Masterclass with Erin Meyer: Understanding Cultural Diversity

The culture map: How people think, lead, and get things done around the world

In today’s interconnected, virtual world you might be interviewing a candidate in Sao Paulo at 9am, leading a meeting for recruits in Stockholm at 10am, and running a leadership program for managers across India at noon. You can do your work on the phone, via videoconference, or you can get on the plane. That’s the easy part. The difficult part is figuring out how to navigate the complex cross-cultural nuances that lead feedback to go awry, a yes to be perceived as a no, or meeting participants from one culture to dominate the discussion while counterparts from another say almost nothing at all.

In this session, Erin Meyer, New York Time’s best-selling author of The Culture Map, joins us to address some of today’s most pressing HR challenges. How can we leverage the benefits of cultural diversity when what’s considered constructive feedback in one culture is perceived as bullying in another? How should we manage our virtual meetings when one society views asking a question as a sign of support, and another sees it as a full-frontal attack? What are the best strategies for leading virtual meetings when participants come from a broad array of cultures and backgrounds? This masterclass will teach participants to decode how culture influences international collaboration and develop strategies for working with counterparts from across the world.

• To improve your own ability to communicate, give feedback, and make decisions when collaborating with those from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds.
• To analyse the positioning of one culture relative to another on a series of behavioural scales, so that you can decode how culture is influencing your international collaboration and develop strategies for working successfully across the world.
• To be more tolerant, informed, and aware of a variety of diverse cultural approaches to develop trust and better build relationships with your international counterparts.
• To avoid common traps that accidentally stamp out diverse viewpoints when leading multi-cultural meetings.
• To enhance your ability to adapt by benchmarking your individual management style against preferences from around the world.