Home Library Translate
A A A
Share »
Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Follow us on LinkedIn
Connect »

Blog: Training and Development

Menu

  • This Blog's Home
  • Guest Writer Submissions
  • Policies
  • To Subscribe to a Blog
  • About
  • Feedback

Tempting Cultural Training–It’s Good For You

By Jack Shaw on May 1, 2012

Remember seeing those ads while in college, “Teach English in a foreign country?” They sounded so tempting. However, they became less tempting as time went on. But you did notice that it seemed the neat thing to do at the time.

And it was. When you’re 25.

No amount of preparation is going to help unless you are 25 and have no fear of the world.When I was in my mid-thirties (and I consider myself pretty fearless), I was offered a job by a Japanese company that sold Western Culture to the big companies. For the younger employees you might say they taught English, but everyone was learning English in school then. So as a corporate employee went up the ladder so did I, his level of assistance was more appropriate owing to his station in life.What this company was offering was native speakers to help employees smooth out their dealings with native speakers of the same language.

Here was my bright idea. I’d do this for a time–all the while researching via dialogue doing business in Japan. I would write a book, or at least a long article. Instead, I found myself culture shocked and couldn’t wait to get to the comfort of my own culture.

This memory was sparked by seeing a critically acclaimed film, Lost in Translation.  Of course the film’s morass was deeper than my own, but when it happens to you, it couldn’t be much worse. I had studied the culture for nine months, and when I got to the airport, I struggled to use the telephone to call my boss.

Think of this every time you have a foreign student or trainee.  The older you get, the harder it hits you. Try to incorporate some of their culture if you can do so unobtrusively. Lost in Translation has special meaning to me now. Don’t get so angry at older people who don’t adapt so easily. That could be you some day. I never did write the book, but I did learn something valuable. We are more adventurous when we are young. You can call it reckless, but it’s really a form of courage.

—

For more resources about training, see the Training library.

My book, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development, has some interesting ideas you may totally disagree with today but not tomorrow. I’m told it is a different take on the world of training and development. For a piddling investment, you could have a few extra ideas.

My novel, IN MAKR’S SHADOW–another creative side of me speaks–will be available this year. You’ve heard of Steve Martin’s film, “The Man with Two Brains?” I may be the man with two right brains…if you agree with that theory. MAKR is all about what happens when people stop talking to each other and let their devices control what the world becomes based on facts, proven and tested. By the way, the world is doomed. At first a fantasy, then doomed? That’s a “visceral” question if I ever heard one. Better check it out, too, before it is too late.

« Previous Next »

Search Our Site

Meet the Blog’s Host

Jack Shaw is a communicator who does training and has been in the trenches as well as in management and development areas. His priority is how to communicate credibily in the workplace. [Read more ...]

Recent Blog Posts

  • Training Day – Professional Development
  • The PowerPoint Crutch and How to Fix It
  • Performance Management: Why Aren’t We Using Performance Information
  • Risk Averse? Me?
  • Failure Résumés—A Training Guide for Success
  • Rating Training
  • Are We Falling Into Internet Space?
  • Résumés Can’t Speak
  • Preparing Millennials–A Matter of National Interest
  • Training the “Educated” Consumer

Categories

  • Adult Learning
  • Assessments
  • Basics and Overviews
  • Coaching
  • Communication
  • Continuous Learning
  • Corporate Universities
  • Customer Service
  • Designing Training Plans
  • Developing Training Methods
  • Evaluating Training Results
  • Evaluations During Training
  • General Resources
  • Human Performance Technology
  • Implementing Training
  • professional development
  • Self-Directed Learning
  • Talent Management
  • Uncategorized

Blogroll

  • Jack Shaw

Related Library Topics

  • Communications Skills
  • Training and Development
  • Learning (Maximizing)
  • Adult Learning
  • Learners (Requirements of)
  • Terms in Training & Dev.
  • Types of Training & Dev.
  • Types of Learning
  • Self-Directed Learning
  • Student Skills
  • Corporate Universities
  • Facilitation
  • Designing Training
  • Learning Objectives
  • Training Methods (Designing)
  • Personal Development
  • Distance Learning
  • Talent Management
  • Evaluating Training
  • Continuous Learning
  • Human Performance Technology
  • Jack Shaw

Library's Blogs

  • Boards of Directors
  • Building a Business
  • Business Communications
  • Business Ethics, Culture and Performance
  • Business Planning
  • Career Management
  • Coaching and Action Learning
  • Consulting and Organizational Development
  • Crisis Management
  • Customer Service
  • Facilitation
  • Free Management Library Blogs
  • Fundraising for Nonprofits
  • Human Resources
  • Leadership
  • Marketing and Social Media
  • Nonprofit Capacity Building
  • Project Management
  • Quality Management
  • Social Enterprise
  • Spirituality
  • Strategic Planning
  • Supervision
  • Team Building and Performance
  • Training and Development
About Feedback Legal Privacy Policy Contact Us
Free Management Library, © Copyright Authenticity Consulting, LLC ®; All rights reserved.
  • Graphics by Wylde Hare LLC
  • Website maintained by Caitlin Cahill

By continuing to use this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy.X