Ginny Wilson-Peters' Blog

There are Many Communities… September 22, 2011

A wise Ojibwa Indian elder once told me that “There are many communities out there for us.  We just have to go out and find them.”  He is indeed so very right.

I sit on the airplane flying home after almost two weeks working in Europe.  As often happens when I travel for work, I find myself feeling excitement to be home and also a sadness of having left new “friends” behind.  At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I love my work.  I get up almost every day and have the chance to teach, coach, and most importantly perhaps, continue my own learning journey.

This was a trip of leadership training for a client.  There was a four day course in England and then the following week a two day course in Germany.  In both courses, they were participants from different countries.  The first week we had a wonderful mix of English, German and French.  The second week was German and English.

I wish that I could say that I speak the languages, but I don’t.  I did however do my best to learn a few key words in German and also study some things about the cultures in the UK and Germany.  It is always important to me when I travel to a foreign country to be as respectful as possible of the local cultures, even if I don’t speak the language fluently.

One of my biggest lessons came the first week.  All of the participants spoke English, some better than others.  I tried my best to be aware of the words and phrases I used in my examples and Power Point slides.  I also looked for those times when I got the glazed over looks from some of the participants.  Gradually though, by midway through the third day of training, I noticed that people were more vocal and asking me to explain a word or phrase.  I realized how very much I appreciated them doing that.

And then it hit me that I hadn’t actually ASKED them the very first day to please feel free and ask.  I guess I just assumed that would happen.  But I learned that isn’t the nature of many of the people who were in the course.  It left me wondering how many times the first couple days I left them wondering “what the heck is she talking about.”

The good news is that I took my new found learning to heart.  The very first day of the second week of training I asked the new group of people to please feel free and ask me about anything they heard and didn’t understand.  And I’m thrilled to say they were very receptive and did indeed do so.

Days away from home:  12.

Hotels:  5.

International flights: 3.

Learning: Priceless. 

Thank you to all of my new friends in the UK, Germany and France.  A special thanks also to Alexandra and her husband Thorsten who spent a wonderful day introducing me to the Old Town of Heidelberg.

Update 1/1/2012: Our blog has moved to a new home on our website, please visit us at http://integrityintegrated.com/resources/blog to read more!