Looking to the year 2025, Manuela Marquis sees a world where priorities have shifted. New skills are in demand: intercultural competence, virtual collaboration, participative leadership. She founded CrescenTalent to help key individuals and organisations who are already targeting the skills needed in the mid-2020s.

Targeting change in the real world

CrescenTalent is beginning a major initiative to make coaching the trigger to change. Coaching, according to Manuela, goes far beyond skills. “The concept of coaching is fundamentally different to training” says Manuela. “Skills may be activated or developed through training, but the target of coaching is direct change in the real world. This is a solution to the oldest problem of training: transfer from the classroom into work.”

Research-based intercultural coaching

Manuela follows published research on business competences. “The World Economic Forum in 2016 was a particular turning point in my thinking,” she reflects. “Since then, the WEF and other organisations have produced important trend data on current developments and predictions about business skills. We are starting to face the realities of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is why I am in collaboration with other intercultural coaches and consultants who want to offer a constructive response to that challenge.”

IMC-coaching, Ceran, ICF, SIETAR, CrescenTalent, ICF and SIETAR

Manuela’s connections to several leading networks mean that she can exchange and develop ideas with fellow professionals from the widest variety of cultures and industries.

IMC, or Intercultural Mobility Coaching is the network of professional coaches with expertise in communication and international management. Ceran is a large training organisation providing intercultural training and consultancy services, with a particularly large community of intercultural consultants. CrescenTalent is a consultancy founded by Manuela. The term crescent originates in the Latin word crescere, which means “to grow”. CrescenTalent focus on developing talent, creating bridges of understanding between humans to boost performance and thus increase competence in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous VUCA world. CrescenTalent help businesses to adapt to organisational and technological change in an international environment. The International Coach Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organization of professionally trained coaches, where Manuela is actively engaged in organising international events for the members in Paris. Finally SIETAR (Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research), an association for interculturalists, is another inspiration for Manuela.

“Teamwork and collaboration come naturally after working in an American corporate environment” says Manuela “and independence and agility are essential to my business. As the founder of a specialised consultancy firm, we need to be agile in order to conduct change-management fast and effectively”.

Serious intercultural business at Disney

Manuela’s intercultural journey began when she left her native Germany at the age of 20. After some time in hotel and event management in London, Cannes and Luxembourg, she took a role at Disneyland Paris, in their giant conventions business. “Opened in 1992, Disneyland Paris was at first known for its theme parks but not for the convention business. An internal training was organised to explain the difference to the employees as the clients’ expectations were totally different. ”

From her position in Disney’s business event management, Manuela soon found herself managing multi-lingual, multi-cultural teams with similarly diverse clients where all the normal challenges of international business are heightened: integration and diversity, high-profile, quality-conscious, on-schedule delivery of complex projects, layers of national and organisational culture, fast-paced formation of new teams, and a focus on recruiting and developing talent locally and internationally.

Training for a multi-cultural business environment

“Disneyland Paris was a good school for me” says Manuela, considering her ten years in the business-convention field. “With guests from all over the world, we dealt with every possible kind of intercultural interaction. But in our business, hierarchy was the cultural difference we experienced most sharply. I moved into training and became fascinated by the concepts and the pedagogy. Training methodology has a big impact on success.”

In harmony with changes in technology

After leaving Disneyland Paris, Manuela trained as a professional coach, got an ICF Certification and dived deeper into the blending of skills and technology. “Today there is less expatriation, more virtual collaboration. This often divides the generations and different individuals on a team. A personalised approach is important to achieve results.” Manuela enjoys getting hands-on with technology and works creatively with teams to implement new tech and establish successful working practices for online collaboration. “These are becoming essential intercultural skills” she suggests.

Measuring the impact of coaching

“My clients, who are often executives, Directors, VPs or HR people, have always had a clear view of what to expect from intercultural coaching”, claims Manuela. These clients often want their employees to listen to outside views, to get a new perspective through a non-judgemental coaching dialogue. “They want increased self-awareness, to find bridges to other people and work better together. In short, intercultural collaboration skills.”

“With technology, today diagnostics can be done very easily. We can very efficiently do “before- and after” -studies.” Many HR departments among Manuela’s clients need help converting their goals into metrics. “There is much more interest now in measurability, but it is surprising how many top leaders recognise the importance of soft-skills and do not demand a data-driven approach to coaching.”

In a typical 5-10 session coaching series, Manuela targets business transformation. She concludes “During one coaching series we can find the strengths and weaknesses in the team and put them on a path towards solving the challenges of international business they decided to address.”

The change has happened. Intercultural training has gone online. And there is more change to come. Argonaut met Béatrice Rivas Siedel, an intercultural coach and trainer based in Paris and member of Terres Neuves Network to get a trainer’s perspective on the rush into e-learning.

“For years not much happened, except for a few early adopters running pilots and low-profile projects” says Béatrice. “Some big organisations had online self-study tools for intercultural skills, but trainers were able to continue training in traditional ways. That’s all past now. Today clients and employees expect to learn online – at least partly.

We are training in a period of complete transformation lasting just a few years

Béatrice is a leading part of the trend in her home market, France. She tracks the development through industry reports, including the IFTS survey. “The trend towards digital learning is happening at rate of around 7% per year. We are living in and training in a period of complete transformation lasting just a few years”.

“That feels like a step change, and we’re noticing it”, says Béatrice. “These trends have hit intercultural training too, and it’s a shock for those trainers not ready or able to adapt.”

What trainers can do

Béatrice believes that further change is inevitable. “The end result must be that trainers incorporate technology deeper into their work. Trainers will find their own unique path which suits them and their client base. I’ve told the story of My breakthrough moments as an intercultural trainer in a recent blog post here.”

Being part of the discussion

We asked how trainers can take a bigger role in the e-learning revolution. “Trainers also need to have a louder voice in this transformation. They have valuable expertise in how learning happens.” Béatrice lists the three groups who could benefit from hearing the insights and getting support from the trainers.

Opening the conversation about e-learning with

• training providers who engage trainers
• clients who have the organisational needs
• employees who participate in training

“They are all on the same journey into technology-enabled learning.”

New training methods in practice

While talking and listening are important, Béatrice says trainers also need to experiment with change. One area is to build solid expertise in facilitating virtual training sessions. Béatrice has shared eight actions for trainers switching to virtual training.

What employees can do

Completing a training programme which is 50%-100% remote can be a great experience as a learner. Here are some of the opportunities which Béatrice encourages her training participants to consider:

• Take advantage of asynchronous learning, which is learning which you can fully schedule, where you are not required to be in a live call or live session with the trainer or others. Make a schedule which suits you in terms of pace, time of day, length of session, your physical location.
• Get to know your own learning style, and make sure you benefit from that, especially if the trainer is remote or if you are working alone. For example, if you are visual and kinaesthetic (using movement and touch), then draw and write. This helps you learn better as you watch video or read content. Do no not allow yourself to take the role of passive recipient of knowledge and skills. Be an active e-learner.
• Get regular feedback: use the tests which are often built into the online learning platform, participate in games, ask the trainer and co-learners to give you feedback
• Repeat and review. Many people learn lasting skills and get lasting knowledge by repetition or returning to material with fresh eyes. Reviews and repetition are great for memory.

What training providers can do

Béatrice proposes that training organisations re-think their business models, in dialogue with their customers and with their trainers. “Some trainers are not convinced. They worry that as e-learning rises, the quality of human interaction falls. There is scepticism and criticism. Here in France, we may express our opposition openly. Often trainers fear that F2F trainings will disappear.”

Some training providers have successfully involved trainers in piloting new models, based on blended learning approaches. “Training providers should empower trainers to design the training structure to fit customer needs.” Béatrice points to one model which already becoming a classic blended learning training structure:

one remote asynchronous module → then live F2F → then social media

But many different structures are possible. “We are moving out of the era when clients come to training providers for a rigid model or fixed approach to training design,” Béatrice continues. “Although training providers need to build their brand and the unique advantages of their approach, they should also reserve creative space for the trainer to construct the learning around the precise needs of the client in each case.”

Innovative intercultural training providers

Terres Neuves, part of the Ceran group, is one example of an innovator in this area which gets good feedback from Béatrice. “They are working with the Argonaut team to provide training for consultants, and support when clients and trainers adopt new techniques.”

“Training providers like Terres Neuves can give opportunities for trainers to acquire new skills necessary for success with e-learning. Key skills for trainers are:

• leading virtual meetings
• using technology in face-to-face training sessions (and know when not to)
• remote mentoring, use of chat rooms for longer-term processes with clients
• content creation, starting with blogs, video interviews and so on.”

Digital learning will not make face-to-face training disappear.

Béatrice notes that training providers have an important role in getting permission from the client to mix synchronous and asynchronous learning. She adds that training providers can make sure that trainers have access to technologies, even something as simple as social media, which is often a great module to complete a training or to enable continued involvement.

“One of the most significant decisions a training provider must make, is the decision to licence learning technology. They will need a good learning management system with good tracking, so the client can find out what’s happening.”

What clients can do

Most of Béatrice’s clients have a learning and development strategy which includes increasing the use of e-learning. They are already on track to boost the use of technology in their employees’ training. But intercultural training is rarely the first area to get investment or to see change.

“Clients can achieve benefits in intercultural training too”, says Béatrice. She highlights some advantages and obstacles that are relevant for intercultural training too.

• Seek flexible training designs, both to control the cost and to find a better individual fit for the employee or group
• Promote the possibilities to employees
• Demand, review and use tracking data about the training, to influence the design of future trainings

Reduce or remove these obstacles for training companies:

• Investment in platform: opening corporate Learning Management Systems for intercultural training, or accepting the platform costs in external intercultural training provider solutions
• Investment in content, including industry-specific and company specific case-studies, shared in e-learning format
• Investment in training skills of in-house and freelance trainers; this can also happen at no cost for example by including external consultants in internal e-learning training courses for trainers and L&D managers

100% face to face is never best

Béatrice has become a convinced advocate of blended learning. “100% face to face is never best, just like 100% e-learning can never be best” she says.

Allowing employees some asynchronous learning time will always beat a seminar or course which is scheduled according to people’s calendars. “In asynchronous learning, you can learn at your own pace and use the synchronous (live or face-to-face) sessions for inspiration, energy, creativity and emotional experience. The Mix is more efficient than 100% face to face.”

Béatrice comments that cross-cultural training providers dominate her industry, and they can be drivers in our industry’s tech revolution.

It will happen anyway

She sees no threat to innovative trainers or training providers. “Digital learning will not make face-to-face training disappear. I would say the reverse. When a trainer can use remote training techniques, it moves the face-to-face part to a higher level.”

For Béatrice, the surest way to preserve face-to-face training is to incorporate digital learning. “As trainers, we can remove the PPT, and make our sessions truly interactive and experiential.”

The zero hour came at an e-learning exhibition in Paris. I have always been professionally curious, but until 2015 I was an outsider to the technologies that are transforming our industry. For a few hours on that day a little over two years ago I had stepped into a foreign culture of geeks, LMS providers, gamifiers, community moderators, MOOC developers, e-mentors and techies.

boring, incomprehensible, technical

My honest reaction was that this e-learning world is boring, technical and incomprehensible. It is also the inevitable future of my profession, so walking out of the exhibition centre I decided that I must understand this revolution. I saw that it had something to offer my intercultural work. I knew that I had to master this new way of training and learning.

Self transformation, year three

So began my two-year transformation. And it continues. I am learning every week, enhancing knowledge and practice, but I am no longer in catch-up mode.

The technologies have become more familiar. The new approaches are still energising and sometimes experimental, but they are now inside my expanded comfort zone.  The world of e-learning is no long boring, technical or incomprehensible to me.

My journey to becoming a blended-learning trainer

Having made my decision to adopt technology into my training, I first wanted to experience online learning myself, in the role of learner.

Walking in the learner’s shoes.

I chose a programme run by the excellent ISTF, the only organisation I found who really train trainers in the new learning technologies, and offer that training 100% remotely.

Getting the concepts clear

I began to understand the culture and the terminology. Basic concepts like synchronous and asynchronous became clear, and their relevance to training design and training delivery.

Acquiring knowledge in a positive cycle

I learned how to design learning scripts for different formats of training, facilite group sessions and structure blended learning courses

I learned how to use my voice, how to move, how to adjust timing, how to set up exercises and much more.

Entering the culture

Nothing was off-limits. I tried every technology and explored every technique. I got to know the terminology and the buzzwords. I joined the e-learning culture that had seemed so foreign at the expo in Paris. I grew a genuine curiosity in anything e-learning.

Open to influences from unexpected directions

I made sure I had not become trapped in an e-learning bubble. I accepted ideas and influences from other directions too. My approach was always interdisciplinary. I absorbed latest ideas and proven models from

• digital learning
• cross-culture
• working styles research
• principles of training
• design
• nature

I established the intercultural afterwork meetings with a few fellow professionals in Paris. Every month or two I got to exchange ideas, approaches, cultural information with my peers, keeping an open mind to other ways of working.

Looking after yourself

All this self-development sounds like too much, right? Well, you can develop a long way in two years, but the road ahead continues. I am not finished yet. I never let the vast world of learning technologies put me under unhealthy pressure. I did not become overloaded. I integrated all my professional self-development into my working days. Saturday and Sunday remained work-free zones.

Looking after your customers

Working with innovative technologies demands an open attitude to experimentation. But I did not want my customers to pay the price of failures resulting from inexperience. I never used a technique or technology I had not used on myself. I was the first to suffer and remove poor-performing elements from the training programme. I became the tester, and more convinced of the value of the approaches with did work well.

Intercultural training goes digital, a trainer’s perspective

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.

Two breakthrough moments

Two moments stay vividly in my memory, when I recognised that something had changed. I saw that I had progressed to be not only a participant, but a driver of the e-learning revolution.

In France we like to first get the concepts clear, then bring the ideas into practice. In this case, I did the reverse. I built my experience gradually, adjusting my approach, trying new things at a small scale. I was copying, learning, using models, following guidelines.

Now I use a different three words for the e-learning revolution:

Rewarding, flexible, refreshing

To succeed facilitating virtual sessions means changing the approach compared to working with clients face-to-face.

More from Béatrice

My breakthrough moments as a trainer in the e-learning revolution

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.

Blending is more than just mixing

Next time you finish a training course with a drink at the conference centre bar, try to find the drink to match the experience you just had. Will it be a half-litre glass of heavy, dark Guinness that seems to steal your energy and your ability to move? Or super sweet liqueur with a magic ingredient that seems to promise instant social success? Or an alcohol-free beer that looks like the real thing but produces an empty feeling of disappointment? Or will you choose as your end-of-training drink a series of shots that leave you with a headache and no memory of the previous few hours?

To symbolise and celebrate the training you just had, I would like to think you’ll choose a blended whisky (or delicious cocktail, if you’re not a drinker). It should have just the right amount of different ingredients to produce the perfect flavour and still beat the luxury drink brands on price.

Your training should work in a similar way as the perfect blended drink. Blended learning is not just about mixing training methods: face-to-face, online, classroom. We need to be more ambitious than that. Let’s make blended learning mean getting the mix right.

Two examples of blended learning

I want to share with you two contrasting ways of doing blended learning successfully for intercultural training and coaching.

These are not fixed designs which must be followed strictly in all relevant cases. These are simplified processes built on the key steps. You can compare or apply these approaches to your own training and coaching scenarios.

The process diagrams are available for download in Powerpoint format, so you can customise for your own situation and brand identity.

Single F2F event intercultural training

A very common scenario is when the trainer meets the participant or group just once during the process. In traditional training without an online element, the trainer has one shot to make an impact, perhaps with just a few hours of contact time. Extending the process by email in advance or follow-up discussion is costly in terms of the trainer’s time, with questionable value.

The solution is to use custom technology to extend the process and deepen the impact in a smart way.

This example shows how we can engage the learner early through the signup and profile-creation stage. We are already answering participant’s questions about the scope, goals and content of the coming training.

This is also a chance for the trainer to efficiently introduce him/herself through the invitation, welcome notes and instructions.

Optional self-study gives self-motivated participants a chance to get online and start researching, preparing thoughts, questions and ideas for the training. They become aware that there are rich resources of information available online and that it is not necessary to wait for the trainer to answer basic practical questions about cultural difference.

Needs analysis and customisation is the first time the trainer needs to commit real resources of time to understand the specific group and their needs. We assume that the trainer already knows or has researched the organisation, business goals, industry and other contextual factors. In blended learning, the online platform makes it efficient for the trainer to get familiar with the group overall and each individual in the group even before they meet.

Live session with the trainer is the key moment in the whole process. This is an opportunity for intensely powerful experiences which drive real change in future behaviour. The trainer may choose to project insights from a laptop generated by the online learning platform to kick-off discussion and to help the group members position themselves among cultures, colleagues, customers and other contacts. But a bold trainer can keep the Powerpoint and browsers closed for much of the session. It’s an ideal chance to simulate or confront participants with real (classroom) situations of cultural difference using interaction, movement, discussion, physical closeness and group exercises.

Before the participants leave the room, the trainer can take a moment to check that the participants know enough about the online tool to continue their learning online.

Continuous learning following the face-to-face event may be sliced in different ways, but tends to include a review/reminder of action points, encouragement to research information and to explore new situations and cultures not covered so far. Keeping the participants engaged in intercultural topics (through alerts, additional advice, new social comparisons, hints and links) helps to reinforce transfer of learning to real work situations.

Intercultural coaching

Another scenario we run into a lot in the Argonaut team is one-to-one intercultural coaching. Like with intercultural training, there are as many real-world variations of coaching programme structure. Coaching is less standardised. Of course, that’s partly the point of coaching.

A coach who uses an online profiling tool in advance can be very focused on specific cultural issues already in the first session, if needed. The client also gets potential action points from the cultural profile early so is able to quickly take ownership of practical changes in working style.

When the number of coaching sessions is limited, online tools can accelerate the speed at which the client is ready to transfer new ideas into work situations. Between coaching sessions, the online tool provides reminders and contextual information for action points which the client committed to.

From here on, the process may repeat, applying the ideas generated during the coaching to new situations and new cultural differences with each cycle. The coach and client may focus their time together on reviewing impact, confronting resistance to change and renewing commitments or agreeing new action points. The coach does not need to provide “information desk” or “country expert” services so much. The coach can instead build the relationship, inspire, support through emotional and practical challenges and celebrate success as real change happens.

Technology-enabled intercultural training: blended learning programme structures

Download these intercultural training and intercultural coaching programme structures in PPTX format.

This mega project has been going for over a decade and has made huge losses for the French company AREVA through delays in construction and starting electricity generation – by 2016 many years behind the original schedule.

Business goals and profession may unify us, but culture gives us diverse ways of working

There are significant differences in belief and behaviour between Latin countries in Europe on the one hand (take Italy, France and Portugal as example) and Nordics such as Swedes and Finns on the other. Northern and Southern Europe are different, when we look at population level. This is also true in international joint ventures, acquisitions and mergers – even when there are strong uniting factors such as common industry, engineering culture and business goals.

I wonder if these cultural factors have a role in the project. Have they contributed to the delays, misunderstandings and problem solving?

Different cultures, different approach to specifications

One insider view is that the specifications were not good enough: nobody knew what they were getting into.

In my experience, this is actually quite common in big infrastructure projects. The specifications have a tendency of changing during the implementation. In normal circumstances, people would meet, discuss and resolve the problems from a technical or business perspective. This is how bridges and airfields are built. The changes are managed and the project moves on.

Did the Finns and the French really recognise and manage the cultural gaps they both know exist? Were cultural issues a part of the risk management of this nuclear plant project?

Stress-testing your project plan against cultural differences

We are told that the plant is airplane crash-proof and tsunami proof (no tsunamis recently in the Baltic Sea, but better safe than sorry). I suggest that the project plan was not properly stress-tested against known cultural differences.

If AREVA and the buyer TVO had executed even some pro-active cultural competency training would we in fact be much better off with the project, costs and the production of electricity?

Whether we deal in megaprojects or everyday work of teams and organisations, we need to ask: has our project itself been bomb-proofed against cross-cultural misunderstandings?

_{Photo credit Teollisuuden Voima Oy.}

The harder challenge for me is Getting to “No”. I like to say yes to my clients, to my team, to my friends and family. It means I am constantly busy and starting new projects.

However, there is one big benefit saying yes in business and as an intercultural specialist. It has kept me involved with some of the forefront technologies of our digital world.

Intercultural trainers saying yes to digital

We’ve been working on mobile app development (check out our CareerProfessor.works), on websites, on  email marketing, data insights and virtual collaboration to support our intercultural business. And for many years we’ve been working with Argonaut as our e-learning platform. I’ve been an Argonaut cross-cultural correspondent, one of the intercultural management experts contributing content to the Argonaut system for many years and with great joy.

All this digital activity has added strongly to my business – sometimes through painful lessons but mostly through direct successes. So here are my top success factors for intercultural management professionals and anyone interested in developing a career in intercultural training.

Cross-cultural trainer success factors for digital business

• Have no fear of failure – Be courageous about adopting new technologies. What’s the worst that can happen? As long as you are not posting content online which you’ll regret forever, every experience will be an opportunity to learn.
• Try what’s already out there – Our intercultural management field is rich with websites, apps, e-learning, forums, tools, social media channels. Google them and start using the ones that fit your business.
• Google yourself – Consider your own profile and how customers find you. When customers Google my name, I’m listed thanks to my own website and also the Argonaut site and via other websites where I’ve got involved. Use Baidu and Yandex if you work with Chinese and Russian customers.
• Connect with online communities – Have you joined the intercultural professionals on LinkedIn, Facebook, around certain Twitter hashtags and other mailing lists?
• Use your customers’ technologies – Take every opportunity to learn from the amazing technologies of your customers. Spend time to become an expert if you can – it shows. Video conferencing, webinars, collaboration tools, file-sharing and more.
• Play games – your customers are busy and there is a lot of (social) media competing for their attention. It’s not enough that your topics are important. You also need to package them into powerful experiences which amaze, delight, provoke, amuse or entertain. Get familiar with gamification. You can start by playing games yourself!
• Say no and stop – Don’t continue with every long-established habit or traditional method. You cannot do everything! Have you tried running training with zero print-offs? Coaching via Skype? Keeping training participant lists and managing customer groups in an e-learning platform instead of manual records and email? When you adopt a new way of working, try to also quit an old one.

Adopting these success factors can be a bit challenging at first, but for sure these will help you to be successful (and maybe you could learn to say “no”!).

The slamming of a fist on a table, the endless layers of management to get to a decision-maker, the fatalistic defeatism of a team member – how will technology help us understand and navigate cultural behaviour?

We’re already part-way there. Algorithms are already running through culture datasets today, extracting insights into population phenomena and cultural preferences. Culture algorithms are a tool for corporations to understand consumer behaviour in different populations. Loyalty cards in the retail industry connected with tracking cookies in shop websites provide data for offers to be targeted based on algorithms which predict buying behaviour based on past purchases, locations and timing.

Cross-cultural competence algorithm

We first coded the Argonaut culture algorithm in 2001. It has been running through our data ever since. Its main task is to identify patterns in belief and behaviour and find common ground and significant gaps. Algorithms perform a wide variety of tasks in our economy and society. The job of this algorithm is to map learner input data onto different cultural situations in order to produce a personal gap analysis.

Cultural sensitivity training

Today the Argonaut algorithm is confined to personal and organisational profiling. The outputs are visualised and used in personal development programmes or in organisational development, for example in mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and subsidiary formation. The Argonaut culture algorithm generates personal strategies against data from organisational and national cultures.

The human expertise of a cross-cultural consultant provides a vital additional layer of insight and interpretation, so the algorithm becomes a tool in coaching, training and consulting.

The culture algorithm

Augmented reality will take our tech-enabled understanding of other cultures to the next level. When we can place a layer over what we see, providing interpretation of complex cultural situations, we shall truly have achieved the vision of a cultural connector algorithm. Within the past 10 years mobile computing power, large connected data-sets, crowd sourcing and new thinking in algorithm design have given us something that seemed like magic a few years ago: the translator apps.

Inside the next 10 years we will start to see the same for culture. Every day Argonaut generates data for the community of experts, customers and individual learners to use in new ways to bring personal and social insight. You will see cultural algorithms mining new sources of data, providing pocket assistants to real time complex cultural situations. That fist hitting the table? Based on data from thousands of other fists on other tables, your app could give you a probability analysis that the conversation will end in agreement.