Home visits - reconnecting can be bitter-sweet

Recently I went home. 

I’ve lived here in Sydney for almost 15 years and it is my home now, but my old home is in New Zealand where my family and early memories live.  Where I fell in love, got married and had my first baby.  Pleasant Point, Timaru, Christchurch and Wellington all say “you’re home” to me whenever I come back to them. 

It was a great holiday full of family, fun, food and rugby.  And leaving at the end was sad. 

For many expats or migrants home visits can be a bitter sweet experience. 

The desire to reconnect with a long list of people, loved family members, special old friends and business colleagues can mean

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Dancing with uncertainty – a critical skill in cross cultural relocation

Jonathan Fields, is releasing a book tomorrow.  

Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance.  He has challenged people to share their stories of the times they have “danced with uncertainty …and won…where you felt the butterflies, the anxiety and fear, where you thought about turning back, maybe you even did, but then turned back around and ended up creating, or becoming or doing something amazing.”

 My first thought wasn’t of my own dances but of the people I work with who are often stepping out into new lives in very different locations, lives they may not have personally considered but may be going to because of a job or a partner or a parent.  They are often feeling butterflies, anxiety and sometimes fear.  And then I remembered it was my own dance to China with a young family in the early 90s that got me into this work. 

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Is sport a cross-cultural universal?

In my “Increasing your Cultural Intelligence” training courses, as part of one of the strategies for building relationships across cultures, I encourage people to think about the universals.  These are things we have in common with other people around the world, regardless of where they may come from.  In a course in Canberra, Australia, last week a participant suggested sport was a universal. This was strongly debated by another participant.

The young woman pointed out she had no interest in sport and it would be a detriment rather than a help in building a relationship if someone introduced sport into a conversation.  The group came to the conclusion that if you are interested in sport –it is a universal.  The interest in sport will open doors to conversations and shared interests when you have seemingly little else in common.  

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Cultural Intelligence - A journey to an evidence base

I am writing at somewhere around 30,000 feet, returning home from the 2011 industrial organisational psychologists’ conference held in Brisbane. These conferences are held for IO Psychologists in Australia every two years and provide an opportunity for practitioners like me to meet with theorists and catch up with the latest research outcomes.  For someone who doesn't sit in that space on a day-to-day basis it can be a mentally stretching experience.  Mentally stretching should lead to professional growth. Or as our professional development requirements now state – it should give an opportunity for "reflective practice".

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What if they don't want to move?

Whether its outsourcing, career development, or a problem that only one person can solve sometimes organizations want their people to accept an overseas assignment BUT they don’t want to go.  What can you do?

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