A fish only discovers its need for water when it is no longer in it. Our own culture is like water to a fish. It sustains us. We live and breathe through it.

Dr. F Trompenaars

Culture is a shared system of meanings It dictates what we pay attention to, how we act and what we value.

Dr. F Trompenaars

Culture is the software of the mind

Dr. G Hofstede

Culture is a thin but very important veneer that you must be careful not to scratch. People from different cultures are basically the same and respond in the same way. However, make sure that you understand their basic customs and show an interest and willingness to learn the differences between your cultures.

Mike Wills - Managing the Training Process

In order to understand people we have to understand their way of life and approach. If we wish to convince them, we have to use their language as far as we can — not language in the narrow sense of the word, but language of the mind. Something that goes much further than that is not the appeal to logic and reason, but some kind of emotional awareness of other people.

Nehru

It costs up to ten times our managers’ annual salary to send them on a three year foreign assignment.

CBI report, 1994

Fachtwissen allein genügt nicht.

Professor Torsten Kühlmann

Culturally clumsy expatriates can cause damage which is only noticed after their repatriation and which will easily be a multiple of the direct cost of their assignement.

Dr. Geert Hofstede

Ich hatte mich nicht genügend schlau gemacht über die kulturellen Eigenarten des Landes. Es war mein schwerster Fehler.

Gunnar P Wilmot, ex Boss McCann-Erickson Frankfurt