haare im wohnzimmer
translator: tijana mihajloviä‡reviewer: ilze garda i was in brussels. i was sitting on la grand-place, which is a beautiful squarein the center of the town. suddenly, a man came and sat next to me,and started talking to me, so i turned to him and i answered. then i turned back and i asked myself,"why is he talking to me?" suddenly, i realized,"julian, you're becoming norwegian." (laughter)
so i turned to the man and i said, "sorry, i live in a countrywhere people don't speak to each other." the thing is, in norway, it is notthat people don't speak to each other; it's that socialization takes part in a much more framedand organized manner. i was not expecting this man as a strangerto come and talk to me. however, this is surprising, because i comefrom the french-speaking part of canada where that type of behavioris totally normal.
however, my mental programminghas changed. my brain has been rewired, because during the last five years i've lived in a tiny little countryin the north of europe which is called norway. when you move to a different country, there are three waysthat you can relate to the culture: you can confront, complain, or conform. when you confront,
you believe that your behaviorsare the right behaviors. when you complain, what happensis that you will isolate yourself into social bubbles of foreignersliving in segregation with the society. when you adapt your way to behave,when you conform to the whole society, then you can truly benefit from diversity. but that implies that you are observing, learning,understanding the behaviors of others, and adapting your own, so that it fits with the behaviorsof the society you're in.
i was in the north-east of spain,in a beautiful region of catalonia, and i was therewith a very good friend of mine. he is two-meters tall,blond hair, and blue eyes. we were visiting the beautiful region where they're making the cava,the spanish sparkling wine. after the guided tour, we asked some more questionsto the very charming guide that was there, and she was explaining us with passionabout what she was doing, and then suddenly she stopped.
she took a step aside,she took my friend, and she shook him. and then she looked at me and said, "why is he not interestedin what i'm saying?" because she was not gettingthe emotional feedback she was used to. she was seeing his emotional feedback through her own cultural glasses, meaning that she was interpretingthe fact that he had a neutral face on what it would mean if someonefrom her culture would have that face, and that would mean
that the person was not interestedor didn't want to be there. and we all see the worldthrough cultural glasses. the lens through which your brainsees the world shapes your reality. if you can change the lens, not only can you changethe way your brain perceives behaviors, but you can change the waypeople relate to cultural differences. embedded within that statementis the key to benefiting from diversity. three years ago, i was sitting on the board of directorsof one major university in northern europe
and i was representing2,000 academic staff, and i wanted to become a better leader. so i've looked around the whole university for a leadership classthat would be suited to my position, and i found one, and i was thrilled, because not onlywould i learn about leadership, but because i would also learnabout how women lead, because the class was called"leadership for women". and so, as naive as i was,i've registered for the class.
the next morning, the gender equality adviserof the university calls me and says, "julian, this is leadership for women.you're a man. you cannot attend." it was the first time in my life that i was denied educationbased on my gender. this is my cultural perspectiveabout what happened there. however, why is the university doing this? because the governmenthad been putting in place a scheme that allowed the university to takecandidates in full academic position
before someonethat has higher academic training if the candidates can documentleadership training. by offering leadership trainingonly to women, the university was fast forwarding the track of womeninto full professorship position at a place where less than 20% of womenhad professorship. i call this equality of result. not equality of opportunity;equality of results. i did not have the same opportunityto flourish to my full potential,
but the result isthat we have a balance in society. we enforce diversity,and there is a good reason to do this. studies showthat boards composed of both genders will perform 15% better then boardsthat are composed of mainly one gender. but studies also show that boardsthat are composed of different cultures will perform 35% better than boardsthat are composed of only one culture. cultural diversity increasesproblem-solving ability. it increases creativity and innovation. the real challenge here
is to make people being ableto communicate well together. and this you do through explainingcultural differences. two years ago,i was sitting in my living room. i was sitting there with a friend and we started to drawtypical cultural situations. then we made a facebook page, and then we made a free website, and then i started to lectureall around the country. i'm happy to say we've just crossedone million people
that have seen these drawingsto help to connect culture. and the idea behind that projectis to create a simple, humoristic way in connecting peopleof different cultures, especially in norway. you know that most people around the worldare raised with the idea that they will needto contribute to a group, that they will be part of a groupand interdependent on their members. and it affects the way people behave. other parts of the world,especially the western world,
we raise our children to be independentand to be self-sufficient, and we createcertain independence in society, and it changes behaviors. you see the difference? this basic principle tells a lot about how you're going to expecta friendship to look like. in certain societieswhere the group prevails, the friendship will be much stronger, in terms that peoplewill live in symbiosis with each other
and dependent on each other, and they will be expected to be invited to every single eventthat the very good friend will do. however, in other cultures,friendship will be much more distant. i've asked a scandinavian man one daywhat a good friend was. you know what he answered? "it is someone i can sit in silencein a room and feel comfortable." if you tell this to a south american, they won't understandwhat the principle is.
this is about friendship and love, and contact with peopleis one of the six basic human needs. if you're not able to see how this friendship and loveis communicated to you because you are blindedby your cultural glasses, you will spend yearsbelieving you have no friends. you will spend years believingthat people are rejecting you. it is about changingthese cultural glasses. this is when you knowthat a norwegian bus stop is full
and that you need to stand. what happens if you sit in the middle? it could very well bethat one of the two persons stands up, takes a step aside,starts playing on his phone. now, what if you look different?what if you're wearing a religious symbol? how easy it is to believethat the person has moved away because you're of a different skin coloror of a different religion? a typical cultural misunderstandingand a very basic of human interactions: you've came into the personal space
of someone who hasa much bigger personal space. in most cultures in the world,there's place for 4 people on that bench. not understanding these very subtlephysical differences with people will actually leadto lot of miscommunication. if you want to observe it yourself,go to any international conference and try to observe a south american that tries to communicatewith a north european. what will happen there is that the south americanwill be very eager
and will stand at a distancethat's comfortable for him. the north europeanwill be also very eager, but stand a little bit further away, because he's not comfortablethat the south american is so close. if you observe it over time, you will see that a little dance starts and people go around the room, none of them realizingthat they are feeling uncomfortable, or they both feel uncomfortable,but they don't realize why.
it's just a simple thing of culture and being able to feelthat distance between people, which is different in every culture. and that has to doas well with politeness. politeness is a conceptwhich is very much culturally related. it's a group of normsand social codes that everyone obeys to, so that communicationgoes well in the society, and in certain societiesit is very strict, and you have a way to talk,and you have a way to behave.
you change the way - you're changingthe words in the sentence. in other places, politeness might only meannot to disturb others, to leave more space,both in friendship and physical space. and if you move to another country and no one explains youwhat politeness means, how can you expect people - how can you expect that someonewill behave as he's expected to in a foreign culture?
the key here is to benefit from diversity. everyone sees the worldthrough cultural glasses. it's not about what you see;it's about what you perceive. and it is by taking small steps that we will one day help the worldto truly benefit from diversity. thank you. (applause)