Are you planning to set up business in the USA? Or do you already have American colleagues, partners, customers, or suppliers?

Many Danes have grown up with American movies, series and music. And we feel that we know the American culture well. This only makes the surprise greater when the collaboration across the Atlantic is disrupted by significant cultural differences that we had no idea existed – and find it hard acknowledging.

U.S. cultural training ensures that you get maximum benefit from your USA-related activities.

The training is based on your specific issues and gives you practical solutions to the challenges you face – whether you’ve been active in the USA for several decades, or you’re brand new to the American market.

What are the benefits of U.S. cultural training?

Your organization will:

• Achieve greater efficiency and productivity in USA-related projects
  If you face challenges when collaborating with American colleagues or partners, then you’ll learn how to tackle them, and you’ll discover how to benefit from the cultural differences – increasing the efficiency and productivity of your USA-related projects.
   
• Increase your cultural intelligence – and achieve greater job satisfaction
  Get an insight into American culture that extends far beyond the stereotypes. And become aware of your own culture and how you react when you encounter other cultures. This results in fewer frustrations and greater job satisfaction in USA-related work. Read more about our approach to culture here.
   
• Utilize Best Practice and build a common frame of reference
  Share your experiences of collaborating with American colleagues and partners. Establish and benefit from Best Practice. And acquire a common frame of reference so that you can handle USA-related activities more effectively across the organization.
   
• Achieve visible and long-lasting results
  You’ll learn before, during and after the training, and work on your own real-life challenges and cases all the way through the programme. These are some of the reasons why U.S. cultural training creates visible and long-lasting results. Read more about how we ensure the training achieves its objectives.

As a participant you will:

• Increase your cultural self-awareness – learn about your own culture first!
  Become aware of your own cultural baggage and everything you take for granted. This is essential to finding the key differences between the American culture and your own culture, and learning how to deal with them constructively.
   
• Strengthen communication and collaboration with American colleagues and partners
  Learn how to communicate more consciously and get your message across to e.g. customers or team members. And learn how to achieve effective collaboration with American colleagues and partners so that you can create better results together.
   
• Recognize the typical pitfalls when doing business in the USA – and learn how to avoid them
  Learn to recognize the typical pitfalls when working in the USA e.g. when holding meetings, giving feedback, negotiating contracts, working with customer service or joking with your colleagues during a coffee break. And learn how to avoid them, saving you time and money.
   
• Experience Aha! moments: “Now I get it!”
  Have you ever wondered why your American colleagues and partners react the way they do? The training gives you key insights to understanding your business partners, so their actions make complete sense – allowing you to adjust your behavior accordingly.
   
• Acquire practical tips and tricks
  You’ll get a lot of practical tips and tricks that will contribute to greater success in your daily work e.g. how to make a convincing presentation or how to best get input from American employees and colleagues.
   
• Discuss your specific projects and challenges
  Get advice on your USA-related projects and challenges from trainers who have extensive hands-on experience of American culture. Meet our trainers here.
   
• Acquire tools that will make you more effective in all types of global work
  The training will equip you with practical tools that are not only useful in your collaboration with the Americans, but in all tasks where you work cross-culturally. They are simple and easy to use. Whether you’re online or offline, whether you have to prepare for one meeting or long-term collaboration – they will always be close at hand. See one of them here.

We start by identifying your U.S. cultural training needs and then design a programme within the framework that you have set out.

We define the training’s target audience, duration, learning objectives, content, and time and place in close cooperation with you. The training (face-to-face or virtual) can be anything from a single half-day workshop to a longer programme of 2-3 full-day modules – depending on the results you want to achieve.

We also offer U.S. cultural training as open workshops at your company, so you can create cohesion in your USA-related activities across departments, functions and levels.

The training is always customized – not just for your organization, but for each and every participant. Below are some examples of what we can work on.

Typically, we cover the following:

• Cultural awareness starts with self-awareness
• Practical cultural models, e.g. the ‘4R Model’ and the ‘Cultural Investigator’
• Key differences between American culture and your own culture – and how these differences can present opportunities for innovation
• Similarities and shared values – what do we have in common across our national cultural differences?
• Communication: Business meetings; face-to-face and virtual communication; about ‘getting to the point’; enthusiasm and impact; humor
• Hierarchy and power structure in American business: By whom and how are decisions made? How is responsibility distributed? And what are the consequences when you have responsibility?
• Is it important to build relationships to American colleagues and partners? How do you network in the USA?
• U.S. business culture – doing business the ‘American way’
• Handling misunderstandings, disagreements and conflicts
• Your specific projects, cases and questions – and informative examples of what went wrong and what went right for others

We can also work on:

• Understanding the American context: History, politics, economy, regional differences
• The U.S. society and the American workplace: Religion, social and ethnic differences, gender, diversity and inclusion
• Understanding what drives your American colleagues: Self-awareness and world view; education and family; health and social security; work ethics and work-life balance
• The negotiating culture: Create good results when negotiating with American business partners
• The best way of recruiting, retaining and managing your American employees
• Training American colleagues
• Stereotypes about the USA and the Americans – get them get them out in the open and deconstruct them!
• Business etiquette e.g. small talk topics, gifts, dress code, titles and greetings
• American lifestyle and consumer behavior

Want to know more?

• Contact us! – So we can have a chat about how we can address your U.S. cultural training needs.
• Do you want individual coaching on a USA-related challenge? Then intercultural coaching and advice are what you need. Read about how we can help.
• Still not sure whether C3 should deliver your U.S. cultural training? Here are the top six reasons why you should choose us.
• Read our blog post on 3 conflicts Danes face when working with Americans.