Crosstalk DVDs and Handbooks on Cross-cultural Communication, Cultural Competence/Intelligence and Managing Diversity

CI-CD has a unique library of documentary DVDs for teaching/training awareness and skills of cross-cultural communication, as needed in international negotiating and joint project management, in domestic front-line service delivery (Local Government, NHS, Voluntary Sector), or in university courses in Linguistics or MBA/International Business Studies. These films are ‘gold dust’ as visual aids: they show genuine workplace interactions - not actors in simplistic, or stereotypical, scripted scenes. Viewing such intercultural exchanges brings the powerful smack of real-life credibility to the training room or lecture hall, providing authentic case-studies for analysis and for triggering discussion of needs for cross-cultural competence.

The DVDs show how damaging misunderstandings occur between people whose way of speaking English is influenced by differing cultural values/behaviours, and by different first, ‘mother-tongue’ languages. The films have been broadcast many times by BBC TV - and by SBS Channel in Australia. Trainers and tutors can contact CI-CD Director John Twitchin for advice on which films would best meet their needs - or to order a bespoke selection of most useful extracts.

Awareness and skills of Intercultural Communication are vital for identifying and repairing - or better, preventing - misunderstandings across cultures (both virtual and face-to-face) in International Business

For doing business, whether in marketing, negotiating deals, building partnerships, or managing joint projects
For conducting executive or operational team meetings - to resolve underlying cultural tensions, to gain more creative innovation, and to ensure full team ‘ownership’ of problem-solving/action plans
For equipping Agents/CSRs in offshore call centres in Asia with the communication skills to achieve high Customer Satisfaction rates in the West.

in UK domestic Business and Public Services, including NHS Trusts, in order to

Fulfil the Equality Act 2010 in recruiting/appraising/team leading a diverse workforce
Fulfil the Equality Act public duties to provide equality of access and non-discriminatory culturally competent services for BME users/patients
Manage cultural diversity competently: ie resolve team tensions, conduct meetings, recruitment and performance appraisal interviews, handle grievances or harassment, motivate teams, or conduct counselling across cultures.

In Universities, providing

‘raw data’ case-studies for courses in language and applied socio-linguistics
real-life workplace interactions for analysis in Business/Management Studies
training for tutors/staff to meet cultural/study adaptation needs of international students

Using DVD visual aids

The DVDs below are a selection from over 100 documentary training films on cultural diversity produced/directed by John Twitchin while senior producer in BBC TV Continuing Education and Training Department, where he was in charge of all BBC TV business, management and multicultural training output. He is currently Director of Diversity Works Ltd and its specialist division, The Centre for Intercultural Development (CI-CD).

To illustrate intercultural exchanges, these DVDs have been used in 1. international conferences, 2. training workshops or individual coaching for business leaders, negotiators or managers working internationally, 3. training of front-line staff for intercultural public service delivery, 4. visiting lectures/seminars and staff training at universities with international students, 5. training for ‘Indian-English’- speaking offshore call centres to better meet the expectations of ‘Anglo-English’-speaking Western customers.

CI-CD clients include 43 international conferences (list available on request); over 70 major corporations (e.g. BAE Systems, British Telecom, BBC, Telstra, EDS, 3M, Honeywell, Bank of America, MBNA, Barclays, Westpac, Scotia Bank, HCL, Infosys BPO, Merck, Cargill, Chevron …full list available); SME clients of United Kingdom Trade and Investment (UKTI) preparing to trade in China, Germany, Poland, France, India; 56 NHS Trusts, 120 UK Local Government services and Voluntary Agencies; Visiting Lectures and seminars at 98 universities and colleges (full list available.)

The films have teaching/training manuals with subject background; more detailed analysis than that shown on-screen; ways to use the DVDs interactively with group exercises, discussion points, handouts and checklists. See also the CI-CD Training/Self-learning Handbooks listed below DVD item 30.

Though non-academic in presentation, these documentary film visual aids are rooted in research in the relevant academic subject: applied interactional socio-linguistics. They were produced in consultation with the world's leading authorities: Professor John J. Gumperz of University of California at Berkeley (consultant, items 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 22), Professor Celia Roberts of King’s College, London (consultant, items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 14, 15, 16, 22), and Dr Margaret Byrne, Australia’s leading intercultural specialist (items 10, 11, 12). In his own academic role, John Twitchin was a founder-tutor in 1999 of the post-graduate ‘MA in Intercultural Communication’ at University of Bedfordshire (Business Studies).

For advice on films/extracts to meet your specific needs, or for information about DVD copies, click Contact Us (at top of page).

1. CROSSTALK

35 minutes. ‘Crosstalk’ is the DVD most widely used in business and universities across the world to demonstrate the nature of cross-cultural communication. Broadcast many times by BBC TV, ‘Crosstalk’ illustrates how intercultural misunderstandings occur even when both parties are speaking fluently in English. Case-studies show people from South Asian cultures in interactions including customer service in a bank, public service advice centres, and a ‘white-collar’ job recruitment interview. On-screen analytic commentaries by Professor John J. Gumperz and Professor (Lord) Bhikhu Parekh.

‘Crosstalk’ is an integrated training package comprising DVD + 70-page Trainer’s/Tutor’s Manual setting out essential background analysis and ways of using the film for maximum training effect.

2. Performance Appraising Across Cultures (CROSSTALK 2) 30 minutes, with 32-page manual. Features staff of East Asian cultural back-grounds (Chinese and Vietnamese) in appraisal interviews at Chevron and Bank of America. Features on-screen analysis by Professor John Gumperz. (BBC)

Filmed in UK Business and Public Service settings

3. Recruitment Interviewing Across Cultures 45 minutes, with 74-page training manual: case-studies featuring job candidates of South Asian and African-Caribbean cultures. (BBC)

DVDs 2 + 3 are prize winners of UK Training Media Awards: "These videos contain appropriate training messages and convey them most effectively. They tackle a subject which has often proved difficult for trainers: they are very rich in terms of content." (Bryan Rynn, Chair of Judging Panel).

4. Successful at Selection (SaS): 45 minutes. DVD directed for Professor Celia Roberts, on managerial skills of recruitment interviewing across cultures (made for Job Centre Plus + King’s College; funded by DWP). Copies of DVD with manual available for CI-CD: click 'Contact Us' above.

5. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) DVD and manual: companion to SaS, addressed to BME job candidates, produced by Professor Celia Roberts.

6. Counselling and Advice Across Cultures 50 minutes, with integral 32-page manual. ‘Fly on the wall’ filmed case-studies of cultural contrasts between BME (South Asian) clients/users and Anglo-British public service advisers. (BBC)

7. Evidence Unseen 30 minutes, with 56-page trainers’ manual. First made for training magistrates in cultural competence, it illustrates common cultural misperceptions as young people of African-Caribbean background communicate with police and magistrates in formal interviews. (BBC)

8. WorkTalk: Series of 4 films + trainer’s manual in skills of cross-cutlrual communication for supervisors of migrant or immigrant workers (BBC):

Asians on the Shop Floor
Singh 171
Fred Barker goes to China
It's not what you say, it’s the way that you say it

9. State of Training 60 minutes documentary on face-to-face communicating at work, and why and how to develop a ‘learning organisation’. (Includes Liverpool University Dept. of General Practice; case-study of London Underground.) (BBC)

Filmed in International Business settings

10. What Makes You Say That? - Cultural Diversity at Work Series of 3 DVDs, 60 minutes each, directed for Dr Margaret Byrne, Australia’s leading intercultural consultant (contact www.ugmconsulting.com). Broadcast many times by SBS Channel; funded by Telstra and Westpac. Series accompanied by 133-page Trainer’s Manual.

Part 1. The Business Advantage of Cultural Diversity

Part 2. Asian Encounters: Managing and Business Negotiating in Asia

Part 3. Success in Meetings involving people of different cultural backgrounds

Series includes filming in East Asia (Hanoi, Jakarta, Semarang) and in Australia: unique documentary of cross-cultural sales presentations, business negotiations and joint project meetings (in telecommunications, airlines and banks). It shows Western business executives and managers in meetings face-to-face with Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian and Vietnamese counterparts; also mentoring of technical staff and business relationship building in Vietnam; and intercultural project management meetings between Western managers with Vietnamese, Japanese and Indonesian joint venture partners.

These exchanges reveal common mistakes made by Westerners in Asia in seeking to negotiate contracts, build business relationships, manage joint projects or motivate staff and/or effect change. Practical guidance for working inter-culturally is given by ambassadors, academic specialists and long experienced Asian negotiators.

‘What Makes You Say That?’ was reviewed in People Management, journal of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD):

“These are unusually powerful DVDs/videos. They are long, with three hours of documentary footage from which a trainer can select. They present authentic material about behaviour abroad that will be new to many Western viewers. They encourage managers to see cultural diversity as a resource that adds value, rather than as a problem - a rich resource to draw on to improve an organisation’s international scope and give it flexibility.

The video evidence especially demonstrates the pitfalls that await culturally naïve Westerners who try to do business in Asia. It discusses culturally-based business behaviours and their consequences when two parties fail to communicate and understand each other across cultures in their meetings for marketing, negotiating, or project/change managing. The series provides material for a two-day workshop on diversity issues in management development, admirably supplemented by a practical handbook.”

11. International Marketing 25 minutes documentary also directed for Dr Margaret Byrne featuring work of intercultural marketing expert Josef Assaf, and showing how by cultural competence Westpac Bank attracted Chinatown customers in Sydney, and Qantas won catering contracts for Japan Airlines.

12. Management Training Series: also directed for Dr Margaret Byrne, 3 x 40 minutes documentaries, with manual of analysis, on Gender and Cultural differences at work (funded by Australian Fed. Govt; Telstra; Westpac)

Diversity and Leadership: Why managing diversity is key to 21st century business success.
Teams and Meetings: Communicating across overlapping gender/culture differences.
Virtual Teams, Virtual Management: Communicating virtually: includes analysis of video-conference (in Hewlett Packard) between Western manager and an Indian and Chinese team in Singapore.

13. Offshore Customer Services from India: 25 recorded calls from Indian contact centres. for analysis of 'Indian-English' interactions with 'Anglo-English' to equip agents/CSRs to achieve high levels of customer satisfaction in the West. (A detailed Research Report on causes of Western customer alienation, together with the contents of the Advanced Intercultural Communication training scheme is available free - click on Contact Us at top of page.)

Filmed in NHS and University settings

14. Fair Access: 60 minutes. DVD on Wider Student Participation in University and Medical Schools, made for ‘The Advice Clinic’ (consortium including St Georges and University of Kingston Nursing Dept.). Includes cultural competence for selection interviewing of candidates from Albania and India for health practitioner courses. Funded by Dept of Health (DoH).

15. Developing Empathy 30 mins, with manual. Directed for Professor Celia Roberts, for training of doctors interacting with patients found ‘difficult’. (Funded by DOH)

16. Doing the Lambeth Talk + Words in Action: DVDs + notes by Professor Celia Roberts for GPs on interacting empathetically with culturally diverse (BME) patients.

17. All in the mind? 30 minutes, plus manual. Intercultural insights for diagnosis and skills for treatment in psychiatry/psychotherapy for Black and other Minority Ethnic patients (BBC)

18. The Health Gap: Documentary on needs for, and benefits of, BME community outreach by hospitals (case-studies include Moroccan women patients). (BBC)

Filmed in Education settings – schools and colleges

19. Anglo-Saxon Attitudes Documentary showing teachers working to develop pupils’ respect for cultural differences. Film includes an interaction within a multi-cultural working party, illustrative of subtle differences of Black/White communication styles. (BBC)

20. Attitudes to Islam 45 minutes, with 48-page training/teaching manual. Shows European (English and Dutch, non-Muslim) teachers, mental health and community health workers working in an Islamic society (Pakistan) – and how they apply insights in work on return to Europe. (VSO/BBC)

21. Children without prejudice Documentary of nursery/primary teaching tackling attitudes to race/culture differences at earliest age (4-10 years) (BBC)

22. Man Alive: multi-cultured talk swap 50 minute documentary with notes including case-study interview between English teacher and parent of S. Asian background. (BBC)

23. Languages for Life Benefits of bi-lingualism/community languages in education (BBC)

24. Intertalk 3-part pan-European series on plurilingual education in schools and vocational FE colleges (filmed in Luxembourg, Germany, UK, Finland). Commissioned by University of Jyvaskyla, Finland; broadcast by BBC TV; funded by European Commission. (BBC)

25. Schools across Europe 6-part series illustrating school exchange activities across Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Irish Republic, UK, broadcast on BBC TV, funded by European Commission.

DVDs for Equality and Managing Diversity training in UK

26. Equal before the law? 45 minutes + 130-page Manual. Explains direct and indirect discrimination law, with case-study of an employment tribunal hearing, showing facts of a real NHS case, and made with leading employment law authority Tamara Lewis, with commentary by ex-EAT President Lord Browne-Wilkinson; Tribunals ex-President Sir Goolam Meeran, Professor Bob Hepple. (CLLC/BBC)

27. Recognising Racial Discrimination at Work 40 minutes, with Manual. Illustrates Goolam Meeran preparing to represent at the hearing shown in number 26 above. Made with CLLC. (BBC)

28. Managing Diversity 50-minutes documentary on the subtle forms of Harassment at work – culture/race, gender, disability, sexual orientation. Made for The Employment Service/DWP.

29. Representing in Tribunal Discrimination cases – developing advocacy skills. DVD (50 mins) + Notes, made for Central London Law Centre (CLLC), funded by EHRC (2011)

30. Breaking the silence Training in skills for advisors/union reps to sensitively elicit facts of sexual harassment complaints. (CLLC/Unison)

CI-CD Training Handbooks

'CULTURAL COMPETENCE - a self-learning 'mini-course' for communicating successfully between cultures in global business'. This 'DIY' handbook explains how misunderstandings occur in interactions between cultures, and sets out the core practical skills needed by native-English speakers, not just to avoid misperceptions of meanings but to build mutual understanding and positive rapport with counterparts who are using English as a second (or third) learned language. Click on 'Contact Us' to request a free copy of the Contents and Introduction.

'COUNTRY BRIEFINGS: Doing Business in.. France, Germany, Poland, China, UK - the CI-CD self-learning handbooks'. These were first prepared for use with SME clients of United Kingdom Trade and Investment (UKTI)]. To request copy of Contents page, click 'Contact Us'.

'Advanced Intercultural Communication' (AICC) - a teaching/training course, commissioned by British Telecom and used in HCL Technologies and Infosys BPO, designed to ensure high C Sat rates are achieved by agents/CSRs in Indian/Sri Lankan call centres serving the West. Includes 27 teaching/training exercises, checklists, accreditation criteria. A full report on AICC, plus its Contents pages, is free on request: click on 'Contact Us'.

'Handbook of Idiomatic, Rhetorical and Proverbial Expressions'. The CI-CD book of exercises with comprehensive compilation of English figurative expressions which are best avoided in serious intercultural business exchanges overseas. Much valued by international students at UK or US universities.

'The BLACK and WHITE MEDIA BOOK' - analyses the image-making effects of the media with exercises for teaching against stereotypical thinking.

For all aspects of MANAGING DIVERSITY, click on panel below for Diversity Works Home Page

For coaching/training in CULTURAL COMPETENCE - skills of Intercultural Communication, click on CI-CD Home Page panel below

International

Domestic