Skills to Train Across Cultures

Consider the following case: A European company sells a new telephone system to an Asian client with the condition that they will provide one day of on-site training for the equipment. The instructor arrives the night before the training and the next day reviews the user's manual with the attentive and respectful technicians. At the end of the day, the instructor asks if there are any questions or concerns about the product and is met with no response. To be safe, the instructor asks each student if he understood everything. Everyone says that, yes, they understand. Three weeks later the equipment provider gets a call from the customer. The customer is irate and says the equipment is not functioning properly, and the technicians were never given sufficient training.