diverse teams had not succeeded in unlocking the potential benefits and were performing even worse than homogeneous teams.

Only a minority of diverse teams were able to outperform homogeneous teams. Those were the teams that had good understanding of cultural difference, communicated effectively about their diversity and had practical techniques for managing differences.

That was back in the early 2000s. We wondered how had the situation changed. What would the research results look like today?

Have we got better at working in diverse teams?

In recent years, we’ve certainly grown our experience of working in diverse teams. Figures from the OECD show several European countries where over 40% of employment exists in organisations under foreign control. Indicators of the globalisation of working life are remarkable for their continuous upward trends, including ownership, HR policies, project collaboration, education and many more areas.

Has that increased experience also increased the intercultural competence of workers? We suspect that the trend is in the right direction, but that intercultural competence is not increasing as fast as the international nature of work itself.

There is an expanding need for international competences as the number of diverse teams grows, talent becomes mobile, organisations build global supply chains and technologies connect distant co-workers.

Organisations which invest in building multicultural competence get the high-performing teams

We believe that the best diverse teams will continue to out-perform the best homogeneous teams and achieve far more than the poor-performing diverse teams . The poor-performing diverse teams lack the tools to unlock the potential of diversity.

There are solutions. Numerous models are available which aim to unlock the potential of diversity in working life. Most come back to a few common ideas: understanding, acceptance and adjustment.

In our company, we celebrate our customers’ teams who are achieving great results by using their diversity as a driver of success. We aim to be among those high-performing teams ourselves. For Argonaut, success looks like a world where we’ve played a part in shrinking the number of low-performing diverse teams and where most teams have discovered the keys to unlock their true potential.