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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
This is the year you have decided to become a more effective intercultural communicator? Bravo! You can purchase and download my eBook, along with an 80-page workbook. Not sure? Read a free extract. Questions? Just ask.
