Effective intercultural communication across language and cultural differences is no longer a requirement only for those who travel abroad; it is an essential skill for a successful operation of a modern organization in the United States.

The Bottom Line of Intercultural Communication

Consider this: A lack of intercultural communication competence lowers both the organization’s performance and profits. Why? Because this lack of competence:

• Creates a highly stressful work environment
• Leads to lower employee satisfaction and dedication
• Results in lost productivity and high turnover
• Decreases capacity for problem solving, creativity, and innovation
• Affects the quality of relationships with customers and clients
• Lowers customer and client satisfaction
  

Overall, all these factors decrease the organization’s potential and competitive advantage.

Intercultural Communication Consulting and Training Services

Parlez Consulting can help you and your organization acquire the vital skills of intercultural communication and utilize them to your organization’s success.

The Parlez Consulting and Training Services are specifically geared toward organizations with culturally and linguistically diverse workforce, customer and client base, and business partners. All customized services include an initial needs assessment to assure your organization receives the most beneficial service and a personalized information and instruction.

Presentations
Training Workshops
Assessments
Reports and Recommendations

Parlez uses a unique approach to intercultural communication based on three principles to ensure the effectiveness of each service:

Holistic
Comprehensive
Scientific

Are you ready to find out how Parlez can help Your Organization? Then contact us

Three Reasons to Choose Parlez

Parlez Consulting employs three approaches to intercultural communication to assure effectiveness:

Holistic. By definition, intercultural communication takes places between individuals from at least two different cultures. Everyone involved must be competent in intercultural skills, whether they come from the majority or minority culture. In fact, people from the majority culture may need more training because they have less experience in interacting with other cultures. Parlez teaches intercultural communication skills to both native and non-native English speakers.

Comprehensive. There are three broad features of competence in intercultural communication: language, accent, and culture. Many companies center on a small feature of communication (for example, “accent reduction”). A narrow focus is not effective at addressing intercultural communication skills. Parlez covers all three features of intercultural communication, providing comprehensive knowledge and training in effective intercultural communication.

Scientific. Parlez was founded by Agata Gluszek, who has a PhD in social/personality and experimental psychology from Yale University. Dr. Gluszek applies scientific, evidence-based, interventions to intercultural communication. Although we may have good intentions, we do not have good intuitions when it comes to intercultural interactions. Instead of relying on unproven methods and tactics, which may cause more harm than good, Dr. Gluszek uses methods and recommendations that have been developed and scrutinized by the scientific community. There is wealth of evidence in the scientific literature, why not take advantage of it?

Presentations

Parlez’s 60 and 90-minute presentations are designed to improve awareness of intercultural communication competence inside and outside of an organization. They are designed using the latest scientific findings and can be tailored to the specific organization’s situation and needs. In general, the presentations focus on addressing issues in language, accent, and cultural knowledge (LACK) arising during interactions between native and non-native English speakers.

Training Workshops

Interactive training workshops (2, 4, or 8 hours) focus on effective communication between native and non-native English speakers across languages, accents, and cultural differences. We provide the knowledge and tools necessary to take the fullest advantage of cultural and linguistic diversity based on the latest scientific findings and recommendations of experts. The workshops are tailored to the specific organization’s situation and needs in addressing communicative and cultural issues arising during interactions between native and non-native speakers.

Workshops are designed to be administered independently as a part of diversity and/or communication training. However, in addition to a workshop, a combination of assessments, reports, and recommendations, can be utilized to further improve communicative effectiveness of the workforce.

Assessments

Agata Gluszek, PhD [link], the founder of Parlez Consulting, has developed the Communicative Effectiveness and Competence Assessment (CECA), a tool that identifies areas of strengths and weaknesses in the organization’s three spheres of native–non-native communication: individual, internal, and external. The CECA includes a survey and a focus group that identify specific issues in an organization related to communication across languages, accents, and cultures. Additional tools or assessments may be employed or designed to identify specific communication and cultural areas that are challenging to an organization.

Reports and Recommendations

Reports based on the Communicative Effectiveness and Competence Assessment (CECA) include personalized feedback, summaries, and details on the internal and/or external communicative effectiveness and competence. Based on the reports and additional assessments, detailed and structured recommendations for future actions are provided.