『Cultural Friction』のカバーアート

Cultural Friction

Cultural Friction

著者： Brendan Thomas Quinn
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概要

Cultural Friction is a podcast for CEOs, managers, team leads and executives who lead international, global and culturally diverse teams — and want fewer miscommunications, misunderstandings, and conflict getting in the way of good work.


Each episode breaks down a real workplace friction point: what's really going on beneath the surface, why it happens across cultures, and what to do about it. No theory for its own sake — practical fixes you can use with your team today.


Hosted by Brendan Thomas Quinn, a cross-cultural consultant based in Barcelona with 25+ years of intercultural experience, including eight years as a CEO leading organisations in Ghana. Brendan helps international organisations reduce cultural friction through cross-cultural training, workshops, coaching, and advisory, and lectures in Cross-Cultural Communication at SBS Swiss Business School and in Business Communication for Global Teams at Harbour.Space University in Bangkok and Barcelona.


If your teams span cultures, time zones, or both, this show is for you.


Learn more, read the show notes, or work with Brendan: https://brendanthomasquinn.com

© 2026 Cultural Friction マネジメント マネジメント・リーダーシップ 個人的成功 出世 就職活動 経済学 自己啓発
エピソード
  • The Invisible Rules of Western Workplaces

    The Invisible Rules of Western Workplaces
    2026/11/04

    You can watch this episode in our YouTube channel here

    Why do talented people from non-Western backgrounds get overlooked in Western-led organisations – even when they're doing great work?

    In this episode of Cultural Friction, I talk with Biljana Tasetovikj, founder of Invisible Rules. Biljana spent 18 years in international education, including running a U.S. State Department cultural programme, and helped Macedonian students secure more than $5.1M in scholarships. Then, five years into her role, a promotion was turned down – and she started to notice the unwritten rules she'd been missing.

    We talk about:
    • The long emails that buried her request – and the two-line replies from her bosses
    • Why being exposed to another culture doesn't make you good at working across it
    • The silent room: why people from some cultures wait to be asked before they speak
    • What managers often misread as "passive" or "disengaged"
    • Practical steps for Western managers leading teams from the Balkans and Eastern Europe
    • The hidden cost of cultural friction – people bringing only half of themselves to work

    ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
    🎓 BASIS LEADERSHIP PROGRAMME
    Do you lead a team where people don't all work the same way? BASIS is my one-to-one leadership programme for managers of multicultural and international teams – feedback, delegation, meetings, trust, conflict and performance, all built around leading people who work differently.

    • Three levels: first-time team leaders, experienced managers, and directors/CEOs
    • Six sessions per level – online, in person in Barcelona, or as an intensive week at your office
    • Founding prices for the first five participants

    Book a free 30-minute discovery call:
    👉 https://brendanthomasquinn.com/leadership-programme
    ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

    CONNECT WITH BILJANA
    🌐 Invisible Rules: https://theinvisiblerules.com/
    💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/biljana-kuzmanovska-tasetovikj/
    📅 Book a free session with Biljana: https://cal.com/biljana-tasetovikj-wblqwh/30min
    ✍️ Substack: https://invisiblerules.substack.com/

    CONNECT WITH BRENDAN
    🌐 https://brendanthomasquinn.com
    Cross-cultural communication workshops, multicultural team training and leadership advisory for organisations working across cultures.

    CHAPTERS (approximate)
    Introduction
    How Biljana got into international education
    The promotion that revealed the invisible rules
    Exposure isn't a skill
    Relationship first vs task first – and planning a year ahead
    Adapting without losing yourself
    What non-Western professionals often misread
    The silent room
    Advice for Western managers
    The hidden cost of cultural friction
    How to find Biljana and Invisible Rules

    🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all podcast apps – search "Cultural Friction".

    Subscribe for new episodes on leading culturally diverse teams.


    Cultural Friction is hosted by Brendan Thomas Quinn who works with leaders and teams navigating cultural friction within teams that work together or are dispersed around the world — as an advisor, coach, and workshop facilitator, and as Adjunct Lecturer on an International Business Masters programme teaching Cross-Cultural Communication, Cultural Friction brings that same real-world, research-backed approach to your ears in 20 minutes.

    Enjoying the show? A quick rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify genuinely helps other leaders find it.

    And, if you have comments or would like to suggest future topics to be discussed, let us know, we'd love to hear from you.
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    44 分
  • What is Cultural Friction

    What is Cultural Friction
    2026/10/22
    What Is Cultural Friction? (And Why Nationality Is Only the Start)A manager gives quick, clear feedback, and the person who gets it goes quiet for two weeks. A team leaves a meeting, and half of them think a decision was made. Nobody did anything wrong, and something still got lost. That’s cultural friction.Nine episodes in, Brendan Thomas Quinn explains the idea behind the show. Brendan is a cross-cultural consultant and trainer based in Barcelona. He runs cross-cultural communication workshops, multicultural team training and leadership coaching for international teams. In this episode we follow Anna, a product team leader, and Daniel, one of her analysts. Three sentences of feedback mean one thing to her and something very different to him.Cultural friction is the performance cost that builds up when people from different cultural backgrounds work together without a shared way of working. In this episode we look at:why friction is quiet, not a culture clash, and why that makes it expensive;the signs to listen for in your own team, including the meeting after the meeting;why nationality is the foundation of how we work, and experience builds on top of it;what a review of 558 studies found: around 80% of the difference in work values is inside countries, not between them;how the Cross-Cultural Assessment (CAT) shows how each person really works, whatever their nationality;three things to try with your team on Monday morning.Every multicultural team has cultural friction. The question is whether we can work with it.CHAPTERS00:00 Cold open00:55 Introduction01:40 What is cultural friction?04:45 Why it’s so easy to miss06:50 Where our rules come from: nationality and experience11:10 The Cross-Cultural Assessment (CAT)13:25 Where friction shows up: communication, authority and trust14:45 Three things to do on Monday morning17:05 To finishWORK WITH BRENDANWorking with cultural friction is a leadership skill, and it can be learned. Brendan works with leaders and international teams through:Cross-cultural workshops for multicultural teams, delivered online, in Barcelona or at your office.The BASIS Leadership Programme, one-to-one leadership training for team leaders, managers and CEOs.Advisory and coaching for leaders managing diverse, international teams.Find out more at https://brendanthomasquinn.comBASIS Leadership Programme:https://brendanthomasquinn.com/leadership-programme/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=cf-what-is-cultural-frictionTry the free Cross-Cultural Assessment and get a picture of your own working style:https://brendanthomasquinn.com/cross-cultural-assessment/Read the full article:https://brendanthomasquinn.com/cultural-friction-international-teams/Subscribe to the Cultural Friction newsletter:https://brendanthomasquinn.com/cultural-friction/Follow the show wherever you’re listening so you don’t miss the next episode.Music by Denis Pavlov / DPmusic via PixabaySOURCESEdmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.Hong, Y., Morris, M. W., Chiu, C. & Benet-Martínez, V. (2000). Multicultural minds: A dynamic constructivist approach to culture and cognition. American Psychologist, 55(7), 709–720.House, R. J., Dorfman, P. W., Javidan, M., Hanges, P. J. & Sully de Luque, M. F. (2014). Strategic Leadership Across Cultures: The GLOBE Study of CEO Leadership Behavior and Effectiveness in 24 Countries. SAGE.Leung, K. & Morris, M. W. (2015). Values, schemas, and norms in the culture-behavior nexus. Journal of International Business Studies, 46(9), 1028–1050.Stahl, G. K., Maznevski, M. L., Voigt, A. & Jonsen, K. (2010). Unraveling the effects of cultural diversity in teams: A meta-analysis of research on multicultural work groups. Journal of International Business Studies, 41(4), 690–709.Taras, V., Steel, P. & Kirkman, B. L. (2016). Does country equate with culture? Beyond geography in the search for cultural boundaries. Management International Review, 56(4), 455–487.Vora, D., Martin, L., Fitzsimmons, S. R., Pekerti, A. A., Lakshman, C. & Raheem, S. (2019). Multiculturalism within individuals: A review, critique, and agenda for future research. Journal of International Business Studies, 50(4), 499–524.Cultural Friction is hosted by Brendan Thomas Quinn who works with leaders and teams navigating cultural friction within teams that work together or are dispersed around the world — as an advisor, coach, and workshop facilitator, and as Adjunct Lecturer on an International Business Masters programme teaching Cross-Cultural Communication, Cultural Friction brings that same real-world, research-backed approach to your ears in 20 minutes.Enjoying the show? A quick rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify genuinely helps other leaders find it.And, if you have comments or would like to suggest future topics to be discussed, let us know, we'd love to hear from you.
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    33 分
  • Promotion Bias

    Promotion Bias
    2026/10/13

    You have two strong candidates for one team lead role. You promote the one who speaks up and asks for it. Eight months later, the other one resigns.

    Mark speaks in every meeting, talks about his results and has asked twice about the next step. Sofia speaks less, notices what everyone else missed, and is the person her colleagues go to when they’re stuck. She has never asked about promotion. We promote Mark. It feels like an easy decision.

    In this episode, Brendan Thomas Quinn explains promotion bias in multicultural teams. He covers why we trust people who remind us of ourselves, how confidence in the working language gets mistaken for ability, and how individualist, collectivist and high power distance work cultures teach people different rules for showing good work. He also looks at what promotion bias costs the business over the following year, and gives four moves to make your next promotion decision fairer.

    The person who waits to be asked still wants the role.

    CHAPTERS
    00:00 Cold open: one role, two strong people
    00:45 Intro and today’s themes
    01:45 The friction: Mark, Sofia and the promotion decision
    07:00 Reason one: we trust what feels familiar (affinity bias)
    08:30 Reason two: confidence is easy to mistake for ability
    09:45 Reason three: different rules for showing good work
    11:45 What we were missing, and what it costs
    13:00 Move one: define the role before we look at the people
    14:15 Move two: collect evidence from outside the meeting room
    15:30 Move three: ask about ambition directly, and in private
    16:45 Move four: check our own pattern, and get a second view
    18:00 The one thing

    THE BASIS LEADERSHIP PROGRAMME
    Seeing people clearly when they work differently from you is a leadership skill, and it can be learned. The BASIS Leadership Programme is leadership training for team leaders, managers and CEOs, built for real teams where people come from different backgrounds. It’s one-to-one, online, in Barcelona or at your office.
    https://brendanthomasquinn.com/leadership-programme/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=cf-promotion-bias

    LINKS
    Episode page: https://brendanthomasquinn.com/cultural-friction-podcast/promotion-bias/
    Full article: https://brendanthomasquinn.com/promotion-bias-multicultural-teams/
    Cultural Friction newsletter: https://brendanthomasquinn.com/cultural-friction/

    If you don’t want to miss the next episode, follow the show wherever you’re listening.

    Music by Denis Pavlov / DPmusic via Pixabay

    SOURCES

    • Kanter, R. M. (1977). Men and Women of the Corporation. Basic Books.
    • Rivera, L. A. (2012). Hiring as Cultural Matching: The Case of Elite Professional Service Firms. American Sociological Review, 77(6), 999–1022.
    • Neeley, T. B. (2013). Language Matters: Status Loss and Achieved Status Distinctions in Global Organizations. Organization Science, 24(2), 476–497.
    • House, R. J., Hanges, P. J., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P. W. & Gupta, V. (2004). Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies. Sage.
    • Hofstede, G., Hofstede, G. J. & Minkov, M. (2010). Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. McGraw-Hill.

    Cultural Friction is hosted by Brendan Thomas Quinn who works with leaders and teams navigating cultural friction within teams that work together or are dispersed around the world — as an advisor, coach, and workshop facilitator, and as Adjunct Lecturer on an International Business Masters programme teaching Cross-Cultural Communication, Cultural Friction brings that same real-world, research-backed approach to your ears in 20 minutes.

    Enjoying the show? A quick rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify genuinely helps other leaders find it.

    And, if you have comments or would like to suggest future topics to be discussed, let us know, we'd love to hear from you.
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    17 分
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