Cultural Awareness Training

The global success of any international organisation requires more than just the ability to offer the right products and services in the right markets.  It also requires the right people with a high level of cultural awareness and intercultural competence to succeed when working across borders and cultures.  Cultural awareness is no longer an optional skill but an essential competency for all employees working across cultures.

A lack of cultural awareness, at both professional and social levels, can lead to major miscommunication, and, ultimately, rejection by host-culture colleagues, clients, acquaintances and neighbours.  Cultural awareness is especially important for employees being sent abroad to live and work, organisations planning to merge with or acquire another company or individuals who work with counterparts and clients around the world.

Cultural Awareness Training for International Assignees

Cross-cultural training is extremely important for employees being relocated to another country.  Without the cultural preparation and strategies provided through intercultural training programmes, international assignees and their family members tend to struggle to adapt to life and work in the target country and will experience significant culture shock.

The inability to effectively cope with this intense cultural transition can result in a failed international assignment which has huge cost implications for the organisation and a negative impact on the employee’s emotional resilience and ability to perform well in the future.

In the 2008 Global Relocation Trends Survey Report conducted by GMAC, respondents claimed “cross-cultural preparation has a direct impact on the financial success of a relocation/assignment” and they rated cultural awareness training as the third most important initiative to increase ROI of international assignments.

Despite this, companies are still failing to make cross-cultural training mandatory and therefore risk huge financial loss from early returns or damage to relationships with international counterparts through cultural faux-pas and misunderstandings.

Cross-Cultural Training for Mergers and Acquisitions

The successful fusion of two different organisations is dependant on far more than maximising market share, cost savings and efficiencies. The smooth integration of both companies is dependent on whether the organisations consider issues relating to national culture through intercultural training initiatives.

Most companies know that the management of organisational change and the smooth integration of corporate cultures is essential for any M&A, but what they don’t realise is that approximately 60-80% of international mergers are unsuccessful because they did not have strategies in place to deal with and integrate the cultural differences.

Cultural awareness training can help M&A parties address intercultural issues such as language, values, attitudes and behaviours which are all critical success factors.  Without the cultural understanding and sensitivity gained through intercultural training, organisations involved in cross-cultural M&As will not have the required skills to successfully integrate the different cultures to create a successfully merged ‘third culture’.

Intercultural Training for International Working

Business is no longer conducted solely between two individuals or organisations from the same national culture.  Instead, cross-cultural working and communication is now happening both face-to-face and virtually on a daily basis.

Working effectively across cultures requires more than just being good at what you do on a technical level.  Anyone working across cultures must also have a set of intercultural skills which will enable them to not only recognise cultural differences in working preferences and communication styles, but to also be able to deal with them.

The required intercultural skills for international working can be developed by participating in a series of cross-cultural training programmes.  Without the foundation of intercultural awareness and an understanding of the impact of stereotypes and generalisations on business interactions cultural awareness training provides, international working will result in massive misunderstanding and financial risk.  Intercultural training also provides strategies to manage intercultural conflict and build cross-cultural relationships with greater success.

As quoted in the book Riding the Waves of Culture, “Culture still seems like a luxury item to most managers, a dish on the side. In fact, culture pervades and radiates meanings into every aspect of the enterprise. Culture patterns the whole field of business relationships.” Cultural awareness training is an integral step to ensuring international organisations harness the benefits of working in an intercultural context and reduce their risk of financial loss.

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