Do You Know Your Own Recipe? Managing Your Own Diversity at Work A Guest Post by Daniel Toth I’ve never cooked a goulash in my life, I guess for many reasons. You need a lot of people to eat it, or you will eat it alone for a week. Then, not all the ingredients are available in Switzerland, or at least not with the exact same taste. But most likely, I tend to avoid everything Hungarian in my life, which could remind me of my home, where I grew up… it is not the place at all that it used to be, but populism and its effect on society is not the topic of today.  Yet when I was asked […]

Human Touch in Global Mobility We are robots. At least you could get this impression when you deal with us. Virginia Robot is an observer in our “Global Mobility Academy.” They* regularly comment on our work. For example, when we analyze the process landscape or help expats with their immigration process, Virginia butts in with a comment about how AI could do all that faster, better, and cheaper. For the last three years, we’ve been experimenting with digital global mobility coaching and transition support with you. We are in a good position to criticize the digitalization buzz and AI hype. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a fan of new and shiny tech tools, and I get excited about apps, but somewhere down […]

Global Virtual Team Drama We have become accustomed to Global Virtual Team drama and we are used to arguing in meetings for the sake of positioning ourselves. Sometimes you just want to win over the other person’s view. It’s about who is better than the other. On the surface. Have you ever considered that you jump into an argument easily not because you want to move forward the team and “think further and outside the box” but just because you like power? Have you considered that you are worried about losing power when you treat your team members with respect and listen to them instead of thinking that you know best of all? I revisited the “Seven Habits of Highly Effective […]

Avoiding Expatriate Failure in Global Mobility We discussed how family challenges and marital issues significantly impact the outcome of international assignments. We also saw that many companies list the Expat Spouse’s unhappiness as the primary cause of “Expatriate Failure,” highlighting the importance of the Expat Spouse and Partner career support programs.  We will discuss more extensively the kind of support you can give Dual-Career Expat Couples and why that matters. I have always advocated for Global Mobility Managers to involve Expat Spouses proactively. Sometimes I sound like a broken record, though. I reiterate what I’ve been repeating for years. The days of the passive “trailing spouse,” when they were marginally involved in any decision to move abroad, are gone. Today, […]

Seven Virtues for Purpose, Performance, and Productivity The Back-to-School Mood Rose petals sprinkled over my neglected Zen Garden, sunflower fields turned brown, and you have started to turn on the lights in the morning again. When you get home from work, you don’t want to sit outside anymore as it is dark, but you might vaguely remember this feeling you had as a kid when you were playing hide and seek at this time of the year, and it was just a notch better because it got dark at dinner time. This August is a bit like the “Summer of ‘69”. Did you also feel like a Rockstar? Finally out again in the world, listening to “Rock’n’Roll Music” or “Jailhouse Rock.”  […]