News/Events

Your company is counting on you to forge important relationships with prospective trading partners in Japan and Korea. You’re all set for your initial meetings and you’re certain you’ve prepared carefully until you read a feature in the newspaper about cultural differences between Americans and Asians. Questions arise: Are the differences really so important? After all, you’ve been selected for this task because of your great people skills, persuasiveness, and knowledge of your product, company, and industry. Isn’t that all it really takes? And how would you learn more? Read an international etiquette book? Buy a set of Japanese language tapes? Ask the Japanese-American guy in accounting?

While some have managed to succeed without in-depth knowledge of how to do business in other cultures, many have experienced painful and expensive failures. Cross-cultural professional development is one of the best paths to success in launching international ventures and in protecting investments already made. The knowledge, awareness, and skills to be gained go far beyond exchanging business cards properly or knowing when to bow or shake hands! The best training programs will include both country-specific knowledge as well as general skills in managing the cross-cultural encounter.

What sort of information should you look for in selecting a program?

• A solid grounding in the fundamentals of cross-cultural dynamics. Skipping to simplistic “dos & don’ts” is like skipping to surgery without studying anatomy!
• Target country information on way of life, customs, attitudes, history, geography, economy, and politics. What are their religions? When do they take national holidays? How about their attitudes toward the U.S. and other countries?
• In-depth discussion of communication styles. What they are, how to recognize them, and how to work with them. Was that a “yes”, a “no”, or a “maybe” that you just got? How can you tell?
• Comparison of U.S. and target country social and business values. What makes them “tick”? The qualities and behaviors that inspire your trust and confidence in others may not be the ones that inspire trust and confidence in your foreign prospect. What motivates you may not be what motivates your counterpart.
• Comparison of U.S. and target country business practices. How do you know when the timing is right? What is their decision-making process like, and how can you influence it? How are authority and accountability organized?
• Skills development in communicating and working with people of other cultures. How to build and maintain positive relationships, how to negotiate productively, how to manage effectively. Remember to keep in mind that the goal is not how to behave exactly like someone from the target culture, but to learn the best strategies for bridging the gap comfortably!

What should you avoid when selecting a consultant for cross-cultural training?

• Programs which give only superficial information about quaint customs, festivals and food or which focus too heavily on history or cultural description at the expense of intercultural skill-building.
• Programs which rely only on etiquette lessons (such as table manners and bowing rituals) and learning a few polite phrases in the target language.
• “Off-the-shelf” programs which do not take your company’s function or industry into account, or which do not fit the needs of the specific audience. A health care training will be very different in content and style than an oil and gas training! A program for customer service representatives should have a different design than one for upper management.

An effective cross-cultural program is one which is customized to your specific business needs and gives you the in-depth, hands-on knowledge and skills you need to build satisfying, successful relationships with your international clients and partners.