Why employers value intercultural skills

New research shows that employers around the world value staff who understand the role of culture at work. Source: www.britishcouncil.org

What do employers understand by ‘intercultural skills ?

1.  Ability to understand different cultural contexts and viewpoints.
2.  Respect for others’ and ‘adapting to different cultural settings
3.  Accepting cultural differences
4.  Speaking foreign languages
5.  Open to new ideas and ways of thinking

 How do employers evaluate job candidates for intercultural skills?

1. Strong communication throughout the interview and selection process
2. The ability to speak foreign languages
3. Demonstration of cultural sensitivity in the interview
4. Experience studying overseas
5. Experience working overseas

 What Is Your Company Doing To Develop Intercultural Skills ? 

See on Scoop.it – International Career

Dealing with Difficult People: The Know-It-All

Got a know-it-all in your life who knows everything except, perhaps, how to act like a real human being? Read on for tips on how to deal.

According to the author of this article, Susan Davis, the Know It All (KIAs) are part of the most difficult people in the world to deal with, along with :

*The bullies

*The stealth destroyers

*The “yes” people

**The complainers

*The martyrs

There are KIAs everywhere but it is particularly annoying when this type of person is your boss, employee or co-worker.

So what can you do when you are engaged in a dead-end conversation with a KIA or worse with a clique of KIAs?

No matter what you say, those people will never be interested in your ideas if they don’t think like you. They usually use criticism, condescending or sarcastic tone and even try to intimidate you.

KIA people lack basic emotional intelligence and are self-defensive trying to exclude anybody who are not admiring their intelligence or agree with their truth or faith.

As much as possible  stay calm and relaxed not trying to argue at all. You will always lose if you try to battle with their ego. In addition, it is not good for your heart and well-being as you may feel frustrated and angry.

In case having a conversation is unavoidable, then ask the KIA person questions about their field of expertise  they will be more than happy to teach you something.

See on Scoop.it – Global Leaders

Related Article : The 5 Signs of a Bad Leader

 

Find the Coaching in Criticism

Image from Forbes Magazine: The Best Gift Leaders Can Give: Honest Feedback

Read original article “Find the Coaching in Criticism” from by Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone HBR Magazine, March 2014

Anne Egros‘s insight:

Learnings from the article:

What makes receiving feedback so hard? The process strikes at the tension between two core human needs—the need to learn and grow, and the need to be accepted just the way you are. As a result, even a seemingly benign suggestion can leave you feeling angry, anxious, badly treated, or profoundly threatened. A hedge such as “Don’t take this personally” does nothing to soften the blow.

The skills needed to receive feedback well are distinct and learnable. They include being able to identify and manage the emotions triggered by the feedback and extract value from criticism even when it’s poorly delivered.

Six Steps to Becoming a Better Receiver

1. Know your tendencies

2. Disentangle the “what” from the “who”

3. Sort toward coaching

4. Unpack the feedback

5. Ask for just one thing

6. Engage in small experiments

After you’ve worked to solicit and understand feedback, it may still be hard to discern which bits of advice will help you and which ones won’t. We suggest designing small experiments to find out. Even though you may doubt that a suggestion will be useful, if the downside risk is small and the upside potential is large, it’s worth a try.

See on hbr.org

Related article:

The Best Gift Leaders Can Give: Honest Feedback

 

Beware the Very Real Effect of Negative Social Connections

See on Scoop.it – Education For The Future

There’s a growing body of evidence supporting the idea that your friends’ friends wield tremendous power over you without you even knowing it.

Social networks are the groups of real friends that we all share and interact with.

Anne Egros‘s insight:

“Birds of a feather really DO flock together”

In the article, the negative effect of social networks is shown with obese people who tend to connect with other fat people on many levels of connection.

Emotions are the tools people use to connect with social network friends usually faster than in the real world where people tend to be more inhibited to expose themselves in person.

The phone works two ways though and the positive effects of your online friends may outweigh the negative impacts.

For example you can join people who have common goals and interests such as losing weight, staying fit and healthy, aging, raising kids or living abroad etc. Social networks can sometimes help you get extra motivated and less isolated.

What do you think ?

See on networkedblogs.com

How Intercultural Competence Drives Success in Global Virtual Teams

See on Scoop.it – Global Leaders

A study that shows intercultural competence as a factor in effectiveness of global virtual teams, and that building relationships, establishing structure, and having discipline are critical for success.

Anne Egros‘s insight:

To build a global team, first determine what needs to be done and then identify who are the best individuals for achieving the goals based on individual coaching and through intercultural training programs

See on gbr.pepperdine.edu

Related articles

• Research Findings: The Value of Intercultural Skills in the Workplace
• Ideal Traits of Global, Cross-Cultural Virtual Team Members
• Avoiding Cross-Cultural Faux Pas

Online Education as an Agent of Transformation

See on Scoop.it – Global Leaders

Online education is beginning to show itself as a disruptive innovation, introducing more convenient and affordable services that can transform sectors.

Anne Egros‘s insight:

Online (higher) education or E-learning, will change the way students will learn and it will help serve students who cannot afford traditional on campus teaching today. With globalization it is inevitable that traditional learning processes will be challenged and prestigious universities may lose their competitive advantages to the benefit of more collaborative and multicultural entities.

However the need for face to face meetings will still be there. The students may meet in person in local clusters to work on projects while using online materials instead than on campus classes.

The word MOOC has been introduced to designate MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSES (FREE ONLINE COURSES) OFFERED BY THE BEST UNIVERSITIES AND ENTITIES. Already many universities offer online free courses  The top three MOOC-makers are Coursera, Udacity, and EdX

Another trend in education is crowd-sourcing, an open way to solve complex problems by using social media tools to get fresh ideas through group collaboration. For example, I use Memrise.com, an online learning platform that users feed with their own ideas on how to memorize a specific topic.

See on www.nytimes.com

Related resources:

• Why online education won’t kill your campus
•  A complete list of Massive Open Online Courses 
• Will MOOCs Change the Way Professors Handle the Classroom?
• Education for All Crowdsourcing Challenge

 

 

 

Increasing Stress, Decreasing Empathy: Need Emotional Intelligence

See on Scoop.it – Global Leaders

Research shows stress is increasing: health problems & business costs. Empathy is decreasing to damage collaboration: The case for emotional intelligence

Anne Egros‘s insight:

Very true ! That is why coaching is an holistic process to understand yourself. Stress at home impacts performance at work and stress at work damages your health and personal relationships.

See on www.6seconds.org

Related articles

• Four Reasons You Should Care About Emotional Intelligence
• Ways To Raise Your Emotional Intelligence (EQ)