Intercultural training and coaching are an important part of all our programs, but these services are sometimes needed on their own. We offer both country-specific training and intercultural competence workshops that range from 3 hours to 2 days. The scope of the engagement will vary on the needs of your program and organization. We encourage you to get in touch to explore options.
What is intercultural competence?
Successful interaction across differences is three-fold: First, you must possess an awareness of yourself and your own culture – or – the factors that influence the way you think and behave. Second, you must possess an awareness of the differences around you – that other humans think and behave differently for different reasons and are influenced by different factors. Third, you must be flexible and willing to adapt elements of your own thinking and behavior to interact successfully with others, and be ready for others to adapt to you as well.
The ability to foster authentic and trusting relationships with people from other cultures is essential to success in our hyper-connected world.
The benefits to you and your participants (donors, staff, volunteers, interns)
- Specific expectations for the trip and increased comfort with those expectations
- Increased self-awareness
- Increased understanding of the destination culture(s)
- New skills and strategies for dealing with differences that may arise in anticipated and unanticipated situations
- Enhanced capacity to process, interpret, and absorb the experience
- Increased possibility for authentic and trusting relationships with organizational partners, implementors, and beneficiaries
The benefits to your organization
- Deeper knowledge of participants’ competencies and limitations, so that you can make accommodations that increase the effectiveness of your programs
- Increased possibility for authentic and trusting relationships with organizational partners, implementors, and beneficiaries
- Well-prepared participants (donors, volunteers, interns) with accurate expectations
- Well-prepared staff with the ability to facilitate positive encounters between donors and other stakeholders
What is included?
Every program necessitates a different level of training and preparation, but some samples from past experiences include:
- A country-specific pre-departure guidebook to inform traveler planning and preparation.
- Intercultural Effectiveness Scale (IES) Assessment and debrief to reveal individual competencies and limitations essential for working with human differences. The debrief can also be structured as a team-building opportunity.
- Global Competency Inventory (GCI) Assessment and coaching for leadership to reveal individual competences and limitations, and creation of an individual plan to develop key competencies.
- Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) Assessment and coaching to measure intercultural competence, and create an individual plan to develop key competencies.
- Aperian Globesmart Profile to compare communication and behavior styles between team members and nations
- Self-awareness activities and exercises to put the new concepts to use immediately
- Country-specific case studies and role play activities to learn from prior experiences and prepare for critical scenarios.
- Resource experts who have lived and worked in the various cultural contexts specific to your needs.
- Pre-departure orientation to cover the specifics of a destination and set accurate expectations.
- Post-arrival training to help participants acclimate and adjust to the new environment.
- Re-entry debriefing for returning expats to smooth the transition process back home.
