Adopting an Intercultural Approach

• Develop awareness of participant’s cultural biases
• Understand the impact of cultures on behavior
• Identify and overcome stereotypes

Understanding Italian Cultural Codes 

Discovering the cultural basics of Italy

• The Italian boot: a fragmented territory, the North-South divide
• Catholicism at the heart of everyday life
• The role of the family
• The importance of the bella figura

Understanding Italian values

• Creativity and quick thinking: the richness of the Italian fantasia
• The importance of work, effort and success
• The sense of effort and success, knowing how to laugh and smile
• Il gestire vagabondo or how to seize opportunities

Optimize your professional action with Italians

Communicating with Italians

• Favor oral communication
• Adopt a direct and explicit style
• The importance of non-verbal signals and gestures
• Expressiveness and a sense of decorum

Adapting work methods

• The importance of intuition
• The value of status
• Relationship to the rules, Arte di arrangiarsi: flexibility and adaptation
• Relationship with the hierarchy, role of the manager and the impresario

Conducting successful meetings and negotiations with Italians

• Informal networking beforehand
• In-depth preparation of files
• A conciliatory position is better than a head-on confrontation 
• The importance of down time, often more fruitful than formal meetings

Adopting best practices

• Recognize key principles
• Avoid pitfalls, mistakes and misunderstandings
• Create a tailor-made action plan