There is no clear champion when it comes to the challenges an expat partner faces through the course of relocation. Different individuals react differently when confronted with the tasks and circumstances of moving abroad — many find the process to be stressful and emotionally draining, others have an easier time. However, when the relocation dust […]
The past few weeks have taken me from the West coast of the US to the Midwest, and from there to Sweden, only to eventually end up in Spain. It’s been an interesting journey because while all these places subscribe to the same general western culture, there are some noticeable differences in how life is […]
I came across an article this past week titled “A Norwegian City Wants to Abolish Time” (you can find it here) — it caught my eye, partially because it seems an impossible endeavor and partially because the concept of time, and how we relate to it, is always interesting from a cross-cultural perspective. In my […]
The business of managing globally mobile talent is fast-moving and logistically challenging. There are few one-size-fits-all solutions. It’s a world where the needs are varied and new challenges are the norm of day-to-day operations. Whether you are a relocation management company, one of the vendors in the network, or an intercultural services provider, you are […]
With summer around the corner and many an expat getting ready for a trip back home, thoughts about what truly signifies home keep popping up in my head. I have noticed that the longer I live abroad, the more intense my sensory memories of home seem to get, or rather, the more easily my sensory […]
Each year corporate travelers take some 480 million business trips and there are an estimated 56 million business expats worldwide. The cost to a company when these globally mobile people are not performing, or even worse, are doing harm by not knowing the cultural codes of their business counterparts, is great. To be successful in […]
One of my neighbors is an elderly French woman — Cecile — who has lived in the US for most of her adult life. Whenever we run into each other we chat for a bit, and over time I’ve learned a little about her life story. I know she grew up poor in the countryside […]
The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) estimates that $1.33 trillion was spent on business travel in 2017 alone. And AIRINC’s most recent Mobility Outlook Survey (2018) reports that 54 percent of companies anticipate an increased demand for cross-border mobility this year. In addition to a higher number of business travelers, there is also a greater […]
“If you haven’t got your health you haven’t got anything” – so goes a quote from one of my favorite movies – The Princess Bride. Granted, the movie is 30 years old by now, but I think most will agree that good health is essential in order to live life to its fullest. Lifestyle is, […]
I was talking to a friend and fellow expat recently about life abroad as an accompanying partner — what the difficulties and rewards are. We agreed that the rewards are many, we wouldn’t be where we are otherwise. However, we both recognized that there are some real challenges as well — challenges that are often […]
There is a simple reason why the term Executive Coaching is still being used to describe leadership development programs — tradition. It used to be that this type of service was available only to executives in an organization. In today’s business world, executive coaching is applied increasingly to emerging talent and new managers as well. […]
It’s not unusual for me to wake up from nightmares this time of year and they have almost exclusively to do with taxes; more specifically being late and/or incorrect with taxes in one form or another: not finding all the right documents and being late, using the wrong color pen to fill out forms and […]