When I became the first American woman to work at Honda Motor Company's headquarters in Japan, I quickly learned something that has shaped more than 30 years of my work: cultural differences are inevitable and predictable. Collaboration failure isn't.

Yet when global teams struggle, we often focus on “them.” Americans are too direct. Japanese colleagues don't speak up. Headquarters doesn't understand the local market. Remote colleagues aren't engaged. Sometimes these observations are valid—but focusing on them can leave us waiting for other people to change.

After working with thousands of professionals across four continents, I've learned that you don't need to become an expert on every culture to become a more effective global collaborator. Anyone can become a WE-Builder™—someone who successfully navigates differences and builds stronger relationships across cultures, languages, and borders.

It starts with two ingredients that are free and available to everyone: a genuine desire to bridge a specific Us/Them gap and a willingness to honestly examine your own behavior.

In this interactive session, participants will identify a real Us/Them gap in their own work, examine the behaviors that may be reinforcing it, and learn practical, research-backed actions they can take to start bridging that divide.

Drawing on social psychology, my Harvard Business Review collaboration work, and more than three decades of cross-cultural experience, I'll share real-world successes and failures that demonstrate how individual behavior can change global working relationships.

Participants will leave with something more useful than another list of cultural differences: a practical way to become a WE-Builder and start improving a global relationship they already have.

Target audience: Leaders, managers, HR and People & Culture professionals, and anyone working across cultures, countries, languages, or global teams.

Format: Interactive keynote or conference session; adaptable to 30–60 minutes. No prior cross-cultural expertise required.