Who Should Attend ?

Employees preparing for an assignment in Cuba 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 in Cuba. The objective is to enable them to identify the stumbling blocks that lie ahead and to be able to adapt and integrate in Cuba.

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

• Be aware of their own cultural baggage
• Understand Cuban 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 Cuban mindset, different 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 Cuba

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 Cuban culture

• The largest island in the West Indies
• A multiracial population with a history of international contact
• Slavery, colonisation and revolution: the scars of the past
• The Castro regime: the changing and unchanging face of a dictatorship

3. Cuban values and behaviour patterns

• An open mind and a sense of hospitality
• The family unit: an intergenerational bond
• Interconnecting private and public lives
• Catholicism, santeria  and sects: superstitions and spirituality
• Pride, a sense of honour and touchiness
• Exuberance and excitability
• A casual but carefully groomed appearance
• Collective living and community values

4. Practical day-to-day information

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

Module 2 : Successful professionnal integration in Cuba

1. The Cuban corporate world

• The difficulties and hurdles of a communist management system
• A vertical organisational structure in which skills and responsibilities are not uniformly distributed
• The crushing weight of political control and bureaucracy
• Privilege, favouritism and corruption

2. Effective communication with the Cubans

• The importance of greetings and small-talk
• Intonation and gestures
• A very direct communication style
• Cuban Spanish

3. Working with Cuban teams

• Effective management: leadership, experience and professionalism
• Hearing, listening and deciding
• Promoting cohesion and a solid team spirit
• Encouraging feedback: instilling dynamism and a friendly working atmosphere

4. Successful meetings and negotiations with the Cubans

• Anticipating and avoiding mistrust
• Giving relationships that personal touch:
• Negotiating on an equal footing
• Written contracts, their interpretation and implications

5. Final handy tips

• Caution, patience and humility
• Social standards, gifts, business cards, dress code
• Sensitive subjects: politics, history, religion