Page 16 - Crossing Cultural Boundaries - Cees den Teuling
P. 16

“Russia is an exceptional place. In the 20th century, over a single lifetime - 70 years- it saw three civilisations. Each of the first two was rejected by its successor, forcing people to renounce their convictions. You can imagine the chaos of ideas and beliefs, in their hearts”.
Edvard Radzinsky (2006)
“Despite the proven benefits of emotional intelligence, organisational life has typically been hostile to the inner world of feeling. Rationality is deemed superior to feeling, which can contaminate judgement. But without feeling there is no passion, and no action”.
Manfred Kets de Vries (2011)
Preface
Being engaged in international advisory services since 1992 and actively participating in projects all over Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, I encountered a deep and engrained culture shock during a project initiated by the European Commission and the former Japanese Ministry of External Trade (JETRO). In 2002, I spent nearly a full year in Japan, trying to establish business connections between the Japanese and European small and medium-sized (SME) organisations.
As a partner in a group of twelve European advisors and business experts, I arrived at Narita Tokyo Airport in May 2002. We were selected on behalf of the EU Commission and trained in a number of sessions by the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation’s Representative Office in Brussels. Our task was to establish business connections between the European SME’s and their Japanese counterparts. During the preparatory sessions in Brussels we were informed about the different nature of Asian and especially the Japanese culture with which we would have to deal with. For a start, the group was involved in a very intensive and challenging five-week educational
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