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Mianzi – The Concept of Face in Chinese Culture

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Do you work or do business with the Chinese?

Then you really need to get to grasp the importance of face – mianzi – in Chinese culture.

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8 Bonkers Aspects of the British Communication Style

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The British communication style can be tricky for some foreigners.

Their complex use of indirect messages, suggestions and insinuation can be confusing.

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Intercultural Communication Taught to Engineers is Behind the Times

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Being able to communicate and collaborate across cultures is crucial for many of today’s professions; engineers included.

However, a Japanese-led research team suggests that the intercultural communication skills being taught to today’s engineers are not fit for purpose.

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Honour, Face & Shame in Arab Culture

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Doing business in the Middle East?

Then you need to understand the role of honour in the Arab world.

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French Waiter Cites Cultural Differences for Being Rude

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The following incident provides a great case study for the influence of cultural differences.

Guillaume Rey, a French waiter, was sacked from his job in a Canadian restaurant for being ‘aggressive, rude and disrespectful’

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3 Stunningly Simple Tips to Create Trust in Cross-Cultural Teams

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Culturally diverse teams are becoming more and more the norm as international businesses continue to hire in talent from around the globe.

Anyone who has worked in a multicultural team knows that this comes with challenges.

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How Do People Usually Create Disharmony in Multicultural Teams?

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Multicultural teams are now the norm within many of our larger companies, organisations and brands.

Challenges relating to communication, trust and morale within culturally diverse teams are common.

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How do Culture and Communication Impact Multicultural Global Teams?

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The culturally homogenous team is a thing of the past in most international organisations and companies.

More and more teams are made up of people with different nationalities and therefore different cultures, languages, ideas, behaviours and ways of doing things.

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The Apprentice – Horrendous Racism or Cultural Ignorance?

The Apprentice – Horrendous Racism or Cultural Ignorance?

For those that follow The Apprentice, you can’t have missed the recent outburst by contestant Dillon St Paul in Episode 6, entitled ‘Discount Buying’.

Sticking to the traditional programme format, contestants were required to spend the night identifying the whereabouts of 9 items in and around London and then negotiate the best possible price for their purchase.

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What Skills are Important for International Business Professionals?

What Skills are Important for International Business Professionals?

Working internationally comes with certain challenges - navigating cultural differences is just one.

Being able to work, communicate, sell to or buy from people in different countries, working in different times zones, with different ways of doing things is essential.

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Cultural Differences in the Way we Listen

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In our previous blogs we examined how cultural differences impact body language and the way we speak - we now turn our attention to a little-known skill we all have yet many forget to utilise!

Listening.

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  52359 Hits

New Soft-Skills Business Training DVD Titles

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We no longer sell DVDs.

Please refer to our eLearning courses instead.

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Active Listening: Cross-Cultural Business Communication Skills

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'Active listening' is a communication skill crucial to doing cross-cultural business.

As a skill, it requires the listener to become attuned with the speaker in order to confirm what they have heard and moreover, to confirm the understanding of both parties.

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Download a Free Guide to Communication Skills and Cultural Differences

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Want to improve your people skills?

Need to train staff in communication skills?

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Why do Medical Staff Require Training on Intercultural Awareness?

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Medical staff require professional interpreters and specific training on intercultural awareness, a new study published in the open access journal BMC Health Services Research suggests.

The authors reveal that doctors are dissatisfied with the treatment they provide to their non-native patients, and that they cite cultural differences and language barriers as the key factors causing the disappointment with the level of care that they provide.

Birgit Babitsch from the Berlin Institute of Gender in Medicine in Germany, and co-workers from Berlin and the UK, gathered the results of questionnaires completed by doctors working in the internal medicine and gynaecology departments of three Berlin hospitals.

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Top 10 Trends in Business and Cultural training

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This blog was originally written in 2008.  Revisiting this in 2021 makes for interesting reading.

It's fair to say that HumaNext certainly got it right as everything they mentinoned came to fruition and these topics - particularly cultural competency for leaders, are still trending training topics!

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