CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE

Are you a multinational organisation? Do you have diverse teams with expat leaders interacting with locals? Do you find yourself dealing with misunderstandings and confusion that doesn't exist with your home culture? Have you found an erosion of trust between team members from different cultural orientations? Then you need to invest in your team’s cultural intelligence.

What is Cultural Intelligence and why is it important?

In an increasingly globalised world, cultural intelligence is crucial, not just for business relations, but for cross-cultural competency within diversified teams, with individuals who have been shaped by different values, beliefs and experiences. In an environment with high levels of diversity, where expatriate and local citizens work together, the need for intercultural competence is a business imperative.

Diversified individuals bring with them different core assumptions about communication, authority, time, rules and relationships.

The journey to cultural intelligence starts by understanding the core assumptions of your home culture, and then understanding that these may be different from other people’s cultures. This understanding, coupled with respect, becomes the foundation for developing new ways of negotiating work and relationships. This new understanding can unlock the potential benefits of working with people from a variety of backgrounds, allowing diversity to build strength. The skills developed in this program can be utilised whenever one has to deal with other cultures, regardless of the culture or the relationship.

This program is led by our highly qualified and experienced consultant and utilises a combination of training sessions, group coaching and personal reflection.

The benefits of Intercultural Competency:

By embedding intercultural competency throughout your organisation, you can expect:

  • improved verbal and non-verbal communication within teams and between colleagues and clients which allows for better cooperation and efficiency. This can be seen through developed skills such as improved listening, empathy and adaptability, to an encouraged and increased expression of innovation and creativity for new ideas
  • improved productivity and proficiency: in all areas from management to team structure, meeting styles and staff interactions to better retention and recruitment
  • a competitive advantage: chances are you will win business over your competitors when your employees are able to utilise intercultural skills when engaging with clients, in a culturally proficient way and form more deeper, respectful and meaningful relationships which last.

3 examples of how communication can go wrong in diverse teams without cultural intelligence

July 7, 2022

Are you building a global team? Are you an expat working in a senior position in an offshore team? Are you working in a multinational organisation? If you answered “yes” to any of these, chances are you have faced one of the many challenges cultural diversity brings. What makes a good communicator or leader in …

3 examples of how communication can go wrong in diverse teams without cultural intelligence Read More »

Our PX cultural awareness training journey

March 28, 2022

What happens when you mix a handful of nationalities together in an office? You do some cultural awareness and intercultural competency training! As a company, we recently had the delight of partaking in cultural awareness training to learn about and embrace the diverse cultural backgrounds, beliefs, norms, values and differences our company shares. Facilitated by …

Our PX cultural awareness training journey Read More »

Team members

As Learning & Development consultants, we are passionate about building competence and developing confidence in people and organisations.

Our team is full of diverse backgrounds, ranging from HR, recruitment, management, coaching, finance and marketing, but we all share one passion: building legacies.

Kristine Berry Managing director

Kristine Berry

Director, Peopleconnexion

Kristine has an Honours degree in Psychology and has been in the professional development industry for over 25 years, and has been a mentor and career coach, and has been part of a variety of charitable programs as well. Kristine's recruitment and leadership experience includes working on large graduate programs, major multi-billion-dollar projects, and with a passion for changing lives, Kristine's passion underpins her client relationships and customer service.

  • BA Psychology Honours
  • Cert IV Train the Trainer
Kristine Berry Managing director

Gary Blair

Principal Consultant - Training and Learning & Development, Peopleconnexion

Gary has over 15 years’ experience in leadership consulting, team leadership and facilitating transformational learning experiences, and holds a Masters in Organisational Leadership. He has worked to develop leadership capability in large and small corporate clients and has had speaking engagements on four continents. His specialities include learning design and facilitation (virtual and face-to-face), culture change projects, mediation and cross-cultural team leadership/group facilitation. Gary is passionate about motivating people to lead and live better than they did yesterday.

  • Masters of Arts (Organisational Leadership)
Anne-Web

Anne Poole

Executive Coaching Consultant - Training and Learning & Development

Anne's effective leadership approach combines practical psychology with “hands-on” business experience gained over 20 years. Her career in Human Resources management provides the natural coaching platform to assist and facilitate others to become high achieving leaders of their teams and organisations. Anne brings over seven years’ experience of working in project driven environments where fluidity and a changing environment was paramount.

  • Master of Human Resource Management
  • Diploma of Business Management
  • Performance Coach and Time Line Practitioner
  • Certified Career Transition Consultant
Anne-Web
Barb-web

Dr. Barbara van Heerden

Executive Coaching Consultant - Training and Learning & Development

Dr. Barbara van Heerden has 25 years managing large programmes, working with multicultural teams to build intercultural competence, resulting in better team cohesion and performance. Completing a Doctorate in Leadership Coaching for Intercultural Competence in 2016, Dr. Barbara is an internationally accredited coach who has worked in 8 different countries.

  • Philosophiae Doctor in Leadership,
    Performance and Change
  • Bachelor of Arts Honours (Psychology)
  • Advanced Certificate in Leadership
  • Master of Arts (Professional Coaching)
  • Enneagram Coach
  • Coaching for Positive Intelligence
Barb-web
Phil_web

Philip Bradbury

Executive Coaching Consultant - Training and Learning & Development

Philip started his professional coaching and teaching career with a range of business qualifications including a Bachelor of Business studies and an Associate of the Institute of Managers. For the last 30 years, Philip has acquired a range of teaching and personal/spiritual development qualifications which has led him to write 18 books and train in 4 different countries. His great passion is seeing others rise to their mastery.

  • Bachelor of Business Studies
  • Associate of the Institute of Managers
  • Cert in Adult Teaching & Adult Education
  • Cert IV in Teaching and Assessment
Phil_web

Craig Stuart

Executive Coaching Consultant - Training and Learning & Development, Peopleconnexion

With 16 years of corporate experience and people development, Craig has first-hand experience in leading complex business change and the leadership demands of corporate leadership. His experience ranges from coaching all levels of leadership from those entering a leadership journey for the first time, to middle and senior management in either one-on-one sessions or facilitated team sessions.

Qualifications:
• Bachelor of Business Admin. Honours (IMM)
• Foundations of Executive Coaching (UCT)
• Neuro Leadership Institute (NLI) Brain Based Coach
• Comensa Accredited Coach and Member

Talk Cultural Intelligence with us today

Ask us about how we can embed intercultural competency throughout your organisation and leverage your diversified teams for effective communication and production.

Send us a message using the form below and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

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