Culture is a thin but very important veneer that you must be careful not to scratch. People from different cultures are basically the same and respond in the same way. However, make sure that you understand their basic customs and show an interest and willingness to learn the differences between your cultures. Mike Wills Today, more than ever business success requires intercultural awareness and effective cross cultural communication skills. Working, meeting, dealing, entertaining, negotiating and corresponding with colleagues or clients from different cultures can be a minefield. One wrong movement or basic misunderstanding could ruin or delay months of work. Understanding and appreciating intercultural differences ultimately promotes clearer communication, breaks down barriers, builds trust, strengthens relationships, opens horizons and yields tangible results in terms of business success. Fact: Today's manager increasingly has to work in international and cross cultural environments. In addition to the normal pressures of man-management, managers are now required to deal with challenges, friction and misunderstandings emanating from cross cultural differences. Effective management in the modern environment necessitates cross cultural competency in order to get the best out of a multicultural team.

The cross-cultural education of employees is becoming increasingly important for globalising companies. Intercultural trainer Eleonore Breukel recommends three easily accessible tools to help HR managers, trainers and employees who are working in an international environment. Intercultural skills can be developed in an entertaining way . Organizations are now taking serious steps to ensure that employees working in an international environment are capable of looking at their company goals from a multicultural perspective. Through heightening employees' cultural awareness, organisations become more capable of generating new ideas on how to transform the organisation in its globalisation process because they will be in a better position to understand how to gain commitment and motivate others to accomplish their organisations' goals in cross-border situations. Intercultural skills can be developed in an entertaining way via easy to access tools and programmes. They are designed to facilitate access for individual employees who want to work through the training independently.