Archive for the ‘Culture’ Category

It’s so appropriate that I’m writing this article for you on a trip to Singapore. It is such a culturally diverse country, with influences from all over Asia – Malaysia, China, India, Singapore itself as well as the UK, Australia and the US as well as all the other people who live and work here from all over the world….and yet it works!

You see it’s all about appreciating that we are all different even those of us from the same cultural background. Understanding that no one person has had the same experiences, so how can we possibly know what anyone else sees, hears and feels?

This last point was driven home to me ten years ago when my father lay dying and his 3 girls – of which I was one – and his wife sat at his bedside going through our own separate emotions. As he drew his last breath we all reacted differently, which was a shock to me as we shared the same dad, so doesn’t that mean the same emotions?

Yes the main big ones of sadness and loss but even these we experience to different degrees due to our very own personal experiences. What I hadn’t appreciated was that we all had very different experiences, even if they had been shared; we are all very different human beings.

We can never fully or truly understanding what anyone feels or is going through, as we have not lived their life experiences. We can however empathise with them based on our own experiences, as long as we respectfully accept that we don’t actually know what they see, hear or feel.

When we talk about Diversity we usually refer to; variety, mixture, range or assortment. In a people context it’s about differences in;

• Skin, hair, eye colour
• Body, faces and limb size
• Language, cultural and religious varieties
• Skills, learning and belief mixtures
• Age, gender and sexual orientation

This is not an exhaustive list just a number of things that conjure up in our minds when we think about the word diversity in human terms.

Miscommunication has been studied and shown to be the main issue in most workplace and social interactions, which is due to the point made above; where no two individuals ever experience events in exactly the same way.

When was the last time someone said to you – or you said to someone else – “I know how you feel, I had that happen to me …….” It should be all about the other person not about us. They usually just want to talk…..let them. Listening is the key to any great communication.

With that in mind: how do we then Celebrate Diversity?

Celebration is all about being joyous and festive.  Diversity is about differences and variety.

The answer is very easy – Enjoy and have fun learning about everyone we meet and have interactions with, rather than it being a competition about who knows best or the most.

When we listen and learn we are able to empathise much more effectively and others receive great benefit. We in turn receive new perspectives and learning as well as a deep joyous feeling….what more could you ask for?

That’s what’s so great about Celebrating Diversity!

I read an article the other day in the business section of a newspaper and the journalist was discussing the bad management of banks and financial houses that are affecting the economies all over the world.

One aspect that sticks out for me is the lack of accountability these men/women in the top jobs accept. A large proportion of them are leaving with very large settlements, blaming other factors that were unseen and yet if you or I had gone into our managers and proposed doing business with extremely back debtors we would be kicked out of the office or worse, company!

Greed and a fast buck is a big driver to extremely large risk taking.

Unfortunately I keep seeing children being brought up the same way; Money is easy to get a hold of, mum and/or dad provide it or worse they take it from others.

If things don’t go their own way, mum and/or dad step in to fight their cause;

And if something goes wrong there is always someone else to blame. So risk and especially high risk is the easy path and pays off well at times too.

Kids nowadays have things a lot easier and so they should do, however they are also lacking in morals and values e.g. accountability, trustworthiness, honesty, challenge. Parents are the ones who need to help children form good values and morals to live by.

Kids are also more insecure and lacking in confidence – if someone was doing all the difficult things for you and you learn nothing from mistakes because YOU DON’T make them, then you would also be lacking in confidence and insecure.

Who is really at the heart of the world crisis?

So are we helping our children or hindering them? That is the big question!

Did you notice that when the Olympics were on, the media was leading with positive stories?  So what has made the big difference? The reason is investment, pure and simple.   I’m not just talking about investment in the athletes themselves, but also in the best trainers, coaches, nutritionists, physiotherapists etc. to support them.

You see, if we don’t invest in our people we will not get the best that we or they can give.  And that means investing time as well as finance!  We always make excuses for spending time and money on other activities that will never pay off for us in performance, and in turn financially, rather than spending time and money on the development and growth of our people.

You can see, over the years we have been watching the Olympics, that we had become hopeful but not expecting of our athletes.  They had very few inspiring athletes before them.  However, the GOLD medals will have many effects on: the athletes who are part of the team – hence we are seeing some very unexpected results too; the nation as a whole, who start to feel pride; and on the youngsters who now have even more inspirations to be guided by – our future Olympic champions.

Without hope, inspiration, or expectation

…it is impossible to achieve.  These athletes don’t always win, but they know how it feels to win and they know how to learn from not winning but improving on their last results.

If you see everything as a result – some results which we wanted and expected, others which we didn’t want and didn’t expect – then we learn from all our results, especially the ones we didn’t want.  It is in allowing mistakes (which is happening less and less these days) that we learn the most and can then go on to achieve great things!

The team aspect is mega-important here too.  When you have a group of individuals, some of whom may even be the only athlete competing in a certain discipline, but they feel part of a bigger movement all working towards the same common goal (winning more Gold Medals in this case), then the individuals work harder to achieve for others than they would just for themselves.

How many times have you heard a winner say, “this is for my…mum and dad, my coach, the team….”?  Lewis Hamilton, the young Formula 1 driver, says thanks to his team every time he wins.  You see it always takes a team of people to win; and this is true even if you are an individual running a company, because you need other people to give you business, you need others to supply you.  Never under-estimate the power of that team spirit for giving momentum to that winning feeling, as has been shown in Beijing!