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 the line, they usually disappoint me. For example, on Saturday, I tried to book a flight via my Swissair App while on a train. It seems I just entered another country when…the process failed. Now, I’m trying to find out if my booking was saved in an “interrupted” cart or something, and I haven’t responded for 48 hours. When you are an entrepreneur, time and health are your most critical assets, and it frustrates me when I “waste” time.

In 1999, when I called our global tax provider, I either received an answer right away or they would call back within 24 hours because that was considered good client service. Now, when I call, I often don’t get a chance to leave a voicemail, and when I email, I can be happy if I receive a response within seven days. In my book, that’s not good enough. Let alone that contracts have typos all over and tax declarations need to be corrected. I’m not even a tax advisor, but I smell errors.

My contracts aren’t perfect either. I blame that because I haven’t learned basic administrative tasks, as I would usually have an assistant supporting me. I can draft, comment and edit, but I don’t have the energy to make it look perfect. A few years back, the “Executive Assistant”  had been replaced by HR Software and “manager self-service.” But what if you are building a new team or function? Wouldn’t it help to have admin support or an outsourced virtual assistant sitting at a desk in a home office in Burkina Faso or Bangkok?

So yes, I am interested in exploring working with a colleague such as Virginia Robot as long as they don’t outsmart me in front of my clients. They will probably be better at cost projections, while mine may have formula errors and miss social security data. Virginia will also work 24/7. Maybe they have design skills and a knack for perfect templates.

And they won’t catch a coronavirus or strain a leg in a skiing accident. At some point, they could probably replace our assistant and maybe us as well.

Still, when I look at reality, I’m not worried.

The AI Hype versus Global Mobility Reality

You may have noticed this yourself too, but in the past few years, Global Mobility has revolved around process segmentation, outsourcing, and offshoring. While this has resulted in tremendous optimization and cost saving, it has also had the unintended but unfortunate effect of giving this perception and reputation of being “robotic” and “fragmented”. Before we can teach AI, we must get our digitalization teething issues sorted out globally. On our wishlist is the “holy grail,” the site that rules them all.

The Digital Disruptors in Global Mobility are racing to develop collaborative platforms that speak to each other through API codes. It is, therefore, up to us as Global Mobility Managers to bring back the “Human Touch” in Global Mobility. Through digitalization, we will cut down on the middle person and establish more direct relationships between you and the vendors. We recommend that Global Mobility Professionals meet with you and your spouse before the move and one debriefing session after the return. Ideally, an intimate catch-up during the home leave also helps. Even if we cannot imagine a robot filing tax returns, sending social security applications, and reviewing immigration documents, because of the complexity of the overall topics, we have to see that, and essentially, we are dealing with data.

Looking at my current reality, I often feel thrown back to 1999 when I started in the field, and we moved from net calculations on paper to Excel. Due to IT security, GDPR, and connectivity issues, I can use my hours on data distribution and entry. I prefer to sit down with clients in person and talk face-to-face because then I feel productive. My team of researchers and I thought we should be open to innovation while looking at risks, primarily through the intercultural, diversity, and inclusion glasses.

Focus on Making Constructive Advances in AI

On improving Global Mobility, we would also like to discuss possible ways in which Artificial Intelligence (AI) could be integrated into Global Mobility positively and constructively. Before we begin, we must realize that the technologies we usually discuss under AI are not examples of Artificial Intelligence but a specific subfield called “machine learning.” Because the latter does not sound as exciting, the general term of AI continues to be used interchangeably, though it shouldn’t be.

We also found more real-life examples related to global recruiting where in the past, “Application Tracking Systems” left a lot of broken shards, and many applicants felt as if their applications went into a black hole. Integrating recruitment with an algorithm is one possible way to bring AI to Global Mobility, which is already being researched. This algorithm would not be constrained by human biases – such as sexism or racism – and could focus solely on relevant skills, qualifications, and experience.

Unfortunately, as with all new technologies, we must tread carefully. AI is created by and trained on human values, experiences, and examples and can take up our strengths and weaknesses. Some issues reared their heads recently with Google’s AI misbehaving and an AI art project turning racist due to bad training being input to the algorithms. So much of modern technology is influenced, primarily through various funding channels, by the world’s elite and they exert their beliefs and biases on controlling the direction the development and usage takes. Their economic, skin color and gender privileges are often visible in these creations.

The Implicit Bias in Tech

When the original Kinect was released, it had difficulty recognizing people with darker skin. It was discovered that the early code measured the contrast between the eyes and the upper cheek and nose. So, without optimal lighting conditions, that algorithm failed to detect people without white or light skin. Later iterations of the product fixed this issue and worked in sub-optimal light.

Another example of AI going wrong was revealed with Amazon scrapped its internal AI-based hiring tool after it was revealed that it was somehow biased against women. Again, because the current AI is machine learning, the recruitment tool learned from historical data. Like most other aspects of life, the professional workplace was male-dominated, and the AI learned to be biased against women’s resumes. Not a good look for AI and Amazon.

Careful nurturing of this new technology will benefit Global Mobility and all aspects of work as we know it. AI-powered digital spaces already enable whole groups of professionals to interact more efficiently and effectively; every social platform utilizes algorithmic data feeds and machine learning of your usage habits to connect you to relevant professionals. That is how thriving communities of artists form on Instagram, writing groups on Twitter, and digital marketers on LinkedIn.

To some degree, this technology has also made its way into strategic workforce planning and even transforming workspaces. The flip side, again, is that businesses need to be wary of adopting these changes too fast or without any feedback from the employees who will be impacted. A frequent pushback to such decisions is the employees’ desire to have a suitable workplace that promotes comfort and familiarity, such as break spaces, meeting rooms, and workstations.

Human Touch in Global Mobility cannot be replaced (yet)

This brings me to my initial point: the “human touch.” That will be the determining factor to the success or failure of AI adoption. Maintaining the human touch while transitioning processes and systems to AI is critical. So as we rethink our business core and competencies to align with AI and technology, we should do our best to remember that at the heart of our work in Global Mobility are people with emotions, feelings, skills, and abilities who are diverse and unique and deserve to thrive in the best work conditions. At least for a few years, parts of our brain aren’t yet reproducible, according to this neuropsychologist.

Currently, there are no easy solutions as most companies are treading new grounds in adoption and optimization. However, one thing organizations, businesses, and Global Mobility Teams can do is to remember to make this shift in a way that aligns with business needs and the needs of the people. “Think Global People” ran a detailed discussion on this subject which you can read here to increase your knowledge, as AI adoption will soon become the hot topic in Global Mobility.

Maintaining the human touch while transitioning processes and systems to AI is critical. So as we rethink our business core and competencies to align with AI and technology, we should do our best to remember that at the heart of our work in Global Mobility are people with emotions, feelings, skills, and abilities who are diverse and unique and deserve to thrive in the best work conditions. 

We will shortly publish “The Global Rockstar Album“, Angie Weinberger’s new book for managers and nomads who want to bring purpose, performance, and productivity to their work while becoming more inclusive servant leaders. Sign up here to learn more about our publications.

According to Brookfield (2016) 95% of companies do not measure their Global Mobility Return on Investment.

“Given the inordinate amount of cost pressure on mobility today, it is somewhat surprising that more companies do not seem to have basic cost management practices in place. Only 62% of respondents indicated that they track costs during an assignment, and even fewer noted that a cost-benefit analysis is required at the outset of an assignment. With barely two-thirds of companies actually tracking the basic and most transparent part of their investment in assignments – their cost, it is not surprising that 95% of companies do not measure international assignment ROI.” 

This research is from 2016 and I bet if we had an updated version we would come to the same conclusion. When I speak to Global Mobility Professionals about ROI they usually roll their eyes and tell me all the reasons why it is impossible to measure Global Mobility Return on Investment in their company.

Over the last two months, I also read “Managing Expatriates – A Return on Investment Approach” by McNulty and Inkson (2013). It’s a great book, slightly academic but has really good ideas about what we can improve in Global Mobility. The authors suggest a new model and approach for expatriate ROI. I like their approach because they build on five core principles. (If you are short on time focus on Chapter 9 of the book).

As the authors state previous data based on repatriation turnover, assignment failure, assignment success and job performance were not consistently measured. To date, I often have doubts about statistics, traffic light systems, and metrics. Mainly, because I know that the data behind is often incomplete and stats are too often used to manipulate decision makers in HR and the line. This is because these decision makers are usually men in their 50ies, analytical thinkers, who need numbers to justify their gut feeling. If you have worked in an industry for 20 years, you know why you lose your best talent. You know that you have disappointed your female potential. You know that you are not doing enough for minorities. BUT without stats, you don’t see the need to change. Without suffering (as in losing clients, money, baseline) you don’t question the status quo.

Measuring international assignment ROI is easier said than done. The issue is not only about data quality and integrity. The main issue in my view is the lack of collaboration between line managers and Global Mobility Professionals. We can continue to discuss return on investment in Global Mobility for the next 10 years or we can adopt McNulty and Inksons five core principles.

We can continue looking for the magic potion that will make us look like the next CFO. (I’m thinking of Asterix as I write this. There should be an “Asterix with the GM Professionals…”).

Here are four reasons why I think we are not going to achieve a good measurement of return on investment in Global Mobility.

1) No clear assignment targets

If you want to measure ROI you need to have clear and measurable international assignment targets. Usually, assignment targets are blurry, hard to measure or non-existent. In order to determine ROI, a mix of operational indicators would need to be measured regularly. Examples include performance on assignment, repatriate retention, business volume driven by expats. We could measure savings and improvements through knowledge transfer, risk reduction, staffing stability and culture transfer from headquarter to other areas of the organization.

Most of these targets need to be transformed into measurable Key Performance Indicators. They would need to integrate into management information systems. And, we would need to have a clear understanding of what is actually expected of our expats around the world. Often this is not the case and evolves only during the assignment.

2) Flaws in the business case bring down Global Mobility Return on Investment

There should be a business case behind every international assignment and every kind of Global Mobility. Surprise…This is not self-understood.

Many companies have a hard time even differentiating between a developmental assignment and a strategic assignment. Often international assignments are not really thought through. Assignees are sent to “fill a gap”, “to accelerate a process”, “to drive more sales” and “to make them there do everything the way we do it here.” Ever heard this before?

We often do not fully understand the situation on the ground, in the host country until we have been there and done the work ourselves. Many home managers are completely oblivious to intercultural differences, the importance of local business relationships and the importance of the host language. Too often expats need a lot longer than expected to work through the intercultural transition phase, deal with family issues during the move and settling in phase and often expats overestimate their capabilities.

3) Decision makers and Global Mobility Professionals do not collaborate yet

Most managers think of “HR” as troublemakers, cost producers, and list tickers. Instead of asking Global Mobility Professionals for support in defining assignment targets and setting up a business case, they see them as the “admin, who will make it happen when I have decided”. This is a historical drama and Global Mobility Professionals have not managed to show their value to the line managers when they have taken on the role of the “Policy Police” in the past.

Managers do not involve Global Mobility Professionals because they do not think that they will get any good input from them. This process requires relationship and trust building from both ends. Line managers need to learn to trust in the Global Mobility Professional and ask them for support in defining the international assignment business case. If there is no business case or if it is not justifiable, it might be possible to consider a permanent transfer or alternative options.

4) We do not add to Global Mobility Return on Investment by focussing on bean counting

We need to stop bean counting in Global Mobility and start adding real value by supporting the talents and leaders of the company get their job done as quickly and effectively as possible. We should learn to trust expats in their decisions about budget and costs, give them a good shelve of benefits to chose from and have excellent and agile service providers available to us 24/7. We should not turn pennies around while in other parts of the company money is wasted. We should focus on what really matters and that is that we bring back the human touch into Global Mobility.

Angie Weinberger

We are supporting Global Mobility Managers to become a rockstar with a few tricks of the trade. I am nowadays more involved in operational global mobility topics than I ever was. While the constant filling of payroll instructions, hypo tax calculations, and balance sheet updates reminds me of the Sysiphus tasks I mentioned in the talk, I have learned a great deal over the last few years. I don’t mind the operational work so much anymore as long as I can still coach expats and their families.

I am contemplating that even expatriate payroll is so much more interesting than normal payroll and that we need professionals with intercultural competence to ensure that the expats get paid correctly. You would think this is easy but believe me with all the technology, processes sometimes seem more complicated than in 1999. At that time we used to calculate net payments on paper.

In the last few weeks, I used a calculator every day and Excel became my second best friend. On a few occasions, we don’t seem to get it right in the first attempt. The bonus is wrong, the expat is unhappy and we get a new calculation. Then we start again. The third time it’s easier. In a case from the UK, I notice that the pension contribution has changed from the previous year. In one from Madagascar, a figure was not transferred automatically into the next record of the assignee. A lot of checking and cross-checking is needed.

Working with Limited Resources

Once you think that you finally have created the right balance sheet you send it to the assignee and they tell you that it is a joke. They challenge your figures and you need to go back to the provider and explain why the tax system in the UK reduces your personal allowance once your salary reaches 100k GBP so that your bonus is taxed at an unimaginable tax rate. Or why the INR has devalued against the EUR and how that is reflected in the Cost of Living Adjustment. Then they ask why the COLA is calculated on spendable income only and how we came up with that figure.

You need to see every step along the way as learning about what you can contribute to the world. If you don’t enjoy this process, tell yourself that it is only once a year and it pays your rent. I see exciting challenges for the GM Professionals but even if you are in a different field you might relate to these topics too. Here are seven current issues that seem to be examples for GM Professionals around the world

1. We solve issues with manual workarounds that we cannot seem to handle with technology.

2. We need good working relationships with our colleagues and expats around the world to solve those dilemmas.

3. We need superior technical skills in tax, social security and immigration, and other subject matter areas so we don’t lose oversight of the full process.

4. Without the experience of at least 200 cases, it is really hard to see patterns in your problem-solving approach as every case poses a different country combination and needs to be tackled individually.

5. We need high levels of focus and productivity to deliver excellent solutions.

6. We work too many hours and it is hard for us to keep healthy.

7. Many of us are women and at a career and pay level that is way below our background, competence, and qualification.

One of the reasons why I started my company Global People Transitions was to help Global Mobility Managers develop further. I would like to encourage you and support you with advice on how to get your develop your global competency further.

I’m so excited to announce that my team and I will be launching my newest book;, “The Global Rockstar Album”. This self-help book is designed to assist you when going through transition by addressing both practical and psychological aspects. I aim to provide you valuable guidance for navigating the challenges of transition with a holistic approach as if you had me as a Life Coach. We are planning a launch party at the end of September, beginning of October and that will require a good system (my favorite part of running a business). 

PLUS: Even though I have an idea for an event location if you have any great ideas please let me know. We won’t go as big this time as we did in 2019 but I hope we can create the same collaborative spirit and that you get the chance to meet old friends and make new ones there. 

Reply to this email or sign up here yourself.

Benefit From Being More Inclusive in Global Mobility

In the first part of our series “The Push for Rainbow Talent”, we have so far focussed on why this topic is important and why we think we need to address it. The Push for Rainbow Talent is our series to raise awareness for the less-represented talent groups in Global Mobility. This post focuses on how you can benefit from being more inclusive. Even though the global business case for boosting Diversity and Inclusion is clear, we seem to have gone backward when trying to reach our goals in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space.

If you want to expand your global competitiveness, you need to be a pioneer of equal opportunities, promote acceptance and understanding, and highlight the value of your employees. You need more than unconscious bias training for managers. You need to establish facts. And that can only be achieved with data. Here are the four main reasons to develop D&I goals for your Global Mobility Program.

1 – Tap Into a Bigger Pool of Resources

Establish concrete goals for sending minority and female talent and persistently work towards achieving them. You will then automatically broaden the talent pool from which the mobile population is drawn. This way, you will help ensure that the executive pipeline reflects your customer base, developing a more diverse group of future leaders. Finally, report the data regularly to your Senior Management. With data, everything will stay the same.

2 – Engage with a Mosaic of Different Perspectives

It should go without saying that a broader range of backgrounds (considering all possible factors, i.e., gender/gender identity, sexual orientation, culture, language, socio-economic classes, etc.) results in a team having a more comprehensive range of perspectives. That will reflect successively in better-stimulated creativity and innovation, and a team ready for all opportunities.

3 – Enhance Team Collaboration

It has been proven that women generally have better collaboration abilities. This heightened sense of collaboration is partly due to women’s better ability to read non-verbal cues. A better partnership will allow improvement in many fields, among which many team processes. Researchers have observed that groups with more women tend to respect speaking turns better and are better at leveraging each team member’s knowledge and competencies. 

4 – Gain Better Control Over Costs

One of the leading mobility cost drivers is not related to pay packages and policies per se but because companies often have a limited choice of candidates for assignments. A broader talent pool facilitates assignment success and indirectly helps control costs. You depend less on one candidate and can negotiate better packages if you have a broader pool. You probably also have better candidates if you have more than one in the pipeline.

Another way hiring minorities and women will benefit you financially is that happy and respected employees tend to be more loyal and easy to retain; that, in turn, saves you time, money, and energy in the hiring and training process. Do bear in mind that hiring them is a good starting point, but not sufficient in itself: you have to treat them well and not be afraid to admonish sexism, racism, homophobia, ableism, etc., in the office or anywhere, for that matter!

5 – Improve Your Brand and Reputation as an Employer of Choice

Nowadays, having international experience is a precondition to reaching top managerial levels within many multinational companies. Employees develop essential skills and build a network that boosts their careers immensely. It’s, therefore, crucial that you promote mobility as part of your talent brand. If you do that, you will also be advantaged when competing for minority and female talent. Offering international opportunities to minority and female talent will put you ahead of the competition by showing in your reviews. You will become renowned as an “Employer of Choice.” 

Let’s move forward with tactical steps

One of the leading mobility cost drivers is a direct consequence of the limited choice of candidates ready for assignments. Inviting more women to the club creates more options for your company and indirectly helps control costs better. The more good candidates you have, the better your selection will be, and the higher the chances you don’t have to sell an incredibly overpriced assignment package. To successfully attract and retain female employees, you must have a talent brand with international experience as a core element of your employee talent proposition. Do you think that more women add immense value to your company?  

1 – Set Clear Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Goals for Global Mobility

Global Mobility, together with DEI teams, needs to set realistic yet challenging goals for increasing the number of female assignees AND female department heads in Global Mobility. According to the report, Elevating Equity: The Real Story of Diversity and Inclusion.  Seventy-six percent of companies have no diversity or inclusion goals.! 

2 –  Allow for More Flexibility by Having Different Assignment Types 

New types of assignments and flexibility are making things easier for women and employees with family responsibilities to go on assignments. As I reiterate in The Global Mobility Workbook, Global Mobility should be separate from traditional Long-Term Assignments. Even if those remain the preferred assignment type by all genders, women favor 6-to-12 months assignments more than men (37% vs. 29%). We can say the same for assignments shorter than three months (10% vs. 5%) as well as frequent business travels (36% vs. 32%) (PwC, 2016a).

3 – Identify and Understand What the Real Barriers are 

Do you know what the real barriers to inclusive mobility are for your workforce and organizations? If you’ve never measured how your current policies hinder women’s mobility, you should act NOW.  Stop simply assuming the barriers to gender inclusiveness and understand better where the actual issues lay. That’s why I recommend intercultural training for all Global Mobility Managers.

4 – Give More Visibility to Role Models

Women and other Rainbow Talent are not even considered for global assignments or where management assumes women to be less interested. Recent research from the RES Forum showed that while 80% of men believe the selection process to be ‘gender neutral,’ only 44% of women agree. Women appear to struggle to present themselves as potential candidates and selection procedures appear to be biased against them (FIDI, 2018)

5 – Use More Gender-Inclusive Language 

Too often, Global Mobility policies still refer to their globally mobile workforce with masculine pronouns. And quite logically, the consequence is that they would make you assume that “trailing” Spouses should be female. Well, it’s 2021, and this is not the case anymore. If you want to make your program more inclusive, start by addressing your talent differently. The UN has recently published new guidelines that will definitely be useful when updating your policies too.

6 – Foster a Supportive and Inclusive Culture

Your company must move away from the restrictive gender stigmas of the past if you wish to unlock your full global workforce potential. Your ultimate challenge is to create a culture where all your employees are on board with diversity and recognize its value.

Do you need more support for a breakthrough in your career? You can contact me for a first conversation by filling out the contact form. Sign up here for more.

Global Competency

Why it is so difficult to come up with a good curriculum for Global Mobility

As you probably understood already the arena of Global Mobility is vast and no Global Mobility Manager will have all the answers. If you enjoy constant challenges and a day that never looks the same Global Mobility could be right for you. However, you also need to be very structured, focussed and analytical. For Global Mobility Educators, it is a constant challenge to provide a curriculum that is based on the right career level and also deep enough. Most courses you will find about Global Mobility in your home country will assume the home approach and all the special legal areas will mainly be presented based on “home” legislation and in the home language. If you are managing a global population and wish to implement a host approach you will need to go through a lot of learning by doing and you probably have to invent the wheel.

The Expatise Academy in Holland

I recommend the Expatise Academy program in Global Mobility because I am a lecturer at the Academy and have seen how they ensure the high-quality standards in teaching. The program has a modular approach and follows your career development as a Global Mobility Professional. You should consider learning the basics at least for the home country of labor and employment law, immigration, personal and corporate tax and you need to understand your Global Mobility policy and compensation approaches.

Global Competency

A factor that is often underestimated in Global Mobility is the critical importance of developing global competency. As long as we do not see cultural differences, we do not know why men and women from other cultures behave and think differently than we do. We just assume that they are “strange”. Also, we might think we treat the other person with respect but the concept of respect is defined differently in other culture. Even if we consider ourselves open-minded, we might not have developed the skills that we need in order to be more effective in other cultures.

Our brains today still work in a similar way to that of the cavewoman. We often decide only about fight or flight. We hardly ever step back in stressful situations and think “Why is that person behaving like this?”.  We rarely sit down, take a deep breath, smile and then write a polite email to say that our judgment of the situation might have been guided by our own values and assumptions. No. Normally we jump to conclusions first and put other people’s behavior in a box (Like / Not Like). Facebook does not help.

We rely on our mental images and can become prejudiced because this is the way our gut decides if we are safe or in danger. Our mental images are influenced by our inner landscapes but also largely by the pictures we see on the news channels every day.  When some Westerners hear “Pakistan” they think “terrorism”, “Islamists”, “oppression of women” and “Osama bin Laden” instead of  “IT professionals”, “tourism” or even “Benazir Bhutto”.

A holistic Global Competency model

For the development of global competency, I have developed a simplified model with five elements: knowledge,  attitude, skills, experience and body learning. I first explained this model in an article in the German-speaking HR magazine Persorama (Weinberger, 2013). I work with this model in executive coaching and it also helps junior professionals start developing their effectiveness in a global context.

What is Global Competency?

Global Competency is the ability to work effectively in a global, complex environment with a high level of stress while achieving goals sustainably and in accordance with your own resources. It is a combination of knowledge, attitude, skills, reflected experiences, and body learning.

Let’s look at the different elements of Global Competency.

Knowledge

You can gain knowledge of a country’s history,  politics, economy, and religion.  It is helpful not to focus only on factual information but to prioritize all the topics you enjoy reading about. As mentioned previously, start with the home country and move on to the knowledge areas of other legislation. Areas of knowledge you need to study are the tax, social security, immigration, local employment law, business terms, compensation and benefits, country-specific history and processes.

Attitude

It is very important that you develop openness for ambiguity, the potential to accept new experiences and the questioning of your own cultural minting. Through making yourself aware of and verifying your own cultural beliefs, you develop a more open attitude. Once you understand and are aware of your own cultural attitude and behaviors you are able to change your behavior to be more effective. You want to develop a global mindset and become more open towards ambiguity and not knowing. You want to practice curiosity and learn to be humble and serving.

Skills

Through developing your foreign language skills, active listening, and empathy you can gain better access to people of other cultures. In today’s technology-driven times I believe it is also important for a globally active professional to have media competency. It’s important to be effective in telephone and video conferences, but also to be able to build connections via LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. If you are working in Global Mobility you will have to develop your analytical problem-solving skills, you need a feel for numbers. You want to develop your language skills (especially English). You might need consulting and communication skills. You need to improve the way you build relationships.  You need to work with information and communication technology effectively and have a grasp of Social Media.

Reflected Experience

When dealing with other cultures it is helpful to analyze critical situations and incidents. One option is the „search for the proof of the opposite. You could, for example, have an assumption about a person’s cultural behavior and then assume that it’s the opposite of your assumption and find proof for this theory. You can start to write an intercultural diary and reflect your assignee cases by applying systemic thinking. You need the ability to record cases, decisions, and exceptions. You need to able to note the details while not losing focus of the overall process. You could debrief challenging assignees with an external coach.

Body Learning

By learning dances or practicing martial arts, and relaxation methods you learn to focus and you will feel better in your body. Thereby you will be able to handle the stress and global complexity a lot better. A good physical constitution is helpful to remain globally competent and effective.  Other creative tasks such as painting, playing the piano and photography are also helpful. You want to develop a good routine for processing information. You can increase your presence in meetings and with your clients by following our advice on learning a dance, martial art or relaxation method.

Test your Intercultural Sensitivity

A lot of scientific work has been written on intercultural sensitivity. My favorite model is Milton Bennett’s developmental model of intercultural sensitivity (DMIS). This model is the basis for the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) by  Hammer and Bennett (2001).
Would you like to test your intercultural sensitivity with the IDI and see if you estimated your competence correctly?
If you would like to go through the test you can email me. The cost is CHF 97 including a debriefing.

Find more information here:

https://www.angieweinberger.ch/gmwb/