Intercultural Skills

Central Asia and the South Caucasus

BASIconsult gives you the knowledge and intercultural competence you need for Central Asia and/or the South Caucasus. We offer tailor-made training sessions for individuals and companies. Our main aim is to assist our participants in developing skills that allow them to deal with aspects of the foreign culture that are seen as negative – indeed, we aim to show course participants how these characteristics can be actively exploited and incorporated constructively into work and everyday life.

Our training can be carried out at any location of your choice in Germany or Europe, or at your own local base in Central Asia and/or the Caucasus. You may wish to supplement our intercultural training with a regional studies course geared to one or more Central Asian or Caucasian countries.

Our training sessions are led by a German trainer and a co-trainer from Central Asia or the Caucasus – you will have the chance to compare their approaches across the three most important intercultural areas (perception, communication and action) and develop skills which will stand you in good stead in your target region.

The Caucasus strikes again! or That’s just typical for Central Asia!: These are the exasperated cries one hears again and again from Western company representatives whose negotiations have stalled, or from despairing development aid workers whose projects are not leading to the expected successes. Often it is precisely the factors which are “typical” for a given culturally foreign environment that make achieving success there so difficult or even impossible for outsiders.

Anybody planning to “jump in at the deep end” in Central Asia or the South Caucasus can benefit considerably from intercultural “flippers” and from solid, grounded training.

In the area of perception, you will become aware of your own cultural conditioning and of the “foreign” cultural conditioning, putting you in a position to make accurate judgment calls on:

  • whether and how this cultural conditioning affects the perceptions, actions, communication and attitudes of individual players and institutions;
  • how, to what extent and in what combination personalities, culture and situations determine actions in an intercultural context.

In the area of communication and conflict management, you will become acquainted with the communication patterns of your target country and so extend your own intercultural communication repertoire. The focus here is on conflict management within an intercultural environment. You will become aware, both theoretically and practically, of:

  • direct and indirect or verbal and non-verbal communication – this will give you the ability to determine whether you should communicate your concerns to local partners directly or in a more roundabout fashion and whether you should use verbal or non-verbal signals
  • Conflict resolution in personal and in professional matters. This will help you not only to ensure that no party loses face in conflict situations, but also that you reach your goals.

In the area of action, you will learn what personal and collective action strategies you can deploy to reach your professional goals on your assignment abroad and to cope optimally with the challenges of everyday life:

  • How can I motivate and manage my staff in Central Asia and the Caucasus? How can I organize collaboration with local partners effectively and efficiently? How should I deal with the local authorities?
  • How do I cope with everyday life as an expatriate in Central Asia or the Caucasus with minimal effort? How can I integrate members of my family into this culturally foreign environment?