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“Yes, and…” Improv skills for intercultural communication
Improvisational theater, or improv, is a form of live theater in which the plot of a scene is unscripted and made up in the moment. You may be familiar with the format from populair tv shows such as Whose Line Is It Anyway. With its emphasis on spontaneity and adaptability, improv can teach us a great deal about navigating day-to-day interactions, and specifically intercultural encounters. In this article, I list some key lessons that I learned in my own improv…
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Western thought is Western, not universal
After I graduated from high school, I chose to study Philosophy. I wanted to know the heights of human understanding. I wanted to pick history’s greatest brains, all the way from the ancient Greeks through the Middle Ages, Enlightenment and modern times. And from Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas and from Rousseau to Nietzsche, it appeared that the most brilliant thinkers of all time had all been born in Europe. When I became president of the study association of the Philosophy…
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Interculturalists, how can we use the study of personality?
As intercultural trainers, we often make sure to provide the disclaimer that culture is not an explanation for everything: each individual is different. And then we move on to talk about culture, because that is our expertise. In a parallel universe, there exists another multi-million-dollar industry: of personality typology assessments and trainings. These help organisations and their employees understand how preferences differ and how teams can work better together. Sounds familiar? The point of departure of both intercultural and personality…
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Why learning about culture and personality should go hand in hand
The tagline of this website is ‘a website about culture and personality’. I believe that learning about culture and personality should go together. Here are three reasons why I think they are inseparable. 1. Separately they paint an incomplete picture Intercultural communication trainings can sometimes appear deterministic: if you know a person’s culture, you know how to negotiate a business deal with them. But of course, any group or culture is made up of a multitude of different people with…
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Cultural dimensions: masculinity vs. femininity (US vs. the Netherlands)
For a while I had a therapist overseas. From my home in the Netherlands, I scheduled video call sessions with a counselor in the US Midwest. We made our time zones work out and I spoke her language, but for long we weren’t aware of another barrier: cultural differences. In the beginning, my therapist kept suggesting that I should work on my confidence and self-love. I kept asking her why she thought that: I just did not know how to…
