75 UK-NL Stories - Communication

The Question

I think many of us will be familiar with the saying ‘there's a good book inside all of us’. That may or may not be true, but in my personal experience what is true, is that we all have a message that at some point needs sharing. The problem is often not being able to, or knowing how, to best share that message.

A few years back while working for a new client, I was asked to have a session with Mike, who drove a London black cab.
Then as now, he had a lot to share, but unfortunately he was having difficulties in giving his message a voice, literally. He spoke so softly that it was difficult to understand him.

I asked Mike, “How do you get a pint in the pub” and he replied softly, “yeah, I often don’t get served”. This was not only sad, it’s also not a great excuse when it’s your turn to get the drinks in!

While there was some physical aspects regarding his use of breath and posture, it went deeper than that.

I asked him about the message that he wanted to share. If he thought it was relevant? Was it valuable? Was it important for others to hear?

Considering the questions thoughtfully, he replied in a quiet yet firm voice, “yes”.

I asked him to keep that in mind and said that I was going outside into the corridor and would not come back into the room till I heard him say my name.

While not soundproofed, the room was well insulated and had pretty heavy doors. After they swung shut, the silence felt complete.

I waited and waited, time dragged out behind me like a scene from the film Interstellar. With an acute spike of relief in my chest, I finally heard my name and enthusiastically stepped back inside! However once Mike started talking his volume dropped back to an almost inaudible whisper. Undaunted we doubled down.

Typically for the UK, there was a small tea station outside the room further up the corridor. Before going back outside to make two cups of tea, I reminded Mike of how it was the message that counts.

Click, the boiling kettle stopped and the ferociously bubbling water calmed. Silence. As I stirred the tea, wincing at the clinks the spoon made against the inside of the mug, I contemplated how much sound the added distance, room insulation and heavy doors would be blocking.

Eventually, I heard my name, Eldridge.

Back inside I placed the now tepid mugs of tea on the table and asked Mike to put his hands on his stomach and chest. Then I said;

“Now, use your voice to tell that message Mike, the one you know we need to hear. Remember, that feeling you had when you said my name so loud that I could hear it outside this room. Feel what you felt. Feel what you feel”.
Then with a strong, audible and resolute voice, he began to share his message.

A few weeks later Mike and I had a follow up session. He was happy to tell me that he was getting served in the pub, but more importantly his message was being heard!

I asked Mike what’s changed and with a confident voice that carried to the back of the room he said, “If I have to speak in public or make a presentation, wherever I am, I just imagine that you’re standing behind the door”.

Mike later became the top ranked applicant from around the world for a PhD studentship at the MRC (Medical Research Council) Centre for Environment and Health, a joint collaboration between Imperial College and King's College.
He is currently looking at the medical effects of London Underground air pollution, particularly regarding the cardiovascular and respiratory systems.

His willingness to go further, stretching beyond his comfort zone, in service of a message that helps others, is what Mike tapped into.
In some ways it is paradoxically typical and at the same time extraordinary.

Working with people all across the UK, that strong sense of public ethos and service to others, is palpable. It is something that I help others tap into and makes my work even more rewarding.

After all a great presentation is a present, shared and presented in the present, because we need to hear it.

Eldridge Labinjo

“If you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much”. The Dutch crowd I hung out with in Moscow in the early 1990s used to love that catchphrase. The member of that crowd I’ve been married to for more than twenty years still drops it into conversation from time to time. And what husband would argue with his better Dutch half? Certainly not this one. Ironic humour, a love of British TV shows, national football teams that (usually) just fall short in international tournaments - there’s so much that our two countries have in common. But, over the years, I’ve come to realise that the ‘interesting differences’ we discuss at the North Sea Neighbours Conference (formerly the Apeldoorn Conference, of which I’ve been an Advisory Board member for the past few years) are what keeps the spark in the Anglo-Dutch relationship. And surely no difference is more interesting than our contrasting approaches to speaking our mind; the direct Dutch yin to the embarrassed English yang. My wife can (as she knows) often make me feel uncomfortable, but it’s usually when she’s being my not-so-secret weapon; disarming my compatriots with a comment fired as directly as a dart at a dartboard - a game at which our two countries just happen to excel.

Jamie Coomarasamy

Wherever I live, first in the Netherlands, then in Australia and Scotland, I have always felt at home. Every time I move, I work on becoming an integral part of the place, rather than moving through town like a long stay tourist. A little change and distance can grant a lot of perspective. For example, returning to the Netherlands, I found that here there is a type of realism that creates a certain rush or hurried emphasis on life. Even our love for bikes I’d link to a dislike for the inefficiency of walking more than anything else. We like to put this attitude in to terms like being direct, nuchter or down to earth, but it’s more than that. It is in the land.

My English boyfriend James grew up down the road from Roseberry Topping in Yorkshire, a place I'm sure must lie between the hills where J.R.R. Tolkien made his sketches for Hobbiton. That type of mystery, of not manmade, is hard to find in the Netherlands. A certain type of Dutch person likes to repeat that God created earth, but the Dutch created the Netherlands. It represents a certain realism centred on the idea of a manmade world. There is no mysterious grand force here, only industrious people. It might explain why I too have always seen home as a thing you make, rather than a certain feeling.

The people seem as straightforward as the fields, but the more distance you take the more you notice how much it is actually vals plat. Meetings for instance are vals plat. In a Dutch meeting you do not say ‘aye’, you and all ten others instead repeat the same argument. The trick is in being the last person to do so, as if you are the one summarising and presenting the group decision. Not that it really matters what is said in these hour-long meetings anyways, the actual content comes in all the small talk after the meeting. Those are moments where I miss the Brits and their coded language. It might seem more hilly and less straight forward, but when you take the time to amble through it, you might enjoy its inefficiency.

Charlotte Rixten

After leaving the UK at only 18, I didn’t really know what to expect while making the decision to live abroad in the Netherlands. Not only did I enjoy Dutch culture and the differences, I ended up studying for my degree, finding an international job and then falling in love all within this little country. I also dedicated time to learning Dutch as I wanted to fully integrate, which sure was a fun challenge!

 

What surprised me the most was how much I feel more at home here than I did in the UK. Not only am I surrounded by amazing people through my own connections, when I am out and about shopping, at the new dentist or visiting a new Dutch city - every local is welcoming and always happy to speak English and point me in the right direction or give me friendly advice.

 

Getting stuck into a good discussion is also amazing with Dutch people. If you find yourself sat in a group with one main topic, you could be there for hours - but in a good way! Everyone listens and is open to hearing what others see or think differently.

 

But for me, what I love the most about the Dutch culture is that everyone speaks their mind without all the hidden messages that English people have. Sharing advice, knowledge or their own opinions without worrying about what people may think about them. People trust themselves with their own thoughts and let you in on this, like a secret worth sharing. 

Zoe Elliott

As fate would have it

In theory, I have lived in the Netherlands for a whopping 27 years with interludes overseas.

My first encounter with the Dutch was when I was about 7 or 8 when my mum rented apartments to Phd students alongside her work at the University of Liverpool. A Dutch couple took one of the apartments and gave me a poffertjes pan and an ‘aap, noot mies’ (old-fashioned Dutch alphabet) poster which I had on my wall for years, so maybe it’s fate I ended up living in the Netherlands. These people were larger than life, exuberant and exotic and came from what seemed like a distant country.

Now fast forward to my next encounter with the Dutch 15 years later. I was looking for summer work while studying for my Mineral Surveying degree at the University  of Leeds. I rang a few companies and ended up speaking to a Dutch manager who worked for a dredging company, he had already seen my CV. Without even interviewing me he asked if I would like to work on a marine project in Felixstowe near Harwich. I said “don’t you want to interview me first?” His response was: “if your rubbish we’ll sack you (polite form of what he said), no need for an interview”. That’s direct I thought. I went for it and the rest is history.

I have never regretted ending up living and working in the Netherlands, have a Dutch husband, who I met in the UK, and three great children. As a family we are a happy mix of Dutch and British culture and often speak a hybrid form of Dutch and English (Dunglish). Although I have become pretty direct, like my old boss, I think I have still retrained my British humour and irony- something I sometimes miss. However, luckily I have a multitude of international colleagues at the British Council who  make up for the humour and banter, so in a nutshell- the best of both worlds.

Christine Anderton