Our Approach

Our overall goal is to help people in organizations develop a shared understanding of business issues, irrespective of the diverse value orientations from which they start, and to help organizations realize the business potential of value differences by integrating them to a common purpose.

Our approach is based on the following 4 steps: 1. Learn to Recognize cultural differences 2. Learn to Respect different points of view 3. Learn to Reconcile the dilemmas that result from the tensions between different value orientations (cultures) 4. Learn to Realize the business benefits of implementing the reconciliations and embedding a mindset across the organization that continually reconciles dilemmas.

Organizations need stability and growth, long-term and short-term decisions, tradition and innovation, planning and laissez-faire. The challenge is to integrate these opposites, not to select one at the expense of the other. You have to inspire as well as listen, to make decisions yourself but also delegate and you need to centralize your organization around local responsibilities. Our work is unique in that our focus has been to extend and apply our research on culture to giving much more attention to the reconciliation of differences rather than simply the identification of these differences. We have accumulated a significant body of evidence showing that reconciling values makes business more effective.

This approach is common to all our services, whether provided through speaking events, training, issue consulting or longer-term consulting projects. Depending on the needs of individuals, teams or the organization as a whole, the focus can be on any one or all the above steps. In our approach we focus on all levels to help:

- develop Individuals to improve their intercultural competence;
- Teams improve their performance by connecting different points of view; and
- Organizations increase their effectiveness.

Organizations often focus on systems and process changes. Our own approach respects and in fact reinforces these change programs by focusing on the people who drive the change, and the culture they represent. When a culture change process is put in the context of realizing business objectives and solving business issues, its results are greatly enhanced.