Transform Your Understanding of the World by Understanding Cultural Diversity

Gain a critical edge that will improve your life in all areas! Enable you to have a wider range of friends, to have greater opportunities, and to have a much broader understanding of the world around you!

This course will teach modern Cultural Diversity principles...but WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? For centuries, culture has been taught based on stereotypes, and that's how we still tend to think of it today. "Chinese people are like this" or "Germans are like this". But this simply is not true...even within a particular culture, there will be a great deal of variation, and it is IMPORTANT to be aware of that!

This course will teach students how to understand cultural differences WITHOUT the use of stereotypes! It is focused on recognizing people as diverse individuals. Yet at the same time, cultural differences WILL affect how people communicate, build relationships, interpret actions, express emotions, etc.

YOUR INSTRUCTOR, John Lombard, has 20+ years of experience training people about understanding culture, and has been a consultant to companies such as Siemens, P&G, Oracle, Motorola, and many more. He is the owner and founder of "The Language of Culture", a company which specializes in Cultural Diversity.

This is a very flexible course, as each unit will be entirely independent of every other unit. Students can join at any time, and quit at any time.

Classes are highly interactive. In each class, the teacher will introduce and explain one specific aspect of culture, and then will ask questions to get students discussing the impact and results of that particular aspect. Rather than just providing answers, the focus is on getting students to think for themselves, and work together to come up with answers to questions such as:

"How will this affect how I see others? How will it affect how others see me?"
"What stereotypes and biases do I have, based on my own cultural values?"
"What kinds of behaviors or reactions can I look for to identify someone else's cultural orientation?"
"How can I adapt my own behaviors and reactions to improve communication and relationships with people from other cultures?"

This course is PURELY live video. There is no homework, no studying, and no tests. It is done purely to give students better understanding, and to create a lively, interesting, active class atmosphere!

No previous knowledge or experience is required, all students are welcome!

The schedule will be like this (and will work on a rotating basis...once we've reached the end, we'll start back at the beginning, and go through it again, so it doesn't matter when you join, you can still get the full course.

The schedule will be as follows:

Week 1 -- Doing vs. Being Cultures
* What is a 'Doing' culture? What is a 'Being' culture?
* What are the negative perceptions that 'Doing' cultures have of 'Being' cultures? And vice versa?
* What are typical behaviors or reactions of people from these cultures? 
* What is your own orientation on the Doing-to-Being spectrum? And what stereotypes or biases do you have that affect how you see people with a different cultural orientation?
* How can you adapt your own behavior and reactions in order to improve communication and relationships with people from a different cultural orientation?
[NOTE -- ALL CLASSES WILL FOLLOW EXACTLY THE SAME FORMAT AS THIS ONE
 
Week 2 -- Low Context vs. High Context Cultures

Week 3 -- Control vs. Constraint Cultures

Week 4 -- Diversity vs. Harmony Cultures

Week 5 -- Inductive vs. Deductive Cultures

Week 6 -- Direct vs. Indirect Cultures

Week 7 -- Formal vs. Informal Cultures

Week 8  -- Hierarchy vs. Equality Cultures

Week 9 -- Collectivist vs. Individualist Cultures

Week 10 -- Past, Present, and Future Cultures