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Monthly Archives: April 2010
5 ways to make better career decisions
Lately I’ve been talking with a young-professional friend in DC who is making some important career decisions, including whether to quit an unengaging job in a down economy, and whether to move to Europe to study international relations. Having given her all the advice I can from my own professional background, I put together this [...]
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“Butt-kicking” in cross-cultural management?
A friend (who like me, is an American working at an NGO in South America) suggests that my recent post on creative collaboration in cross-cultural teams may lean too much in the direction of flexibility: Sometimes you had to just kick their butt and forget cultural sensitivity. There are several studies that show that foreign executives that [...]
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How to write a mission statement in one hour or less
Last week I was on the phone with the director of a nonprofit back in the U.S. to help her with some possible changes to her mission and vision statements. I suggested she try the following exercise, which is one of the easiest and best ways I’ve ever seen to write a clear mission statement. The following is my own [...]
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Cross-cultural teamwork: How to let go and trust the process
Working with cross-cultural teams is a real test of whether your ego or your humility will prevail. As someone from the global North working on international development in the South, I’m always aware that at the macro level as well as the micro level, anyone in my position is predisposed to think Americans have all the answers. [...]
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Are you bad at networking?
In the last few days I’ve been at some events here in Bogota where I’ve met a lot of interesting people, and it reminded me of an insight I had a while back: networking effectively isn’t the exclusive gift of people with one kind of personality or one technique. Networking effectively is about building authentic relationships, and [...]
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Pacing international relocation
I hear a lot of anxiety from people about international relocation–it doesn’t matter if they are considering moving to a foreign country or are preparing to return to their own country, it’s always stressful. It usually has a lot to do with the unknowns about where they are headed–am I headed for the right country? Is this [...]
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