[doc] teaching cross cultural understanding' materials - doc search hk 1

http://www.pdfbar.com/free-doc-download/teaching cross cultura...

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/9ckw

Asking the right questions

This new comic from Randall Munroe, aka xkcd, is a beautiful demonstration of how to get the information you want: ask the right questions. Okay, I've just explained the joke, but what I wanted to point out is that this is one of the methods of effective intercultural communication.

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/937z

Great thoughts on how learning is changing

This is an outstanding video "Learning to Change, Changing to Learn." It opens with a shocking statement, "The US Department of Commerce ranked 55 industry sectors by their level of IT intensiveness. Education was ranked number 55, the lowest. Below coal mining."



Favorite quotes:

"Education is focused on getting kids to produce vending machine answers. While after they leave school and begin employment, they will be doing work that calls on their artistic abilities, their ability to synthesize, to understanding context, and will require them to be multidisciplinary, multilingual, and multicultural."
-- Daniel Pink ("Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us", http://www.danpink.com/, twitter: danielpink)

"The coin of the realm will be 'do you know how to find information?' Do you know how to synthesize it, how to leverage it, how to communicate it, to collaborate with it and to problem solve with it? These will be the new 21st century set of literacies."
-- Ken Kay (http://www.p21.org/, twitter: kenkayp21

The rich cultural heritage that is Germany

I’ve never seen Goethe’s “Faust” used to describe expat training, but this says a lot about Germany. It’s a description for expat and/or multicultural team training that refers to the “Gretchen question” in Goethe’s “Faust”. For those of you who have forgotten your college lit courses (or perhaps used one too many Cliff Notes instead of doing the required reading), the charachter Gretchen asks Faust if he believes in God and he does not know how to answer the question satisfactorily. The Gretchen Question (“Gretchenfrage”) is used ideomatically in modern German to refer to a question of great importance with a difficult answer.

But that’s not the point of this blog post. The point is: Germany has a great wealth of cultural heritage that they are justifiably proud of. In just about every art that you can think of, the greats that Germany produced throughout the centuries make one realize that there must have been something in the water, so to speak, that led to genius. This is not at all taken lightly by present-day Germans and, when doing business in Germany, is something to be respected, even revered.

What the business world expects from intercultural trainers

This article, on Xing, is written by Robert Gibson, who has been responsible for intercultural training at Learning Campus, the educational organisation set up at Siemens AG. He very succinctly outlines what businesses see as necessary attributes of intercultural trainers.

Companies expect experience and expertise. No generalists! Not only do you have to talk the talk, you also need to walk the walk. In short: companies want their money's worth. No surprise, perhaps, but good to get this advice from one of the pros inside the business.

Cultural differences? There’s an app for that!

It seems as though we have iPhone applications for pretty much everything these days. The spectrum runs from some outstanding business-related apps that can go a long way to improving your productivity, and some beautifully designed apps to enhance your creativity, to many apps that leave one wondering, “Why?”

Where the CultureGPS app fits for you on this spectrum probably depends on how useful you find the cultural dimensions model of Prof. Geert Hofstede. For those unfamiliar with Prof. Hofstede’s work, you can read more here. But in brief, Prof. Hofstede, while employed as a researcher by IBM in the 1960’s, did studies comparing national and organizational cultures. The result was a 5-dimension model that has been used by culture and organizational experts for many years in classifying differences in culture. While still controversial, it nevertheless offers a modicum of structure for those looking for patterns in behavior that match to national differences. According to the Wall Street Journal raking 2008, Geert Hofstede is one of the top 20 most influential business thinkers.

The application, developed by Sales-Genetics Ltd & Co. KG of Düsseldorf. Germany, is currently available only for the iPhone. According to their website, other smartphone OS platforms are being developed.

"Leadership is overglorified"

With thanks to @sifowler (http://bit.ly/bJ5dBD) for the reference:



Transcript can be read here

This video, originally a TED talk by Derek Sivers, talks about the value of "first followers." These are the ones that transform leaders from "lone nuts" into people with a following.

My question is: what cultural aspects are at play here? This was filmed at the Sasquatch Music Festival (the original video can be viewed here) in Washington State in the US, roughly 250 km east of Seattle. The audience, as you can see in the video, is predominantly white, young, and have a reasonable amount of disposable income, considering the remote location and the fact that tickets a 3-day pass for this event start at €120. Sivers uses the film as a classic example of how first followers define what leadership is, but how would this scene develop in other cultures? Would it develop in other cultures? In a society with a very strong group culture, what would the reaction be to one person dancing alone, if it would happen at all? In a culture with a strong hierarchical structure, would a single, shirtless guy be followed, without any symbols or other signals that would denote his hierarchical status?

Great session #lrnchat yesterday

#lrnchat is an online chat over the social messaging service Twitter that now happens twice every Thursday: first at 4:30-6pm GMT  and then again at 8:30-10pm ET/5:30-7pm PST.

It is for learning professionals who come together to exchange ideas and thoughts that are prompted by questions posed by a moderator. The sessions last 1.5 hours, and in yesterday evening's first session the overall topic was "The Intersection of Online and Inperson Education" and within this framework four questions were posed:

Q1) What are some great techniques for online educators to bring a personal element to their facilitation?
Q2) What are some modern techniques classroom educators can use to add digital depth to their programs?
Q3) Would you rather train online or in person, and why?
Q4) What do you prefer learning online or in person, and why?

It was a wonderful exchange with many great ideas. Online learning at its best!!!

Are you taking your expatriate talent seriously?

To exploit overseas opportunities, multinational corporations must usually transfer executives into them. Yet these expatriates—a scarce and very dear resource—often fail, and many leave their employers even after they succeed overseas. What can multinationals do to protect their investment (which, according to data provided in the article, can run upwards to $500,000 per year)? Some solutions proposed in this article are:

• Unlocking talent by having clear partner-family policies for expatriates, such as adequate and in-depth preparation, rewards for local interaction during the assignment, and easy access to housing, schooling and feedback mechanisms as an ongoing policy. 
• Sourcing creatively such as finding talented expatriate managers in previously run joint ventures, sourcing outside of the corporate home market, and having permanent on-site teams to help facilitate operations. 
• Considering that 70 percent of failed assignments result directly from personal and family difficulties rather than incompetence on the job, having an early assessment program in place is essential. 
• Keeping the expatriates and their families well connected with corporate home base by facilitating a two-way transfer of knowledge. 
• Clear evaluations by involved senior management with visible and well-explained metrics for performance are essential. 
• Retaining the talent within the company: according to one survey, a stunning 91 percent of returning expatriates felt that their companies didn't value their international experience. The result of this is repatriated managers in the US leave their companies at twice the rate of managers with purely domestic experience, usually within one year of returning. 

The article has a great deal of data to substantiate both the problem as well as the proposed solutions. Even though it was published in the McKinsey Quarterly over 10 years ago, the lessons are now more valuable than ever. Considering the increased trend towards globalization and the even scarcer resources because of the economic downturn, it is ever more important to make the small investments necessary to protect the larger business equation.

"Are you taking your expatriate talent seriously?"" by Tsun-yan Hsieh, Johanne Lavoie, and Robert A. P. Samek, The McKinsey Quarterly, 1999 NUMBER 3, p. 71 - 83.

What matters to CEOs with their corporate learning

What matters to CEOs and corporate learning: it's all about the business results (T&D magazine #learning #results #ROI): http://ow.ly/1nkjK

An article by the training ROI authority Jack Phillips in the January issue of T&D magazine shows the results of research among a large number of CEOs regarding what they want to see from their corporate learning investments. Even though a whopping 96% want to see the results of learning and development back in their business impact data, only 8% claim to see it now. This demonstrates an enormous mismatch in L&D investments and providing business leaders with what they want to see.

The article lists a number of practical steps that we as learning professionals can now take to start showing business results. Even though Phillips is renowned for his admittedly complex training ROI calculations, the solutions he mentions are practical, immediate and can be undertaken with a minimum of investment. Among others they include focusing on objectives, integrating personal learning scorecards, providing success stories and building evaluation early into the L&D design.

"Confronting CEO Expectations About the Value of Learning," by Jack J. and Patti P. Phillips, T+D 64 (2010) 1 (Jan); p. 52 - 56 (5p.)

Employers failing to Integrate Talent Management and Diversity

RT @TrainingJournal: Diversity should be threaded through ALL talent management activities http://bit.ly/aOAFRm

Includes an excellent quote from Claire McCartney, CIPD resourcing adviser and co-author of the report, “It's important that organisations see talent management and diversity as more, not less important, in periods of economic uncertainty to outwit and outperform competitors through their people,” she said. “By opening up talent opportunities organisations will benefit from a stream of differing views and practical answers to problems, helping them to reflect increasingly diverse customer needs and remain ahead of the competition.

My experience is that in times of economic difficulty, leadership in organizations unfortunately take exactly the opposite course of action: sticking with what's familiar and comfortable, drawing back, playing it safe. Understandable in times of uncertainty, but a lost opportunity.

Leadership lessons from Indian companies

RT @HarvardBiz: Leadership lessons from Indian companies: good preview of an very good articlehttp://bit.ly/bpzusc

The question is: can the rest of us learn from their practices? As Peter Cappelli astutely observes, the lessons are not new, and even though many are based on circumstances found unique to the Indian business environment, there are nevertheless inherent lessons.

Especially: measuring and tracking training and development and creating a real sense of social mission, whereby employees can feel that their work has impact can have clear influence on the culture and success of any company.

Going Global, Stateside

An atypically shallow article in NYTimes re: intercultural communication http://ow.ly/1hNgB.

I was quite disappointed in the article. It touched very lightly on the general status quo without really defining either the problem or the underlying causes. Then leapt immediately to the solutions.

And closing with the most likely apocryphal "When the British company redid the proposal with a positive spin, they got the deal the next day" only reinforces the shallowness of the article's tone. It implied easy, simple solutions while ignoring the complexities of intercultural decision processes.

Effective Multi-Cultural International Business Meetings

Nice article from Neil Payne from Kwintessential. Quite comprehensive with examining all aspects of business meetings (including expectations, examining what the real goals are, hierarchy, etc.):  http://ow.ly/1h30S

Managing Communication within Virtual Intercultural Teams

An article by Christine Uber Grosse Thunderbird, The American Graduate School of International Management:http://ow.ly/1fLvs

Abstract

As global companies rely more on virtual teams to conduct short and long- term projects, business students need to be prepared to manage the communication of intercultural teams. Communicating across cultures using technology can be a difficult task. Best practices in managing the communication of virtual intercultural teams are identified from interviews with four executives and feedback from 90 graduate business students. This information will help business communication faculty to prepare students for the complex job of communicating across languages and cultures on virtual teams.

Cultural differences in doing business in Turkey and the Netherlands

An ING Bank commissioned report gives a good, solid overview of major differences, including standard measures such as power distance, individualism, masculine/feminine and uncertainty avoidance: http://ow.ly/1fszh

Introduction, Rev. Jesse L. Jackson

The following is an introduction speech for Rev. Jesse L. Jackson on the occasion of his visit to Europe during Diversity Tour 2010, organized and executed by Layla Zijp (GrapeVine Promotions International). The speech kicked off a press conference held at the Steinberger Kurhaus Hotel, the Hague (the Netherlands) on 4 February 2010.

I was born and raised in California, on the west coast of the US, in 1957. When I was coming of age in the 1960’s, the most prominent civil rights leader for us was César Chávez. As head and co-founder of the United Farm Workers, señor Chávez was the embodiment of the migrant workers’ struggle for basic human rights in California and the Southwest. He was, for us, the most visible figure in the struggle for human rights in general.

During his “Fast for Life” on August 21, 1988, Chávez was visited by the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson. Of course, by 1988, I had heard of Rev. Jackson and knew who he was. But Rev. Jackson was “East Coast” (according to Californians, pretty much everything east of the Rockies is “East Coast”). He was for the blacks; he was distant. Chávez was our man, la familia, the one fighting for la raza. Until that day in August, 1988.

There is an iconic photograph from that day that for many represents putting in perspective the local and regional struggle for migrant workers’ rights in the larger global struggle for human rights everywhere. It shows Chávez, weak and thin from 36 days into his hunger strike, sitting in a simple wooden chair in the dusty sunlight. Kneeling next to him in the dirt is Rev. Jackson. Chávez is passing a simple crucifix that represents his “Fast for Life” to Rev. Jackson. The two appear to be praying together. At this moment, not only is Rev. Jackson accepting the symbolism of shouldering Chávez’ struggle, he is also accepting the practice of the fast. From this moment, he himself begins a 3-day fast, going from this time forward with only water to sustain him, before passing the cause on to others. This symbolic struggle was then assumed by leaders across the country, which gave enormous attention to the workers’ struggle that Chávez advocated. After this, the plight of migrant workers in California became a national issue, thanks to the intervention of Rev. Jackson. But even more, for we “nativos” it symbolized a joining of forces. Jackson literally and figuratively offering his hand to Chávez, and to us, with a simple, “Hermano, sí se puede.”

And of course that gesture has now echoed across generations and across continents, to where, finally, a man also from a disadvantaged background and of color, ascended the steps to the White House using the same words, “Sí se puede,” – “Yes we can.”

And to me, and to millions of Latinos over the world, the circle was made complete when as one of his first significant and lasting decisions as Chief Executive, President Barack Obama nominated the first Hispanic to the US Supreme Court: Her Honor Sonia Sotomayor. The hand that Rev. Jackson reached out to César Chávez was then offered to Barack Obama, and then through him to maestra Sotomayor. The circle is complete, and we are all stronger for it.

It is with great honor and humility that I introduce to you the pre-eminent civil rights leader of our time, the champion of the voiceless and disenfranchised everywhere: Reverend Dr. Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr.

Leo Salazar

4 February 2010

The Hague, the Netherlands