Part of learning how to be a global businessperson is being relaxed about meeting people from lots of different backgrounds. To do this, you need more than the ability to understand English: the values and customs of your business associates as well as recognizing the effect your own cultural background is important.

The Bafabafa game is an intriguing way to give participants a chance to learn about how they respond to people who are different.

Without giving too much away, the basic premise is that the participants are divided into two groups: the Alphans and the Betans. The groups go to separate rooms where they are briefed on the language and rules of their specific culture and practise various customs. This takes about 10 minutes. The fun begins when a visitor from each culture goes to the other side and observes, and if possible tries to interact as though they came from this culture. I’ve facilitated Bafabafa five times now and every time the observers have a different reaction. The visitor then goes back to their own culture and shares what they have seen. The next observers then visit the other culture and the cycle is repeated until everyone has had a chance to how ‘the other half live’.

At the end, the two cultures join together the ‘rules’ are revealed to both sides. We then talk through how it felt to be a participant and being on the ‘outside’. We also talk through strategies that helped people to cope with the initial discomfort. One Frank’s points, ‘Learn to want to learn’, comes up in the discussions of what helped people to cope. The most successful ‘visitors’ were those who ignored the anxiety that comes with feeling different and kept watching and listening as closely as possible to learn about the other side. I was lucky to have a really enthusiastic and open group of students and am looking forward to leading another Bafabafa session again.