Forcing square pegs into round holes, as everyone knows, is very difficult. And the result often is painful, artificial, and unsatisfactory. Yet, offering an online intercultural program that was created independently from, and not inherent to, the intercultural training in the classroom is like forcing a square peg into a round hole. This probably is true for most kinds of training, but for intercultural training—dealing as it does with the task of making formerly unrecognized differences visible, and then providing the skills to manage such differences—ensuring synergy between online tools and classroom training is absolutely essential. When looking for a provider of both, therefore, it is critical for organizations to first ask their prospective providers: Is your online learning tool aligned with your classroom training? Was the online tool developed independently from the classroom training? Does the tool, as well as its methodology and underlying model, drive the training, or vice versa? Or, worst of all, do they work independently of one another? In other words, is there provable synergy between the tool and the training? Tools typically build awareness, and training typically builds skills, and if there is no synergy between the tool and the training, there will be little success leveraging awareness into skills.
In today’s intercultural marketplace, historically there have been providers of classroom programs, and then there have been providers of online technology learning, creating some interesting, intercultural online training tools. Some classroom training programs are better than others; some online tools are better than others.
Typically, online learning tools are best when used to raise awareness of fundamental intercultural issues, and as a reference bank for intercultural information. In addition, the technology allows for the development of an individual or organizational profile based on the cultural orientation of the users and their adaptability to specific or generic intercultural challenges. In either case, this can be useful as a snapshot of an individual’s (or organization’s) cultural “start” point, as well as identify the deficiencies that then need to be addressed through training, to create synergy between the user and target cultures with which they may be working.
It also can help develop the training needed to create a more effective multicultural team, or the training needed to develop a “third organizational culture,” which incorporates the best practices of all the participants. In any of these cases, the tool is a starting point, providing a benchmark of awareness against which the real training then can take place. The actual development of strategies, the changing of behaviors, and the moving from mere cognitive awareness to applicable and measurable behavioral change, all are best accomplished through training, usually of the trainer-driven, classroom type.
Unfortunately, what has happened in the marketplace is a conflation of these mutually different, though synergistic, goals and deliverables—apples and oranges, so to speak. Some organizations have misunderstood the best use of the tools and, in some cases, viewed them as substitutes for valuable training. This wastes the money spent on the online tools, for the tools do not create the necessary behavioral change required for intercultural competence in the workplace, which is best achieved through critical classroom trainer-driven training.
On the provider side, training organizations that traditionally had provided classroom training in an effort to also quickly offer online tools, in many cases looked elsewhere for those tools and, consequently, had to either graft tools created independently from the content, design, and methodology of their classroom programs onto their existing programs, or substantially change what were successful classroom programs to “fit” the limited applications of the independently created tool. Square pegs in round holes again and, again, it does not work. Using externally-sourced intercultural tools with pre-existing classroom programs runs the risk of both the tools and programs being dangerously out of sync. The result for the user and the client can be confusing at best and, at worst, useless in developing real intercultural understanding and skills.
Stated simply, synergy of information, design, and methodology is critical to the integration of tools and training, and to the achieving of both awareness and skills. Without such synergy, money spent on either tools or training can create more problems than it solves. Let us look at why it is so important to maintain the link between the information, design, and methodology of both intercultural tools and training.
Information and Content
Fundamentally, the content, or information, provided in both the online tool and the classroom program must not contradict, or invalidate, each other. Both the tool and the training need to be built on the same models, the same foundation of information, and the same research platform. Yet, in the intercultural world, as in most disciplines, information from one source sometimes can contradict or challenge information gathered from a different source, and there are just as many different sources of information in the intercultural field as there are in any other field.
The validity of the source for all information used must be established for both the tool and the training program, and if one uses validated information and the other does not, the total result is less than valid. Yet this risk is high when externally-sourced tools are used to compliment the information provided in classroom training. It is like different languages are being spoken to try to convey the same information—it is difficult at best, problematic and counter productive at worst.
Design
If problems can develop when tools and training programs do not get their content in sync, imagine the difficulties that can emerge when designs—an element of training with traditionally much more variance than static information—are out of sync. As we saw, even with fairly consistent information, variance between tool and program can be serious. Imagine the differences that can emerge in the area of design, where the sky is the limit in terms of how relatively consistent content can be designed to be delivered in a variety of different ways.
Effective training design, for example, must be highly interactive, based on unique exercises created by the provider of the training, and able to represent, as a hallmark, the unique and creative nature of that provider—a differentiator that often sets the design (and ultimately the success) of one provider’s training program over that of another. Consequently, both training program and online tool designs often are one-of-a-kind reflections of the quality of the provider of each; if one is less than the other, the entire approach suffers, with one being required to fill the gaps of the other.
Additionally, redundancy can occur inadvertently, as different designs deliver information in different packets, some similar, some different. Not only does this run the risk of repetition, but it creates confusion in the student’s mind, because of the use of two different paths to deliver the same information. Historically, face-to-face classroom training programs provide a more natural environment for interactivity, while online tools limit interactivity (but increase efficient content reach).
The best blending occurs when classroom training interactivity supports online content, and vice versa; unfortunately, if the online tool was externally sourced after the training program was created, this kind of synergistic blending is all but impossible to create. Interactive exercises, ranging from icebreakers to in-depth and historically time-tested surveys, may work in one format, but not in the other; and while the nature of the interactivity may be the same (for example, surveys or quizzes), the validity, user-friendliness, content, and research base for each may be very different. This creates a contradictory, counter-productive learning experience.
Methodology
Finally, there is the question of methodology, and the logistical administration of the training. Implementing both successful classroom training programs and the use of online tools requires a unified approach making the logistics of coordinating and delivering both programs and online tools easy and user-friendly for both the student and the client. If the design problem is solved and the online tool is inherently part of the classroom-training program, then access to both should be available in one, clean step.
If the online tool, however, was developed and sourced externally, then often the tool itself either is not inherently part of the training program or, if it is, is out of sync, as we have seen, with much of the content and design of the training program; additionally, it may not be easily accessed as part of the training program, if it is licensed and delivered by an independent, third-party provider. And in terms of assessing the success of both a classroom training program and an online tool, if the goals and criteria by which we measure the success of either are different (which is usually the case when the online tool is externally sourced), then it will be very difficult to assess the success of any combined intervention.
Most important, from a business perspective, attempting to integrate externally sourced online tools with training programs creates a business challenge that can be compared with the difficulties that occur when businesses experience a merger or acquisition. Which design should predominate? Which content needs to be changed to fit the other? Which method or process of implementation or assessment should be adopted, and which should be eliminated?
Inevitably, camps of supporters of either side develop within the provider organization with the goal of maintaining their turf and their authority; this can create a hostile and poisonous environment in which to work, with supporters of the classroom training program designers and supporters of the online tool designers in competition internally with each other to dominate not only the process but the fundamental definition of the provider organization.
Are we a training and learning program company, or are we an online technology-based learning company?
Essentially, when an externally-sourced tool is brought into an intercultural training provider, the client purchasing either needs to seriously investigate the degree to which the program they think they have been using is being substantively altered or changed in subordination to the online tool, or vice versa. Perhaps most profoundly, a client needs to ask itself the degree to which it could be working with an intercultural provider that may be going through the trials and tribulations of what amounts essentially to a merger and acquisition.
What Is the Risk?
Square pegs in round holes. Apples and oranges. Training programs and online tools need to be carefully integrated and aligned, or else what starts out as sounding like a synergistic dream can turn quickly into a nightmare.
If online tools are created inherent to and emerge out from the training programs they are designed to support, then the blending can, in fact, be dreamy, providing the best benefits of both. But if the online tools are externally sourced and artificially grafted onto the previously existing curriculum of the training program provider, the result can be fraught with difficulties.
The upside of technology-based tools is greater efficiency and learning reach; by spreading awareness ubiquitously and efficiently, its role is ensured in intercultural training. The upside of classroom training is its power to focus on customized, behavior-changing skill building. Together, there can be a winning synergistic team, but only if the tool is inherent to the training and produced by the same organization. Any other path is a round peg in a square hole.
Dean Foster is president of DFA Intercultural Global Solutions, New York, New York. He can be reached at +1 718 287 9890 or dean@deanfosterassociates.com.