A strong organisational culture is the key to a successful business to many leaders in business. Therefore, corporate culture plays a key role in supporting business strategy. Organisational culture is, simply put, "the way we do things around here". It's about the ways in which a company conducts itself as a whole, including all it's…
Continue reading ➞ How to align your corporate culture towards business success?
This blog has been discussing intercultural (mis)communication for a few years now. What hasn't had a lot of attention yet though, are the expectations when it comes to the ability of people to engage with traditions and activities of people who come from different cultural backgrounds. Since this subject plays a big rol in intercultural…
In my last blog I discussed intercultural dialogue, and I gave you three practical methods to facilitate opportunities for dialogue: 1. Experiential learning. Get to know your host country. Build traditions together with your team. Highlight cultural aspects of the host country and invite everyone to talk about their cultural backgrounds. 2. Art & music. Encourage people to provoke…
How to facilitate opportunities for dialogue in a culturally diverse team? Making everyone's voice in your team heard and understood by facilitating team building, communication, and open dialogue! This blog provides three different practical methods to facilitate opportunities for dialogue in a culturally diverse team. It also will give insights in cultural peculiarities based on…
Continue reading ➞ Is your team ready for intercultural dialogue?
A while ago I addressed social inclusion, this blog will continue on that subject by expanding the subject to social and cultural diversity and it's implications in the Netherlands. First off, what is social diversity? Social diversity refers to a variety of individuals when it comes to race, religion, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, language, sexual…
Making intercultural communication effective is key when it comes to improving productivity & overall performance in diverse teams. Often enough though, without the intention or even knowing, we sabotage our own effective listening. How do we do this? When you rethink conversations that took place in intercultural settings the level of sabotage can be reduced…
Continue reading ➞ You might sabotage yourself without knowing
In other words, how to create your personal community in the Netherlands? A big question or quest, for all expats arriving in the Netherlands. Although work related passion has let you to this country, most expats don't want hang out solely in the "expat bubble", where to find like minded Duchies though? How to create…
Levels of diversity Did you know that when we talk about diversity we often think about culture? Well cultural diversity definitely is one of the layers of diversity, but there is more to it than culture alone. Culture is actually the outer layer of the diversity paradigm, therefor it's very visible. No wonder this is…
In these hard times, where the world gets tortured with the Corona virus, intercultural communication in the professional life is a daily situation. There is a lot to learn from other countries in these difficult times. But there are so many different approaches, so where to start? It's a hot topic, intercultural communication in business.…
Continue reading ➞ COVID-19 pandemic and cultural differences
According to Wikipedia ethnocentrism is the act of judging another culture based on preconceptions that are found in the values and standards of one's own culture. In the field of intercultural communication this is a major subject. Why? Well, because most of us can only respond to what we perceive based on our own frame…
Dialogue with the Dutch 