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About OEF!
What and who is ON EQUAL FOOTING
A silence that feels respectful to one person but uncomfortable to another.
A direct question that is considered efficient in one setting but disruptive in another.
A decision that one side expects to make quickly, while the other needs time for reflection.
These differences rarely announce themselves. They live in habits, tone, choice of words, as well as in what is left unsaid.
They appear in seemingly small moments – but with major impact. Not as an obstacle, but as an additional dimension.
Initially, we at On Equal Footing (OEF!) noticed these moments without having a name for them. Working in a variety of countries with people from very different professional and cultural backgrounds, it became clear how easily goodwill can coexist with misunderstanding.
Nobody usually intends to cause friction, yet it appears. And just as often, we have seen how quickly that same friction dissolves once people develop curiosity. So...
Curiosity is the starting point of interculturality
Interculturality
Interculturality is not about mastering a list of national characteristics, nor about becoming someone else. It is about awareness of the lens through which each of us sees the world — and appreciating that our lenses differ. Not better or worse. Simply different.
What makes intercultural cooperation particularly interesting nowadays is that it has become the standard. It is no longer the exception. Clients are ever more international. Teams are increasingly cross-cultural. More than ever, a single country or workplace brings together people shaped by different educational, social and cultural backgrounds.
How to do that? By choosing curiosity over assumptions.
Curiosity helps to discover - and uncover – our cultural blind spots
On Equal Footing (OEF!) is a platform created as an invitation to explore exactly that. Through podcast conversations, blog reflections and shared experiences, it makes the invisible visible.