Top 7 Cultural Competency Training Examples for Teams

In a globally connected workforce, simply hiring a talented remote team from Latin America isn’t enough to guarantee success. While language skills and technical expertise are foundational, true high-performance collaboration hinges on a deeper, more nuanced understanding: cultural competency. Misaligned communication styles, differing perceptions of time, and unexamined biases can quietly sabotage productivity and team cohesion. This is where targeted training becomes a strategic imperative, not just a feel-good initiative. For growing tech companies, mastering cross-cultural dynamics is a direct investment in operational efficiency and innovation.

This article moves beyond theory to provide a detailed breakdown of practical cultural competency training examples you can implement immediately. We will dissect seven powerful exercises, from immersive simulations to structured storytelling circles, each tailored to bridge cultural gaps within remote teams. You’ll get more than just a list; you’ll receive a strategic blueprint for each activity, complete with actionable takeaways and tactical insights to build a more inclusive and effective organization. For remote teams, cultural competency is a core pillar, and integrating these exercises with proven strategies for managing remote teams effectively is essential for bridging cultural divides and fostering seamless collaboration. Let’s dive into the examples.

1. The Cultural Iceberg Exercise: Uncovering Hidden Norms

The Cultural Iceberg Exercise is a foundational and powerful tool for exploring the visible and invisible aspects of culture. Developed by anthropologist Edward T. Hall, this model visualizes culture as an iceberg: only a small portion (like behaviors, food, and language) is visible above the water, while the vast majority (including values, beliefs, and communication styles) lies hidden beneath the surface. This exercise is one of the most effective cultural competency training examples because it provides a simple yet profound framework for understanding why people from different backgrounds behave and think the way they do.

For a remote team with members across Latin America, this exercise helps deconstruct stereotypes and build deeper empathy. It moves the conversation beyond surface-level observations to the core drivers of behavior.

Strategic Breakdown

The exercise begins by collectively brainstorming visible cultural elements (“above the waterline”) such as music, dress, and holidays. Then, the facilitator guides the team to explore the hidden, below-the-waterline aspects. These include concepts like attitudes towards authority, definitions of family, perceptions of time (e.g., polychronic vs. monochronic), and nonverbal communication cues.

Strategic Insight: The goal isn’t to define a single “Latin American culture” but to reveal the diversity within it. A team member from São Paulo, Brazil, may have a different concept of punctuality and directness than a colleague from Bogotá, Colombia, or Mexico City. The iceberg model makes these internal variations discussable.

Actionable Takeaways & Implementation

To successfully implement this exercise with your remote Latin American team, follow these steps:

• Use a Digital Whiteboard: Tools like Miro or Mural are perfect for remote collaboration. Create a large iceberg template where team members can add digital sticky notes.
• Facilitate with Guided Questions: Don’t just ask, “What are your values?” Instead, use scenario-based questions:
  • “How do you typically approach a deadline? Is it a fixed point or a flexible guideline?” (Uncovers perceptions of time).
  • “If you disagree with your manager, what is the most respectful way to express it?” (Reveals attitudes towards hierarchy).
  • “What does ‘family’ mean to you? Who is included in that circle?” (Explores concepts of community and obligation).
• Focus on ‘Why’: After identifying a hidden norm, the facilitator’s most important job is to ask, “Why do you think this is?” This encourages storytelling and personal reflection, which builds connection and understanding far more effectively than a simple list of traits.

2. Privilege Walk Exercise: Visualizing Systemic Advantage

The Privilege Walk is a deeply impactful experiential exercise designed to visually represent how societal privileges affect our lives. Participants stand in a line and take a step forward or backward in response to a series of statements about their life experiences, which often touch upon race, gender, socioeconomic status, and other identity markers. The resulting physical arrangement in the room provides a stark, tangible illustration of systemic inequality, making it one of the more profound cultural competency training examples for fostering empathy and awareness.

For a remote team with diverse members from various socioeconomic backgrounds across Latin America, this exercise can powerfully highlight unseen advantages and disadvantages that influence workplace dynamics. It moves beyond abstract discussions of “privilege” to a shared, visceral experience.

Strategic Breakdown

The exercise is facilitated by reading about 15-20 statements. Examples include: “If you are a white person, take one step forward,” or “If you have ever had to skip a meal because your family could not afford it, take one step back.” Participants are instructed to not speak during the walk itself, allowing them to observe their position relative to others. The power of the exercise comes not just from the movement, but from the silent reflection and the debrief that follows.

Strategic Insight: The key is to frame this not as a “game of oppression Olympics” but as an illustration of systems. It’s crucial to emphasize that being at the front does not mean someone hasn’t worked hard, and being at the back doesn’t mean they aren’t resilient. The goal is to see the invisible currents that either help or hinder people on their professional journeys.

Actionable Takeaways & Implementation

This exercise requires a high degree of psychological safety and expert facilitation. For a remote team, it can be adapted effectively:

• Use a Virtual Grid: On a video call, have participants turn their cameras on and use a numbered grid background or simply a spreadsheet. The facilitator calls out the statements, and individuals privately track their “steps” on their own sheet. At the end, they can anonymously share their final number in a poll or chat.
• Adapt Statements for Context: Customize the statements to be relevant to your team’s lived experiences. For a Latin American team, questions could relate to skin color (colorism), access to private vs. public education, speaking English without a foreign accent, or having family connections in business.
• Prioritize the Debrief: The discussion afterward is the most critical part. Use prompts to guide reflection:
  • “What did it feel like to be at the front/middle/back of the room?”
  • “Which statement surprised you or made you think differently?”
  • “How might these unearned advantages or disadvantages show up in our day-to-day teamwork?”
• Ensure Opt-Outs and Support: Clearly state that participation is voluntary and participants can opt-out at any time without question. Having a mental health professional or HR representative available for private support is highly recommended.

3. Cross-Cultural Simulation Games

Cross-cultural simulation games are immersive, role-playing activities that place participants into different fictional “cultures,” each with its own unique set of rules, values, and communication styles. Games like BaFá BaFá or Barnga thrust participants into scenarios where they must interact with others whose norms are fundamentally different from their own. This experiential approach is one of the most impactful cultural competency training examples because it allows individuals to feel the disorientation, frustration, and eventual insight that comes with cross-cultural encounters in a controlled, low-stakes environment.

For a remote team with members from diverse Latin American backgrounds, these simulations are invaluable. They move beyond theoretical discussion and create a shared, memorable experience that highlights subconscious biases and communication missteps, paving the way for more effective real-world collaboration.

Strategic Breakdown

The simulation typically divides the group into two or more cultures. Each group learns its own set of rules, some of which are explicitly contradictory to the other group’s norms (e.g., one culture values direct eye contact while another finds it disrespectful). Participants then interact, attempting to achieve a goal, like trading cards or completing a task, without being told the other culture’s rules. The initial interactions are often filled with confusion, misinterpretation, and judgment.

Strategic Insight: The most profound learning does not happen during the game itself, but in the facilitated debrief afterward. The goal is to connect the feelings of confusion or being misunderstood during the simulation to real-life work scenarios. For instance, a Colombian team member’s indirect communication style might be misinterpreted as indecisiveness by a more direct Brazilian colleague; the simulation provides a framework to discuss these differences without personal accusation.

Actionable Takeaways & Implementation

To effectively run a cross-cultural simulation with your remote Latin American team, consider these steps:

• Adapt for a Virtual Setting: Games like Barnga can be adapted for online play using breakout rooms and digital card decks. The key is ensuring the rules for each “culture” are clear and the technology facilitates, rather than hinders, the interaction.
• Facilitate a Structured Debrief: The post-game discussion is critical. Use a guided debriefing model:
  • Phase 1 (Feelings): “How did you feel when you first visited the other culture? What words come to mind?” (Common answers: confused, frustrated, unwelcome).
  • Phase 2 (Observations): “What did you notice about their behavior? What rules did you think they were following?” (This reveals assumptions).
  • Phase 3 (Application): “When at work have you ever felt a similar sense of misunderstanding? How can we apply this lesson to our project communications?”
• Focus on Suspending Judgment: The core takeaway is learning to pause before judging behavior that seems “wrong” or “illogical.” The facilitator should emphasize that in the simulation, as in real life, everyone is behaving logically according to their own cultural rules. The challenge is not to judge but to understand the underlying “why.”

4. Unconscious Bias Training Workshops: From Awareness to Action

Unconscious bias workshops are interactive sessions designed to help individuals recognize and mitigate the hidden, automatic stereotypes that influence their behavior and decisions. Popularized by researchers at Project Implicit and companies like Google, these workshops go beyond conscious prejudice to address the subtle, systemic biases that can impact hiring, promotions, and daily interactions. This method is one of the most vital cultural competency training examples because it provides a scientific framework for understanding our brain’s shortcuts and gives teams practical tools to counteract them.

For a remote team with members from different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds across Latin America, this training is crucial. It helps explain why gut feelings in hiring might favor candidates from familiar backgrounds or why feedback might be delivered differently to team members, creating an environment of greater equity and psychological safety.

Strategic Breakdown

The workshop typically starts by introducing the neuroscience behind unconscious bias, explaining it as a cognitive survival mechanism rather than a moral failing. This framing reduces defensiveness and opens participants up to self-reflection. Activities often include confidential self-assessments, like the Implicit Association Test (IAT), followed by group discussions of anonymized results or hypothetical scenarios.

Strategic Insight: The focus must shift from individual blame to systemic solutions. A workshop that only points out biases can backfire. The true goal is to show how these individual biases manifest in organizational processes like resume screening, performance reviews, or meeting dynamics, and then co-create new, more equitable processes.

Actionable Takeaways & Implementation

To ensure your unconscious bias workshop drives real change for your Latin American team, follow these steps:

• Integrate Local Context: Use case studies relevant to Latin America. For instance, discuss biases related to nationality (e.g., Argentinian vs. Brazilian stereotypes), accent, educational institution prestige, or socioeconomic indicators that might appear on a CV.
• Teach Bias Interruption Techniques: Provide simple, memorable “if-then” plans.
  • “If I find myself making a quick judgment in an interview, then I will pause and ask a structured, competency-based question to get more data.” (Promotes objective evaluation).
  • “If I notice a colleague is consistently interrupted in a meeting, then I will use a phrase like, ‘I’d like to hear the rest of what [Name] was saying.’” (Creates allyship).
• Focus on Systems, Not Just Souls: The most effective training connects bias awareness to process changes. After the workshop, implement systemic improvements like anonymized resume reviews, structured interview panels with diverse members, and clear criteria for promotions to hardwire fairness into your operations.

5. Cultural Mentorship and Storytelling Circles

Cultural Mentorship and Storytelling Circles move beyond one-off training events to foster sustained, relationship-based learning. This approach pairs individuals from different cultural backgrounds for mentorship and complements it with group sessions where team members share personal stories. This method is one of the most impactful cultural competency training examples because it creates authentic connections and builds psychological safety, transforming abstract cultural concepts into lived human experiences.

For a remote team with members across Latin America, this structure provides a safe, ongoing forum to discuss nuanced cultural realities. It helps colleagues from places like Santiago, Chile, and Montevideo, Uruguay, build genuine rapport by understanding the personal context behind their professional styles.

Strategic Breakdown

The program is dual-faceted. The mentorship component pairs a senior team member with a junior one (or peers from different countries), focusing on navigating the company’s micro-culture and broader cross-cultural challenges. Storytelling circles are facilitator-led group sessions where participants respond to prompts about their cultural upbringing, traditions, or experiences of feeling like an “outsider,” creating a tapestry of shared vulnerability and insight.

Strategic Insight: The power of this model lies in reciprocity. Unlike traditional training, it is not a top-down information dump. A mentor from Mexico City might learn just as much about regional communication norms from their mentee in Panama City as the mentee learns about corporate navigation. This two-way exchange flattens hierarchy and validates every individual’s cultural experience.

Actionable Takeaways & Implementation

To launch a successful mentorship and storytelling program for your remote Latin American team, consider these steps:

• Provide a Clear Framework: Don’t leave it to chance. Equip both mentors and mentees with a guide that includes conversation starters, goals for the first 90 days, and clear boundaries. Emphasize that the goal is mutual learning, not performance evaluation.
• Structure Storytelling with Thematic Prompts: For group circles, use specific, non-intrusive prompts to encourage sharing. Examples include:
  • “Share a story about a holiday or tradition that is deeply meaningful to you and why.”
  • “Describe a time you experienced a cultural misunderstanding and what you learned from it.”
  • “What is a common stereotype about your home country or city that you’d like to correct?”
• Celebrate the Connections: Publicly (with permission) acknowledge the program’s successes. Share anonymized insights or positive testimonials in a company-wide newsletter or a team meeting. This builds momentum and demonstrates the value the organization places on deep cultural connection.

6. Cultural Food and Tradition Sharing Events: Connecting Through Shared Rituals

Cultural Food and Tradition Sharing Events are interactive sessions where team members present and discuss food, celebrations, and customs from their backgrounds. These are not just virtual potlucks; they are structured dialogues designed to explore the history and personal meaning behind cultural practices. This approach is one of the more engaging cultural competency training examples because it uses the universal languages of food and celebration as a gateway to deeper cultural understanding and connection.

For a remote team with members across Latin America, an event like this can transform abstract cultural concepts into tangible, shared experiences. It creates a space where colleagues can showcase a part of their identity that might not surface during typical project meetings, fostering a strong sense of community and belonging.

Strategic Breakdown

The event is designed to move beyond surface-level sharing. Instead of simply having someone show a picture of arepas or empanadas, the facilitator guides a conversation around the “why.” A team member from Venezuela might explain how making arepas is a daily family ritual, while a colleague from Argentina might share that empanadas are central to Sunday family gatherings. This links a food item to core cultural values like family, community, and tradition.

Strategic Insight: The key is to connect the tradition to a core value. The goal isn’t just to learn that Brazilians celebrate Festa Junina, but to understand the underlying values of community, harvest, and gratitude it represents. This reframes the event from a simple “show-and-tell” to a meaningful lesson in cultural values.

Actionable Takeaways & Implementation

To host a successful virtual food and tradition sharing event with your remote Latin American team, follow these steps:

• Structure with Thematic Months: Dedicate a month to a specific country or region represented on your team. This allows for a deeper dive and prevents the event from feeling rushed or superficial.
• Use a Storytelling Framework: Ask presenters to frame their tradition around a specific structure:
  • “What is this tradition and where does it come from?” (Provides historical context).
  • “What is a personal memory you have associated with it?” (Builds emotional connection).
  • “What core value (e.g., family, community, hospitality) does this tradition represent for you and your culture?” (Connects the practice to the “below the waterline” part of the cultural iceberg).
• Create a Digital Recipe Book: After the event, compile the shared recipes and stories into a team PDF. This serves as a lasting artifact of the shared experience and is one of many remote employee engagement activities that strengthen team bonds long-term. You can find more ideas in our guide about remote employee engagement activities.

7. Cultural Communication Style Workshops

Cultural Communication Style Workshops are focused training sessions designed to demystify how communication patterns differ across cultures. These workshops move beyond language fluency to tackle the nuances of direct versus indirect feedback, high-context versus low-context messaging, and varying interpretations of nonverbal cues. This approach is one of the most vital cultural competency training examples because effective communication is the bedrock of collaboration, especially in a text-heavy remote environment.

For a multinational tech firm with teams spanning from Argentina to Mexico, understanding these differences is not just a soft skill; it’s a strategic necessity. A direct, concise email from a German colleague might be perceived as efficient in one culture but blunt or rude in another, creating friction that erodes trust and productivity.

Strategic Breakdown

The workshop’s core is built on frameworks like Erin Meyer’s “The Culture Map” and Edward T. Hall’s high-context/low-context spectrum. It starts by introducing these concepts, helping participants identify their own default communication styles. The facilitator then uses interactive scenarios to illustrate how these styles play out in common workplace situations, such as giving project feedback, running meetings, or negotiating deadlines.

Strategic Insight: The objective isn’t to force everyone into a single communication style but to develop “style-switching” capabilities. It’s about teaching a team member from Buenos Aires, a typically high-context culture, how to decode a low-context message from a US counterpart, and vice versa. This builds adaptive communicators who can adjust their approach based on the audience and situation, preventing misinterpretation.

Actionable Takeaways & Implementation

To run an impactful communication workshop for your remote Latin American team, consider these steps:

• Use Real-World Scenarios: Create role-playing exercises based on actual emails, Slack threads, or meeting transcripts from your company (with identifying details removed). Have pairs practice rewriting a “direct” message to be more “indirect” and relationship-oriented, and vice versa.
• Leverage Assessment Tools: Start with a simple self-assessment based on Erin Meyer’s eight scales. This gives participants a tangible starting point for understanding their own preferences and seeing where they fall relative to their colleagues.
• Create a ‘Communication Playbook’: Conclude the workshop by co-creating a simple, one-page guide for the team. This playbook can include key phrases for giving feedback respectfully, guidelines for meeting agendas, and tips for clear digital communication.

Cultural Competency Training Methods Comparison

From Training to Transformation: Integrating Cultural competency Daily

The journey from awareness to genuine cultural fluency is not completed in a single workshop or simulation. The diverse cultural competency training examples we’ve explored, from the revealing Cultural Iceberg Exercise to dynamic Cross-Cultural Simulation Games, are powerful catalysts. They are not endpoints but strategic starting points for a profound organizational shift. The true objective is to move beyond isolated training events and weave these principles into the very fabric of your daily operations, transforming your remote Latin American teams from collections of individuals into a cohesive, high-performing global unit.

This transformation hinges on a commitment to continuous learning and application. The initial “aha!” moment from an Unconscious Bias Workshop must evolve into a conscious, daily practice of questioning assumptions. The insights gained from a Privilege Walk should translate into more equitable project assignments and inclusive decision-making processes.

Key Takeaways for Lasting Impact

To ensure your training investment yields long-term results, focus on these core principles:

• Consistency Over Intensity: One-off training sessions can create temporary buzz but rarely lead to lasting change. A sustained program that combines different methods, like pairing a Communication Style Workshop with ongoing Cultural Mentorship Circles, creates a continuous learning loop. This approach keeps the conversation alive and relevant.
• Action-Oriented Learning: Passive learning is not enough. Each training example must be tied to concrete actions. After a workshop, leaders should ask, “How will we apply this in our team meetings tomorrow? How will this change our feedback process?” This ensures that insights translate into observable behaviors.
• Leadership Embodiment: The most critical factor for success is executive buy-in and active participation. When C-level executives and team leads model culturally competent behaviors, it sends a powerful message that this is a core organizational value, not just an HR initiative.

Your Actionable Next Steps

Transitioning from theory to practice requires a clear plan. Begin by assessing where your organization currently stands and identify the most pressing cultural gaps.

1. Start Small and Scale: You don’t need to implement all seven examples at once. Select one or two exercises, like the Cultural Iceberg or a Food and Tradition Sharing event, that align with your immediate goals. Gather feedback, measure the impact, and then incrementally introduce more complex training.
2. Embed into Onboarding: Integrate a foundational cultural competency module into your onboarding process for all new hires, especially those working with your Latin American teams. This sets a clear standard from day one.
3. Create Lasting Resources: Don’t let valuable training content disappear after a live session. Consider developing a library of resources that employees can access anytime. This is where producing engaging training videos becomes a strategic asset, allowing you to capture expert-led sessions and create self-paced micro-learning modules that reinforce key concepts.

Ultimately, investing in these cultural competency training examples is an investment in your organization’s future. It unlocks higher levels of collaboration, innovation, and employee engagement. By fostering an environment where every team member feels seen, respected, and understood, you build a resilient and truly global organization poised for sustainable growth and success.

Ready to bridge cultural gaps and unlock the full potential of your talent in Latin America? Nearshore Business Solutions specializes in building and managing high-performing remote teams with a deep understanding of the region’s cultural nuances. We help you move beyond training to create a truly integrated and culturally fluent workforce. Explore our solutions to see how we can help you build your team.