I had the amazing pleasure of living with a wonderful host family in Normandie many years ago, whom I visit every year, and have become my extended family.  It’s amazing to me when we do integrate into another culture and it becomes a second home, and the people with whom we share our lives become family, even though they are so different in many ways.  It’s a rich and bonding experience.

This is what happened to me, and I feel so fortunate to be able to still share my life with this wonderful family.  That includes 8 siblings,  about 32 cousins, and a few babies joining the family!

One of my host sisters has created a wonderful home-away-from-home in Normandie.  If you are ever going to be there for a visit, I highly recommend it!  You can’t beat the hospitality of Marie-Agnes and her husband Benoit who are kind, and also very funny, and even speak English with an adorable accent! 

Click here to learn about their wonderful home that you can share!

Happy New Year!

The cow, er, cat, is out of the bag, so I thought it was time to make a big announcement for 2012!  You may have noticed a bit of a trickle in the number of posts on my blog.  2011 was a challenging year for me, personally, and I opted to transform the painful experience I endured into a new business venture, called “The BullBuster Cafe”.

You can learn more about my new business at www.thebullbustercafe.com

Note – I will still be supporting my Culture Transition products, and I am still running The Expat Coach Association and Directory.  As an Expat, you may find BullBusting to be a more creative way to look at adapting to new cultures, and I may yet integrate the two concepts into a product, so stay tuned.  Also – if you have a business that supports Expats, I am more than happy to post information about you and your services, in the spirit of helping this wonderful community!

If you want to reach me, and read my current blog, just head on over to www.thebullbustercafe.com

And, enjoy 2012!

The Expat Coach Directory recently celebrated it’s one year anniversary and we’ve completely redesigned it to be more user friendly for you!  I am very excited to announce that you can now search for an Expat Coach by geography, languges spoken, and more!  Please come check us out at www.theexpatcoachdirectory.com

We are still the #1 result for “Expat Coach” at www.google.com and welcome your feedback, and if you’re an Expat Coach, would love to have you join us!

Welcome to our final Working Wednesday in the series!  This video will help you with the important task of growing your business! 

Since we’re spending a few weeks on the topic of starting your own business, I found a wonderful article by Richard Branson with some simple tips for business success.

What I love about the article is how very simple, and easy to implement, these suggestions are.  And, when you realize that someone so successful started out just like the rest of it, it’s hugely inspiring!

Click here to read the article.

It’s another Working Wednesday, and this week’s video tip is about getting feedback on your business – a key part of your success!

This week, I had the honor of presenting  a workshop called, “How to Ace Your Interview Through Positive Self Perception” for a wonderful organization called Career Gear.  Career Gear helps men with difficult pasts to build brilliant futures. 

I found some of my feelings about this experience similar to transitioning cultures.  I’ve never been in a roomful of people before that have pasts including crime and incarceration, who have worked very hard to turn their lives around.  So, I had no idea what to expect.  I guess my experiences crossing cultures have taught me, first and foremost, that pre-judgments do more to hurt you than help you, and I walked into the room expecting simply mutual respect.  Well, it turned out that these men were simply brilliant – they were sensitive, had fantastic questions (in fact, so many that they asked me to come back a second time so I could continue my workshop!) and really help one another out.

I have to say that this experience made me proud to be a coach, to be able to help these guys look at their own self-perceptions, and actually shift them, was an entirely rewarding experience.  We covered a lot of ground on the interview experience – one of the things that seemed most fascinating is that we all find the interview process a challenge!  There will always be a question that we’re not comfortable with, regardless of our past, and normalizing this common feeling seemed inspiring.  (For those of you out there that may be interviewing in the US job market, one of the facts that got their attention, that might help you, is that these days your resume won’t even make it in the door unless you find the hiring manager, and properly keyword your resume.  Sending emails to the address in a job ad will land your resume in the trash, sadly.)

When we talk about transitioning cultures, we normally think about crossing countries, or even cities.  But this experience taught me how fundamental the concept of “culture” can be.  Even right within your own town, there are likely to be many cultures, existing side by side.  We may focus on the language and country ones, but I find it fascinating that culture can also apply to your background, your values, corporations, etc - and the challenges that create hardship when trying to relate can fall away with a simple tweak in perception.  I am sure that those of you reading this who are Expats or Accompanying Spouses have some experience that you approached in a specific way that caused an issue.  And then, when you changed how you looked at that same situation, you probably had an entirely different outcome.  If you apply this same principle to crossing cultures – namely changing your perception, you are likely to have a lot more success adapting to new countries, new jobs, and more!

* Need a presenter for your workshop on career or culture transition experiences?  Contact me for more information. *

A new TV series in America, called “Outsourced”, presents an interesting (satirized) view of cross-cultural team integration and management. I will try and follow this one closely!  The main character is “the silly American”, Todd, completely unaware of cultural faux pas, who is sent to India.  This ought to be fun to watch, and full of good lessons!

In the first episode, here are a few things I picked up, as the “what NOT to do’s” if you are relocating to another country to manage a team comprised of people of a nationality other than your own.

1. Greet People by Shaking Their Hands.  The “silly American boss” tries to shake hands with everyone, and presents his right hand, and, clearly some people in the room are very uncomfortable with this greeting style.  Always study up on appropriate ways to greet people, and whether one hand may be taboo!
2. Show More Interest in Meeting Some People Than Others.  The boss in this show is clearly more interested in meeting the women in the room, which he shows by heading right for them, and spending several minutes with “the pretty one”.  You should make sure to express equal value to everyone on your team, especially the first day!
3. Make Silly Jokes. The boss, in typical “Homer Simpson” fashion, has an obnoxious comment for just about everything.  One of his male subordinates is named “Mamit” (spelling?) and the boss hears it as “Man Meat”.  He then says, “Wow, your name is really ‘Man Meat’?  Must make chatting on the internet hard!”  In another section, he makes fun of the “head gear” they wear – saying the women, especially, wear some weird stuff.!!!! Refrain from making jokes that may be taken as offensive, or injure the self-esteem of your new employees.  And, comments on how people dress are completely rude, and should be avoided.
4. Sit with People From Your Country at Lunchtime.  The first lunchtime, the boss has the opportunity to sit with his team, where there is one empty seat at their table.  Instead, he sees another person who appears to be American, sitting all alone, and decides to bond with him.  It may be “scary” or “overwhelming” to be the only person of your nationality at the table, but it’s a fantastic opportunity to get to know your new team!  Mealtime is often when people have their guard down a bit, feel more relaxed, and you can get to know them a bit more personally than you can at their desks.  This is a huge opportunity for you to more effectively transition to a new culture.  Don’t miss out!  That being said – of course make sure you ASK if you can sit with them, rather than just subjecting them to your presence by pulling up a chair and interrupting them. 
5. Isolate Yourself.  Todd, while sitting with his new American friend, is told NOT to eat the Indian food, as it will cause all sorts of bathroom ills, and that he should stick to American food instead.  One of the worst things you can do is to completely avoid the culture you are in by avoiding its people and its foods.  This is a sure-fire way for you to end up being isolated, unaccepted by your colleagues, and feeling alone.  Instead, make the effort to try out local foods and customs and blend in!
6. Make Judgments.  Todd is informed, again by his rude, American friend, that there is an “A” team (the employees dressed in suits who can speak with American accents), and a “B” team (Todd’s new team, who is sitting at the lunch table in casual dress and laughing) who “probably don’t know anything about America.”  Get to know people, find out what THEY value, otherwise you’re setting yourself, and them, up for failure when it comes to cross-cultural team synergy.
7. Place Opinionated Pictures on Your Desk.  Todd places a photo on his desk (simply a desk and chair on a podium, in front of his new call center colleagues) of his American OFFICE – clearly he misses his American style office, with a door he can close, and which is a sign of authority.  Every time you look at a photo like this, it will make you think “things are so much better at home…”, and your peers will understand that you don’t like their culture.  Instead, consider photos of people you love, this could be an opportunity for new colleagues to ask you a bit about you!

The TV show seems to be promising of interesting cross-cultural situations.  One of the things I saw on a positive front, is that the manager seems invested in the success of his staff, and spends time helping them learn the information they need to be able to sell the company’s products more efficiently – that’s a great thing to do!  And, at the end of the first episode, the manager even chooses to sit and eat lunch with his team, and sample the Indian food!  So, stay tuned….

Want more tips for successfully handling the professional changes you’ll encounter when moving overseas for work?  Click here!