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Intercultural Blamestorming: Take the Blame Out of Communicating Across Cultures

Intercultural Blamestorming: Take the Blame Out of Communicating Across Cultures

I have worked in the human communication field for twenty-five years, the majority of them in helping my clients in France expand their abilities to communicate across cultures. What I have observed over the decades is that both within the same culture or across cultures, when communication goes wrong there is a tendency to engage in blamestorming. In other words,…read more →

The Top Two Mistakes to Avoid When Making Requests Across Cultures

The Top Two Mistakes to Avoid When Making Requests Across Cultures

How many times a day do we ask for what we want or need from those who can provide what we requested? We don’t keep track of the number of requests a day we make to colleagues, either in person, by email, on the phone, during meetings and video conferences and whether in the same office, country or across the…read more →

Do You Need Intercultural Communication Training?

Do You Need Intercultural Communication Training?

There are a variety of approaches and methods available for how to enhance your abilities to work within intercultural business contexts. Some methods, such as Geert Hofstede’s six dimensions of national cultures, have been around for decades. His approach has certainly played an influential role in international management practices. Other approaches, such as that of Edward T. Hall, take an…read more →

The Top 5 Lies Told by Intercultural Teams

The Top 5 Lies Told by Intercultural Teams

I hear many of my clients, who work within intercultural teams, tell the five lies below. I call these lies intercultural blind spots. Since you can’t change what you can’t see, it’s important to look closely at the faulty assumptions on which these lies are based. When left unexamined, these blind spots can become the root cause of problems within…read more →

How to Build Intercultural Trust in Just Five Minutes

How to Build Intercultural Trust in Just Five Minutes

Doing business globally depends on trust. And it’s clear that the greater the trust, the greater the ability to conduct business effectively across cultures. My clients often tell me that one of the difficulties they encounter when conducting business internationally is that they don’t know how to quickly build trust. They wonder what they can do to build trust during…read more →

Can Skype Translator Improve Intercultural Communication?

Can Skype Translator Improve Intercultural Communication?

Microsoft recently demoed Skype Translator, which will be available as a Windows 8 beta app before the end of this year. As you can see in the video from the demo, the idea is that Translator can eliminate the need to learn new languages when people from different cultures communicate with each other. While both promising and ambitious, I have…read more →

Do You Have the Illusion that Intercultural Communication is Taking Place?

Do You Have the Illusion that Intercultural Communication is Taking Place?

The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” I will adapt his words slightly to make them applicable to intercultural communication: “The single biggest problem in intercultural communication is the illusion that communication is taking place.” Specifically, the illusion within intercultural business contexts is that when…read more →

Exercise Intercultural Wisdom

Exercise Intercultural Wisdom

Knowing what you do not know is a sign of wisdom, according to Greek philosopher Socrates. A good example of this is intercultural wisdom, which can be defined as knowing what you do not know about the values, behavior and communication styles of people from other cultures. Working with clients from a variety of intercultural business contexts has shown me…read more →

Innovate More Effective Intercultural Business Communications

Innovate More Effective Intercultural Business Communications

Within intercultural business contexts it’s generally agreed that improving intercultural communication is important. Unfortunately, specific guidelines for what needs to be done and how to accomplish it are rarely identified and implemented. So if you are struggling with how to adapt your written and spoken business documents to your intercultural context, you are definitely not alone. I encounter this problem…read more →

Build Your Intercultural Identity

Build Your Intercultural Identity

Your intercultural identity lives in language, more than you realize. Identity is formed by the opinions that you constantly exchange with others, which include your opinions of yourself. Effective intercultural communicators know that their intercultural identity is like a puzzle that is built piece by piece. So they actively participate in articulating what they want others to know about them….read more →

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