Putin’s Goals Go Further than Ukraine. If he Succeeds, the Real Headlines will be from Moldova. Well, from Transnistria to be exact. What, never heard of the place? It’s a sliver of land running north to south in eastern Moldova between the Dniester River to the west and the Ukrainian…

The Cultural Context Behind the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, Part 2. The Russian invasion of Ukraine should put an end to the cultural delusion that the US (and to a lesser extent, Western Europe) has labored under since the end of the Soviet Union: that Russians are really Europeans, but…

Culture Drives History. Here’s the Cultural Context Behind the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. The following is an excerpt from my chapter on Ukraine from my book, “The Global Etiquette Guide to Europe”, published in the early 2000’s by John Wiley & Sons: “The country is called ‘Ukraine’ (or as other…

What You Need to Know to Manage Cultural Differences in Virtual Global Meetings. “So Tanaka-san, what do you think of Sandra’s idea?”, you ask of your team lead in Tokyo on a Zoom conference call. …

Cultures Cope Differently. Here’s What You Need to Know. Keep Going. We are all trying to figure out, yet again, how to live our lives, run our businesses, and survive in another “new normal”, this time in a Covid-19 world. Having passed through the three initial stages of denial, anger…

Everybody working in the 21st century is instantly global: you are on a conference call with your global team, your next big market is somewhere overseas, you are sourcing new talent abroad. No matter who you are, or what you do, today you are crossing cultures to do it. …

Several years ago, I stood in the doorway of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and watched the snow fall silently in the entrance to that sacred site on a very dark and holy night. The mumbled prayers of many pilgrims rose behind me, along with the occasional…

In the Land of Bella Figura, really solving a problem is not as important as looking like you’re solving the problem. I was supposed to have been gently awakened by the ringing of church-bells outside my hotel window on the Grand Canal last week. Instead, I was jolted out of…

IT WAS A DARK & STORMY NIGHT… …When I Spent Halloween at a Haunted English Manor House. The wind-swept Salisbury Plains are just a few miles west of London, but exploring these barren and chilly hills on a grey October day a number of years ago, I felt as if…