In its study titled “Culture at work: The value of intercultural skills in the workplace“, the British Council has researched the importance of intercultural competencies for organisations and – together with more than 360 HR managers from 9 different countries – tried to find the answers to this topic.

© Getty Images; BJI/Blue Jean Images

More than 50% of the organisations interviewed regularly work with foreign clients and business partners, and two thirds of interviewees report that their employees are in frequent contact with international colleagues.

The extent of these international interfaces suggests that intercultural competencies are of critical importance for these organisations – which is confirmed by the participants in this study. Almost all of the HR managers consider these competencies to be important or very important, in particular the ability to adopt new and different ideas and mindsets.

Intercultural competencies are seen as crucial for the efficient cooperation of teams, for building trust with clients and for developing relationships with new clients. In fact, according to the respondents, intercultural competencies play a greater role than job-specific qualifications and expertise for these and many other tasks. The HR managers agreed that their employees’ intercultural skills carry significant monetary value for their organisation.

However, many organisations do not yet adequately manage this potential. This is mainly evident in two areas: the recruitment of staff with the necessary intercultural competencies and the development and strengthening of these competencies with existing staff.

As an example, only one third of the HR managers interviewed actively screen for intercultural competencies during their recruitment process. Why? Is it a lack of time or financial resources? With the right tool, intercultural competence can be measured cost-efficiently and within a short space of time. Do you know our tool SISA (Scale for intercultural self-analysis)? Using a web-based questionnaire, you can test the intercultural competencies of your recruitment candidates within 20 minutes.

With regard to the development and strengthening of these competencies, even though almost all of the respondents consider these to be critical for the global success of their organization, only 50% of them support their employees with relevant measures. This is another area in which we can support you and are happy to work with you to find suitable measures for your employees.

Do you want to maximise your organisation’s potential? Then contact us on info@intercultures.de to arrange an appointment.

The demand for videos and training materials on managing conflicts across cultures in organizations has grown significantly in the 21st century. Understanding and respecting cultural differences has become a critical skill in the workplace.

This motivated intercultures consultant Claude-Hélène Mayer to develop training material on this matter. The corresponding DVD covers diverse topics and presents seven examples of transcultural communication practices in international workplaces amongst different organizations.

The DVD contains a complete set of edited video scenarios. It also includes PowerPoint programs, which have been created using the video material. The combination of video slides and video scenario excerpts highlight specific competencies in the transcultural work environment. The tools are designed in such a way as to allow anyone who is competent in creating PowerPoint presentations to adapt the material to suit their specific needs.

This DVD package includes two DVD discs, one PAL format DVD and a second data DVD. Please contact Claude-Hélène Mayer for more information and ordering copies: mayer@intercultures.de

Managing transcultural conflicts in organizations

Claude-Hélène Mayer, Christian Martin Boness

2011, DVD video, PAL-DVD: RC-free, duration: 1:12 h,

Data DVD: Didactic training material, € 39,90, ISBN 978-3-8309-2612-2

Welcome to Luanda! Despite the warm welcome signs at the airport of Angola’s biggest city, it quickly becomes obvious to visitors from Western industrial nations that they are about to face challenges.

Luanda moves! (Photo: Manuela Sambo)

A deficient infrastructure, drastic gulf between rich and poor as well as omnipresent corruption turn a stay in the country into an often confusing and emotional experience.

Did you know that Luanda is one of the world’s most expensive cities, where a pizza in a restaurant costs up to €40, and a small rental apartment is hard to find for less than €4,000? In contrast to these sky-high prices, however, there is a second economic reality, which keeps the majority of the population on the breadline or below, and where pizza is not on the menu.

The gulf between these twin tracks of development increased again due to the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, which was held in Angola, and has its origin in the country’s decades of paralysis through civil war and wars of independence. At the same time, Angola has regions that are among the world’s richest in raw materials. In addition to oil deposits, its rare metals are particularly sought after.

This combination of poor infrastructure and abundant natural resources attracts large numbers of foreign investors to the country. Thus the overpriced hotels are filled with representatives of Anglo-Saxon oil corporations while in the city’s south, Chinese building crews raise satellite towns for nearly a million inhabitants and build rail lines inland.

In this highly complex environment, it is essential for business travellers and expats to receive professional support. As economic interest has grown, so has the need for intercultural preparation and expertise with a focus on Angola. intercultures is the only German provider able to offer these both on the ground in Luanda as well as in Germany.

Our trainer Manuela Sambo is Angolan and for many years has been advising and accompanying German companies entering the market and during local negotiations. Because the majority of her family lives and works in Angola, she receives up-to-date insider information with regard to economics and politics. Thanks to many years living in Cottbus and Berlin, she fully appreciates and understands any queries or problems raised by business travellers and expats.

To learn more about intercultural support with regard to Angola: “Bemvindos!”

In the global marketplace, employees are both innovators and implementers. Their knowledge is hugely important in successfully shaping work and team processes within companies. Yet this information resource is only rarely harnessed, as recent findings show.

gettyimages; Photography Inc; Jon Feingersh

In most cases, employees keep their knowledge to themselves. They do not dare give feedback to their superiors or suggest improvements. The reason: fear of criticism and repression.

A study carried out by the US-American organization researchers Linda Trevino and James Detert in a US technology company with 50,000 staff shows that half of employees think communication with a superior should not be too open.

According to Trevino and Detert the biggest obstacles to openness are the personality, behavior and demeanor of senior staff. An intentionally hierarchical structure at meetings and appraisal interviews as well as inadequate top-down communication often means that mistrust towards management becomes the norm.

How can employees‘ confidence be restored? The answer, according to both US-scientists, is well-known: Management by Walking Around. This is a method that focuses communication between employees and management on informal discussions and thus builds relationships without a concrete reason and with an open ear for what is being said.

In order to see how these findings can be implemented without face-to-face contact in virtual teams, we are happy to demonstrate our developments in the area of “Virtual Performance Improvement” (VPI). Please request further information here.

To learn more about the study “Speaking Up to Higher-Ups: How Supervisors and Skip-Level Leaders influence Employee Voice”, click here www.handelsblatt.com

“Worlds in transition: understanding, preserving and shaping diversity.” That was the topic of the SIETAR-Germany Forum from 25. – 27.02.2010 in Bonn, attended by a large number of participants from the worlds of business, society and science.

© Markus Püttmann, www.impulsraum.eu

Alongside moving keynote speeches such as the one by Beatrice Achaleke, founder of the Black European Women’s Council and winner of the “Global Diversity Innovation Award” in 2009, there were events on the subjects of new learning environments, the influence of diversity on leadership, and diversity as a value in the “developing country” Germany.

As in previous years, the shared characteristic of all forums was the inspiring exchange of ideas. On the website www.sietar-forum.de, you will find recordings of the keynote speeches as well as publications from the various events.

The intercultures team also took part: in the roles of organizers (Sumaiah El-Said), instigators (Marcus Hildebrandt, Line Jehle, Stefan Meister) or committed participants (including all our office staff plus twelve consultants that regularly work with intercultures).

“Malays have intercultural tolerance in their genes.”

During a visit to Kuala Lumpur in January 2010, intercultures’ managing director Stefan Meister was often told during discussions that ethnic Malays consider themselves to be tolerant “from birth”. It is the “Bumiputra” who are defined as ethnic Malays, consisting of Malays, Dayaks, Ibans, Kadazans and Muruts.

Advertising in Malaysia also explores themes of tolerance

A different perspective is added by ethnic Chinese and Indians (so called Malaysians) who often allege that this Malay “tolerance” is restricted to other members of the “Bumiputra”. These or similar statements from whichever cultural background tend to generate instinctive resistance from interculturalists. For them, “culture” is a taught system and its learnability an essential basis for intercultural competence development.

While there is no scientific basis for a “tolerance gene”, research keeps surprising us with new results on the connection between language and culture. A group of scientists from Würzburg, Leipzig and Paris reported that newborns produce a curve of sound that corresponds to that of their mother tongue. During the research, 30 French and German newborns were tested. While the Parisian babies preferred melodic arches with increasing pitch, the tone pitch with German babies typically fell towards the end.

However tolerance is defined, Malaysia with its complex diversity has much experience in the implementation of intercultural work contexts. If you would like to learn more on this, we recommend “Understanding the Malaysian Workforce” by Asma Abdullah.

The 10th Young SIETAR Congress took place in Cairo, Egypt, in November 2009. With 35 participants from Europe and overseas – even from Chile and the US – there was plenty of opportunity for intercultural exchange on the subject of “Creative Approaches to Interculturalism”. Sumaiah El-Said represented the intercultures team.

The learning potential of cultural exchange

An important concern was the consideration of the “oriental” perspective and the development of the learning potential of cultural exchange, which is why the examination of Egyptian culture was often a focus. This examination was not merely theoretical. On the first day of workshops, participants were assigned a “Mission (Im)possible Cairo”. Equipped with a rudimentary map and piece of paper with instructions they were sent out to explore the city and handle small tasks. These were: take a minibus somewhere, buy fruit on the market, visit a place of worship, and most important of all: get back to the congress venue on time!

Fulfilling YS’ aim to keep the carbon footprint as low as possible is a particular challenge in a city like Cairo but through smart planning, the routes between hotel and congress venue could be covered by foot and Metro, and the usual plastic cups were done away with in favor of beautifully decorated glasses – which also meant that everyone had a little memento to take home by which to remember the wonderfully rich congress.

Do first impressions count in intercultural settings? If so, companies specializing in relocation should recognize their responsibilities.

For over a decade, intercultures has been working in partnership with IREMA (International Relocation Management). During this time, IREMA has developed into one of the leading relocation specialists in Europe, not least because its consulting staff “has well-developed intercultural competencies”, as managing director Regina Karner emphasizes.

In addition to all traditional relocation services, IREMA also provides individual coaching in different phases of the foreign assignment cycle. IREMA and intercultures share perspectives on customer orientation, quality and sustainability. These also find expression in joint appearances at trade fairs, for instance.

At the Trade Fair for Foreign Assignments: (right to left) Kerstin Grönlund, Sumaiah El-Said, Regina Karner, Stefan Meister

To find out more about coordinated interaction between relocation management and competent support during the foreign assignment cycle, please contact our Berlin office.

intercultures´Partner Change Facilitation and Hub Berlin invite you to the First Berlin Change Days, which will take place at the HUB Berlin on November 9th and 10th.
This is a conference for practitioners, leaders and managers who would like to discuss aspects of change processes.

 The programme responds to the needs of practitioners who are involved in everyday change processes of organisations and social institutions, offering guidance for better results but also a longer term perspective for the development of human resources as well as internal and external structures. In two parallel streams, the programme entails events in English and German language.


More information and an early bird registration form can be found at www.berlinchangedays.com

“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach” – does the same apply to new cultures?
Hilly van Swol Ulbrich, who has been collaborating with intercultures as a trainer for nine years, offers expats a fresh intercultural perspective with her new project “Expat Cuisine”.

Fresh ingredients for “Grüne Sauce” (green sauce), a Frankfurt speciality (Photo: Dirk Ingo Franke)

Hilly van Swol Ulbrich and her culinary partner Marcel Müller offer creative cookery courses for international gourmets.

The intercultural aspect is a significant one as the event organisers focus specifically on enriching the cooking experience using different cultures. Expats are invited to familiarise themselves with the local cuisine, and multicultural teams are encouraged to organise joint activities.

Have you acquired a taste for these courses? Then contact vanswol@intercultures.de directly or visit www.expatcuisine.com