The Blog for Culture Vultures

Depending on your own culture, working with Americans can be challenging.

When delivering cross-cultural training we get to hear many of the challenges facing professionals when working in the USA or with Americans remotely.

Working remotely, across time zones, with different cultures and through various communication channels is becoming more and more common.

Over the last 10 years or so, training demand for courses that focus specifically on helping remote and culturally diverse teams have grown year on year.

Working with people from different cultures is becoming increasingly more common; however it can also give rise to challenges. Thankfully, Erin Meyer has recently published a book that provides a framework on how different cultures across the globe view communication at work.

Being surrounded by other cultures can bring a great deal of benefits: new research has shown that living in a culturally diverse community can even make you smarter!

Global Training Manager, Caroline, gives some insight into an upcoming train-the-trainer course for business professionals looking to become cultural awareness trainers and coaches.

Recently, expert on global leadership, Erin Meyer, published a new book that aims to help managers lead global teams. By using an eight-scale framework, team leaders can guide their teams to a more effective method of working.

According to culture awareness expert Andy Molinsky, 'global dexterity' is key to successful cross-cultural understanding. Awareness of culture and cross cultural differences are increasingly important in our global economy; Molinsky explains more in an interview with Forbes.

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.

This active engagement may differ across cultures...

One of the best aspects of my work is getting to know how different industries work internally, and especially what their take is on training their employees. Being able to meet different HR, L&D and Training Managers and speak to them about their work is eye opening. In my last visit to Paris, a certain company really grabbed my attention in terms of their proactivity and dedication to training.

You might think cultural training is only useful for people and businesses that are associated with global business - for example, international sales teams or global managers. You would be wrong! Raising cultural awareness is useful for everyone and anyone and has also proven to be very useful for companies in the packaging industry.

Tesco has recently announced that their chain of American supermarkets, Fresh & Easy, will be closed entirely. The reason for this? Unexpected cultural differences.

By overlooking the importance of intercultural training, companies do not get the most out of their employees. David Livmore is here to make us aware of the significance of knowing a bit more about  your co-workers’ cultures.

Do you export? AstraZeneca's Stuart Anderson offers some insights into the importance of understanding and adapting to the local culture in order to maximise success.