Cultural Detective® News

	Don't circle the hot porridge. (Be direct and to the point.) —Dutch proverb

Welcome! Below you will find links to articles and resources for global business effectiveness and virtual team productivity, as well as designs and techniques for improving global managerial performance.

Save time, save money, increase loyalty; increase productivity and strengthen relationships!

Newsletter: Clues to Intercultural Effectiveness

December 2007

• Personal success strategies for cross-cultural effectiveness.
• Last-minute executive briefing for expatriate heading to the Arab Gulf.
• Facilitator certification workshop in Paris.
• Maps as learning tools to see the world in new ways, including an online detective map quiz and maps of international migration, opportunities for women, health, trade, the environment.
• "Clash of Civilizations" video from avaaz.

October 2007

• Improve multicultural team productivity by creating and sharing Personal Values Lenses.
• Work more effectively with South Africans and across genders.
• Improve your ability to facilitate intercultural and global management effectiveness by attending facilitator certification workshops in Australia.
• Discover whether Deaf culture is universal.
• Review 5000 years of world religion in a 90 second video.
• Free offer: get a copy of the book, Men and Women: Partners at Work.

August 2007

• Learn fundamental theories of intercultural communication and global effectiveness, and receive graduate-level academic credit, with Cultural Detective facilitator certification workshops.
• Pursue eight steps to generational harmony in the workplace.
• Calling all ethics and compliance officers--how are those ethics and values statements interpreted across cultures, and how can we ensure they are acted out consistently and appropriately?

December 2006

• Develop your ability to work more productively and enjoyably with Deaf colleagues.
• Discover how secondary educators are improving students' understanding of international relations and global cultures.
• Gain valuable tips on recruiting, retaining and promoting culturally diverse employees.
• Cross-cultural professionals in the Arab Gulf inaugurate their professional association.

September 2006

• Understand culture beyond the passport level, including religion, physical ability, gender, and topical applications such as global diversity programs.
• A great new way for business people to learn the fundamentals of intercultural competence and gain fluency with a terrific tool for improving global business productivity.
• Intercultural professionals in India organize their first SIETAR conference.
• Truly effective global leaders know their ecological footprint--determine yours.
• Do you value diverstiy? Sign the Religions for Peace declaration.

June 2006

• The first introduction to cultural studies and intercultural communication for many people these days is via the dimensions of culture. What are the advantages of such an approach, and in what ways is a Cultural Detective approach different and complementary?
• Learn to learn about a culture--to detect what is important to people--through their use of space. In this issue, we give you complete instructions for an activity that looks at a Japanese department store through a Japanese Values Lens.
• Check out five online resources that use language as a window to enhancing cross-cultural competence.
• Play three video games designed to raise global awareness and citizenship.

December 2005

• Improve global management skills and multicultural team competence with six activities that use maps and mapping to help people discover their own mental maps--their ways of seeing and being in the world.
• Take an online "World Map Detective" quiz to gauge your understanding of how maps inform--and misinform--how we see the world around us.
• Then, read this article explaining how maps are created for specific purposes, and like any tool often distort other purposes.
• Free offer: get a Population Map, an Africa-centered Peters map, and a Mecca-centered Azimuthal projection.

July 2005

• How do you help people understand and utilize cultural differences, when so many of us are multicultural, global nomads? Three steps to effective intercultural training.
• Questions to ensure an indigenous approach to management education. How do we get beyond western practice into meaningful local and regional management education?
• Do you prefer gay over straight, black over white, fat over thin? Take this Implicit Association Test and find out.

May 2005

• What makes an effective intercultural learning tool? This checklist assesses both Accelerated Learning and Intercultural criteria.
• Four powerful experiential activities to improve multicultural team performance.
• Do it right the first time, without repeating others' mistakes: access hundreds of typical cross-cultural miscommunications and management mis-steps, sorted by culture, industry, professional function, and key word.
• How we communicate--our style of communication--is a very efficient window into our deeper assumptions and values, a window into ourselves and others. Learn more in Communication Highwire: Leveraging the Power of Diverse Communication Styles.

Cultural Detective in the News

The Project Manager home page showcases Cultural Detective's interculturally competent approaches to international project management.

• Securing cross-cultural collaboration in international projects.
• Project management across borders: India.
• Meeting the intercultural challenges of virtual project management.
• Plus a series of international project management tips of the day.

Cultural Detective: Some Clues for Decoding Each Other
Teaching Support Centre, University of Western Ontario, Canada, March 2007. Nadine LeGross, Language and Communication Instructor, discusses how to develop multicultural competence in higher education.

Cultural Clues: How Good is Your Cultural Intelligence?
Unlimited Magazine, New Zealand, February 2006. Fiona Rotherham deciphers cultural intelligence and Kiwi values.

Tools to develop your employees' intercultural skills
Expatica.com, November 2005. Eleonore Breukel profiles three easily accessible tools to help HR managers, trainers and employees who are working in international environments develop intercultural skills.

Developing Cross-Cultural Competence: Product Launch
Human Capital Magazine, India, May 2005. Profiles the international collaboration behind a powerful and dynamic new series of intercultural competence tools.

News Flash: Intelligence Gathering

31 May 2006
Enhance global business acumen and systems by using Values Lenses in executive coaching and teambuilding.

15 May 2006
How do the history of slavery and current realities of post-colonialism affect working in West Africa today? Learn to manage more effectively.

23 August 2005
Responsible global managers should be aware of the Scorecard on Globalization, published by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Cultural Detective author is nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Test your world knowledge with the Chocolate Detective quiz. Global organizational effectiveness and global managerial competence professionals meet in Nice.

Cultural Detective's Intercultural Viewpoints Column in Via Mei Magazine

The Intercultural Dynamics of Toxic Toys
Via Mei Magazine, January 2008. Written by Dianne Hofner Saphiere. Recent product recalls have had incredible negative repercussions for nearly everyone involved. Could cross-cultural skills have prevented the recalls?

China and the US: Regional Differences
Via Mei Magazine, October 2007. Written by Dianne Hofner Saphiere. China and the US are both huge nations with incredible regional diversity. Develop your cultural intelligence and learn some of the similarities and differences.

China and the US: The Value on Prosperity
Via Mei Magazine, June 2007. Written by Dianne Hofner Saphiere and Wei Wei. China does not recognize Taiwan Republic of China as an independent nation--an incredibly tense and awkward political situation--yet annual trade between the two entities could be well over US$200 billion. How does Chinese culture permit or enable such a dichotomy?

China and the US: The Perils of Perception
Via Mei Magazine, Spring 2007. Written by Dianne Hofner Saphiere and Wei Wei. What do Chinese and Americans' perceptions of one another tell us about ourselves? How can we learn to collaborate across cultures more effectively?

Introduction to Intercultural Viewpoints
Via Mei Magazine, July 2006. Written by Dianne Hofner Saphiere. Chinese friends are disappointed their US friends don't compliment them. A US businesswoman is stunned when she gives an apparently ill-received presentation yet nearly everyone in the audience stays afterward to talk with her. Professionals working in China should understand mianzi, the concept of face.