Week #3
October 16, 2008
I landed on the runaway just short of the end of class. I did not get to attend, yet was very happy to read the dialogue and blogs from everyone, which brought me up to speed on the 9/20 class.
I did however, have a wonderful time in Italy, for professional purposes. I did not have time for the personal purposes. There is one conversation that particularly interested me, and I would like to share.
The Director of the Center of Excellence in Europe is a woman from Germany. She is known to be a very intense, stern individual She sent me a very direct email on Friday, before I left, which had me a slight bit nervous in meeting her. I was nervous to meet this powerful woman, in front of the training managers of all the countries in the Europe diagnostic market.
On Wednesday, I introduced myself at her meeting. She is an attractive woman, that dresses very conservatively. She shook my hand with a very strong hand shake, and started the meeting. She rapidly progressed through the meeting, making everyone accountable and responsible for deadlines. We flew through the day and advanced onto dinner.
At dinner, she told me a story of a workshop she attended before she was promoted. It was a cultural awareness workshop. She was with about 10-15 people who were all Germans. They pride themselves in being prompt and direct. The facilitator was 30 minutes late, purposely. The facilitator watched from a balcony as the participants became enraged. Once the facilitator entered, the participants questioned her motive, then acted like nothing was wrong.
The facilitator was German and understood the stress the participants endured, due to cultural practices and habits. Throughout the length of the workshop, they were introduced to Spanish siestas and Italians customary lunch with wine or beer.
At the end of the dinner, I not only appreciated this woman for her strength and intellect, but for her directiveness, and her ability to understand the other managers for their cultural differences and bring them together as a team.
Constructivism at it’s finest!
