Roots + Roaming
Global cultural competence is the catalyst for transforming your international organization into an undisputed global leader. And we turn working across cultural borders into a profitable and joyful experience! With our content, coaching, and cross-cultural services, we help Fortune 500 companies enter new markets, reduce turnover, and speed up projects while building morale and ensuring all voices are heard.
ABOUT US
Our boutique cross-cultural consulting firm is based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. We have distinct backgrounds but are bound together by our deep love of languages, cultures, traveling, adventuring, and helping others. Both of us are Certified Independent Consultants through Culture in the Workplace, an Organizational Development Excellence (ODE) company. Culture in the Workplace and the Hofstede Culture in the Workplace Questionnaire ™ are the only entity and assessment endorsed by Geert Hofstede and his family. We are also part of the ODE global network of Certified Consultants, which has over 100 consultants across the globe. So our office is small, but our footprint and scalability are global.
We believe that no one culture is better than any other; each has its own personality and strong preferences based on deep values held at the societal level. Almost all cross-cultural issues arise from well-meaning groups or individuals who are trying their best to work together. At the simplest level, people bring different scripts of what polite interaction looks like and different expectations about who should do what and how to the workplace, and these often conflict.
Our unique approach to working with teams:
- Gather Data: Learn about the issues you're facing from the multiple cultural perspectives involved through interviews and quick surveys
- Discover the Self: Uncover the unique cultural preferences of each individual through the Hofstede Culture in the Workplace Questionnaire ™ and a debrief session
- Discover the Team: Find patterns among team members, uncover areas of conflict, discover areas of synergy and strength
- Process the Pain Points: Guided discussion to empower team members to understand the perspective of "the other" at the deep values level in order to raise awareness of how conflicts originate
- Make a Plan: Create Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for communication, decision-making, and conflict resolution through facilitated negotiation. Because no one should ever be asked to change their values, the focus is on setting clear expectations for the expected behaviors in each situation.
- Follow Through: Conduct monthly check-up meetings to ensure retainment of learning, answer questions, and keep the group on track.
Our facilitators:
When working with teams, we always bring on a co-facilitator from a different culture of origin, whenever possible from one of the cultures in the group. We are both US nationals, so, for example, if we work with a company experiencing difficulties with France we bring on a certified consultant whose culture of origin is France; with Germany, a consultant whose culture of origin is Germany, and so forth.
We only work with facilitators who meet all of the following criteria:
- Certified in the use of the Hofstede Six Dimensions of National Culture Model
- Fluent in two or more languages
- Have lived in two or more countries
- Be a deep subject matter expert in an additional area (not just culture)
- Be mid-career or beyond to ensure experience
This ensures that all facilitators have been in the shoes of our clients in as many ways as possible. We only choose facilitators who are respected in their original field of specialization, additionally certified in intercultural consulting, who have excellent rapport-building skills, and are people whose advice we would take ourselves.