The Blog for Culture Vultures

Do you give presentations abroad or to multicultural audiences?

You don't want an audience looking like this do you?

This article gives great tips on delivering presentations across cultural lines:

How to Approach International Negotiations with Cultural Awareness

• Can your international negotiations feel like this sometimes?
• Do you feel cultural differences get in the way of a successful negotiation?
• Looking for tips on how to improve your negotiation style and techniques?

Then this is the article for you!

Is Cultural Awareness Necessary?

Cross cultural negotiation is one of many specialized areas within the wider field of cross cultural communications. By taking cross cultural negotiation training, negotiators and sales personnel give themselves an advantage over competitors.

At this moment in time, the increase in cross border human traffic has meant that companies are no longer dealing with a homogenous native community from which they recruit their staff.

Companies are now facing cross cultural challenges in how they recruit, manage and develop a multi-cultural staff base.

"Culture is a like dropping an Alka-seltzer into a glass - you don't see it, but somehow it does something"
Hans Magnus Enzensberger

How Does Culture Impact the World of Advertising?

Business etiquette is essentially about building relationships with colleagues, clients or customers.

In the business world, it is these people that can influence your success or failure.

When doing business abroad it is important to understand the local culture.

Culture includes areas such as a country's norms, values, behaviours, food, architecture, fashion and art. However, one area of culture that is important for the international business person is etiquette.

Understanding business etiquette allows you to feel comfortable in your dealings with foreign friends, colleagues, customers or clients. Knowing what to do and say in the right places will help build trust and open lines of communication.

4 Fab Ways Cultural Training Helps

Intercultural training has become of increasing importance in the past 10 years. Companies and organizations that are working on the international stage are starting to realise that working in or with foreign countries is not like working at home.

Cultural differences are causing obstacles to smooth, successful business relationships, dealings and ventures. People from managers, to sales personnel, to CEOs to HR staff are all now participating in intercultural training to help them become better at the their jobs.

Intercultural Awareness

Intercultural awareness training is sometimes perceived as a luxury within the business world. Many who feel this way are also proponents of the misconception that because the "world is getting smaller" our differences are becoming less obvious and less of a problem. This is in fact false. As we get closer, our differences become more acute and more of a problem thus further driving the need for intercultural awareness training.

Companies are now tuning into the fact that in order to get ahead in today's global economy, cultural awareness is critical. It is no longer a luxury but a necessity. The right intercultural awareness training briefing can offer a company real benefits, namely a competitive advantage and a greater long term gain.

There are many approaches to training. Some sum these up as 'heavy' and 'light' approaches. What does this mean and how does it apply to business training?

Well, cultural awareness training (or any other training in fact) is a little like body building – one needs to know what their mind and body is capable of, what it enjoys and then set realistic goals for achieving that perfect body. From there you can either work with a personal trainer or look into how to balance both heavy and light approaches to training yourself. Heavy training in this sense being your body building, and light being more about CV and muscular work.

When learning about culture, really we are learning to look beyond surface deep. Cutural awareness you could argue is about possibilities not limits.

It is this very same thinking picked up by a piece in Scientific American entitled, "How Cultural Differences Affect Autism Diagnoses".

Many people love learning languages or would like to learn a language and use their language skills in a job.

In today's global economy the demand for language skills continues to grow as governments, businesses and organisations build relationships with foreign interests.

Zoroastrianism is one the oldest religions in the world.

It is definitely one of the first monotheist religions. It was founded by Zoroaster and it believes in one God, Ahura Mazda.

There are very few Zoroastrians in the world today but it still holds an important place. A large part of their population is divided between Iran and India. The Zoroastrians living in India are called Parsis.

Background and Information

Sikhism was founded in the 16th century in the Punjab, India.

The Sikh religion was established around 500 years ago by Guru Nanak Dev Ji, who promulgated a message of devotion and emphasised the importance of remembering God at all times. Sikh means ‘disciple’, therefore Sikhs are seen as the disciples of God who follow the teachings within the Guru Granth Sahib (Sikh holy book).

Shinto is regarded as the religion indigenous to Japan and is thought to predate all reliable historical records.

Literally translated the word 'Shinto' is composed of two words from the original Chinese Shêntao: 'shin' meaning gods or spirits and 'to' meaning the philosophical way or path.

Shinto has no fixed dogma, moral precepts or sacred scriptures but many shrines ('jinja') around the country which have often been bases of power with ties to Imperial and Shogunal rule throughout the ages.

Rastafarianism is a religious movement born out of the black slums of Jamaica which harnessed the teachings of the Jamaican born black nationalist, Marcus Garvey and conditionally uses selective Old Testament Christian writings to support its teachings and practices.

Born in 1887, Garvey’s influence on the poor black slave descendants in Jamaica came to its peak in the 1920’s where his message of encouragement and calling on black people to take pride in themselves won some fanatical supporters. Although historically Marcus Garvey was a political leader interested in making the black race economically equal with the white, in oral tradition he has become a divinely anointed prophet.

Judaism is the religion commonly linked to Jewish people.

It is based on the principles contained in the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, which are expanded and explained in the Talmud.

Jainism is an ancient religion, which originates from Eastern India.

Its advent in the 6th century BC was expected as many people were beginning to oppose the hierarchical organisation and formalised rituals of Hinduism, the dominant religion in India.

The word 'Islam' means submission to Allah’s will; a Muslim is one who submits to Allah’s will and is at peace.

Islam is a simple religion although from the outside it can sometimes appear confusing.

Islam is the name of the religion established by the Prophet Muhammad. One who follows Islam is a Muslim.

Hinduism is a religion that originated in the Indian subcontinent.

Purists refer to it more as Sanātana Dharma (the eternal path/law) than a religion, as it is believed to be a virtuous way of life.

It is the oldest practised religion in the world and has the third largest following after Christianity and Islam.

Christianity is the largest world religion at the moment.

It has over 2 billion followers, who classify themselves under 34,000 different denominations.

Initially, Christianity was derived from Judaism, as Jesus Christ was a Jew, as were his twelve disciples. Christianity is based mainly around the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and is monotheistic.