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CI-CD Centre for Inter-cultural Development
Workshop outline: preparing
from
cultural orientation to inter-cultural competence
The fully participative workshop outlined below was
provided for customer service managers at BT, National Rail Enquiries, Barclays
Bank, MBNA, in 2007, and supplied to UK / INDIA BUSINESS COUNCIL in 2008 as follow-up
workshop to ‘Insight India’. It incorporates
practical Cross-cultural Communication skills needed by
All CI-CD
workshops for ‘Doing Business in
Built from 3 years ‘on-the-ground’ experience of change management
in
It focusses on the practical skills for (a) (b) and (c) to
prevent damaging cross-cultural misunderstandings, and to handle interactions
to achieve positive outcomes for all parties.
1. Introductions (practised in Indian style) +
exchange of Indian experiences to date
§
Names exercise: Practising Greetings;
Getting Indian names right; What to do if difficult to pronounce.
(Small group-work with feedback and illustrative Indian
DVD extracts)
2.
Expectations of the workshop? What if anything concerns you? What have you
heard about
§
Tackling stereotypes/ myths
(Small group-work with feedback and illustrative Indian
DVD extracts)
3. DVD documentary evidence of
§
Illustrating how and why
(Interactive viewing of documentary case-studies)
4. Briefings on sensitivities to Indian
Social Background, drawn from current
Indian sources
§
History – National Identity issues;
Residual effects of Raj - attitudes to British
§
Status / Use of English as ‘language
of commerce’: care for nationalist feelings
§
Underlying social realities
§
Economics / Politics; Religion; Family
values; Women’s changing roles in business/society; Travel, Food, Shopping,
Sport, Film; and the safest small talk topic: Cricket
5. Briefings on Business Culture in
(Quiz/Questionnaire discussed and
completed in small groups, with feedback and de-brief of practical implications
for business behaviour)
§
§
Strongly ‘bureaucratic’ inherited
ethos; Hierarchical structures; Managerial Roles/Status
§
From manufacturing to services: Typical
Decision-making, Problem-solving processes
§
Leadership style; Approaches to
innovation/change, and to staff Consultation/Motivation
§
Saving Face in bargaining (eg,
pitching costs, or terms of partnership joint
management, to allow ‘wriggle room’ and scope to be ‘bargained down’)
§
Formality in group meetings;
Informality with individuals
§
‘Indian time’ – slower than customary
in
§
Respect for age; and for academic
qualifications; current inter-generational developments
§
Process-analytical mindset: priority
on quantifiable deliveries via
spreadsheets (implications for negotiation; difficulties for implementing qualitative change/projects)
§
Humour – what’s funny/not funny in
6. East/West
Business Relationship
(Input around analytic Handout + DVD interactive
documentary illustrating the commonest Western mistakes in face-to-face
negotiating in
7.
Indian negotiating style
Indian bargaining assumptions and conventions;
influential ‘buzz words’ helpful in
8.
Cross-cultural Communication in
(Role-play simulation to illustrate
how unwitting misunderstandings occur in
§
Why and how to avoid unwitting
‘neo-colonial cultural imperialism’ ie, coming across unintentionally as
arrogant or disrespectful or dominating the agenda
§
Indian responsive warmth of manner can
mislead: ‘Yes’ may mean courtesy of ‘It would be too unkind to say ‘No’, rather
than personal commitment to undertaking responsibility / action
§
Nodding; difficulties of
§
Indian indirectness of ‘narrative
style’ in giving answers
§
Apparent ‘bluntness’ (absence of
‘softeners’, Please or Thanks) in Indian style of making requests, giving
instructions (ie, wrongly perceived as ‘rudeness/demanding’)
§
Differences of ‘Indian-English’ and
‘British-English’ grammar and intonation: for training Trainers, Quality, TLs,
CSRs
§
Ways of speaking most helpful to
Indians who learned their English at school
§
Checklist of the 12 key cross-cultural
communication differences
9.
(if relevant)
§
Evidence of the problem; Causes of the
problem; Solutions of the problem.
§
The managerial conditions for
successful training development/change
§
(Handouts of media reports (2007 – 08)
+ group exchange/discussion of resulting hidden costs and damage to brand
image.)
10. (if relevant) Checklist Review of Communication
skills to equip Indian
CSRs to meet
§
Full handout list of 40 skills, OR
summary handout of 20 skills; with interactive analysis of selected customer
service call recordings
11.
Summary of ‘What to do differently’: culturally sensitive practice in
§
Making marketing presentations;
negotiating senior company-level terms of agreement
§
Influencing joint agenda-setting,
problem-solving, decision-making, change/project management meetings at
managerial level
§
(if relevant) Designing training in
context of Indian IT call centres services, with tools for measuring
training/coaching impact and/or C Sats
12. Action Planning:
Individual and group follow-ups, immediate and longer-term
13. Summary: ‘What to do differently’: points
of culturally sensitive practice for
influencing joint agenda-setting, problem-solving, decision-making, and action
planning.
14. Resources display: Books, training manuals, articles
15. Evaluation: verbal and written report.
The facilitator is Director of CI-CD, John Twitchin, one of the