Transcript

Interviewer:

So is the key there an awareness, awareness of your own culture and an awareness of the other culture? Does that help people to accommodate?

Nigel White:

Yeah, it does. I mean, we always, always have to be careful that if we focus too much on difference we can reinforce it, er, and that’s one of the challenges we face as facilitators because in these situations where we are usually more facilitating than training. It’s a little bit like if you go on a honeymoon and you recognise there are some things that, you know, he snores and she does strange things with the toothpaste: if we don’t address these things early, it might be a bit painful early on, but in the longer term it’s gonna be a better thing to do. If we skate over the surface we’re leaving problems to build up, so we have to try and get these issues out, but we have to do it in a way that’s always focused on ‘we’ve got to live with each other, we’ve got to work together, we’ve got to find a way, a modus operandi in the new here’.