The BASIS Leadership Programme. Leading multicultural teams.
Practical leadership and management training for team leaders, senior managers and CEOs of multicultural and international teams, whose people don’t all work the same way. Three levels. One-to-one. Built around your real team.
Lead your diverse team more efficiently: clearer communication, decisions that stick and less time lost to friction — built up session by session, with your real team.
Most managers were trained to lead people like themselves
Your team isn’t like that. One person pushes back in every meeting; another never says a word and then doesn’t deliver. Feedback that motivates one person flattens another. Deadlines mean a fixed date to some and a rough target to others.
None of this is bad performance. It’s cultural friction: the gap between how different people expect work to get done. Left alone, cultural friction costs teams time, trust and money. Handled well, the same differences become the team’s advantage.
This programme teaches managers to handle it, one practical step at a time.
Culture is more than a passport
Culture is everything that has shaped how someone works. Nationality and language are one layer. So are profession, previous employers, sector, education, generation and the places a person has lived and worked. An engineer from a family firm and an engineer from a tech start-up bring different working cultures to the same team, even if they grew up in the same city.
That’s why this programme is for any diverse team — not only international ones.
National and regional
Directness, hierarchy, time, trust
Professional
What counts as rigour, evidence and “done”
Organisational
Decision habits, pace, appetite for risk
Sector
Rules, accountability, vocabulary
Education and generation
Attitudes to authority, preferred channels
Life path
Migration, languages, growing up between cultures
Three levels. Take one, or take the path.
Leading across difference
For new and first-time team leadersYou’ll learn to understand your own style and how you react under pressure, then communicate, set goals, delegate, give feedback, coach and run meetings in ways that work for everyone in the room — and leave with a written operating agreement for your team.
BASIS focus: Build Safety · Acknowledge
Explore Level 1 →Managing friction and performance
For experienced managers of mixed teamsTrust, conflict, decisions, performance, influence and remote working — plus an applied project on a real friction point in your team.
BASIS focus: Slow Down · Integrate
Explore Level 2 →Culture as a leadership asset
For directors, senior leaders and CEOsHow your leadership is read across the organisation, how to set direction and lead change, how to hire, develop and keep people in a diverse workforce, and how to handle values and ethical grey areas across sites.
BASIS focus: Sustain the Practice
Explore Level 3 →All three levels together: €6,500
Book a discovery callEvery session ends with something you do on Monday
This isn’t a lecture series. Each session follows the same rhythm:
Review
What happened when you tried last week’s action?
One idea
A single concept, explained briefly.
Your situation
Applied to a real person, meeting or decision in your team.
Build the tool
A template, script or checklist, filled in for your team.
Commit
One specific action for the coming week.
Then back to step 1 next session
You keep a Leadership Practice Log throughout. It’s how sessions turn into habits.
Between sessions: you can reach Brendan on Microsoft Teams with questions as they come up, so you’re not waiting for the next session when something happens with your team.
Measure the change
If you want evidence of the change, your team can complete the BTQ Team Pulse before and after each level: ten short questions on how they experience your leadership, including clarity, feedback, fairness, trust and follow-through. At the end they also retake the psychological safety questions from the Cultural Assessment Tool, so you can see whether people feel safer to speak up.
You see what changed, in your team’s own words and numbers. Your employer sees the return on the programme. It’s optional: the programme works without it, and you can add it later.
Your team’s profile, included
If you choose, your whole team completes the Cultural Assessment Tool before your first session. You see how your team actually prefers to work, not how you assume it does. Then Brendan runs a 60-minute debrief with you and your team together, so everyone sees the differences and can start working with them.
Involving your team is optional. You can take the programme on your own and bring your team in later, or not at all.
- Optional: you decide whether and when your team takes part
- Included for teams of up to 10 people
- €60 for each additional person, who joins the same team debrief
- Each person receives their own profile. As a manager, you see the combined team view, and individual profiles only when people choose to share them. Profiles are never used for appraisal.
Built on BASIS
Build Safety
Level 1Acknowledge
Level 1Slow Down to Speed Up
Level 2Integrate Perspectives
Level 2Sustain the Practice
Level 3BASIS is the framework behind all of Brendan’s work with teams: Build Safety, Acknowledge, Slow Down to Speed Up, Integrate Perspectives, Sustain the Practice. Level 1 builds safety and acknowledges difference. Level 2 slows down to speed up and integrates perspectives. Level 3 makes it last across the organisation.
It draws on peer-reviewed intercultural research and on years of practice, but the programme stays practical: every idea arrives with a tool you can use.
Leadership training online, in Barcelona or at your office
Online
Six sessions, every one to two weeks.
In person in Barcelona
Six sessions, every one to two weeks.
Intensive week at your office
Five consecutive days, three hours a day, plus two online follow-ups. Travel and expenses are charged at cost.
Prices
Foundation
€1,650One-to-one · online or Barcelona Founding price €1,250Intensive week at your office: €2,750Practitioner
€1,950One-to-one · online or Barcelona Founding price €1,450Intensive week at your office: €3,250Strategic
€3,600One-to-one · online or Barcelona Founding price €2,700Intensive week at your office: €4,500All three levels
€6,500One-to-one · online or Barcelona Founding price €4,900Intensive weeks priced per levelFounding places
The first five participants join at a founding price — €1,250 / €1,450 / €2,700, or €4,900 for all three — in return for honest feedback and a short testimonial.
Prices exclude VAT. Intensive weeks: travel and expenses extra. Payment: 50% on booking and 50% before session 4, or 5% off when paid in full. Group and in-company cohorts: get in touch. See the programme terms. Optional team CAT profiles and a team debrief are included for teams of up to 10; €60 per additional person.
Who you’ll work with
Brendan Thomas Quinn is an independent cross-cultural consultant and trainer based in Barcelona, working with companies across Spain and worldwide. He began as a project manager in the UK, then spent nine years as a CEO leading organisations in Ghana, Burkina Faso and Togo. He now lectures in cross-cultural management and communication at Harbour Space University and SBS Swiss Business School. He’s a member of SIETAR Europe and hosts the Cultural Friction podcast.
He also works with leaders through coaching and mentoring and runs cross-cultural training workshops for teams.
- Project manager, UK
- CEO in West Africa, 9 years
- Independent consultant · Spain & worldwide
- Harbour Space University
- SBS Swiss Business School
- SIETAR Europe member
- Cultural Friction podcast
Certificate
Each level ends with a certificate of completion showing the hours, the outcomes achieved and a unique certificate number.
Is this only about culture?
No. Every level covers the core skills of management and leadership: goals, delegation, feedback, coaching, performance, influence, direction and change, managing yourself under pressure, and ethics and integrity. The difference is that you learn them through the lens of a diverse team, so they work for everyone you lead.
Does my team have to take part?
No. Involving your team is optional. You can take the whole programme on your own, using your own Cultural Assessment Tool profile and what you see in your team. If you want, your team can complete the CAT and the Team Pulse, at the start or later on.
Will I see my team members’ individual profiles?
Only if they choose to share them. Each person gets their own profile; you see the combined team view. The profiles are there to help the team work together, never for performance reviews.
Is this coaching?
No. It’s a structured leadership and management programme with set outcomes, tools and a certificate. It’s delivered one-to-one, so it feels personal, but every session follows the curriculum. For open-ended support, see coaching and mentoring.
Do I need to start at Level 1?
No. Each level stands alone. We agree the right starting point on the discovery call, using the Cultural Assessment Tool.
My team is all from one country. Is this for me?
Probably. Differences in profession, company background and generation cause as much friction as nationality does.
Can I contact you between sessions?
Yes. You can reach Brendan on Microsoft Teams with questions as they come up, so you’re not waiting for the next session when something happens with your team.
Can my company pay?
Yes, and most participants’ employers do. You’ll get an invoice in the company’s name.
Can you run this for a group of our managers?
Yes. In-company cohorts of 6–10 are available on request, online, in Barcelona or at your office. For shorter formats, see our cross-cultural training workshops.
How is this different from a business-school course?
A week at business school gives you insight away from work. This programme changes how you lead your actual team, week by week, over several months.
Start with a conversation
A 30-minute discovery call to talk about your team and find the right level.
Download the programme brochure (PDF) to share with your team or HR. Read more about leading multicultural teams or start with the free Field Guide, The Silence Trap.