These lenses are called “Cultures”. Before embarking on the Culture journey; the definition of culture and its effect on our thoughts, behaviors, attitudes, perceptions, beliefs and actions should be clarified.

Culture is not black and white and is not only about race or ethnicity or even gender, but it includes every single character that makes our diverse world unique. Different genders, generations, abilities and disabilities, different socio-economic factors, different education levels, different marital or parental status, and different military and veteran status have each their own culture.

To develop a sensitivity, awareness and understanding towards these different cultures is the subject of our workshop about “Cultural Competence”

Cultural Competence is a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals that enables effective work in cross-cultural situations. 'Culture' refers to integrated patterns of human behavior that include the language, thoughts, communications, actions, customs, beliefs, values, and institutions of racial, ethnic, religious, or social groups. 'Competence' implies having the capacity to function effectively as an individual and an organization within the context of the cultural beliefs, behaviors, and needs presented by different people and their communities

The first and most important step toward successful interaction with others whose lenses are different from our own is to become aware of the presence and the impact of these lenses in our daily attitudes and professional behaviors.

Developing an understanding of our cultural biases, fears and stereotypes, and how they affect our perceptions and interactions with each other in the workplace, is a giant step toward reducing stress and increasing productivity.

The purpose of our “Cultural Competence” workshop is to encourage interaction between your employees in order to stimulate D.I.A.L.O.G.™and increase understanding and employee engagement to create a positive work environment.
Our workshop is interactive based on our D.I.A.L.O.G.™ rules of engagement to help the participants to openly communicate, inspire each other, tap into the imagination and find solutions to challenging issues together.

The Objectives of the Cross-Cultural Competence Session are:
Experiencing the enhancement in the quality of diverse professional relationships through valuing and respecting differences.
Acquiring the critical skills associated with cultural sensitivity and discovering how culturally proficient you are in working in a multicultural environment through the tools that we will provide for better cross-cultural communication
Resolving the challenges of interpersonal relationships and communication in cross-cultural leadership and diverse team building environments
Creating blue prints of road map to action plans that can be immediately applied to workplace situations involving diversity.
Devising new empowering strategies for working more effectively among different nationalities and cultures.
Showing that Empowerment and Diversity are interdependent business necessities for global competition.
Showing how to use cultural synergism and cooperation to maintain your creative competitive advantage.

In this session, we will:

1. Establish the business case for diversity and Cultural competence

2. Visit the challenges of Diversity and Cultural Competence

3. Discuss the different factors that affect the cross-cultural diverse workforce as:

• Generalizations VS. Stereotypes

• Ethno-centrism

• Language

• Ethno-relativism

• Understanding cultures

• Culture values on Hierarchy

• Individualism vs. pluralism

• Varying levels of comfort in risk taking

• Monochronic vs. Polychronic

• High context vs. low context cultures

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  4.Discuss the different aspects of cultural competence:

• Business Etiquettes

• Meeting styles

• Leadership style

• Performance evaluation

• Gifts

• Dress codes

• Recognition and awards styles

• Life/work balance

• Social customs

• Power distance

• Masculinity vs. Feministic cultures

• Explore the five stages of cultural competence development from the lowest to the highest are:

• Conventional (Lowest cultural competence stage)

• Defensive

• Ambivalent

• Integrative

• Inclusive (Highest cultural competence stage)

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   5.Enhance cross-cultural communications skills between different:

• Genders

• Generations

• Race, and Cultures

• Religions

• Abilities and Disabilities

• Languages

• Explore the threats and advantages of Cultural Incompetence in the workplace

• Offer solutions and best practices to apply cultural competence

• Action Plan