Your team is growing, your partnerships are diversifying and your work is becoming international. A shared language is only the beginning. This program helps you decode cultural conventions and navigate different approaches to communication, decisions and trust, so that working together becomes smoother and more effective.
What gets in the way
Silence is mistaken for agreement. A direct remark causes offense. Initiative seems out of place. Deadlines slip and tensions grow without anyone quite understanding why. You learn to distinguish cultural differences from individual preferences and organizational problems.
What you gain
Clarify expectations and check agreements to reduce misunderstandings and avoidable rework.
Address disagreements, rebuild trust and negotiate among multiple partners.
Establish shared practices for decisions, communication and follow-through that make everyday cooperation easier.
Five workshops to refine your practice
01
Cross invisible borders
Explore intercultural awareness by examining your own reference points: respect, efficiency and professionalism do not mean the same thing in every setting.
By the end of the workshop, you will be able to
Identify your own cultural norms and assumptions in a professional relationship.
Distinguish the influence of national culture, organization, profession and context.
Develop and test alternative explanations before making a judgment.
In practice. Revisit a workplace incident from several perspectives, separating observable facts from the intentions attributed to each person.
02
Decipher unspoken codes
Explore the eight dimensions of Erin Meyer’s Culture Map to adapt cross-cultural communication, feedback and expectations about how decisions are made.
By the end of the workshop, you will be able to
Use Erin Meyer’s eight dimensions as reference points to test against the situation.
Recognize differences in communication, persuasion, leadership, decision-making, trust, disagreement, feedback and scheduling.
Adapt your approach without reducing colleagues to cultural stereotypes.
In practice. Map differences in working practices within an international project, then replay an ambiguous exchange while clarifying each person’s expectations.
03
Forge decisive alliances
Practice multilateral negotiation with Rational Games through business or diplomatic simulations, exploring interests, mandates, coalitions and cultural differences.
By the end of the workshop, you will be able to
Map the interests, mandates and decision rules of the different parties.
Balance coalition-building with dialogue across the table while respecting your mandate.
Build commitments understood by all parties and check what implementation requires.
In practice. Take part in a multi-party simulation, alternate bilateral discussions with plenary sessions, then examine how coalitions formed and what made an agreement possible.
Developed with Rational Games, this workshop combines practical simulations with an in-depth debrief to refine your negotiation practice.
For 25 years, Rational Games has taught negotiation through play to businesses and institutions. Its clients include the German Federal Foreign Office, Microsoft and Deutsche Bank.
04
Weave lasting trust
Use dialogue and intercultural mediation to resolve misunderstandings, address conflict and rebuild a working relationship that allows for candid exchange.
By the end of the workshop, you will be able to
Distinguish intention, impact and the need for recognition in a disagreement.
Guide a conversation in which each person can explain how they see the situation.
Agree on practical steps to repair the relationship and rebuild trust.
In practice. Revisit an exchange in which being corrected in front of others felt humiliating: hear both accounts, clarify the impact and agree on how to work together again.
05
Bridge distant worlds
Translate cultural and professional differences into explicit working agreements, building shared meanings for autonomy, transparency and responsibility.
By the end of the workshop, you will be able to
Recognize when apparently shared terms carry different meanings.
Clarify decision authority, consultation, information-sharing and how disagreements are addressed.
Develop shared working rules and adapt them to real project constraints.
In practice. Draft a one-page working agreement for an international project, then test it against an urgent request, an absent decision-maker or conflicting instructions from headquarters.
Designed around your priorities
For international teams, project leaders, headquarters and subsidiaries, and business or diplomatic partners who need to move forward together.
We start with the conversations and difficulties you encounter at work. Erin Meyer’s framework helps you understand differences in working practices; multilateral simulations with Rational Games let you explore their effects. You practice rebuilding relationships, strengthening connections and agreeing on ways of working that suit your team. The five workshops can be taken together or incorporated into a bespoke program.
Philippe Gruca connects philosophy with the practice of negotiation and responsible leadership. He has taught at institutions including IÉSEG, Sigmund Freud University in Paris and SGH Warsaw School of Economics, and serves each year as an expert and judge at the Warsaw Negotiation Round. Programs are available in French, English, German and Polish.
