Category: Personal Development

Mindful leadership in a multicultural environment – Part I

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Leadership|Jenny Ebermann|Services|Everybody knows that our world seems to spin faster every day; distances become ‘smaller’ and suddenly a student in Norway can interact directly with peers in New Zealand through Social and other Digital Media. Space and time are not important anymore. Information and images can be transferred instantly. You want to know what a hotel is like in one part of the world: no problem, you will find all you need on the internet where many people already left their feedback on what you are looking for. The same applies for goods, products and other services which can rapidly be ordered, delivered, exchanged from one country to another. For the humans living in this world, remote spots on the planet suddenly moved directly into their living rooms through TV, PC or other supports. Nothing seems to have a secret anymore. Even travel has become affordable, meaning that everybody nowadays can visit any location for a correct price and in nearly no time.

The same principle applies to today’s workforce: nobody is bound to employment in their country of origin; applications and CVs can be posted everywhere on the net and connections made to recruiters worldwide. As a direct consequence, people from very different nationalities and backgrounds find themselves coexisting in one and the same office or workplace, not only in multinationals but also in SMEs and elsewhere. In the sports world for example, successful teams around the globe host players from various countries. Only one criteria counts: to be the best in the relevant discipline, no matter where the candidate comes from.

But: what at first glance seems to be exciting and simple, can become rather difficult in the day-to-day practice. Even though continents, languages and people have become ‘closer’ to one another, every single human being has its own culture, behaviour, pace and habits. As a result, business relationships have to take the cultural background of the different partners into account in order to ensure a fruitful collaboration. In short, nowadays a successful and mindful leader has to have much more competencies than social and technical skills. Intercultural competences are equally important and represent a huge challenge in multinational teams. Results are often affected and even hindered by irritation, embarrassment, resentment and conflicts within a team, problems emanating directly from cultural misunderstandings. How can such “disturbances” be overcome in order to establish a  friendly and effective work environment? How can international business be smoothly
conducted, even though people from different cultures are involved?

Leaders and HR often call upon specialised coaches to help them navigate the uncertain waters of intercultural management. How intercultural coaching and coaching in an intercultural management environment can be differentiated and how teams can be trained and coached to efficiently work together will be discussed in the next articles. Stay tuned!

Effectively mastering speeches

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Have you experienced it as well? You know that you have to present in front of a major audience, maybe your company’s leaders will also be present in the room, and already three weeks before the event, you are afraid of that single moment. Well, rest assured, you are not alone; in fact, many of us feel exactly the same and this doesn’t make you a bad speaker.

Even the best and most experienced speakers around the globe though, have to prepare thoroughly what they are going to say and how they are going to interact with their audience. Exactly like acting on stage in a theatre or in front of a camera, all gestures, climaxes, intervals and jokes are carefully studied and planned. Not that there would not be any room left for adaptations or flexibility, no, of course not! An experienced speaker will simply be more at ease coping with unforeseen situations or reactions from the audience as he/she will have a reservoir of anecdotes and stories at hand to fill the gap or bridge the difficult moment.

So, how should you prepare for an important speech? A couple of things to remember when putting your slides or other support materials together:

  • Images tell more than words; use as many images as you can to stress what you are saying, don’t write all you have to say on your slides (why should people listen to you otherwise, they could just read your hand-outs).
  • Your only text should be key messages and take-away points; this will make your speech much stronger.
  • A speech is like a story, it needs a clear, intro, climax and closure; never lose the red thread during your ‘act’, it would confuse your audience.
  • Give examples that ,speak’ to your audience (you should thus know in advance who you are going to address).

And of course:

  • Practice, practice, practice… as many times as it takes to feel safe and confident when you speak. Select somebody to present to, he/she might even give you interesting hints and tips on how to improve yourself.
  • For the important day: choose clothes that you feel comfortable with. This is extremely important! If you are not happy with your looks, how will you be able to convince your audience?

Last but not least, when you present, please remember to:

  • Speak slowly and clearly; even when time runs out (maybe something unforeseen happened): a good speaker knows how to shorten a speech and will still be able to make his/her point.

With this in mind, your speech will have the desired impact and the more often you take the opportunity to be on stage, the less anxiety you will feel. And remember: no one is born a master!