Build a Global Career You Can Be Proud of – with a Culture Coach [The Culture Guy Podcast]

Everybody needs a coach – here’s why Let’s call this the coaching episode. A whole podcast about the fact that you won’t reach your top goals without someone who holds you accountable and cheers you on at the same time. 27 minutes to highlight how you or any global professional can build a career in international business with cultural competence. …

body language

Learn to Read Body Language Across Cultures for Global Business Success

No matter how strong your foreign language skills may be – without the ability to effectively interpret body language across cultures, you’ll struggle to understand all the complex communicative details of global business. So how can you learn to make sense of nonverbal cues in different cultural contexts and feel more confident in a range of situations? You may find …

Busting the Myth of “Normal” [The Culture Guy Podcast]

Dave Kerpen: “No one I know grew up feeling ‘normal’” Those of you who have ever worked with The Culture Mastery or who have experienced me on a stage or in a training room know this: In our work the concept of “normal” usually comes with quotation marks. “Normal” is an arbitrary concept because what’s normal for one culture may …

expat management

Money, Time, Manpower – Stinginess With a Tiny Slice May Cost You the Entire Expat Pie

Any cost-conscious organization sending employees abroad needs to be prudent and justify all the expenses of an expatriate assignment. Smart organizations know that a small percentage of the overall expat management cost protects their investment in global talent. International employee relocations can fail for various reasons: A company may have chosen the wrong team member for the overseas job. The expat …

The Best (and worst) Countries for Expat Job Assignments

Relocating to a new country can be a challenge. It typically means working in a different environment, with new colleagues, settling into a new city and making it home, and needing to establish a new social life. The latest InterNations expatriate survey might make it easier to decide which destination will be best for an international job assignment. According to global …

Get the Latest on Developing a Global HR Strategy

In order to help global assignees and their families succeed when relocating internationally, human resources departments in multinational organizations need to have state-of-the-art tools to manage employee mobility and they need to have a wellformed global HR strategy. On September 27, 2018 language services firms TransNation Translations and Fluency Corp will host a lunch and learn session for human resources professionals …

expat spouse

The Secret to Managing Expat Assignments for Modern Families? Start with the Spouse

Skilled professionals are increasingly likely to have an equally skilled partner at home. This makes it harder for companies to fill overseas positions when the move affects two professional careers. Multinational corporations are starting to recognize and try to understand the complexities of managing talent globally. But we wondered whether they are considering the “right” scope of complexities. As an …

Growing up as a black TCK in Germany [The Culture Guy Podcast]

Trevor Gillies talks about his experience with racism and ethnic inequality as a U.S. third-culture kid in Deutschland Spending your childhood and adolescence abroad and being raised as a third-culture kid (TCK) is a unique experience. As the child of U.S. service members, Trevor Gillies grew up as the only black kid in a Southern Germany town in the ’80s …

diversity inclusion

Talking to Thrive Global About the Business Benefits of Diversity and Inclusion

What is the value of a multicultural, diverse, and inclusive workforce in global business? That’s a question Thrive Global, a corporate and consumer well-­being and productivity platform founded by Arianna Huffington, asks. The editorial team of the company which advocates behavior change around workplace health reached out to Christian Höferle to talk about diversity & inclusion – how cultural differences can make the difference …

How Culture Considerably Influences Children’s Development

From educational toys to governmental guidelines and detailed nursery progress reports, there are lots of resources available to help parents track and facilitate their children’s development. But while there are tricks we can use to teach children to talk, count, draw or respect others, a surprisingly big part of how they develop is determined by the culture they grow up …

How Unmanaged Diversity Will Lead to a Mess in Global Business [The Culture Guy Podcast]

When companies fail abroad, 50% to 70% of the time this is due to cultural differences that have not been addressed, says Sophie Lechner. The CEO of Global Commerce Education and creator of The G2 Experience is dedicated to making her clients aware of the dissimilarities and contrasts between markets and countries. Sophie Lechner about how organizing diversity properly will …

Can cultural differences between France and Croatia impact the World Cup Final?

The 2018 World Cup final will be football’s clash of the year, as France plays Croatia for the ultimate title. But will a contest on the pitch also translate to a collision of cultures? Right before the start of this year’s World Cup we put together an overview of all the cultures which were represented at the tournament. Here now is a …

Bicultural Employees Can Be Your Organization’s Secret to Success

A stroll through the halls of almost any Canadian or U.S. American workplace will testify to the cultural diversity of its workforce. By 2050, around 40 per cent of the population of Canada, as well as the United States and Australia, will be immigrants or the children of immigrants. Many of these people, who make up an increasing portion of …

What You Wish You Knew About the Cultures of World Cup 2018

During the next five weeks the eyes of the world will be looking to Russia. Not for political reasons (which cannot be ruled out, though), and more so because of sports: Russia is the host of the FIFA World Cup 2018. Call it Weltmeisterschaft, mundial de fútbol, كاس العالم, 월드컵, VM, coupe du monde, svjetski kup, Ворлд Цуп, copa do mondo, ワールドカップ, puchar świata, Кубок мира, or campionato mondiale – …

Anthony Bourdain obit

Anthony Bourdain’s death is a tragic blow for the cross-cultural world

When I heard the news of Anthony Bourdain’s death I felt sadness. I can’t say I was surprised. If you ever watched Parts Unknown, his excellent show on CNN, you’ll remember how many times Bourdain talked about his demons. His bouts with addiction, his self doubt, and his depressive tendencies. Bourdain’s tragic suicide creates a gaping hole in the souls …

Judging Emotion Across Culture Works Surprisingly Well, Research Finds

We’re better at judging the emotions of people from our own country, according to research on the vocal expressions of people in the United States, Australia, India, Kenya, and Singapore. However, in a separate study, the researchers also discovered that Australians and Indians could read each other pretty well despite cultural barriers. When one native inflected differently on phrases, a …

Why knowing Spanish isn’t good enough to be successful in Latin America [The Culture Guy Podcast]

Adjusting to cultural differences between Spain and the Spanish-speaking parts of the Americas Spanish is the world’s second most common language with more than 400 million native speakers. Comparable to English it has been a lingua franca for centuries and you’ll find people on five continents whose first language is Spanish. This linguistic commonality, however, does not translate into cultural …

webinar #GermanCultureGap

Are Mexico and the United States really two distant neighbors?

Learn how to remove US-Mexican cultural roadblocks during this webinar 🇲🇽 💥 🇺🇸 With immigration and border security issues unresolved and while NAFTA is undergoing an overhaul with unclear outcome, trade relations between Mexico and the United States remain vital to both countries’ bottom line. The legal and political frameworks of business across North America may experience a reorganization, yet the nature of …

Younger Isn’t Necessarily Better When Learning a Second Language

It is often thought that it is better to start learning a second language at a young age. But research shows that this is not necessarily true. In fact, the best age to start learning a second language can vary significantly, depending on how the language is being learned. The belief that younger children are better language learners is based …

Knowledge about Different Cultures is Shaking the Foundations of Psychology

The academic discipline of psychology was developed largely in North America and Europe. Some would argue it’s been remarkably successful in understanding what drives human behavior and mental processes, which have long been thought to be universal. But in recent decades some researchers have started questioning this approach, arguing that many psychological phenomena are shaped by the culture we live …