Diversity and Cross-cultural Consulting

GOALS
  • Attract and retain top talent.
  • Tap into the collective strengths of a diverse workforce.
  • Communicate and mentor across cultures.
  • Create a more inclusive environment.
  • Attract a broader customer base by increasing employee awareness of cultural differences.
  • Enhance capacity for trust and collaboration across cultural differences.
APPROACH
  • Conduct a climate survey to assess the ways differences affect assumptions, attitudes, and behavior in your workplace.
  • Build cross-cultural competencies through customized awareness, sensitivity, and skills training.
  • Recommend practical strategies for tapping into the synergies of global and domestic difference.
  • Plan implementation.
  • Evaluate results.
RESULTS

“Thank you for bringing the Organization Workshop to us in Southeast Asia.You were the absolutely perfect person for this job. You were able to understand the different needs in our context and flex to the group. And your style is so good here. I am excited by the impact your work here has had on us. The language you gave us has given us a very strong place to start. The results people are seeing in their organizations are great.”
—Organization Development NGO Consultant, Southeast Asia.
Anne conducted the Organization Workshop and consulted to several international NGOs in Southeast Asia as part of a joint organizational capacity-building effort.

“The phrase ‘life changing’ is rarely appropriate in describing an event, however attending the Leadership Competence Training (LCT) truly was. Anne and her partner developed the training to improve cross-cultural communication, self-awareness, stress management, team leadership, and one’s ability to give and receive feedback.”
—David Rymarz, Manager, Siemens

“Anne Litwin’s contributions to Lucent’s diversity development were invaluable. She brings a wealth of organizational and system knowledge and diversity experience. We have benefited from Anne’s sensitivity and integrity to build bridges with individuals and organizations while addressing very controversial and sensitive issues.”
—Juwan Thomas, Director of Diversity Training, Lucent Technologies

The gender differences workshops developed and conducted by Anne and her colleague Tom Finn, entitled Women and Men in the Workplace, had a significant impact on our organization’s culture. Since the workshops, the company has made several significant changes in our leave and pay policies, and women technical professionals are being valued and promoted for bringing a feminine communication and leadership style to the workplace.”
—Engineering Technology Manager

EXPERIENCE AND EDUCATION

Domestic Diversity

  • Consulted and trained in domestic diversity for over 30 years.
  • Published writings on workplace diversity, including “Women and Men in the Workplace” and “Sexual Harassment Prevention” in Managing in the Age of Change, as well as several other articles. See Publications for the full list.
  • Quoted twice in The New York Times as an expert on workplace diversity.
  • Featured in Becky Thompson’s book A Promise and a Way of Life: White Antiracist Activism.
  • Founded a biracial women’s support group that has continued to meet for the past 20 years.
  • Published articles and book chapters on global consulting, and recently published her research on women in organizations in a book entitled New Rules for Women: Revolutionizing the Way Women Work Together.

Global Multiculturalism

  • Keynote Speaker on “OD: Dancing in the Global Context” to the Global Organization Development Conference, Mysore, India, September, 2006.
  • Co-developed multi-cultural leadership training for Siemens.
  • Keynote Address at the International U.N. Conference on Gender Awareness Training in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
  • Distinguished speaker on change management at the Organization Renewal Inc. annual conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
  • Distinguished speaker on change management at the Asia-Pacific Conference and Exhibition on Change Management ’98 in Singapore.
  • Co-creator of “When Cultures Meet,” formerly known as “Creating Community in the Face of Difference.”
  • One of four North Americans out of 100 members in the Indian Society for Applied Behavioural Science (ISABS).
  • Have lived and worked in the Middle East, India, China, Europe, North and East Africa, Southeast Asia, Myanmar, Central America and North America.
  • Background in language and linguistics, including work at the United Nations as a trilingual translator.