Seminar for Pipeline Managers - March 2010

Communication Skills in an Intercultural Technical Environment

Amsterdam, 4-5 March 2010

Early in March, IPLOCA offered its first training seminar specifically designed for and customised for Pipeline Project Managers.

A major challenge for a group of professionals from an extremely technical background is their lack of opportunity in their normal work experience to take time to reflect on their communications and the impact of their behaviour on others. Add to that the international and multicultural aspects, and the challenges are multiplied many times over.

“These days a mono-cultural group on a technical project is a rare thing,” said S&N International instructor, Sylla Pahladsingh, who along with her colleague Steffi Wiesmann led the two day seminar. “One of the major advantages of a training session like this is the chance to spend time away from usual work-day pressures to understand and analyse our interactions. How do we perceive each other?”

“One of the things we see in the western world of communication is that we tend to be very direct. In other cultures people have been programmed to communicate differently – relying strongly on context and being much more indirect. Put cultures like this together in a work environment and you’re bound to have some communication challenges.”

Participants examined the four intercultural readiness competences: intercultural sensitivity, intercultural communication, building commitment and managing uncertainty. 

“Thanks to a good mixture of theory and practical exercises at the training I now have a lot of extra knowledge”, said Karel Bockx, Project Leader, from Denys (Belgium), “and I have some helpful tools to use in my daily business -- as well as in my family life --to achieve better communication. Now, it is up to me and my colleagues from the training seminar to implement the tools we were given and to improve our communication day by day and week by week.”

Feedback from the participants on the training was extremely positive. In terms of the length of the training, however, only 54 percent agreed that the length was right – with 46 percent remarking that it was either “too short” or “much too short”.

Based on this feedback a second, slightly modified training is anticipated later this year with an increased level of practical exercises and an e-learning module as pre-course work.
 

More information is available from h.ringers@wxl.nl or juan.arzuaga@iploca.com.

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