{"id":9,"date":"2013-11-26T17:09:41","date_gmt":"2013-11-26T17:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.talariaglobalmindset.com\/?page_id=9"},"modified":"2020-01-31T01:14:35","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T01:14:35","slug":"talaria-global-mindset-introduction","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/talariaintercultural.com\/","title":{"rendered":"Talaria Intercultural Interaction Skills Workshop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thank you for visiting my humble website*. My name is Patrick Burns. Talaria Intercultural is an entity I use to name and identify products and readings related to facilitated Intercultural Competence Development (ICD) and the industry which supports it. I have developed these resources over a combined 20 years as a practitioner in the ICD field and a manager in multicultural organizations. This somewhat unconventional and provocative website is a place to give my take on the current state of facilitated ICD, and describe an original approach to facilitated Intercultural Competence Development, the Talaria Intercultural Interaction Skills (TIIS)<\/span>\u2120 Workshop.<\/span> When participants develop\u00a0 TIIS skills, they are better able to manage cultural differences, the core intercultural task. I created the workshop four years ago and have been continually improving it since then.<\/span><\/p>\n

THE TALARIA INTERCULTURAL APPROACH<\/span>
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TALARIA:\u00a0 <\/span>tuh<\/span>–lair<\/span><\/strong>-ee-<\/span>uh\u00a0\u00a0 In Greek mythology, the winged sandals worn by Hermes (known as Mercury by the Romans), enabling him to assist others in crossing borders.<\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

TALARIA’S SERVICES<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I provide job performance-based training (PBT) workshops and consulting assistance to global and multicultural organizations to improve individual and group workplace performance in support of one particular organizational need; the need to adapt cultural behavior according to particular intercultural situations and organizational goals. I use PBT practices in Talaria workshops and programs. PBT is one component of Human Performance Improvement (HPI) methodology — an integrated systems approach to improving human and organizational performance.. For more on HPI, also known as Performance Improvement (PI), see<\/span> http:\/\/www.ispi.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Global and Multicultural Organizational Needs<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Global and multicultural organizations share most of the same needs as domestic and monocultural organizations. Typical organizational needs can include increasing customer satisfaction, reducing costs, acquiring more talented employees, increasing sales revenue, and successfully making organizational transitions such as mergers and acquisitions, matrix organization structure and geographic mobility and expansion.<\/span><\/p>\n

The added complexity for global and multicultural organizations is that the human interaction processes necessary for addressing the above organizational needs are impacted by cultural differences among colleagues, customers, partners and suppliers. Leadership practices, knowledge transfer, decision-making, conflict management, teamwork, performance management, meeting styles and most other human work processes are influenced by members\u2019 differing cultural backgrounds and behaviors. Navigating through cultural differences and adaptation dynamics is complicated. In order to navigate successfully, there is a need for organizational members to effectively perform the task of Managing Cultural Differences. If individuals and groups can effectively manage cultural differences, it increases effectiveness in addressing global and multicultural organizational needs, such as the ones listed in the paragraph above.<\/span><\/p>\n

Multicultural organization members need the same skill sets as employees in monocultural organizations \u2013 and then some, including skills for managing cultural differences!<\/span><\/p>\n

Managing cultural differences toward cultural adaptation is a core ability for anyone whose organizational work depends upon reaching results together with intercultural counterparts. Whether a senior global leader, a member of a multicultural team, an expat on assignment, a consultant on an international development project, or an individual contributor managing one\u2019s own cultural adaptation; the ability to manage cultural differences is critical to maximizing organizational effectiveness in multicultural contexts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cultural Differences Defined<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Surface vs. Deep Culture Context<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>The Talaria approach deals primarily with deep culture differences.\u00a0Talaria workshops make the invisible visible. Surface culture is visible to everyone; differences in food, clothing, prayer rituals, and language are surface culture differences. While they may not be completely understood by other cultures, they can at least be seen. They\u00a0present less of a challenge than deep culture differences.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cultural values drive cultural behavior. Deep culture values such as the use of power (more hierarchical or more egalitarian), change (more risk avoiding or more risk taking), communication (more direct or more indirect), and task accomplishment (more task oriented or more relationship oriented) are generally invisible to most people. Any culture\u2019s values teach the group what behaviors are right\/wrong and good\/bad. For simplicity\u2019s sake, we can identify most of the world\u2019s cultures to generally fall within one of two broad categories \u2013 \u201cindividualist\u201d cultures or \u201ccollectivist\u201d cultures. Generally speaking, individualist cultures\u00a0place a relatively high value on independence, egalitarianism, direct communication, risk taking, and task orientation, while collectivist cultures generally value interdependence, hierarchy, indirect communication, risk avoiding, and relationship orientation. While these respective value orientations and their\u00a0resultant behaviors\u00a0work out in their respective cultures, it is at the point of intercultural interaction where we see it can’t be both ways, and so it becomes a challenge that requires new consciousness and skill development.<\/span><\/p>\n

The values and their corresponding behaviors are acted out in virtually every human interaction process. Among many other organizational processes, decision-making, performance management, meeting participation and facilitation, conflict management, problem solving, teamwork, project management and the training\/learning process are all impacted by cultural differences.<\/span><\/p>\n

Open and\u00a0proactive intercultural difference communication is rarely heard in\u00a0today’s world\u00a0– even in global and multicultural organizations.\u00a0\u00a0Typically, most people in every culture generally tend more toward\u00a0downplaying cultural differences rather than openly and proactively recognizing them toward reconciliation in order to better achieve goals and establish relationships. When cultural differences are dealt with at all, it is often in the context of talking about<\/em> other culture(s) rather than with <\/em>them. The Talaria approach remedies this ineffective situation by\u00a0assisting workshop participants\u00a0in\u00a0identifying\u00a0the root causes\u00a0underlying this problem and by presenting a set of interaction skills which narrow this gap.<\/span><\/p>\n

Please understand that my finger is not pointing to anyone here. There is no lack of good intentions. As my colleague, Reinart, is fond of saying, “The road to diversity and inclusion confusion is paved with good intentions.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem is that most people in the world don\u2019t understand what intercultural interaction skills are and that they can indeed be developed. Many people think of intercultural effectiveness as being a matter of open-mindedness, cultural sensitivity, accepting all ideas, and being respectful. You will notice that these all reflect a state of being and echo the exhortations of many diversity and inclusion efforts. However, when people are asked to give a behavioral example of these well intended states of being, most are at a loss. \u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

Talaria\u00a0works on the interaction skills aspect of managing cultural differences. Application of the Talaria skills enables participants to turn the above states of being into action – specific\u00a0job-based behavior\u00a0change. The foundation of the TIIS Workshop is a universal workplace intercultural interaction skills model. The skills enable intercultural counterparts to proactively and openly work together toward spontaneously managing cultural differences – in the moment when they come up. <\/span><\/p>\n

TIIS-based workshops include the following: <\/span>Multicultural Team Skills, <\/span>Global Leadership Skills, Cultural Inclusion Skills, Skills for Working with Specific Cultures, Skills for Global Assignees, Skills for Black and White Americans Working Together,\u00a0and Intercultural Performance Management Workshops (for managers and their intercultural counterpart employees). Virtual TIIS-based individual coaching is\u00a0 available.<\/span><\/p>\n

Please don\u2019t read any more of this website! \u00a0<\/strong>Wait\u2026what?<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s right. Like almost anything else, particularly with something innovative and unusual like the TIIS Workshop,\u00a0 the best way to understand the Talaria approach is to experience it first — and then discuss and read about it.\u00a0Showing and then telling is much more effective than telling only (or showing only for that matter). So, if you want to stop now and contact me to discuss doing a no cost 90-120 minute virtual experiential demonstration, please do so.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can connect with me on the Contact page or by emailing me<\/span> at:\u00a0patrick_burns@talariaintercultural.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Experiencing the workshop snapshot is, as they say, no risk. No risk\u2026.that\u2019s my one marketing ploy, except for my back-door marketing through the Marian\/Suzanne dialogue you will see farther down this page! Well, the risk is 90 to 120 minutes of time, but that\u2019s it. What can I show you in the snapshot experience? I use the website documents as a reference, sometimes for learning during the experience, and then also for the debrief afterward. You will understand the main content and process elements of the workshop. You will see how the TIIS skill set is the foundational ability for any global\/multicultural interaction context; including Leadership, Teams, Working with Specific Cultures, Diversity and Inclusion, and individual coaching. You will experience a systematic structured approach to experiential and performance-based training resulting in significant behavior change in a relatively short amount of time. You will be able to concretely answer the questions below:<\/span><\/p>\n