Training & Coaching
Your staff represents you and your organization in today’s global arena. You want to give them every advantage possible, so make sure they have the knowledge to succeed. Don’t wait until they’ve used the wrong form of address with the Chinese ambassador, invited your Muslim client to lunch during Ramadan, or made another costly error.
Garza Protocol Associates offers protocol conferences, seminars, and workshops. We will work with you to develop a custom training program that meets your specific objectives. Through discussion, role play, and practice exercises, your team will gain confidence and expertise in the precise areas of concern to you. You will leave these day-long or multi-day programs with knowledge that can be put to work immediately and reference materials you’ll use all the time. While each client has specific needs, here are some examples of our training programs:
Corporate Diplomacy: Business, It’s Personal
- Strategies for building relationships across cultures
- Review of key organizations and influencers you need to know when working internationally
- Hosting international visitors with diplomacy and professionalism to meet corporate objectives
- Appropriate meeting conduct, whether you’re the host or participant
- And much more
Smart Power: Cultural Intelligence for Today’s Global World
- Weigh in on the cultural scale
- Strategic cross-cultural communication
- Entertaining with a purpose, and dining diplomacy
- Practical applications: names, titles and forms of address, gender issues, time…
The Global Assistant: Protocol & Diplomacy for Taking Care of Your Boss
- Rank and order of precedence: why they matter and how to apply them
- How to organize a visit by an international client or official and plan a successful itinerary that will meet your organization’s objectives
- Meeting organization: logistics, seating, refreshments, and follow-up
- Overcoming language barriers: working with translators and interpreters
- And much more
Country Cultural Profiles and Best Business Practices
For companies exploring new markets, these four-to-eight hour workshops focus on a specific country, its culture and business practices. Don’t assume your experience working in Mexico will translate to your new contract in Argentina or your Japanese expertise to Korea. A better understanding will help you start off on the right foot, or improve the relationships you are already building. We’ll examine key elements including: communication skills, relationship building strategies, greetings, forms of address, rank, business cards, entertaining, holidays, and unique customs, as they affect executives abroad.
Diplomatic Dialogue: Intercultural Communication
It takes special skills to successfully communicate across cultures. Discover different communication styles and learn some best practices for verbal and body language. This program is helpful for professionals in business, government, education, and hospitality who have contact with others from many other nations and cultures.
International Travel for Fun and Profit
Government offices and corporations are sending more executives and officials abroad to promote their products and services and explore new possibilities. Successful trade missions and trips require a great deal of coordination and preparation. This workshop will review objectives, discuss managing expectations, and cover how to prepare participants, as well as travel logistics.
Hosting International Clients and Visitors
Accomplish your organization’s objectives through client hospitality. This workshop provides a practical guide to organizing itineraries for international visitors. We’ll cover choosing the right hotel, restaurant, ground transportation, and other vendor selection; visit checklists; welcome amenities and gifts; official courtesies; and other hospitality tips. Garza Protocol Associates will also advise on local government leader participation.
Protocol Strategies for Government: States, Cities, and Counties
We teach local officials and their staffs innovative strategies for developing strong consular corps and embassy relations, handling dignitary visits, and promoting local business interests in the international marketplace.
Practical Protocol for Events
This course looks at event planning from a protocol perspective. Topics include order of introductions, invitations, decorations, catering, receiving lines, proper forms of address, second-to-second staging, timelines, seating, security and other unique requirements of events involving dignitaries.
Cultural and Protocol Issues in Medicine for Today’s Global Healthcare Professional
This course helps health care workers at all levels to understand how the cultural backgrounds of their patients affect medical care and outcomes. Providing culturally sensitive care can be challenging, as problems of language, gender, religion, politics, traditional practices, and beliefs intertwine, create inadvertent communication barriers, and sometimes seemingly conflict with your own “best practices.” We reduce the risk and apprehension involved in working in a diverse community and in an increasingly globalized field. We teach simple, easy-to-remember techniques for interacting with people from around the world in a clinic or hospital environment, with special emphasis on the nationalities or cultural groups your staff encounters most.
Diversity Training
Smart business practices for communicating with and managing relationships with employees, constituents and customers of diverse backgrounds. Garza Protocol Associates will help your team develop cross-cultural awareness that can help avoid potential cultural minefields and develop successful marketing techniques.
Protocol for the Hospitality Industry
This course is highly useful to hotels and other hospitality/travel sector companies with large numbers of international clients. Addresses best practices for interacting with a wide range of cultures and with guests at the highest levels of government and industry.
Coaching
Garza Protocol Associates provides one-on-one coaching for executives:
- whose duties involve international or intercultural interactions,
- who are working in government relations or the public sector, or
- who need exposure to these areas to advance in their careers.
We can help develop the polish, savoir-faire, and skills you or your key employees need. Coaching plans are tailored to the needs and schedule of each client.