What is it?
Reflect for a moment on how you respond to working in an international context. Do you put your energies into the 'flexibility' with which you fit into a range of different situations? Or, on the other hand, do you 'focus on goals' regardless of the pressure to compromise? Despite the obvious contradictions, both approaches represent key skills for working across cultures. The important thing is to identify which approach is more typical of you, and what are the implications for working in specific international contexts.

The International Profiler is a questionnaire and feedback tool that has been developed to help managers reflect on where their skills are in working internationally. It will also help raise their awareness of potential areas in which they may require future development, and suggest actions they can take to fill the gaps.

How does it work?
We in WorldWork have developed a cross-cultural competency set (with 10 key competencies and 22 associated skills, attitudes and areas of knowledge) that define the special capabilities required to transfer professional managerial skills to an international context. The International Profiler is a psychometric questionnaire that provides individuals with structured feedback in terms of the energy, emphasis and attention they bring to this competency set. We have also created a licensing process to help consultants and HR professionals use these tools and provide structured feedback to individual managers both one-to-one, in groups and over the telephone. The The International Profiler feedback provides:

Awareness of potential gaps in a person's international competence
Linkage to individual roles, required working style and appropriate attitudes and approaches
The rationale for development and initial action steps for gap closing

All the individual manager needs to do to initiate this process is to fill in the The International Profiler questionnaire which takes about 20-45 minutes. The questionnaire can be distributed and completed on-line or through a hard copy version.

Who is The International Profiler for?
The International Profiler is aimed at individuals who need to build adaptive skills for working in a multi-national environment. They may wish to review their present international experience and extend the skills they bring to the task. They may have a present or imminent need to transfer their technical and managerial skills more extensively into the international arena.

Typical candidates include:

Managers leading, or participating in, diverse international teams
Specialists sitting on international committees
Managers operating in multi-cultural workplaces
Professionals with international business careers
International project managers
Managers integrating operations across national boundaries
Key support staff co-ordinating and communicating across cultures

What are the benefits for the individual manager?
The International Profiler is NOT a hard-edged inter-cultural assessment tool. It is the basis for a structured exploration of an individual's competency requirements, and thus is more a hard-edged cross-cultural development tool. It helps managers to understand the extra and enhanced qualities they require for personal success at an international level. It can be used to identify and address the particular development needs they require to:

1. Take on a specific new international role
2. Build an international career
3. Work more effectively with colleagues in an international team
4. Build productive relationships with new partners in unfamiliar cultural contexts

What are the benefits at an organisational level?
For the organisation The International Profiler can help to:

1. Build an international mind-set.
2. Audit experience and capabilities for working across cultures.
3. Provide focused individual development plans and group training solutions
4. Reduce the potential of failure in international assignments and cross-cultural transitions.