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30.May.2009 Intercultural competences are essential for international success

Filed In: intercultural

Lately I got back in touch with Prof. Peter Franklin of my university, for whom I was working from 2007-2008. He was able to give me an update of his work on Intercultural studies.

His book ‘The Mindful International Manager‘, which he wrote in cooperation with his friend and founder of York Associates has been published, and his other book ‘Intercultural Interaction‘ will be soon. Moreover did he mention that the conference I helped him organize in 2007 titled ‘Developing people internationally’ and which was the first by dialogin and York associates, will take place this year September 17-18 in York, UK. It will be under the title ‘High performing international teams’ and I am really proud that I was involved in this conference’s launch and I am happy that it was so successful to become a regular event.

Peter Franklin had great influence on me by sparking the interest for intercultural studies in me. I took his course ‘Intercultural Communication’ in the first semester and was so lucky to become one of his assistants afterwards. Through working with him I was able to gain grater insight in this field and get to know scholars from different countries and backgrounds. During my Vocational Training in Hong Kong I had already experienced the misunderstandings and problems, which can arise from communication between people of different cultures. That is the reason why it was amazing for me to finally understand some of the reasons for these problems and learn how to solve them.

I have the strong belief that on a global market, where a country are highly affected by the policies of the other (see recent events), global cooperation is needed and empathy for not only fellow countrymen but fellow ‘worldmen’. This causes the need for better communication and understanding between people of different cultures and this can only be achieved with acquireing intercultural competences.

This need has not yet been generally acknowledged. Although not only large corporations like Daimler, GE or Lenovo have a want for smooth communication in their culturally diverse teams, small companies who export their goods overseas have to be able to communicate effectively with their clients as well. Most of the time the cause of miscommunication is perceived as a simple lack of language ability, but content or words make up the smallest part in the communication.

So now I ask you: Do you think it’s worth investing in a consulting service on intercultural competences?

2 Comments
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  • David

    I would agree that inter-cultural communication is needed. Although I have to say that a lot of times all it takes is just really listen and ask the detail questions without feeling stupid. Typically I am not exactly a fan of hiring consultants to teach you to do the things you already know within the company but just not open-minded enough to utilize. The reason I say this is because the companies I have worked for tend to pay lip service for inter-cultural understanding. It's a very wide-spread concept for a multinational company to treat its offices overseas as a colony rather than a partner. This applies to all companies regardless which country the HQ is based per my observation. So I would think that the so called the senior staff of the companies need to get off their high horses and really utilize their human resource instead of playing a power game with the budget and consultants.

  • David

    I would agree that inter-cultural communication is needed. Although I have to say that a lot of times all it takes is just really listen and ask the detail questions without feeling stupid. Typically I am not exactly a fan of hiring consultants to teach you to do the things you already know within the company but just not open-minded enough to utilize. The reason I say this is because the companies I have worked for tend to pay lip service for inter-cultural understanding. It's a very wide-spread concept for a multinational company to treat its offices overseas as a colony rather than a partner. This applies to all companies regardless which country the HQ is based per my observation. So I would think that the so called the senior staff of the companies need to get off their high horses and really utilize their human resource instead of playing a power game with the budget and consultants.