Have you ever felt frustrated, confused and shocked by your teenager children? Their point of view was so different that you questioned their sanity or if they talk about the same topic?

The reason is that they have different values and attitudes based on their own knowledge, experience and personality type...they can’t see the world from your perspective and their perception is their reality…yours is yours.

Very similar issues emerge in a diverse team  and it is even worse when different nationalities have to work together. The frustration is the same and the reason is very similar. 

This is where common sense is not enough, cultural intelligence becomes crucial...once you understand how their cultural background and personality type shape their perception and communication style. The fact is that the quality of your life is in direct proportion with the quality of your relationship with others.

There are many complicated books in the market and this book bring them altogether in a way that you can easily apply it immediately. It is the essence of decades of research in  a simple and efficient format. If you are a business person, manager or you face customers every day, this knowledge can make your life easier by avoiding unnecessary frustration and accelerating your career in a globalised world.

In case you are wondering, that handsome guy in uniform is me when I was 10...I was born in Hungary, I have a degree in Italian, I am a British citizen (Lord, actually...since Christmas as I own 10 squarefeet of land...), I did oriental martial arts for over 10 years and I have a Polish fiancee...quite a mixture of cultural influences!

When I started my life in the UK  12 years ago I was a typical foreigner who went through all the stages of culture shock (which I had no idea about) and started at the bottom…nobody cared about an Italian degree so I started working in hospitality where I have quickly progressed to running events, weddings, restaurants mainly in luxury hotels managing a diverse team and serving a multicultural clientèle...

Coming from a small town with no money and experience with other nationalities was quite difficult and I had to learn quickly. After 3 years of working insane hours I have managed to save up for university and I got a masters in International Management at the University of Sussex. This is where I have found the topic of intercultural management…

After the university I started my own company, a restaurant booking site which started with 35 restaurants in Brighton and we had over 5500 in 1 year all over the UK. It became a joint venture with a French software company and we had the more members than any competitors. Even though I had years of experience by then, degrees and several qualifications in management, the project failed and we pulled out. The reason might look familiar:

I had to learn the hard way:

• I am capable of anything, but not everything. I have to focus on what I am good at, instead of trying to be good at everything.
• Knowing about cultural differences is very different to be able to deal with them.
• I could not work with French people!

      Even though that was true that time and I even heard about intercultural management, I could not put that theory into action…not many things are more emotional than cultural issues…

I wanted to understand what happened so I went on a mission...How come I have studied so much and I was even aware of cross-cultural models, I learned about the French culture and yet...we have clashed so badly? Those frameworks are based on research, do they not work? 

Finally I understood that the problem was not with the French, but the fact that we had different cultural background AND personality styles and we were not aware of how that influenced our communication and management styles.

We just want to believe we are logical, but at the end of the day it is all down to personal relationships. If cannot get along, it will affect our job and even our health. Having a proven framework as a point of reference makes sensitive topic tangible and manageable! 

5 generations of people from 100s of cultures with completely different personality styles...How could I know all of this??

This is my mission, connecting people through understanding. This topic is as scientific as personal and I am honoured to be able to work with passionate and outstanding people who all work for the same goal using a different approach. 

Professional background?

When organisations successfully engage their customers and their employees, they experience a 240% boost in performance-related business outcomes (Gallup 2013). Unfortunately 87% of CEO-s struggle to achieve this as they don’t understand what motivates, drives and satisfies their employees and customers from 4 generations and 100s of cultures.  This is where common sense is not enough, Cultural Intelligence is needed.

We have combined the most researched frameworks with decades of experience to develop a result-driven, simple and practical approach for optimising people performance which consistently achieve increased employee engagement, productivity and customer satisfaction.

The Intercultural DISC book is about a new internationally accredited and endorsed framework to to prepare clients for the challenges of managing and serving people from different generations and cultural backgrounds. 

 I am co-authoring with E.G.Sebastian  who is a certified DISC Behavioural Styles Trainer, a Certified Professional Coach (CPC), and the author of several books including, Communication Skills Magic; Bushido Business – The Fine Art of the Modern Professional, co-authored with Brian Tracy and Steven M.R. Covey. 

The book is about  DISC profiling (used by over 45 million people and 80% of Fortune 500 companies) and Prof. Hofstede's  6-D intercultural model which has been used by over 5000 global companies in the last 30 years (He is 1 of the 20 most influential business thinkers in the world according to the Wall Street Journal and he is the founder of the field of comparative, intercultural studies). 

Why is this the most important topic in 2016?

While most leaders are measured on the basis of business results, 87% of organisations cite the combination of CULTURE, LEADERSHIP and ENGAGEMENT as one of their top challenges. 

 The more complex workforce you have and the more diverse market you serve, the more you need to understand what motivates, drives and satisfies your employees and customers. 

According to the Corporate Leavers Survey more than 2 million employees leave organisations due to perceived unfairness and lack of engagement. The cost of this, just in the USA, is more than the combined revenues of Google, Goldman Sachs, Starbucks and Amazon. As for loss due to legal issues and bad reputation, that is on top of this amount.

Who are we and why we are passionate about this topic?

I am the managing partner of ICQ Consulting and we help companies improve employee and customer engagement using a portfolio of assessments, trainings and solutions based on their cultural background and personality types. With offices in Miami, Silicon Valley and UK we have a global reach with local direct expertise in direct experience training and coaching employees and leaders in Fortune 500 companies in the U.S. ,Latin America and Europe using frameworks which delivered measurable and immediate impact in 1000s of global companies in the last 30 years. 

Thank you for your support!