You may:
• Be technically and personally the best person at your own job.
• Be very good at learning new things, and glad to learn them.
• Have lived before in socially different parts of your own country, or even in very different countries.
• Be very respectful of the customs, beliefs, and ways of others.
• Be curious about the country you are going to.
• Have already studied what you can find about your new location.
(In fact, these should all be true, if your employer has chosen you to be sent on an important project.)
But, because of not enough “Cultural Awareness”, you (and your family – if they are going too) could:
• Make people not like you in your new location.
• Feel frustrated, depressed, and emotionally alone.
• Cause your work project to more likely do poorly, or fail completely.
• Be less likely to find a job and earn a living, if migrating personally.
• Be at unnecessary risk of injury, sickness, and (in some situations) death.
In many cases, you may never know why these things happened. Because most people would not tell you.
Here are some examples:
• Many cultures feel that agreeing is more important than facts and truth, even if you ask them not to.
• For many cultures a neutral or blank response is the same as a strong and passionate argument against something in other cultures.
• A word or action accepted as friendly or inviting in one culture, may be inappropriate or an insult in another culture.
• Most cultures have different customs of timing, personal distance, facial expressions, voice volume, satire, sarcastic camaraderie, etc. from others.
• Most cultures, including New Zealand, have important cultural differences within their own borders
• Some countries may have many desperate or angry people, who are ready to steal, injure, or kill. At those times, people who look or act differently are more likely to be attacked.
• And many other issues.
Woburn International’s Cross-cultural Awareness Training Programmes and Country Briefings are specially designed, depending upon:
• Where you are coming from.
• Where you are going to.
• Where else you have lived.
• What things are most important to you.
• What you will be doing.
• And other matters.
Our programmes are prepared and delivered by our own experienced and trained presenters. We are the globally accredited New Zealand representative for the Berlitz organisation.
Here are some of our courses:
• Going Global - Designed to give company managers skills in understanding the needs of their expatriate staff (and family members, if applicable)… prior to departure, throughout the job, and then upon return from the international assignment.
• The Expatriate Experience – Designed to give you (and your family, if they go too) skills to deal with the challenges commonly faced while in another country, by learning of life and work in that culture.
• Onward Assignments – Designed for you (and your family, if they go too), if you are going directly from one country to another, then another, etc. Similar to “The Expatriate Experience” above.
• Returning Home (Repatriation) - Designed for you (and your family, if applicable) if you are returning to your home/native country. This gives you strategies and skills for re-adapting to life and work at home. (This is more difficult than almost every one thinks.)
• The programme focuses on cultural adjustment concerns (which can be as intense as the original outbound adjustment), as well as on your needs for professional success, after being away from “head office” for so long.
• Welcome to (target culture) – Designed specifically for your children, this teaches them intellectual, emotional, and social skills to deal with their new culture (even if it is the home country). Also, interactive exercises are used to help you make an action plan, for when your children are adjusting to life after arrival in the target country.
We offer these programmes on any origin or destination throughout the world, including our unique "Welcome to New Zealand" briefing.
Contact Woburn International now, to learn how we can have a happier, healthier, more prosperous, and safer time in another country.
