Can the Chinese Make Good Guitars?

What do Chinese made guitars have to do with Inter-Cultural Intelligence?

I also wouldn’t have thought about this until I met Iain Wilson from IBC Trading. He joined one of our first Inter-Cultural Intelligence workshops in Belfast in collaboration with BRC Partnership. 

There is still a lot of cultural bias when it comes to the origins of an instrument judging by the stereotyping you find in some articles on Chinese produced stringed instruments.

Iain was an inspiration to me as his story shows how Inter-Cultural Intelligence can create unique opportunities in the music business. During the training he mentioned that the Inter-Cultural Intelligence framework puts words to things he was intuitively doing. But it was always hard to find ways to transfer his intuitive ability to build cultural bridges to others. He now feels that with the ICI framework he both has a language and a structure to assist others to become cultural bridge builders.

IBC Trading’s strap-line is: “Global Sourcing and Servicing”. A bold statement, but when it comes to building instruments in China they make it work: at a high level of quality for a reasonable price. IBC understands global markets and knows how to collaborate with partners from other cultures. By creating, strong relationships based on respect and trust they transfer knowledge and skills to build and deliver an excellent product. The fact that IBC Trading builds instruments for some of the top global brands is a testimony to their ability to deliver consistent quality.

I went to visit their office in Belfast after the training and had the privilege of taking a beautifully crafted guitar home. One of the creations of IBC is the Celtone guitar brand and our family home is now blessed with a beautiful Celtone Guitar.

The prototype I received is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. Below follow some pictures and details of the instrument. Thanks Dave Ingham for the technical details on the instrument. Every time I pick it up to play it reminds me of how Inter-Cultural Intelligence can create things that add beauty and music to life; it certainly does in our family.

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This guitar is a classic 000 styled guitar.
This body style is easy to hold and play and produces good volume.

It has a very balanced sound with the neck joining the body at the 14th fret allowing  access to notes just past the octave if required.
The guitar is constructed using laminated Bubinga back and sides.

Bubinga is often referred to as an African Rosewood. The sound is extremely balanced – not too boomy in the bass or hard in the trebles.

The top is solid western red cedar from North America. This has a very fast response and makes it ideal for finger-style or strumming as it requires very little energy to drive the top so the experience of playing is very lively, like the Bubinga it also produces a very balanced tone with the bass and mids being very mature even in a young instrument.    

Internal Bracing is Sitka spruce from N America employed in a traditional forward shifted X pattern.

The neck is African mahogany with an Indian rosewood fingerboard, the bridge is also Indian rosewood.

The neck is fitted with a two way adjustable truss rod conveniently accessed via the sound-hole. 

All bindings are solid wood maple and rosewood the rosette is rosewood with abalone.

Bridge pins, saddle and nut are synthetic. 

Fingerboard dots are mother of pearl, headstock logo is reconstituted abalone.

The finish is very thin hard wearing high gloss polyurethane.

Machine heads are Chinese closed back and the electronics are Fishman.

World School Rankings: Culture is influencing more than most are willing to admit

 

Recently I was reading an article about ‘International League Tables’ related to the performance of students in school systems across the world.

At the moment it is true that Asian students typically outperform students from Europe and North America.

BUT: this is even true when students from those high-scoring nations relocate to ‘local scoring’ nations and enter their school systems. These students will typically still out-perform the students who were born in that country!

The chairman of the Sutten Trust Educational Charity, Sir Peter Lampl said: “The strong performance of some Asian countries could reflect cultural differences, adding that Chinese students often outperformed their classmates in Britain too”.

So it is obvious that it is not a matter of the school system that is deployed, it is a matter of the cultural system either causes the school system to be successful or unsuccessful.

Cultural is a MAJOR driver of success of children in school. What most educators don’t realize is that culture is a much stronger driver than most are willing to admit or are aware of…

The first thing that is important to notice is the difference in cultural motivators and demotivators that cause kids to put effort, energy and focus into their studies. These cultural Motivators are captured in “The Three Colors of Worldview” Model developed by KnowledgeWorkx. Please read up on “The Three Colors of Worldview” to get a deeper understanding of these powerful forces. It might well be a life-saver for your career as an educator, especially if you are currently taking your passion for education across cultures.

The other major intercultural issue related to this story has to do with a number of the “12 Dimensions of Culture” that scaffold any educational system and the parents/pupils that engage with that educational system.

It would probably be interesting for you to familiarize yourself with all 12 of these dimensions, but I would strong recommend you look at some key dimensions that drive Asian kids to do better than kids in Europe and North America.

The key drivers for success in education in Asian communities are a strong “Directed Destiny Orientation” as well as a strong  “Community Accountability”. These dimensions influence the way people engage with the world around them how willing they are to follow instructions/orders from others and how they handle a key question in life: ‘Who am I first and foremost accountability to, and what does that do to my motivation and the way I prioritize things in my life?”

Educators would gain deeper insights into the challenges of education in our globalized world by learning about “The Three Colors of Worldview” and the “12 Dimensions of Culture”!

The Hunger Games… an Inter-Cultural Reflection

 

The first book in Suzanne Collins’ trilogy was put to film was a great box-office success, but the movie “The Hunger Games” left me with mixed emotions...

While watching the movie I learned a few more things about one of our Inter-Cultural Intelligence Development tools called “The Three Colors of Worldview”.

It is obvious in “The Hunger Games” that the regime of president Snow is a totalitarian dictatorship that rules in a classical Power-Fear manner.

He knows how to control the masses and the hunger games as well as the decadent, disconnected from reality, focused on insignificant things life-style of the people in the capitol causes one to think of Rome during the times of Nero.

President Snow has an interesting exchange with Seneca, the man in charge of the games, when things run out of hand a little… The dialog is captured in the clip below:

President Snow is linking Hope and Fear and says that too much hope will destroy fear. This is SO TRUE! The reality is that too much hope will ignite a fire and in the case of the Hunger Games it eventually results in the death of President Show and district 13 becoming the victorious rulers of the nation.

What is important to notice here that too much hope is not only going to destroy fear it is also a very difficult thing to manage from an individual, corporate and national development perspective.

The simplified version of that is: “What if, I give you 100,000 USD today and you are earning only 1 USD per day at the moment?” How would this impact you? You have never had $ 100 K! It represents over 270 years of your income… You would not know what to do with it. You would not have gone through a process of deciding how to ‘make room’ for $ 100 K in your life!

This is true with many things in life but it is especially true in terms of things like “The Arab Spring” or the trilogy of “The Hunger Games”

On the flight from Dubai to London one of the cabin crew from Egypt recalled in interesting situation. A few months before the Arab Spring started in Egypt he was at a soccer match with his friends (all university students). The Arab Spring in Tunisia had overturned the government. The Egyptian cabin crew member and his friends were discussing “What if?” But he mentioned to me that he told his friends: “Even IF we were going to be successful in overthrowing the government of Mubarak, and we would oust the dictator, then what? What would we do? How would we move forward into a better future for all Egyptians?”

This is THE most important question to ask for any Power/Fear environment, may it be at home, in a religious institution, a school a society, a corporation or a country!

IF people are not allowed or are too scared to think through the consequences of their rebellion, then what? What is going to happen after they are successful? .

Even if you are ‘in charge’ of how much hope you inject into the system, you need to allow the recipients to make room for the consequences of that hope into their lives. This is true in simple things like hiking up the pocket money of your children, getting additional funding for a small/medium enterprise development project, a project to improve the lives of the laborers in your mine, to the potential overthrowing of a dictatorial government.

One of the most powerful things we teach in our Inter-Cultural Intelligence development programs is: “You are not just responsible for the release of the right message, you are also responsible for the response it triggers!”

Hope is indeed one of the most powerful antidotes to fear, but you better know what to do with it. You better have a plan of action once fear is tossed overboard and hope fuels the fires of the future.

Harvard asks dozens of students to leave for cheating: Community or Individual Accountability

 

In a recent incident of mass cheating at Harvard it became obvious that students felt they had to ‘work together’ to be successful in their academic pursuit.

What is interesting is that the students were pushed into collaborating, displaying Community Accountability, while Harvard continues to uphold that the measurement of successful academic pursuit can only the done in an individual accountability manner.

The article shows how archaic the academic world is and how they are not aware that the world is full of collaborative effort and collaborative pursuit of results, sometimes even to the point where fierce competitors collaborate to save cost on product design.

What makes the situation even more comical is that Dean Michael Smith is quoted to say: “This is a time for communal reflection and action.”

Is Dean Smith not aware that that is exactly what the students have been found guilty of, communal action??

Maybe it is time to reflect on the fact that Harvard business school is zealously holding on to individual accountability while the world has been embracing community accountability for quite some time.

I am not saying one or the other, or even balance between the two. To thrive in the Globalized world of today you need to start looking at these issues through the lens of Polarity management. Community Accountability as well as individual account ability are both 100% relevant and important!

Harvard: If you want to prepare students for the globalized economy out there, you better teach them about community and individual accountability, otherwise your students will become less and less valuable in the globalized markets of our world!

To learn more about “The 12 dimensions of Culture” visit the following link: http://www.knowledgeworkx.com/blogs/knowledgeworkx/item/133-12-dimensions-of-culture

Could Egypt Collapse Again?

 

Egypt is a nation that was suppressed by what I would call a Power/Fear regime on top of a traditionally Honor/Shame culture. The reason the people revolted was that the pressure cooker effect of a strong power/fear environment eventually blew the lid off. Each power/fear rulership (no matter if it is at home, a neighborhood, city, religious institution, company, nation) will eventually reach the point where the pressure cooker will blow the lid.

In the Egypt the power/fear system was very sophisticated with different roles for the government, police, secret service and the military. As a result people were never sure who was going to inform on who. This resulted in people not discussing the future beyond. People are scared to think about a future where the power/fear rulers would not be there. Or they can’t even envision a life that would be different. A shrewd Power/Fear ruler will make sure that there is only a little bit of hope but that it always remains contained. Just enough hope to make sure people obey and stay within the boundaries set by the rulers.

What happened in Egypt is that hope was kindled and the government could not contain it. Once the flame was fanned it grew into a big fire.

The main challenge was and is still today: Nobody had a plan to change the nation from a power/fear rulership and culture to a culture where rulers empower the nation and where fear is replaced by a gradually and appropriately distributed hope.

When Morsi came to power we predicated that he would take less than 10 months to start behaving the same way as Mubarak; it only took him 4 months!!

So in essence the revolution is long from over. The only way the revolution will finish is if the new rulers rule with an iron fist; but it is unlikely the average Egyptian will allow this to happen again. OR: the ruler will have to focus on national change, empowering the nation and gradually bringing hope and trust alive after decades of fear, distrust and despair.

General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is probably right in saying that a collapse of the current regime is likely.

This article was written by using the “Three Colors of Worldviewc” cultural analysis methodology developed by KnowledgeWorkx

What is the difference between England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom?

 

Again I have to confess: this video gave me more insight than any other video I have ever seen related to this topic. An excellent job by CGPGrey, thank you for educating the world.

I am from The Netherlands but NOT from Holland…

 

Ever since moving overseas 22 years ago I have been explaining the difference between Holland and The Netherlands. It is a bit of a broken record, but finally there is an explanation that settles it once and for all.

From now on I will refer you to following video for a high-paced explanation of this age-old dilemma that faces everybody who was born in The Netherlands: ENJOY!

Thank you CGPGrey, you are doing an amazing job!

Credo of a Great (Global) Leader

Dana Zohar has been on a forefront of thinking about leadership in our complex global world. As I revisited her website today I found this Credo.

Sorry Dana for copying it straight from your website, but I believe it is a great summary of what is needed in leadership across the world today:

Would you commit to the following words as being your words resulting in your actions?

-- I believe global business has the money and the power to make a significant difference in today’s troubled world, and that by making that difference it can help itself as well as others. I envisage business raising its sights above the bottom line. I envisage business becoming a vocation, like the higher professions.

To make this possible I believe that business must add a moral dimension, becoming more service- and value-oriented and largely eliminating the assumed natural distinction between private enterprise and public institutions. I envisage business taking responsibility for the world in which it operates and from which it creates its wealth. And I envisage myself becoming one of those business leaders who are “servant leaders”–leaders who serve not just stockholders, colleagues, employees, products, and customers, but also the community, the planet, humanity, the future, and life itself. --

Middle East: Malnutrition soars in conflict-ridden Yemen


It is hard to believe that Yemen is now in a situation where up to 5 million people are malnorished and are facing serious hunger.
Saudi Arabia has pledged over 3 billion USD to assist and other countries have pledged significant amounts as well.
But the situation in Yemen is complex.

• The government is not in charge, tribes typically are the only authority
• Al Qaida of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is making it hard to get anything done in the parts of the country they control
• A long history of chewing Qatt (a mild narcotic leaf) has depleted the ability to be self-sufficient in food production
• Relief and development organizations do not have enough Yemen-experienced staff available to move into large-scale projects. 

All in all a significant lack of Inter-Cultural Intelligence causes:

• Resources to be wasted
• Head office decisions of NGO's to not reflect the reality on the ground
• Bureaucratic decision making  takes too much time
• Expats that enter Yemen are not Inter-Culturally Intelligent in terms of local dynamics and make unnecessary mistakes
• International donors are trying to by-pass the government at a time when the government needs to be empowered to be seen as a strong contributor to the rebuilding of the nation. 

The reality is that unless serious efforts are made to intervene the people of Yemen will face a disaster that will have significant ripple effects throughout the region.

Thanks to my friend and fellow Inter-Cultural Intelligence enthusiast

Skip Pettit has a significant numbers of years experience in developing leaders. Thousands of people have been blessed by his investment into their lives!
As Skip and I exchanged ideas on Inter-Cultural Intelligence I was encouraged to see his enthusiasm rise!
Thank you Skip for posting this overview of our work at KnowledgeWorkx on your blog!
The Inter-Cultural Intelligence development process that we develope has truly become a life-style for us, and I hope it will become a life-style for many more people. Ultimately we hope to bring reconciliation, unity in diversity, fun, productivity and true value-add to this world.
Click here to read what Skip had to say about KnowledgeWorkx

Inter-Cultural Intelligence and the Olympics

IOR World is one of our KnowledgeWorkx business partners.

They published an interesting article on their blog related to top level athletes and how important it is for them to be Inter-Culturally Intelligent.
Their interview with Michael Blatchford offers interesting insights in the intercultural challenges athletes face on the international circuit.

I like what Michael had to say at the end of the interview:
“The great athlete is the one who best deals with the unexpected. My experience has allowed me the patience to accept the unknown and manage snap changes.” The more experience competing at the world level, the more comfortable the athlete is abroad, and the better he can perform. Experiences that once felt like huge differences turn into much less daunting encounters. It is this type of advice that we can apply to today’s international assignments, as they offer a great opportunity to develop critical global business skills.  It is a great  expatriate who develops these global skills and  mindset that can become a valuable global leader for the company."

Six mental polarities that could contribute to thinking about values across cultures?

John King (author of 'Tribal Leadership') made me aware of Jonathan Haidt's new book: 'The Righteous Mind'.

I am not a great student of American politics and have very few positive words for their two-party political system, but the six polarities Haidt mentions in his book caught my attention. These polarities can easily be taken out of the American political context and viewed within a multicultural context anywhere in the world.
I think they are helpful polarities that can shed light on culturally motivated values.

The book summary on Amazon says:

According to Haidt's and others' research, there are at least six mental 'modules' that go into moral and poltical decisions, and it is difficult to argue that any one (or two or three) are more important than others. And they are:
care/harm,
fairness/cheating,
loyalty/betrayal,
authority/subversion,
sanctity/degradation and
liberty/oppression.

Some people (often of the political left) care most about care/harm and fairness/cheating in their emphasis on egalitarian politics that aim to provide care for those in need and create fair rules in the sense that everyone, relatively speaking, starts on an 'even playing field.' Others (usually conservatives) have tempermants that focus on authority/suversion and loyalty/betrayal, focusing on maintaining or promoting institutions that foster some level of deference to authority (in legitimate hierarchies), and loyalty (whether to country, God, family, etc).

Will Intercultural marriage in the UAE become accepted?

Intercultural marriages for UAE nationals have been a debated issue for years. UAE guys marrying ladies from outside the UAE has been leading the way, but now it seems the trend is edging toward UAE ladies having to look for greener shores when it comes to a life partner.

There currently are 950,000 UAE nationals, 475,000 are male, 20% of eligible males marry foreign women because of less dowry and easier process of getting married. If 40% of all males are at eligible age then over 35,000 UAE national women will not find a local husband. The trend will move toward: UAE national women starting to marry foreign men out of necessity but also because they work harder and are more open minded husbands... 

In a recent study amongst 200 UAE national women: 1/3 said they would marry somebody from a different ethnic background 1/3 said they might consider it.

Circumcision banned in Germany

Circumcision is now banned in Germany. The ruling stemmed from a circumcision that lead to complications with a 4-year old boy. Is Germany ready to do battle with Muslims, Jews and Christians because of one circumcision that resulted in complications?

The logic of this decision trumps everything.
Now let me get this straight: becausse of a complication following circumcision, the boy suffered and as a result circumcision is now banned in Germany. The ruling by the district court of Cologne says circumcision "for the purpose of religious upbringing constitutes a violation of physical integrity".
If we pursue the same type of logic with all other medical procedures that have gone wrong, very soon most medical procedures would be banned in Germany.

BUT: the bigger issue is an issue of lack of Inter-Cultural Intelligence. I am wondering if the legal teams and the judges involved every thought about the wider consequences of their decision. They obviously were not practicing Inter-Cultural Intelligence as they were going through the evidence and as they formulated their final decision. The other thing that is happening here is a classical pitfall in what we would call a "Guilt-Innocence" oriented society. Germany is very "Guilt-Innocence" (wrong<>right) oriented and the legal system is a reflection of that. This case shows that if you just follow the letter of the law and apply it outside the context of relationship and societal dynamics, you end up with a decision that doesn't enhance society as a whole, but actually cripples it to fully be what it was intended to be.
It also points to a serious lack of Cultural Learner mentality and too much Cultural Critic mentality.

Teachers, Teddy Bears and Blasphemy

Sudan is in the news again with a fascinating little incident.

A school teacher from the UK has allowed the children in the class to give the class room mascot (a teddy bear) the name Mohammed.... She was arrested and put in jail in Khartoum.A colleague of the teacher complained and this started a serious uproar in Sudan and the international media. According to one of the students at the school a boy named Mohammed in Ms. Gibbons class carries the name Mohammed and he wanted the class mascot named after him...
Today in Google News the item already showed 3763 news articles investing words into the issue.

East meets West, Islam meets total misunderstanding all over the world. The calls for her execution are of course totally misunderstood by most... But what is the real reason behind this incredible media focus on this incident?

In some Muslim traditions, making images of all created beings is not allowed, this is why most art tends to be abstract or decorative. Sunni Islam tends to be stricter on this issue than Shia Islam.

Although this is a religious issue, it is very much a cultural issue as well.

As soon as the media started to demand her release and started saying things like: "this is a backward way of looking at things", it triggered the honor - shame mechanism in Sudanese society. Very soon after that you saw protests in the streets of Khartoum and demands for harsh punishment. The media in the West then started to say that maybe the government of Sudan allows these things to happen on purpose, or is indirect involved in triggering events like these...

Again the honor-shame mechanism is triggered and although it probably won't have a major influence on the stability of the government of Sudan, the reality of the situation is that it creates a further rift between the Muslim world and the West.

The West wears their Guilt-Innocence glasses, and the Muslim world wears their Honor-Shame Glasses. As a result a double monologue is started where nobody really understands one another. I guess it's about time to explain the difference between these glasses. More on the blog later about a powerful tool called: "Three Colors Of World View".

Fortunately Gibbons is back home in the UK and has a very positive attitude about the whole episode. In her words: "I got a bit more than I bargained for." From her attitude it is obvious that she is a culturel learner and not a cultural critic. I wish there were more people like her in the world.