Unlocking Intercultural Agility
Explore the diverse stories of some of the most advanced Intercultural practitioners from around the world with Marco Blankenburgh, who has been equipping people with cultural agility for 25+ years. Along the way, you will gain cultural insights that will help you find relational success in our globally diverse world.
Episodes
Leadership transitions can derail even experienced executives. A new role, company or culture can turn the habits that made you successful into your biggest blind spot. So how do you prepare for what you cannot predict? Marco Blankenburgh speaks with Navid Nazemian, #1 ranked executive coach and bestselling author, about the mistakes leaders make when stepping into unfamiliar environments. Navid illuminates how the right transition...
Talent shortages, burnout, nonstop demands. Sound familiar? Most leaders try to fix these for good, then wonder why they still feel stuck. Marco Blankenburgh joins Shelly to unpack why some leadership challenges are built to stay and how the leaders who thrive learn to work with them instead of against them. You'll hear a real story about why one leader's team stopped speaking up in meetings and exactly what changed once he finally...
Leadership today feels relentless. Trust is falling, complexity is rising, and yesterday's leadership playbook is no longer enough. In this episode, guest host Shelley Reinhart interviews Marco Blankenburgh to explore why leaders are burning out and why more information isn't leading to better decisions
Discover how a simple shift in thinking can help you lead with greater clarity, resilience, and trustbefore the pressure overwhelms...
What if the quality of your leadership, relationships, and culture is determined by the quality of the questions you ask?
In this episode of Unlocking Intercultural Agility, Marco Blankenburgh is joined by leadership expert Bob Tiede, author of Great Leaders Ask Questions, to explore why asking better questions may be one of the most overlooked leadership skills.
Together, they discuss why curiosity builds trust, how ques...
Why do smart teams still struggle?
They have talented people.
They have the right skills.
They have the strategy.
And yet, something is still not working.
In this episode, Marco explores why future skills alone are not enough. Analytical thinking, creativity, resilience, and leadership only create impact when people know how to work together.
Because skills do not fail.
People working together do.
We explore:
• Why the spa...
What happens when birth rates fall below replacement levels for decades?
In this episode of Unlocking Intercultural Agility, Marco Blankenburgh explores a conversation that sits at the intersection of demographics, migration, leadership, and cultural complexity.
This is not a political discussion.
It is a structural one.
Across Europe, North America, and East Asia, aging populations, shrinking workforc...
Why do so many learning and development initiatives struggle to create lasting behavioral change?
In a previous conversation, we explored where things often break down and why strong strategies and well-designed programs don’t always translate into impact.
In this episode of Unlocking Intercultural Agility, we take the next step.
Together with Nicole Regan-White, CEO of Create Space Group, we shift ...
Why do so many leadership and learning initiatives look strong in design… yet fail to create real behavioral change?
In this episode of Unlocking Intercultural Agility, I sit down with Nicole Regan-White, CEO of Create Space Group, to explore what breaks down when organizations attempt to develop leaders at scale.
Across industries, technical capability is rarely the issue. The real gap shows up in how people c...
In today’s interculturally complex world, many ultra‑high‑net‑worth families focus on what they have before they pay attention to who they are as a family system. In this conversation, we explore why relational strength, trust, and emotional agility are foundational if wealth is going to last beyond one generation.
I sit down with Andrew Doust from Plenitude Partners to diagnose the human terrain of multi‑generational familie...
In this episode, Marco Blankenburgh unpacks a critical reality that most tech discussions miss: AI isn't removing complexity from our work... it’s just moving it.
Marco explores the shifting landscape of global organizations where Artificial Intelligence is rapidly taking over structured, process-driven tasks. But what happens to the humans? Marco argues that as machines handle the "middle," human beings are pushed to the ...
In this episode, George Kesselaar joins Marco Blankenburgh for a powerful conversation that redefines how we think about change.
George brings insight from his PhD research at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business, where he explores the behavioral side of change in global organizations. What makes his work stand out is its intentional design through the lens of Intercultural Agility. Instead of treating cha...
In this episode of the Unlocking Cultural Agility Podcast, Marco Blankenburgh is joined by Chris O’Shaughnessy to explore what Third Culture Kids can teach us about identity, belonging, and culture creation in a transient world. Together, they unpack powerful metaphors, practical examples from family life, and why language and frameworks matter when navigating life between cultures. A rich conversation for parents, educators,...
Stephanie shares her journey from growing up in a culturally diverse Lebanon to becoming an intercultural coach in Saudi Arabia, highlighting how travel and exposure to different cultures shaped her worldview and professional approach.
• British-Lebanese background with extensive experience in hospitality and learning & development
• Set a personal goal to visit 30 countries by age 30, which sparked a lifelong passion...
In this conversation, KnowledgeWorkx founder Marco Blankenburgh interviews Roberta Saffels—Brazilian-American psychologist, 25-year expat, and positive-leadership consultant based in Doha, Qatar. Roberta explains how Positive Psychology shifts focus from “fixing what’s wrong” to enabling people and organisations to flourish—from zero to plus ten. She describes Positive Leadership’s practice of sp...
The surprising shifts in American foreign policy under Trump aren't just political—they're deeply cultural. Marco Blankenburgh and Rana Nejem break new ground by applying KnowledgeWorkx' Three Colors of Worldview framework to decode global politics, revealing patterns that traditional analysis misses entirely.
Trump's leadership represents a seismic shift from America's traditional innocence-guilt orientation (centered...
Cultural misunderstandings can derail business deals, fracture teams, and create seemingly intractable workplace conflicts—but most of us lack the language to identify what's really happening beneath the surface. Through vivid stories and practical examples, this episode reveals how the KnowledgeWorkx 12 Dimensions of Culture framework provides that missing language, empowering us to navigate complex cultural landscapes with ...
Have you ever wondered how cultural differences shape our interactions? In this episode, Marco and Shelley explore the transformative concept of intercultural agility through the lens of the 12 Dimensions of Culture. Each dimension offers a unique perspective on how we understand ourselves and others in a multicultural world. From defining growth strategies to navigating communication styles, understanding these dimensions can enha...
Around 70% of most change initiatives are unsuccessful in organizations around the world. How can we create organizations that have the agility to successfully create real change?
Join us as Marco Blankenburgh, International Director of KnowledgeWorkx, shares his insights into how agility has shifted from sports and military roots to a key component in business leadership and development. Together, Marco and Shelley explore...
What truly makes diversity initiatives succeed in today's complex global world?
Join Marco Blankenburgh and Linda Berlot as they uncover the qualities of courage and cultural learning necessary for engaging in impactful intercultural dialogues. Their conversation navigates through the intricate layers of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) initiatives, dissecting the global hurdles these face. The episode reve...
Discover the secrets to applying cultural agility successfully on teams with our esteemed guest, Linda Berlot, whose 20 years of living in Dubai and working across various countries have uniquely positioned her to identify and bridge cultural differences. Linda's rich tapestry of experiences reveals how intercultural agility can transform team miscommunication into curiosity and mutual understanding, ultimately enhancing collaborat...
Popular Podcasts
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
DISGRACELAND is an award-winning music and true crime podcast about musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. Jerry Lee Lewis's 5th wife? Dead. Sid and Nancy? Both dead. Why? Because musicians are insane, and insane things happen to them. Why did we lose Amy Winehouse at 27? Was Debbie Harry really abducted by Ted Bundy as she claims? Is Patti Smith not just the "Godmother of Punk", but also the "Original True Crime Girl"? What really happened the night of the Jay Z nightclub stabbing? What do the Diddy indictments truly reveal? All these stories and more, on artists from every genre and their true crimes, in our massive 260-plus story archive. The Dead, the Stones, Johnny, Willie, Frank, Kurt, Courtney, Gaga, Lana, Taylor, and too many to name. DISGRACELAND is music history come to life through audio storytelling as you've never heard it before, with revealing facts: yes, assassins are the real reason the Beatles quit touring—reclaimed myths: no, Mama Cass didn't die from choking on a ham sandwich––and constant reckoning between art and artist––all told through the lens of true crime. This is the podcast for the self-proclaimed "Disgos", the musically obsessed and the true crime heads; the outsiders, the independent thinkers who know that the best history is the history that gets buried. DISGRACELAND is where host Jake Brennan tells the stories they didn't want told. The kind you'll end up telling someone else. Get ready to uncover hidden truths and buckle up for truly edge-of-your-seat storytelling. New, fully scripted, sound-designed episodes are released every Tuesday. Bonus chat-style episodes where Jake responds to voicemails, texts, and emails from Disgos hit on Thursdays, and "Rewind" episodes from our archive drop on Sundays. DISGRACELAND is not a journalistic podcast. It's an entertainment podcast inspired by true events. Certain dialogue and scenes are dramatized, as is common in scripted entertainment based on real stories. Sources and credits for each episode are available at www.disgracelandpod.com. To unlock ad-free listening, exclusive content, and connect with your fellow Disgos, go to www.disgracelandpod.com to become an All Access member. Rocka Rolla.