If you are in business — let’s suppose you are, whether you’re in business for yourself or employed — then chances are you have been making plans for the new year. Let’s also assume that your plans for 2019 include strategies on how to improve your success rate. And since nearly every business these days is global, we aren’t far off to deduce that your plans include being a global success. — As you grow in your professional role, the skills which got you into your position won’t be the same skills which will elevate your global career. Add to that some of the learned behaviors that most of us pick up over the years and which aren’t particularly helpful when doing…

During the next five weeks the eyes of the world will be looking to Russia. Not for political reasons (which cannot be ruled out, though), and more so because of sports: Russia is the host of the FIFA World Cup 2018. Call it Weltmeisterschaft, mundial de fútbol, كاس العالم, 월드컵…

When I heard the news of Anthony Bourdain’s death I felt sadness. I can’t say I was surprised. If you ever watched Parts Unknown, his excellent show on CNN, you’ll remember how many times Bourdain talked about his demons. His bouts with addiction, his self doubt, and his depressive tendencies…

Imagine a scenario similar to this: At work you sit next to someone whom you went to college with and one cubicle over you find a co-worker who spent their youth traveling around the globe. The global nature of the world economy is a fact that no-one can ignore anymore…

January 27, 2023 marks the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration/extermination camp by the Soviet Red Army. It is a day of commemoration and the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. A day on which Germany honors the pain of the victims. Some say: Yet another day of being…

North America, the United States — one homogenous culture? Hardly. First of all, Canadians are not U.S. Americans. In fact, many Canadians will tell you they’re quite different from their neighbors in the South. And just wait what the Québecois will tell you about the rest of the continent. Then there’s the…

When first-time expatriates arrive in the United States they are often underprepared for the North American way of communicating. This is especially true for Central Europeans who tend to assume that a) they learned enough about American communication patterns via literature and media consumption, and/or b) communication styles are very…

is mostly a cultural question Six months into her new assignment Stefanie Müller realized that things weren’t going as well as she had anticipated when she relocated from Düsseldorf to Atlanta. She took over as EVP of sales and marketing at the North American subsidiary of a global precision engineering company. Unlike at the home…

In the past ten years my company has had the opportunity to work with a wide variety of human resources departments of international companies. We support their employees who go on foreign assignments with a broad spectrum of services, particularly with cultural training. While we typically see great results with…