Laura Harrison

TEFL Course Advisor

Cactus Worldwide Ltd

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Cultural training courses can be useful for anybody who works and/or does business with people from other cultures, and for those who are moving abroad or have regular contact with people from foreign cultures.

Companies wishing to sell their products and/or services abroad need to be aware of cultural differences, and in companies that employ people from different countries it really helps if the employees and managers are familiar with at least some aspects of one another’s cultures and working practices. The same applies to companies that subcontract or out-source some aspects of their work to companies in other countries.

Being aware of cultural differences can help smooth communications, lower or remove barriers, and build trust and relationships. One aspect of cultural differences, for example, is the way you go about building business relationships. In some cultures it pays to get to know people you’re doing business with and to let them get to know you at professional and personal level, while in other cultures business contacts tend to be strictly business and there is no need to get to know people on a personal level.

In some business cultures, such as in the UK, it’s normal to inject humour into meetings and other interactions in order to ‘lighten the mood’, but in others, such as in Germany, meetings are kept strictly formal and humour is reserved for social interactions, such as dinners after work.

Another thing that varies across cultures is time keeping. In some cultures you are expected to be exactly on time for meetings, in some being on time is considered being late so it’s best to arrive a bit early, and others have a more relaxed attitude to time keeping and expect you to be late. In Peru, for example, it’s a good idea to ask it the times of appointments are a la hora peruana (Peruvian time), i.e. up to an hour late, or at the stated time.

As well as cultural differences, it pays to be aware of language differences. Product names that work well in one country may not be successful elsewhere, especially if the names have inappropriate meanings or associations in a local language. For example, the first Chinese translation of Coca-Cola meant apparently “Bite the Wax Tadpole” in Chinese, the Japanese soft drink, Pocari Sweat, does not sell well in English-speaking markets for some reason, and products with mist in their names, such as the drink Irish Mist, do not sell well in German-speaking countries were Mist means manure.