Understanding the French and South Koreans – Country specific cross-cultural training

A Danish oil company was to build a new platform in the North Sea. The Danish company signed a contract with a French engineering company to design the platform, and with a South Korean shipbuilder to be responsible for the construction.

Decoding the French ”C’est pas possible” A Danish project group moved to the French engineering company headquarter in Paris to corporate on the design of the platform. The project group that consisted of mainly Scandinavian employees experienced that their French colleagues froze all communication by answering “C’est pas possible” to every requests.

What is culture and when does it matter?

LIVING INSTITUTE designed and facilitated two country specific workshops in April/May 2012 covering French culture for the entire project group. It now became clear to the Scandinavians that the answer: “C’est pas possible” isn’t the end of a conversation, but in fact the opposite.

The workshops focused on:

• What is culture and when does it matter?
• Mapping the relevant similarities and differences between the French and the Scandinavians.
• Centred on the group’s actual situation, potential strategies were developed in able to overcome the cultural challenges of living and working in Paris as a Scandinavian.

Bridging the Culture Gap

Understanding South Korean culture In the design phase, the Scandinavian employees at the Danish company encountered essential challenges. One of the challenging issues was the contract. The Scandinavians became increasingly frustrated each time the South Koreans ignored the agreed procedures.

LIVING INSTITUTE designed and facilitated two workshops for the project group about South Korean culture in June 2012.

The workshops focused on:

• What is culture and when does it matter?
• What are the key core values in South Korean culture and how do the core values influence e.g. motivation, prioritizing, cooperation, conflict solution and communication?
• Centred on the actual situation, potential strategies were developed to bridge the gap and optimize the cooperation between the Danish oil company and the South Korean shipbuilder.