The Learning Lab
Cross cultural training, open to everyone
This is the core material from the workshops we run for global leadership teams, written up in full and free to use. Same theory, same frameworks, same tools our clients work through in the room.
Peak Potential is Jay Vergara and Matt Gates, learning and development specialists with more than thirty years between them. We've designed and delivered training inside global manufacturers, listed technology companies and public sector teams across Asia, Europe and North America.
- 30+ yrs
- Combined learning and development experience
- 3
- Continents of client delivery
- ICF
- Certified coaches on every engagement
- 25+
- Peer reviewed studies cited in the material
Open access
Everything here is free to read, print and run with your own team. No account, and no catch. Keep our credit on it, and if you quote or adapt it, link back.
Built for your organization
What's published here is the theory. We shape it around your mission, your values and the actual roles your people do, then deliver it live. Talk to us about that.
Courses, guides and tools
Cross cultural communication
Most of our material sits here, and most of it is country specific for a reason. A polite no in Tokyo and a blunt correction in Stuttgart need different reflexes.
Choose a culture
Each hub holds the course, the guide, the tools and the reading for that country.
Japan
A seven module course, a field guide written from Tokyo, five printable tools, and the articles behind them.
1 course · 5 tools · 4 articles →
Germany
Directness, task first trust, and the five gaps that open when Germany and Japan work together.
1 field guide · 4 articles →
Or start with something that works anywhere
These four teach the underlying mechanics rather than one country's habits.
Working with a culture that isn't here yet? Tell us which one and it moves up the list.
Articles
Leadership and management
Psychological safety, humility, and developing the people you cannot afford to lose. Courses and tools are being built; the research writing is here now.
Articles
Each one is built on a peer reviewed study.
Articles
Learning and development
Why training does not stick, what transfer actually takes, and where AI genuinely helps an L&D team. Courses and tools are being built; the research writing is here now.
Articles
Each one is built on a peer reviewed study.
- Your AI Training Is Working. Your Workflows Aren't.
- Why Most "Action Learning" Programs Don't Actually Develop Leaders
- The Part of Action Learning Most Programs Leave Out
- Most Training Doesn't Stick. The Fix Takes 45 Minutes.
- Why Your AI Rollout Is Creating More Work, Not Less
- Most Corporate Training Produces Knowledge. Expertise Requires Something Else.
Video and assessment
Also here
Two things that sit alongside the Learning Lab rather than inside it. One is the same teaching in video form, the other is the validated assessment behind the frameworks.
About these resources
Free to use, and ours
Everything in the Learning Lab was written and designed by Peak Potential Consulting. It comes out of the workshops we deliver to relocating executives and global leadership teams, and it was built by Jay Vergara and Matt Gates, learning and development specialists with more than thirty years between them.
Use it. Print it, hand it round your team, put a phrase bank on the wall, run the 90 Day Canvas with someone who's relocating. All we ask is that the credit stays with it, so if you share, quote or adapt any of it, name Peak Potential Consulting and link back to this page. For use inside a paid training programme, or if you want to build it into your own materials, talk to us first.
How to credit us
Peak Potential Consulting
peakpotentialconsulting.com
hello@peakpotentialconsulting.com
Copyright
© 2026 Peak Potential Consulting. All rights reserved. Frameworks credited to their original authors where we've built on published work.
All of it is free because reading about culture builds awareness, and awareness is the easy half. When a team needs the behavior to change, that takes live practice, and that's the work we get paid for.