“Bring your own lunch”. This was the format of the session the CEC department organized early in July to discuss issues over the International Community at TU/e in which I participated as a presenter. For that purpose I had invited a few international students (master, PDEng and PhD) to form a discussion panel. For the sake of a large diversity and broad representation I sent my invitation late June to a diverse group of those students I all knew personally from previous courses or trainings about intercultural aspects.

To be as complete as possible about the type of event they were invited to, I mentioned the format of the session not realizing (although actually knowing) that Ramadan would start a few days later. No wonder none of the Muslim students I had invited showed up, nor actually bothered to respond to my request. “What a lack of intercultural sensitivity”, they must have thought about my attitude… Me their teacher/ trainer in intercultural awareness and the like! Needless to say I did feel somewhat embarrassed after I realized my faux-pas.

Recognizing cultural differences in this global world is the first of 4 recommendations (a.k.a. the 4Rs) Dutch guru Fons Trompenaars suggests to reconcile these differences and develop best practices and win-win situations. Indeed, many intercultural misunderstandings and conflicts in the world happen because people working together ignore each other’s differences or are not open to sharing them or dealing with them.

In my story, although I knew about the coming Ramadan, I did not immediately recognize its impact on some of the panel guests. I must say that some of the European students were also a bit puzzled about this typically Dutch (Calvinistic?) habit of brining your own lunch for the sake of simplicity and effectiveness.

But that is another story for maybe another column. My next piece will follow up on the 4 recommendations and deal with the 2^nd R: Respecting differences.