Tag Archives: Education and Training

Why Storytelling in the Intercultural Context?

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storytellingStories are the cornerstone of the Cultural Detective Method, and we have written about them on this blog quite often. Today I am very pleased to share with you a guest blog post by Joanna Sell, storyteller extraordinaire. She will be leading a complimentary webinar for us on 6th December 2018. Register now!

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You might be asking why storytelling in intercultural communication? This exact question marked the beginning of my journey towards the storytelling approach. When I was setting the sails, I had no idea where it would bring me. I simply knew that my clients in the business world, my students at the universities, and many people working across cultures desperately wanted golden recipes on how to behave in intercultural contexts. Does that sound familiar to you?

Following the motto, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” people wanted to hear do’s and don’ts for communicating and cooperating with the “inhabitants of Rome.” What struck me, mostly, was the fact that they were deeply convinced that such “ready-made recipes” existed or were useful.

On one hand they acknowledged the diversity of their own groups and said: “Well, our group is very diverse in terms of age, gender, professional background, and nationality, and it is clear that our setting is ‘colorful,’ but we are here to hear about ‘Rome and the Romans.'” I asked myself why was it so easy to talk about a mosaic of cultures in their own groups while also asking for do’s and don’ts lists for communicating with “the others.”

Everything changed once we exchanged stories. Suddenly, the beauty of diversity became tangible and the focus moved towards practicing perspective change, self-reflection regarding communication skills, and a clear shift from “autopilot modus” towards curiosity and acceptance of differing thinking patterns.

As an intercultural trainer and coach I was overwhelmed—and I experienced my own personal change, as well. I still provided input on doing business and working in teams in countries of my expertise, and I addressed the challenges and rewards of virtual leadership. However, I began to incorporate the experience and knowledge of the participants into my programs much more. Why? Because the narrative approach and various storytelling methods guided me to get to know my participants better, allowing me to better tailor the content to their needs.

Additionally, thanks to the exchange of stories, they got to know one another from a completely new perspective and were willing to share their experiences in an open manner. A setting of psychological safety and an atmosphere of trust were the most wonderful gifts most of us experienced during time spent together sharing stories. Discussions about establishing trust and designing a team charter took on completely new dynamics. When we talked about action plans at the end of the meeting, participants were much more committed to following through, as well as to risk story sharing in their professional contexts and to apply storytelling methods in their daily lives.

I gathered the list of the reasons that storytelling works so well in the intercultural context, and I welcome your ideas to add to my observations.

  • Storytelling allows discovering cultural roots from multiple perspectives.
  • Storytelling offers insights into complexity of multicultural identities.
  • Storytelling supports zooming in and out, i.e., perspective change.
  • Storytelling adds the emotional layer to the cognitive level.
  • Storytelling serves as means of transmitting cultures.
  • Storytelling deals with new stories of belonging.
  • Storytelling initiates change processes.
  • Storytelling moves hearts.

Excellent New Classroom Tool & a Great Read!

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Book Cover

We are thrilled to announce that this award-winning volume is newly updated with application questions for each chapter and fully integrates with your Cultural Detective Online subscription! Purchase it now for your classroom or for holiday gifting.

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Perception and Deception: A Mind-Opening Journey Across Cultures, 2nd edition, by Joe Lurie, Cross-Cultural Communications Trainer, Speaker and Emeritus Executive Director of UC Berkeley’s International House

What do your experiences tell you when you’re in line behind a bald man: Is he a militant? A monk? A punk? A neo-Nazi?… Or perhaps a cancer patient?

With YouTube, tweets and fake news instantly crossing cultures without context in this time of globalization, it’s essential to understand the actual meanings and intentions behind words, images and actions that seem abnormal or provocative. In line, online and off-line, we’re meeting many more “strangers.” There’s new wisdom in the Lebanese proverb: “Every stranger is a blind man.” And so, we face an urgency to teach students and professionals far more about other cultures and give them the intercultural skills to navigate globalization’s turbulent waters. That’s why, in collaboration with Cultural Detective, I’ve greatly expanded the first award-winning edition of Perception And Deception, A Mind-Opening Journey Across Cultures.

Think globalization is bringing us closer together? Think again. With refugees crossing cultures without preparation on either side, the dangers of intercultural miscommunication are intensifying. Why do many refugees traumatized by violence find Western “talk therapy” alienating? As a Syrian refugee confided, “I can’t share my painful, humiliating stories with a stranger.” A Sudanese refugee was diagnosed “psychotic” because she seemed to be talking to herself; her Boston psychiatrist was unaware that in her world, conversing with ancestors is normal. Some French see a Muslim woman in a burkina—a full body suit—as oppressed or as a potential terrorist. Yet the woman considers her burkini liberating, because she can swim modestly. Recently, a UC Berkeley student with a Spanish last name was snidely asked when she’d return to Mexico. Her angered response, “I’m from Kansas and I don’t speak Spanish.”

To enable use of the well-received stories in the first edition as springboards for developing intercultural competence, I’ve added a broad array of interactive questions and activities at the end of each chapter in this expanded new edition, as well as a brand new chapter, “Globalization and its Disconnects—Convergence Without Context.” It focuses in large part on the spiraling misunderstandings across cultures, especially in the worlds of refugees, religion, and responses to technology.

To better cope with the disrupting forces of globalization, each chapters’ questions and activities are designed to develop and heighten cultural self-awareness and sensitivity to others, among students, individuals and groups of all backgrounds and professions. Some of the included interactive, personalized activities are available for those who take advantage of Cultural Detective‘s superb, research-based, internationally tested online platform providing access to nearly 70 packages of rich intercultural material: Cultural Detective Online; other questions are useful on their own, without a subscription.

Below is a two-minute video recorded at the Commonwealth Club of California, introducing the first edition:

May the new edition’s stories and interactive activities addressing the disrupting forces of globalization and migration offer positive paths for engaging with difference without fear and by seeing with new eyes!

For further information and reviews about the book, or to order it from Amazon, visit PerceptionAndDeception.com; and to learn more about Cultural Detective’s anytime, anywhere intercultural competence development toolbox and virtual coach visit: www.CulturalDetective.com/cdonline.

Ecotonos is a great tool!

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We would like to thank Nicole Martin of the Rocky Mountain Institute for this guest blog post about her work with a team from SEED: Sustainable Energy for Economic Development . We are honored and privileged to know our materials aid work of this kind!

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I just wanted to pass on some feedback. My group of 17 really enjoyed running Ecotonos: A simulation for collaborating across cultures and identified it as a highlight of our day. Team members from SEED drew some valuable insights and connections to their real life work from it.

Since I had not seen Ecotonos run before, it is a credit to the materials that it went so well. I followed the directions and it worked! I really appreciated the clear and complete instructions.

I also wanted to share a tweak that I made. In the acculturation section, I had them create visual identifiers for their groups using craft materials. It helped them acculturate and get talking and moving.

Of course, my creative facilitation idea was sparked by forgetting the buttons back at the office 🙂 Here is a picture of a debrief. You can see the watch necklace (monochronic time group) and the mobius strip hat (polychronic time group) on the left side.

Thanks for the great tool!

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To learn more about Ecotonos or to purchase the game, which you’ll be able to use for years to come and replay differently with the same group multiple times, click here.

CD India Version 2

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We are proud to announce a brand-new, complete update to Cultural Detective India. As you know, we update our Cultural Detective packages a few times a year, in minor ways, as things happen around the world. Values seem to be the slowest things to change. Societal shifts take time and then, once they happen, boom! Big changes are afoot. We have a best-selling India package in our series, one that gets rave reviews, and we have been looking a long time for fresh eyes and new energy to update Professor Madhukar Shukla‘s terrific work. I am pleased as punch to report to you that two incredibly talented interculturalists have added to the greatness of this package: Shilpa Subramaniam and Melanie Martinelli. Read on for a bit of back story on this wonderful new version.

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When we first discussed updating the Cultural Detective India package, we realised that we were both very drawn to the work. Being interculturalists, avid travellers and facilitators of intercultural sessions, we both felt that we could bring a different flavour to the package.

Our biggest challenge was collaborating, as our travel schedules and calendars didn’t really put us in the same geography! So it might not come as a surprise that our first brainstorming session was in a car when we were travelling out of the city (Bangalore in this case) to co-facilitate a session.

The picture above is the two of us sitting next to the river Cauvery and brainstorming our way through the package! What was so interesting about that conversation was that both of us have such different perspectives: Melanie is a Swiss national who has lived and worked in India for more than a decade and is married to an Indian; Shilpa is Indian born, was brought up all over the country and has lived and worked outside of it. And yet, we found powerful experiences and threads that we had in common when living/ working / experiencing this wonderfully diverse country. Cultural Detective strives to have authors work in teams on packages, to have this insider-outsider joint perspective, and we quickly learned why that is invaluable.

We had quite a few “breakthroughs” during the process of brainstorming and writing the CD India package, but perhaps the most interesting one was when we tested out the idea of “privilege” being one of the core Indian values. In India, privilege isn’t just hierarchy and status, it is this clear-cut idea that if you belong to a certain social strata, then there are certain privileges that are ascribed to you, and these privileges differ across strata, class and religion. Yet the word “privilege” could have such negative connotations to some that it might not fit the golden rule of core country values—no value is positive or negative, they are neutral because they can be perceived both ways. So, while we both agreed on the fact that we needed to talk (or rather write) about privilege, we wanted to find ways to present multiple facets and sides to the concept and how it manifests itself in India.

Another interesting moment was recognizing that the reason India as a culture can be complex to understand is because it has so many shades of grey. For example, communication can be direct yet indirect depending on the situation. So what could we tell our participants/readers about the communication style in India? Therein was born our new, cool (even if we say so ourselves!) table that makes distinctions among the ways in which different values are manifested across urban or rural environments, generations, in multinational corporations and domestic business. The objective of this table is to help the reader understand how the same value can be demonstrated in different—and sometimes even opposite—ways. We hope that the underlying message that is the integral CD message: always analyse the context of any situation while trying to understand or decode it.

The newly revised CD India package builds on the previous version and is updated based on current social, economic, political and business contexts. It has a lot more practical and hands-on tips and best practices for those who are living and working in India, because that’s what we as authors look for when we take off to another country. We’ve ensured that there are elements that speak to what this information means to you if you’re working and/or doing business in India. It’s been written with a lot of care (we’ve tried to stay away from declaratives), excitement (we’re getting to shape how the country is perceived!) and thought (we discarded version after version until we were satisfied with it)!

Come and take the journey to India through our new Cultural Detective India package, now available in CD Online as well as via printed PDF, and explore its vastness, complexity and uniqueness! Happy travels!

Book Review: Why Travel Matters

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51Xh7kpNNhLWhy Travel Matters: A guide to the life-changing effects of travel, by Craig Storti, published by Nicholas Brealey, 2018.

The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page.
—St. Augustine

Are you looking for a terrific graduation gift? Just published last week, this quick, thought-provoking read will encourage any beloved young adult in your life to challenge themselves to develop new perspectives and values by experiencing the world around them fully.

Why Travel Mattersis an in-depth exploration of how to ensure travel experiences transcend tourism and transform the soul. “Through the ages it has been observed that travel broadens your horizons, deepens your understanding and changes your perspective. How? What must be done when traveling to make sure these things actually happen?”

Nothing is comparable to the new life that a reflective person
experiences when he observes a new country. Though I am still always
myself, I believe I have changed to the very marrow of my bones.
—Goethe

The book is written in typical Craig Storti style: engaging prose, good humor, content based on sound concepts and theory, well explained with lots of stories and examples. I read it on one leg of my flight last week and have already purchased several copies for the graduates on my gift list.

Not a typical travel book, Storti talks to the reader about the consequences of the trip rather than the trip itself, the inner as well as the outer journey, using quotations, insights, reflections and commentary from travelers, travel writers, historians and literary masters including Mark Twain, DH Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, St. Augustine and Somerset Maugham. He reviews the history of travel, including the importance of the grand tour beginning in 16th century Europe.

He goes on to explain the rise of modern tourism in the 1840s, thanks to Thomas Cook injecting the four elements of speed, comfort, convenience and tour groups, scrubbing travel of experiences that might disturb or discomfort—and, thus, removing its transformative powers. For me, with a passion for travel, who has hired a tour guide but has yet to take a group tour, who lacks the patience to lead a group of tourists, and who values a liberal arts education heavily grounded in study abroad and cross-cultural competence, the message this book promotes is music to my ears.

They had learnt life in a different school from mine
and had come to different conclusions.
—Somerset Maugham

Storti defines tourism as escape, recreational travel during which tourists are served by locals. Tourism is relaxing; tourists see the sights. Travel, on the other hand, is arriving at a destination. Travel is educational, travelers meet with locals and are stimulated to understand.

Travelers don’t know where they’re going
and tourists don’t know where they’ve been.
—Paul Theroux

Storti weaves in recent discoveries in neuroscience and recounts powerful passages from some of the world’s greatest travel narratives to support his thesis, including the story from Saint-Exupery’s Wind, Sand and Stars of the first time the Moors realized the Sahara was a desert and so very dry compared to other parts of the world—after they’d travelled and seen their first waterfall (p. 35). The reader thus learns that impressions formed abroad change how we see home once we return. He presents and reframes basic intercultural concepts in the context of travel: “You don’t see what is in front of you; you see your brain’s perception of it” (p. 24), sharing with us how JG Farrell saw blood spatters on the pavement during his journey through India, when in reality the red he was seeing was betel juice (Indian Diary), or Storti’s own inability to identify what his eyes were seeing when he first glimpsed icebergs from the air.

Each act of seeing informs and enhances all subsequent acts;
the more we have seen, the more we are subsequently able to see.
—Why Travel Matters, p. 32

In Chapter 4 Storti provides a table of cultural dimensions, writing that travel helps “you realize most people behave logically most of the time. You may not approve of their logic… but once you realize there are reasons behind their behavior you begin to accept that it makes sense.” He does occasionally get over-zealous, in my opinion, continuing on to optimistically tell readers, “There will never be people you cannot understand.”

Knowledge of ourselves—what we at Cultural Detective call “subjective culture,” meaning knowledge of ourselves as unique individuals influenced by multiple layers of culture—gives us choice over who and how we are in this world.

One’s destination is never a place but a new way of seeing things.
—Henry Miller

Storti concludes in Chapter 5 by providing a list of eleven best practices or tips on traveling for personal growth. These include:

  1. Travel alone.
  2. Stay out of touch/off the grid; you can’t have an experience and share it at the same time, attempts at the latter diminish the former.
  3. Collect sights not sites.
  4. Secure an introduction, a friend of a friend or colleague, to provide you a look inside the life of a local resident.
  5. Frequent places where you’ll find locals.
  6. Be a regular.
  7. Get inside someone’s home.
  8. Read about the country before and during your travel.
  9. Enjoy yourself.

Why Travel Matters includes three appendices: an interesting collection of rules for travel from other authors; a selection of quotes from people who are against travel, which feels a bit out of place or forced; and a wonderful list of the world’s great travel books—several of which I’m confident you’ll want to add to your reading list. Here’s to enjoying and benefitting from the journey!

There is all the difference in the world between behaving academically,
with the intellect, and behaving personally, intimately,
with the whole living self.
Proverbs are platitudes until you have experienced the truth of them.
—Aldous Huxley

 

Le « Bridging » 

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I hope you’ll join Catherine Roignan and myself in the heart of Paris on 18 November for this terrific one-day, bilingual workshop! English follows the French.

Atelier le samedi 18 novembre 2017 de 9h30 à 17h30
Hotel Normandy, 7 rue de l’Echelle – 75001 Paris
Animé par Dianne Hofner Saphiere et Catherine Roignan
Organisé par SIETAR France

Le « Bridging » : méthodes et techniques pour faciliter la coopération
au-delà des différences culturelles

Savoir « créer des ponts » entre personnes ou groupes culturellement différents, les mettre en situation et en capacité de communiquer et coopérer de façon efficace : c’est à la fois une nécessité et un but pour de nombreux chefs d’équipe, que ce soit en entreprise, dans les administrations ou les ONG.

Le « bridging » est aussi l’objectif ultime du travail interculturel : si on apprend à remettre sa propre culture en perspective et à se familiariser avec la culture de l’autre, c’est précisément pour parvenir à construire ce pont sur lequel se rencontrer.

Mais comment s’y prend-on concrètement? Comment les managers et les professionnels de la formation et du conseil peuvent-ils favoriser la synergie des efforts et des équipes internationales?

Le Cultural Detective® « Bridging Cultures » capitalise sur l’expertise existant désormais dans ce domaine : compétences, activités, grilles d’analyse, bonnes pratiques pour faire évoluer les esprits et les pratiques, issues d’expériences dans différentes organisations dans le monde.

Dans cet atelier dynamique et participatif, vous apprendrez comment :

  • Renforcer votre capacité personnelle à « faire le pont » avec des personnes différentes de vous
  • Prévenir et surmonter les blocages dans la communication
  • Adapter votre stratégie de « bridging » à des contextes particuliers
  • Identifier des mesures concrètes permettant de faciliter la coopération entre groupes culturellement divers.

Vous serez amenés à expérimenter vous-mêmes plusieurs exercices du Cultural Detective® « Faire le pont entre les cultures », de manière à pouvoir ensuite les transposer dans vos groupes et organisations.

L’atelier sera bilingue, en français et en anglais.

Programme de la journée :

9h30      Qu’est-ce que le « bridging » ? Présentation de la problématique
10h30    Compétence 1 : Identifier son attitude personnelle face au « bridging »
11h30    Pause café
11h40    Compétence 2 : Prévenir et surmonter des blocages de communication
13h         Déjeuner libre
14h15     Compétence 3 : Analyser les contextes d’intervention
16h         Pause café
16h15     Compétence 4 : Identifier des mesures concrètes et adaptées pour créer des
ponts
17h15     Conclusion, retours des participants et pistes pour action.

Registration: http://sietarfrancecongres.com/events/le-bridging-un-atelier-propose-par-dianne-hofner-saphiere-et-catherine-roignan/

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Bridging Cultural Differences: Methods and Techniques to Create Cooperation that Leverage Differences

18th November 2017 from 9.30 am to 5.30 pm
Hotel Normandy, 7 rue de l’Echelle – 75001 Paris
Facilitated by Dianne Hofner Saphiere and Catherine Roignan
Organized by SIETAR France

To build a bridge between culturally diverse persons or groups and develop the environment and ability to communicate and cooperate efficiently: that’s both a necessity and a goal of many team leaders in organizations worldwide.

Bridging is also the ultimate goal of any intercultural work: learning to put our own culture in perspective and learn about the other’s cultures is part of the process.

But how to do this concretely? And how can managers and training and consultancy professionals best support the synergy of efforts and teams, so that differences become assets ?

Cultural Detective Bridging Cultures capitalizes on the now-existing expertise of intercultural bridging practices in different organisations around the world. It identifies key competencies, offers activities, grids for analysis and best practices to help mindsets and habits evolve and to create cooperation.

In this dynamic and interactive Cultural Detective®Bridging Cultures workshop you will learn how to:

  • Reinforce your personal ability to communicate and bridge with different people.
  • Prevent and overcome blocking situations.
  • Adapt your bridging strategy to specific contexts.
  • Explore different techniques to foster cooperation between culturally different groups.

This workshop will leverage select exercises from Cultural Detective® Bridging Cultures so that you can replicate them in your work, communities and organizations. You will leave the workshop with practices you can implement immediately as well as extensive handouts.

The workshop will be facilitated bilingually in French and English.

Program of the day :

9.30 am                               What is « bridging » ? Definition and issues at stake
10.30                                    Key Competency 1 : Self-awareness and bridging mindset
11.30                                    Coffee Break
11.40                                    Key Competency 2 : Overcoming blocking situations in
communication
1 pm                                     Open Lunch
2.15 pm                                Key Competency 3 : Contextual analysis
4 pm                                     Coffee Break
4.15                                       Key Competency 4 : Generating bridges
5.15 – 5.30                           Conclusion, feedback and tips for action

Registration: http://sietarfrancecongres.com/events/le-bridging-un-atelier-propose-par-dianne-hofner-saphiere-et-catherine-roignan/

Focus on Responsible Tourism

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We greet hundreds of thousands of national and international visitors each year on the west coast of México where I live. For years I have promoted cultural and religious tourism to the State Secretary of Tourism, trying to encourage travelers to get beyond the beer and beaches to experience a bit of the “real Mexico.”

Recently, a colleague in Milan, Maura di Mauro, told me about a special film track she coordinated in May at the SIETAR Europa Congress in Dublin entitled, Focus on Responsible Tourism. She cautioned me about how the culture of Mursi villagers in Ethiopia was changing due to tourism. Thanks to an influx of camera-toting tourists willing to pay for photos, the villagers increasingly exaggerate their traditional practices and even falsely embellish them, to make them more attractive to visitors. She also told me about Chinese tourists descending en masse on a small village in The Netherlands. Many of the Dutch residents welcome the added economic boost such international tourism provides, but there are also downsides to such tourism and, again, changes to the host culture.

Maura got me excited and I can not WAIT to view these two films!

The first documentary Maura told me about is called “Framing the Other” by Ilja Kok and Willem Timmers  (25 min, English and Mursi with English subtitles, €445 for the film in an educational package with guide and readings on tourism’s impact).The Mursi tribe lives in the basin of the Omo River in the south of the east African state of Ethiopia. The women are known for placing large plates in their lower lips and wearing enormous, richly decorated earrings. Every year hundreds of Western tourists come to see the unusually adorned natives; posing for camera-toting visitors has become the main source of income for the Mursi. To make more money, they embellish their “costumes” and finery in such a manner that less of their original authentic culture remains. The film contrasts the views of Mursi women and those of Dutch tourists preparing for a meeting. This humorous and at the same time chilling film shows the destructive impact tourism has on traditional communities. The film screening was followed by a Q&A with producer Ilja Kok. A preview follows:

The second film is called “Ni Hao Holland: The Chinese are coming” by Willem Timmers (25 min, Mandarin and Dutch with English subtitles, €395 for the film in an educational package with slides and readings on understanding Chinese tourists). This is a documentary about Chinese tourists and their quest for the authentic Dutch experience. Cherry, the main character, has long dreamed of swapping her home city Beijing for the Dutch village Giethoorn. She has heard and read a lot about this mythical place. The day arrives that she and her friend hop on the plane in search of adventure. In the meantime, entrepreneurs from Giethoorn work hard behind the scenes to cater to this “Holland experience.” They want to make the most of the fast-growing flow of Chinese tourists to their village. How is this authenticity created by some and experienced by others? Below is a preview:

Maura also curated a third film for the festival at SIETAR Europa: “Holi-days” by Randi Malkin Steinberger (50 min). If you’re interested in tourism and its impact on culture, it looks very worthwhile.
Why do we visit pilgrim’s places, art capitols and tourist’s paradises en masse? Traveling from Jerusalem via Florence to Las Vegas, Steinberger takes the answers to these questions to an increasingly general plane. In Jerusalem (welcoming three million visitors a year) we see tourists visiting the holy places, buying souvenirs, and putting themselves through torments that Jesus Christ once endured. What they are looking for is elucidated in short statements by pilgrims, tour operators, church leaders, guides, scientists, and souvenir vendors. All these opinions put forward a few basic ideas: tourism and commerce overgrow religion, and sacred places and objects give people the feeling that they are part of some higher order. We could look at Florence in the same way, where annually six million tourists drink in the best of Renaissance Art. The street interviews allow the same conclusion as in Jerusalem: people feel dumbfounded and overwhelmed. The countless tourists and the massive trade in souvenirs “have turned the city into a congealed moment in time.” The climax of this film journey is reached in Las Vegas. In this city, 36 million people a year enjoy replicas of famous cities and monuments, cinematic reconstructions of historical moments, spectacular shows, and dazzling gambling palaces. Here, the reality, which people also look for in Jerusalem and Florence, is better and more typical (and even more soulless) than in reality.

Early Bird Rate Closing Soon!

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cdfc-grad-5You have two more chances in 2017 to become certified in the use of Cultural Detective. The early-bird rate for the certification in San Diego ends 30th September!

  1. logo-1.jpg
    San Diego, USA, 21-23 October 2017
    Post-conference workshop of the SIETAR USA Conference. Profits benefit SIETAR USA.
    REGISTER OR FIND MORE INFORMATION HERE
  2. logo.jpg
    Vienna, AUSTRIA, 23-25 November 2017
    Sponsored by and with profits benefitting SIETAR Austria, this is a lower price than normal, so take advantage!
    FIND MORE INFORMATION HERE
    REGISTER VIA SIETAR AUSTRIA

Below are some comments from participants in previous Certification Workshops:

  • “Excellent, customizable tools will help me effectively address and restore my clients’ problems.”
  • “Cultural Detective helps me be a better manager.”
  • “This will assist me greatly in building partnerships in other organizations and with newly arrived communities.”
  • “We will roll Cultural Detective out across the organization to develop a shared model and language for leveraging our differences.”
  • “A teachable model that is a simple approach to a complex subject.”
  • “This helps me to better work with some co-workers and not be so quick to get angry or criticize, which is rarely productive.”
  • “Cultural Detective provides the structure and process for the deliberate intent required to understand others from their point of view and collaborate with them.”
  • “CD helps me see a clearer picture and find resolutions when I’m dealing with complex, sensitive issues.”
  • “Cultural Detective is an excellent conflict resolution tool.”
  • “CD has given me a greater understanding of the way people tick and the tools to recognize them. It’s a way to handle issues that makes sense!”
  • “I will use Cultural Detective with our international students as well as during our department training. It changes mindsets.”
  • “Cultural Detective opens doorways to more effective design and learning.”
  • “CD transforms team productivity.”

We very much look forward to having you join us and to helping us develop intercultural competence for enhanced respect, understanding, collaboration and justice in this world!

Free and Effective Intercultural Assessment Instruments

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The Freebies page of our website contains a plethora of downloads and resources we hope you’ll use. Today I’d like to focus your attention on one small portion of that page: Assessment Instruments.

There are, fortunately, loads of terrific intercultural assessment instruments on the market today. The instruments that we share do not compete with those but, rather, fill a different niche. There are just four of them, but they are important, IMHO.

  1. First, and most important, is the Diversity Collegium’s Global Diversity and Inclusion Benchmarks. With contributions from 95 Expert Panelists including me, this complimentary download is a tremendous resource for any organization or community aiming to improve the quality and caliber of its diversity and inclusion.
  2. Second, but also of great interest to our community, are the two Cultural Detective Competence Assessments. These tools are still in beta-testing and require your use and refinement, please! If you use Cultural Detective and would like to conduct pre- and post-tests to verify how well your learners have integrated the methodology into their daily thoughts and habits, give these instruments a go. And be sure to provide us your feedback and improvements/refinements!
  3. The final assessment tool is a quiz on world maps. It could be useful in training, or for your personal professional development. Maps obviously reflect the world views of their creators, and this quiz is aimed to help users realize that.

There are loads of other complimentary resources available from our site. Please put them to good and frequent use! Together we can make a difference, promoting respect, collaboration, innovation and justice.

Become a Certified Facilitator

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Register now to learn to use Cultural Detective’s robust and personally customized online system to improve intercultural competence in your communities, organizations and teams—bridging the issues that polarize our societies and leveraging differences as assets.

We have two upcoming workshops, one in San Diego USA in October and the other in Vienna AUSTRIA in November. Proceeds from both events will support the respective SIETAR (Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research) organizations. You will leave the workshop with a developmentally-sound set of tools in your hands and the knowledge and skill to use them. You will form meaningful, long-lasting relationships with leading professionals. And, as a certified facilitator, you will receive a 10% discount when you license our printed materials, a listing on our website, and one-month access to Cultural Detective Online.

Below is the flyer from SIETAR Austria, and following that is a video from SIETAR USA:

CD Vienna 2017 p1CD Vienna 2017 p2

Click on the link to learn more or secure your seat now.