Latest Thinking

As Helen walked up the stairs and towards Dean Johnston’s office, she realized she had probably walked up these same stairs a thousand times – though never for a reason like this.

Much has been written about long-term expatriate assignments, but for many of us, a more common “assignment” is the short-term business trip — that four-day jaunt to Dubai or the there-and-back trip to Buenos Aires.

Most of us don’t enjoy having difficult conversations, period — but when they involve someone from our own culture, we can usually rely on some basic shared assumptions about what the interaction should look like.

The other day I spoke with a former colleague, Laura, from graduate school who, following her graduate degree, had her first child.

You’re in the middle of a heated debate with your colleague.

The first thing most of us do when working with people from a new culture is to learn about differences.

Let’s face it.  Business jargon gets a bad rap.  I’m sure you’ve seen the countless Dilbert cartoons, the internet jokes, the memes… all making fun of a form of speech that has empowered us all to think out of the box and execute cutting-edge, high impact deliverables.

Americans can find it hard to engage in small talk with people they don’t know. 

I’ve recently been fixated on a fantastic radio podcast about young entrepreneurs in New York and Silicon Valley called “Start Up,” which tells the tale of going from nothing to building a company from scratch.