I have been a successful interculturalist for 20+ years and should be a master of international greetings. Yet the more I learn, the more I know ‘it is a dance’, and one I best be fully awake for. Case in point… last week, I approached a female client from Spain. I leaned in to the […]
This past spring, I received a LinkedIn message from a stranger asking if I would be interested in delivering a training program on Canadian business culture to the U.S. Navy, in the Mojave Desert. Hmmm. If this was a scam, it was too interesting to let pass by. Being a Canadian prairie kid, I know […]
Few things make me as happy as going out to the movies. It’s been that way for only about 55 years. Maybe it’s the memory of popcorn on arrival and ice cream bar in departure at the Regina Capitol, with my father, that helps the warm feeling. I miss not seeing Mr. Magoo or another […]
The greatest threat to our world is not global warming or climate change. Our greatest threat is not talking to each other, not trying to understanding each other, and not being able to collaborate – whether that is a disconnect between rich/poor, right/left, east/west, industry/environmental, or otherwise. I doubt Jane Fonda voted for the incoming […]
Go to a Rwandan restaurant, see a Sinhalese singer, befriend a Brazilian, visit Vanuatu – all these may expand your intercultural knowledge and skills; and be fun too. An underestimated place to practice and improve intercultural skills – non-judgement, empathy, active listening, multiple perspectives, bridge building – are interactions with extended family. Within my seemingly […]
In Steven Spielberg’s address to the Harvard Commencement on May 26, 2016, he quoted Michael Crichton, the writer of the Jurassic Park films. “If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree”. An equivalent saying in the intercultural field might be […]
April 3, 2016 Poverty Inc. film by Michael Matheson Miller “Fighting poverty is big business. But who profits the most?” is the tagline for the documentary film “Poverty, Inc.” Ellen and I saw last week. As you might expect, the film offers many examples of NGOs, charitable and government organizations, however well meaning, that end […]