Working with Islamic Cultures

Opportunity

The economic, societal, and organizational trends that shape the phenomenon of globalization require awareness and understanding of what matters to negotiation partners, clients, team members, etc. of Islamic background operating in this increasingly interconnected yet diverse world. For both European managers and their Islamic counterparts to work together effectively a deeper understanding is required than the well-known stereotypes. In addition to knowing what to expect when operating in Islamic nations and cultures, business people today must also be keenly aware of their own unseen and often unrecognized cultural feelings and biases. The stakes are too high - and mistakes too costly - to risk cultural misunderstandings. Our Inter-Cultural Intelligence Workshop Series aims at providing participants with insights and paves the way for practical implementation to achieve the best possible results.

Relevance

Teams are increasingly composed of different nationalities and work cultures, and are required to operate largely virtually

• Many European managers need to negotiate, influence and lead teams across cultural boundaries and in markets which function different from their own, i.e. markets based on Islamic principles
• Business people of Islamic background need to understand the diversity of European cultures and the resulting business practices and communication approaches to build sustainable partnerships based on commonly shared ethics
• Retaining talent in emerging markets maintaining high motivation, productivity and appropriate recognition is one of the biggest challenges for companies working with such contexts.

Target Audience

The target audience for the Workshop Working with Islamic Work Cultures are:

• private bankers, sales people and business partners dealing with Middle Eastern or Asian Islamic cultures.
• leaders of virtual teams; diversity managers; global managers; relationship managers; people interested in improving their inter-cultural intelligence with a focus on European and Islamic cultures interactions.

Learning Objectives :

Participants will be given the opportunity to:

1. Understand their own intercultural profile and personal style
2. Apply a solid framework which helps understand a wide array of elements constituting culture from a pragmatic, behavioral point of view
3. Learn to observe, analyze and interpret different cultural elements
4. Accelerate intercultural learning and sensitivity: understand how to influence and motivate the counterparts
5. Increase the chances of successful interaction in situations requiring negotiation, sales, influencing
6. Acquaint themselves with the intercultural negotiation process
7. Understand the similarities and differences: “deal no deal” indicators, identifying non-negotiables; dealing with hidden agendas
8. Have on-going access to world-wide cultural profiles to prepare for travel and negotiation

A Safe Learning Environment

Our approach

Materials provided

Participants receive:

• a pre-course questionnaire to be filled in 2 weeks before the program
• a handbook including presentation material of all the models and concepts, including a selection of relevant country profiles and a negotiation process approach
• a personal report of their cultural profile (COI)
• on-going access to the Cultural Orientations Indicator online database to extract profiles of all countries, as the need arises

Open programmes

Dates and locations

January 28 & 29th, 2010 in the Lake Geneva area

February 18 & 19th,, 2010 (to be confirmed) in Dubai

Duration and schedule

1.5 days

Day 1 :

13.00 buffet lunch get-to-know, 13.45 kick-off, 18.00 close

Day 2 :

9.00 – 12.30 and 14.00 – 17.30

Price

CHF 1250.— per participant; if 2 or more participants from the same company: CHF 980.— per person. The price includes a free 1 hour personal follow-up coaching session. Accommodation can be arranged and needs to be paid separately by participants.

Additional Coaching for 3 months (if desired): CHF 1’000.- per participant.

Facilitators

Linda WEE-HENZ &

Mariyam Shahida MOHAMED

In-Company Programmes

In-company programs of 1.5 – 2 days are designed based on a thorough needs analysis to meet the specific needs of the company. Existing approaches (for example sales model, negotiation process, etc.) may be included.

Price: CHF 13’400 per program for a maximum of 20 participants. The training is delivered with two facilitators and includes pre-training assessment and one post-training coaching session per participant.

Travel and accommodation for the facilitators as incurred.

Outline: Inter-cultural Intelligence (ICI) – Working with Islamic Cultures

This interactive workshop (1.5 to 2 days) provides a framework for negotiating and influencing across cultural boundaries. The Cultural Orientations Indicator provides not only an assessment of one’s personal cultural profile compared with the predominant culture of one’s country of birth/residence. It also gives the opportunity to prepare for interaction in a culture different from one’s own. Distinctions are made to adjust one’s own expectations, attitudes and approaches. This workshop provides relevant insights into Islamic culture and how it influences interaction in business contexts. Participants increase their proficiency in engaging in interaction with Islamic cultures with a clear frame, insider information and skills practice for negotiating, facilitating and influencing to reduce challenges and issues.

Core learnings: Cultural Awareness, Negotiation Framework, Cultural expectations and their implications for managers, facilitators, team leaders. Practical tips from insiders.

Register for this seminar