Who Should Attend ?

Employees preparing for an assignment in Libya and their partners

Benefits of Attendance

This seminar aims at significantly improving the ability of the participants to meet the challenges of living and working abroad. The objective is to enable them to identify the stumbling blocks that lie ahead and to be able to adapt and integrate in Libya.

At the end of this training, participants will have acquired insights and techniques to:

• Be aware of their own cultural baggage
• Understand Libyan context and culture
• Analyse situations in which misunderstandings may arise and identify ways of communicating more effectively
• Reduce and manage the symptoms of culture shock
• Understand Libyan mindset, work practices, decision-making processes and negotiating styles
• Strike the right balance between personal et professional lives

Training Approach

• A cross-cultural approach of International Mobility
• Country specific trainers
• Personalized and familiy focused action plan
• Access to the Nomad’ Network, an exclusive online tool for Akteos’ clients and experts:  find resources, exchange experiences, knowledge and insights

Programme Outline

Module 1 : Successful personnal integration in Libya

1. Cross-cultural awareness : the key to a successful expatriation

• Taking stock of one's own cultural baggage
• Culture shock and the integration process
• Identifying and going beyond cultural stereotypes

2. Key aspects of Libyan culture

• The third largest country in Africa
• The 1969 revolution and the seizure of power by Kaddafi
• The people at a crossroads between the Berber, Arab and Egyptian cultures
• The country's ancient heritage, Islamisation and Arabisation
• A rogue state subject to an embargo, which finally recovered its respectability
• Wealth thanks to oil resources
• Sport as a social catalyst, the educational system

3. Libyan values and behaviour patterns

• Islamic values, tribes and clans
• The family unit as a source of collective identity
• An elastic view of time
• Implicit communication, self-control and emotional restraint
• A firmly established hierarchy

4. Practical day-to-day information

• Focus on the host town or city
• Transport, administration, housing, security, hygiene and healthcare
• Social life, leisure activities
• Schools, extracurricular activities, sport

Module 2 : Successful professionnal integration in Libya

1. The Libyan corporate world

• The characteristics of the banking, oil and service sectors
• The central role of Islam within Libyan companies
• A strong attachment to a favourable working environment
• The market, employment and turnover
• The role of the state and the authorities

2. Effective communication with the Libyans

• An oral tradition
• Information flows, networking
• Libyan Arabic, English for business, the role of the interpreter

3. Working with Libyan teams

• Effective management: education, personal bearing and a sense of effort
• Colleagues, supervisors, and managers: identifying people’s roles
• Concerted decision-making, facilitating cohesion
• Caabiates and Tacharoukiates

4. Successful meetings and negotiations with the Laotians

• The preparation phase
• Time as a useful weapon
• The importance of intermediaries
• Written contracts, their interpretation and implications

5. Final handy tips

• Caution, patience and humility
• Social standards, gifts, business cards, dress code, etc
• Sensitive subjects: politics, history, religion
• Humour: a double-edged sword