Meet the Expert
Jason Patent PhD
Director, Center for Intercultural Leadership, International House - University of California, Berkeley
- Expert cultural interpreter with more than two decades of experience with China, including more than 10 years living and working in China. Work has spanned the worlds of education, for-profit business, and non-profit organizations.
- Currently, director of the Center for Intercultural Leadership and chief of operations at International House, UC Berkeley. Formerly, American co-director of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing, China, and inaugural director of Stanford’s Overseas Studies Program, based at Peking University.
- Deep connection to China from childhood, growing up hearing stories from his grandparents about “the Shanghai years” – the nearly two decades they called Shanghai home. Stateless Jews from the USSR (grandfather) and Iraq (grandmother), in the 1930s they settled in Shanghai, one of the few havens for Jews at the time. Jason’s father bore witness to both the Japanese occupation and the Communist revolution, before emigrating to San Francisco in 1950.
- Grounded in Chinese culture through education, language mastery, in-country experience, and scholarly research. Fluent in Mandarin, known for uncannily native-like pronunciation.
- At Gap International, a consulting firm based near Philadelphia, led a team of linguists charged with investigating and innovating methods of using language to improve business performance.
Meeting Packages from $400
Your Meeting Package Includes:
- All 7 Best Practices
- Pre-Meeting Discovery Process
- One-on-One Call with Expert
- Meeting Summary Report
- Post-Meeting Engagement
Interpreting China - Helping East and West Make Sense of Each Other
Director, Center for Intercultural Leadership, International House - University of California, Berkeley
Risks & Opportunities
Risks
- If your company fails to commit to ongoing, integrated intercultural training, you will lose out to competition that does, both in terms of your bottom line and in terms of attracting and retaining top-notch talent.
- If intercultural training and coaching is not part of a broader, strategic initiative addressing the full range of challenges in expanding globally, it will waste time and money.
- If intercultural training is done in a piecemeal fashion, meaning a training here and there, ROI will be minimal.
- If measuring results isn't part of your plan, then you're not going to be able to determine ROI.
- If it's not done right, intercultural training can reinforce negative stereotypes, increase workplace friction and decrease productivity.
- Tension may develop among employees who get training versus those who don't.
Opportunities
- If you piggy back by hiring specialists with multiple areas of expertise/understanding (for example someone who understands the Chinese market AND has good intercultural understanding), you increase the chances of making your effort successful.
- Good intercultural training is a relatively small investment that can have a huge positive impact on your revenues.
- Intercultural training and understanding can stimulate more effective collaboration among your employees, which will help them execute more effectively.
- Intercultural training can dramatically reduce employee turnover.
Interpreting China - Helping East and West Make Sense of Each Other:
Risks & Opportunities
Expert Topic