THE CLASSROOM POWER OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY

ROBERT A. SIMPKINS

INTRODUCTION

Seminar Leader Robert A. Simpkins introduces this activity at the beginning of any seminar in which trainees need a framework for understanding cultural diversity and for recognizing the added value such understanding can provide. It is especially appropriate in seminars with a global focus in management, sales, marketing, and strategic planning. It is essentially an exercise in advanced cognitive thinking, stretching one's knowledge and perception, self-assessment, and recognizing the roots of cultural understanding in one's own experience.

Robert gives us a skill-building opening activity that leads to cross-cultural communication and connection.

KINDS OF SKILLS TARGETED

• Strategic Planning

• Organizational Planning

• Operational Planning

• Performance Management

• Sales and Marketing

• Communications

• Leadership

TRAINEE BENEFITS

In today's rapidly globalizing economy, any business can find itself engaged in planning and preparing for international transactions with partners , alliances, suppliers, customers and remotely placed employees . The approach described in this opening activity begins the process of encouraging the trainees to define their own relationships to the environment and to rethink the basis for their own perspectives. The exercise facilitates the application of more appropriate understandings and actions during the remainder of the seminar. When trainees understand their own cultural frameworks, they have a greater ability to compare how their ideas differ from other cultures and civilizations . The resultant change in behavior allows for more effective communications, more efficient organizational design, and the possibility of global teaming.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• To learn how civilizations align cultures

• To recognize the basis for personal values

• To learn to link values to cultural perspectives

• To utilize cultural perspectives to more effectively design organizations, processes, rewards, and recognition systems that address cultural differences

• To understand how to utilize this new understanding to any follow-on knowledge transfer program

MATERIALS NEEDED

A good atlas for your own seminar leader preparation and reference if needed during the seminar

ROOM SET UP

Team style for maximum discussion; groups of 4 to 6 persons

TIME REQUIRED

1 hour

PROCEDURE

1. During the introductions process, ask participants to identify their favorite cultures and what, specifically , that they like about that culture. If the group is all domestic, they are asked about cultures other than American. If they are international, they may include American. This first process facilitates a great deal of discussion.

2. As the group prepares for the course content, set the global stage by explaining that civilizations are the largest groupings of cultures that have recognizable similarities. For example, an American can go to France, Germany, Australia, or Italy and recognize how they make decisions. As soon as they go to another civilization, such as China, Bahrain or India, the recognizable patterns are confusing. Relate the civilizational differences with geologic plate tectonics, including the concept of chaotic fault lines where different civilizations come together.

3. Proceed through the civilization down to individual cultures within a single civilization. Relate how cultures are a collection of "common values" possessed by a group of people controlling the environment into which they are born. Cultures also develop through "free choice values" that we pursue and integrate as we mature. Finally, our values become enriched through the additive of "adaptive values" that we incorporate during dramatic or traumatic events in our lives ( marriage , children, loss of a loved one, etc.)

4. Now, ask them what values (all three forms ”common, free choice, adaptive) they personally possess that cause them to appreciate the particular culture they previously identified.

5. Ask them to identify a particular culture that they do not clearly understand or one that they might feel uncomfortable engaging in. Have them explain a particular behavior from that culture that confuses them. Ask them to analyze the values possessed by that culture that might lead to the particular behavior.

6. As a wrap-up to the exercise, ask the participants which values the identified culture has in common with their own.

7. Challenge them to apply their new found thinking to the upcoming material and how it may apply to the application of the content of the seminar. For example, to lead an international group, one must understand cultural motivations, rewards, and feelings about authority typical of that group.

ABOUT THE TRAINER

Name :	Robert A. Simpkins
Address:	Global Crosswinds, L.L.C
	116 Gresham Place
	Falls Church, VA 22046
E-Mail:	[e-mail] or [e-mail]
Fax:	703-538-2615
Telephone:	703-538-2614

 

ROBERT A. SIMPKINS is founder and President of Global Crosswinds, an international advisory and training firm, focusing on the development of sales and marketing professionals to maximize their capabilities in the domestic and global environment. Robert has advised and deployed advanced knowledge transfer and training programs in more than 37 countries , from Abu Dhabi to Zimbabwe, and all across the United States.

Throughout his career, he has received numerous awards for sales leadership, strategic planning, sales and sales management, teamwork, management, leadership, and client satisfaction achievement. He has been listed five times in W ho's W ho , P ersonalities of the W est , and the B iographical R ole of H onor . He is an Adjunct Professor of International Sales at Thunderbird University (the American Graduate School of International Management), a member of the American Society of Association Executives, Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals, National Speakers Association, Overseas Security Advisory Council, and the National Historic Trust.

He has written seven different courses ranging from Value Added Selling to Advanced Sales Management for the American Management Association, and he delivers more than sixty sales and marketing public and on-site seminars a year. He is the author of an AMACOM book, T itans of Sales M anagement , spring 2004, and has had work published by C ompetitive I ntelligence M agazine , American Society of Association Executives, EMG M agazine , and the American Management Association. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Industrial Psychology and a Masters in Management and Human Behavior.

Robert A. Simpkins has taught these AMA seminars:

5207	Global Account Management
2526	Strategic Planning
5512	Marketing
5596	Value Added Selling
5598	Advanced Sales Management
2533	Critical Thinking
5227	Fundamentals of Sales Management for the Newly Appointed Sales Manager, Level 1
5520	Principles of Professional Selling
5510	Fundamental Selling Techniques for the New or Prospective Sales Person, Level 1
5528	Selling to Senior Executives
5268	Managing Superior Customer Service: How to Position Your Department as a Profit Center
5235	Selling to Major Accounts: A Strategic Approach
5289	Time and Territory Management for Sales People
5590	Managing the Distributor Sales Network
2561	Mini-MBA: AMA's 5-Day MBA Program
2231	Making the Transition to Management
2295	Successfully Managing People
5503	Competitive Strategy: How to Develop Winning Marketing Plans and Breakthrough Strategies
5535	Strategic Sales Negotiations
5206	National Account Management
1559	How to Develop a Winning Business Plan