Learning to succeed internationally
Oct 30, 2021 · by Richard Farkas
We’ve expanded our coverage of African cultures with the addition of Algeria, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia. Three brilliant interculturalists were the intelligence behind the qualitative work on these cultures.
Nov 3, 2021 · by Richard Farkas
We’ve expanded our coverage of African cultures with the addition of Algeria, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia. Three brilliant interculturalists were the intelligence behind the qualitative work on these cultures.
Jul 7, 2021 · by Richard Farkas
The Intercultural Toolbox Podcast opened today already offering some valuable resources for interculturalists. Richard Farkas, who hosts the first shows, explains why you may want to listen to the podcast guests.
Jul 6, 2021 · by Guy Bondonneau
Interculturalist Guy Bondonneau examines the dangers of implicit stereotypes and contrasts these with stereotypes we are aware of, or explicit stereotypes.
Jun 14, 2021 · by Richard Farkas
France has changed in the last 20 years and so it was time to update the material in CultureConnector. Kathryn Libioulle-Clutz led the work and these are some of the key changes she has observed in that time.
Nov 19, 2020 · by Richard Farkas
Giving feedback is a skill and demands trust between giver and receiver. Giving feedback between members of the CultureConnector community is now quick and easy.
Sep 17, 2020 · by Richard Farkas
The more you dive into models of the impact of intercultural competence, the more you learn about how training works. We share three learnings from our modelling work so far.
Aug 12, 2020 · by Richard Farkas
Erin Reyes is co-founder of the Shababeek language centre in Jordan, perhaps the largest and most successful of its kind in the country, and many neighbouring countries too. The business co-founded by Erin and her partner, Jennifer Killpack, owner of the centre, started the 2020s strong and growing. Outside of the global coronavirus challenges, things…
Jul 7, 2020 · by Richard Farkas
Just launched into CultureConnector, a data-driven model of intercultural skills growth. It took us years to develop it, so that trainers, coaches and organisations can develop intercultural skills much, much faster.
Apr 29, 2020 · by Richard Farkas
International comparisons have rarely been so fashionable. The coronavirus is getting everyone into the business of country rankings, global searches for best practices, importing of ideas from foreign lands. But how reliable are these comparisons?
Apr 14, 2020 · by Richard Farkas
What contribution might an interculturalist bring to a top coronavirus crisis response team? Some of the best-prepared government bodies, NGOs and businesses have been adapting to the new situation equipped with cultural intelligence developed by intercultural professionals.
Mar 24, 2020 · by Richard Farkas
For intercultural training providers whose business needs a rescue package, this may help. Argonaut is supporting intercultural trainers with free licences where there is a threat of cancellation or lengthy postponements. We want to help you switch to online delivery so that your training can go ahead.
Jun 16, 2019 · by Richard Farkas
Manuela Marquis is an intercultural consultant focused on the future. Her work centres on helping leaders prepare for the fourth industrial revolution. Measurement helps to ensure that interventions like coaching achieve impact in the real world. Professional networks have played a big role in Manuela’s success, in a intercultural career which originated in delivering training in a highly-pressured, highly-diverse working environment.
May 2, 2019 · by Richard Farkas
Research by PriceWaterhouseCoopers shows a “Top Eight” of issues on the CEO agenda where intercultural skills can be the success factor unlocking business benefits. HR professionals who know how to design high-impact intercultural interventions can be the revenue-boosting heroes of their organisation.
Apr 17, 2019 · by Richard Farkas
Elizabeth Masamune says that board-level executives can get interested in intercultural training when you make it a strategic issue. Her experiences in Japan throw light on corporate boards everywhere.
Jul 2, 2018 · by Elaine Teo
Mindfulness gives intercultural trainers a powerful tool for transferring intercultural skills from the classroom to the workplace and to everyday life. Traditional intercultural cultural training targets the mind and ideas while a new approach using mindfulness give access to deeper forces which determine people feelings, behaviour and endurance in challenging intercultural situations.
Jun 25, 2018 · by Elaine Teo
Leading clients through a mindfulness exercise as part of intercultural training makes you, as trainer, the model for mindful practice. If you are early in your journey with mindfulness, our best tip is that you become deeply familiar with mindfulness in your own life. We offer five steps for getting started.
May 9, 2018 · by Richard Farkas
For a Learning and Development manager, the outcomes of intercultural training may be hard to sell internally. Mindfulness adds to the long list of benefits of intercultural training by facing the challenges of international working realistically, not idealistically. We share some tips on building your business case for a mindfulness-enhanced intercultural training programme.
Apr 12, 2018 · by Richard Farkas
Transferring training into the workplace? Mindfulness enables something more ambitious Intercultural training is not like most other training. Getting a return on investment is hard. This is because we often need to apply our intercultural knowledge and skills in the most stressful and confusing of situations, when many people fall back into instinctive, familiar responses…
Mar 14, 2018 · by Richard Farkas
Five mindful responses to cultural differences can reduce the stress when isolated from your own culture or when sensing conflict in a cross-cultural situation. Mindfulness helps us understand culture, and convert our understanding into practical action.
Jan 31, 2018 · by Manuel Heidegger
Lara Statham made a decision to become an intercultural coach and consultant. We asked her about her path into the profession and for some tips she could share based on her experience of switching career.
Dec 13, 2017 · by Richard Farkas
Digital learning will not make face-to-face training disappear, says Béatrice Rivas Siedel in this interview with Argonaut. She gives her view as a trainer deep in the digital learning revolution about what we can to do take every advantage. Her insights are relevant for trainers, training providers, client organisations and the learners themselves.
Nov 29, 2017 · by Elena Shliakhovchuk · 1
From the Simpsons, through Sex and the City, TV medic House and historical figures such as Lech Walesa or Honoré de Balzac, many people have commented on Ukrainian culture. But now in CultureConnector there is a more reliable, up-to-date and in-depth source for practical guidance on Ukrainian culture. Cultural Correspondent Elena Shliakhovchuk introduces CultureConnector’s newest culture.
Oct 31, 2017 · by Béatrice Rivas-Siedel
This is the story of Béatrice Rivas Siedel’s professional transformation as an intercultural trainer. In two years she moved from being an outsider to the technological revolution in coaching and training, to being a full participant, driver and advocate of blending online and face-to-face learning.
Jun 15, 2017 · by Richard Farkas
One of the myths about Brazil which Victor Batista and Ana Carolina Jacinto tackle every day, is that Brazil is a country like most countries, just bigger. In fact, the scale brings enormous diversity. In this interview, Victor and Ana Carolina tell how organisations which have a single “strategy for Brazil” need to get smarter about navigating the diversity and the particular challenges and opportunities operating in Brazil.
May 20, 2017 · by Richard Farkas
Intercultural coach and trainer Béatrice Rivas Siedel shares her tips for trainers who are shifting from classroom training to remote sessions.
Mar 27, 2017 · by Richard Farkas
The best things in life are free. But not in business. Usually, a higher price indicates a higher value. So why should we be interested in something that is free? And if that thing is intercultural training, when is the right time to go for the free option, and when is the right time to invest?
Jan 31, 2017 · by Neal Taylor
Taking on the role of Cultural Correspondent for Oman last year challenged me to relive the striking cultural differences of a European arriving in the country for the first time. Back in those early days, Oman was throwing surprises at me in almost every situation I got into.
Nov 10, 2016 · by Richard Farkas
How can we take training participants’ instinctive reaction and curiosity and bring transferable understanding? Here are 12 aspects of culture that can bring that “ah-ha” moment of insight in intercultural training.
Oct 19, 2016 · by Lucie Houde
A year ago today power passed from a Conservative government to a new administration under the Liberal politician Justin Trudeau in the Canadian Federal elections. How has the pace and direction of cultural change developed under Trudeau in this time?
Oct 6, 2016 · by Richard Farkas
Two example programme structures for blending online and face-to-face in intercultural training and coaching. Download the editable files and customise for your specific case.
Sep 27, 2016 · by Natasha Aksenova
The new Russia has new rules. There are classic mistakes that foreigners in Russia make, and some new ones too. Western and Asian people could be doing great business with Russia, and some are. But many go through a painful learning process before achieving success. We’ve just finished renewing the advice in CultureConnector for working with…
Aug 30, 2016 · by Lucie Houde
Techniques which succeeded in a monocultural working environment my fail when that environment becomes multicultural. The intercultural skills of a manager can help achieve results. Here’s how.
Jul 31, 2016 · by Hilla Hoskonen
It is an amazing feeling when you are part of lively network that is truly global. Here’s what I learnt about making it as a Cultural Correspondent for CultureConnector when I coordinated Argonaut’s Cultural Correspondent community.
May 31, 2016 · by Richard Farkas · 1
Recently I was working with a designer, a new provider for us, on some graphic material for CultureConnector. The first drafts were tidy, clear, eye-catching and hopelessly stereotyping of some well-known cultures.
Apr 29, 2016 · by Richard Farkas
Diversity has grown but high-performing multi-cultural teams remain the competitive advantage of organisations with tools to build intercultural competence
Apr 22, 2016 · by Jenn Merrell
Understanding the backgrounds of each team member can assist managers in the molding of an effective and collaborative work group.
Mar 11, 2016 · by Irene Hotz Glanzmann
Irene Hotz Glanzmann has been a Cultural Correspondent in the Argonaut community since 2006. The role has continued to inspire her work as an interculturalist because the Cultural Correspondent assignments challenge her to research and reflect on different aspects of her culture, in a comparative context.
Feb 26, 2016 · by Margret Steixner
How to take maximum benefit from experience of working across cultures. Let’s be honest. This stretch can feel painful. Intercultural experiences offer a unique platform for self-development. But experiencing other cultures does not automatically provoke positive learning. #intercultural
Feb 6, 2016 · by Lauri Ilomäki
In my previous blog post I wrote about a nuclear power plant project in Northern Finland. I suggested that some of the delays and problems in this project arose from lack of knowledge of cultural differences between Northern and Latin Europe. So how can we avoid similar problems in future projects and achieve better results?…
Feb 4, 2016 · by Caroline Beery
Your business location is likely to be an office space in a city or a plant at the edge of an urban area, not a domestic setting. So how to offer a global welcome mat where you are? At Argonaut, we’ve been receiving guests of all cultures for many years and learned a few tricks for making international visitors welcome.
Jan 18, 2016 · by Lauri Ilomäki
Some people say that the world’s most expensive building is not the Taj Mahal in India nor any of the towering hotels of Dubai. Well, others say it is a nuclear power station under construction by a French company in Northern Finland. This mega project has been going for over a decade and has made…
Nov 29, 2015 · by Sundae Schneider Bean · 2
I don´t know about you, but I get irritable at 110°F (43°C). To say the least, I am not my most patient. The weather – at first glance – is one of those “safe topics” you can bring up in almost any culture. However, the most experienced expat managers I know actively consider the impact…
Nov 26, 2015 · by Nannette Ripmeester · 1
Look on any interculturalist’s Kindle (or Kobo or other e-reader or even bookshelf) and you are likely to find the book “Getting to Yes”. It’s a classic of negotiation and conflict resolution and contains useful techniques that can work across many cultures. I say “yes” a lot. I like the word. It’s positive, affirmative, consensual.…
Nov 2, 2015 · by Caroline Beery
From today, Richard Farkas steps into the role of Argonaut CEO. He will work with the teams in different parts of the Argonaut business to drive our transformation programme: in product development, sales, marketing and customer experience, content generation and supply chain, as well as in data, technology and security. Richard steps up from his…
Sep 14, 2015 · by Richard Farkas
Get started learning to succeed across cultures: Argonaut login page, where you can register if you have an invitation link or access codes There are many other ways to continue your learning. Contact your trainer, if you are part of a course. Ask bold questions of the people on your course, in your organisation and…
Aug 27, 2015 · by Richard Farkas
You’ve already heard how Germans have strict privacy laws, with Google Streetview blurring out more faces and places in Germany than anywhere else. And you know how differently people in the USA see things, giving up vast amounts of personal data to advertisers, so they can get better no-pay services online. Meanwhile Chinese internet users…
Aug 16, 2015 · by Richard Farkas
Next time you are in a foreign city, use a free translator app on your phone and hold the camera up to restaurant menus and street signs. You’ll get an instant translation. It may be better than the restaurant’s own “English menu”. So how long until we can do the same to interpret cultures? The…
Apr 16, 2015 · by Hilla Hoskonen · 2
A Day in the Life is a series of blog posts describing the life of people within our community who live all around the world. Although the way of living may be different, the every day life and all its wonders fascinate us no matter where we are. 7:30 I wake up to the…
Jan 29, 2015 · by Hilla Hoskonen
I moved to the south of France four months ago and it has been fascinating so far. I’ve brushed up on my français a little, got to know new people and experienced the tingling feeling of living abroad. I know there are many of you out there who adapt to new environments quickly and I…
Dec 14, 2014 · by Hilla Hoskonen
One year back there was an interesting discussion in the Argonaut Cultural Correspondents’ LinkedIn group about the meaning of Christmas in different working cultures. When and where is it not OK to say “happy Christmas”? Who buys presents for whom and what kind? How is normal working affected? What kinds of work Christmas parties are…
Sep 16, 2014 · by Hilla Hoskonen
Once upon a time there was a research project that became a training method that went online, and that became a tool and a resource for intercultural learning… Yes that’s us! We at Argonaut help people and organizations get better results when interacting with other cultures. The Argonaut Online tool is an amazing resource for…
Mar 4, 2014 · by Caroline Beery
Alex Ma is a researcher, consultant and teacher in the field of globalisation, economics and culture. His work with China’s Research Center for Economic Transition (Beijing University of Technology) makes him deeply involved with solving the challenges of cultural adaptation and international operations for a number of multinational organisations. He also advises individuals on cultural…