Michael Kimmig (born 1965) has worked since 1990 as a trainer and coach; since 2000 he has been living and working in a foreign country. Both in work and private life, he keeps changing between different work contexts and cultures - intercultural communication and co-operation are in the centre of his everyday life.

He trains and coaches individuals and teams who are confronted in their work with different cultural communication and work styles, perspectives and ways of working, attitudes and values. Decoding the cultural backgrounds of (one’s own and others’) behaviour, as well as understanding the dynamics of intercultural encounters are the main aspects of successful intercultural communication and co-operation. The aim of his work as a trainer and coach is to support people not only to be more effective in intercultural settings, but also to enable them to experience this as enrichment.

He brings the following qualifications into his work:

• Experience in designing, organising and running training courses
• Sensitivity and experience in working with intercultural teams and groups
• Experience and competence in coaching individuals, teams and organisations     
• Engagement, creativity and flexibility
• And last but not least: experience of living and working in a foreign country.

As a trainer, Michael Kimmig designs and runs workshops and training events on intercultural competence, he co-ordinates German-Polish long-term training courses for trainers, he trains project co-ordinators and youth leaders of intercultural youth exchanges and guides volunteers doing their social/ecological/cultural service in the frame of the European Voluntary Service.

Themes his seminars and training events cover are:

• Communication, moderation, presentation
• Intercultural communication and co-operation
• Management of teams and projects
• Concepts and methods for seminars and training events

Furthermore, he counsels individuals and organisations concerning concepts and funding of intercultural youth exchanges and coaches international teams in preparing and running their projects.

After his studies of psychology (University Saarbrücken) he continued to raise his qualifications and attended additional courses on intercultural pedagogy (FBF, Nürnberg) solution-focussed counselling (WDÖFF, Bonn) and coaching (transfer e.V. / IJAB e.V.).

Presently Michael Kimmig works mainly as a trainer for the Polish National Agency of Programme YOUTH (Narodowa Agencja Programu MŁODZIEŻ, Warsaw), for the service office transfer (transfer – beratung & qualifizierung, Cologne) and for the German-Polish Youth Office (Deutsch-Polnisches Jugendwerk, Warsaw/Potsdam).

In the frame of the RADIUS-Network, he evaluates materials on intercultural communication of an Erasmus project (University of Applied Sciences, Köln) and he is a lecturer for a university project - the Network of European Administration Management studies (University of Applied Sciences, Berlin / Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań).

His working languages are German (mother tongue), English and Polish.

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Intercultural Glossary

Key elements of intercultural communication and cooperation

Matthias Otten, Alexander Scheitza und Andrea Cnyrim (Hg.):

SIETAR Deutschland - Beiträge zur interkulturellen Zusammenarbeit
Interkulturelle Kompetenz im Wandel

Band 1: Grundlegungen, Konzepte und Diskurse
2007, 328 Seiten, br., 24,00 Euro
ISBN 978-3-88939-899-4

Band 2: Ausbildung, Training und Beratung
2007, 366 Seiten, br., 24,00 Euro
ISBN 978-3-88939-900-7