Culture in the News #5 "Canadian miners go on strike against Brazilian mine owners."

Not only Americans make blunders when managing people in foreign countries. In this case, it was Brazilian managers struggling to manage an American workers' union which branches out into Canada, as reported by the IHT on Jan 15.

After reading the half-page news item, you can see that the issues at hand are pretty straight-forward. The Brazilian owners (global mining company Vale, largest in the world) propose two things: 1) changing the pension plan from "defined benefit" to "defined contribution" (Hardly revolutionary--all pension plans have been moving that way for the past 20 years and all newly created plans are "defined benefit"); and 2) putting a cap on a bonus plan linked to the price of nickel (Again, this is plain common sense: the plan has a "floor", it's only logical that it should also have a "ceiling", though the parties involved will negotiate endlessly over the amounts to be set).

So what's the big deal?

Culture. (Surprised?)

Curiously, reporters asked the people involved whether different management cultures (Brazilian an Canadian) were the issue. They all denied it... As the saying goes "fish are not aware of the water they are swimming in". To an outsider, the culture issue is obvious.

The workers complain about the way management is behaving, and that has driven them to harden their stance. "The other owner, you knew where they were coming from" said Chris Shrower, a millwright. "These ones just want to show us that they're the boss."

Management is behaving in a way that is typical in Brazil (high Power Distance culture). They are no longer opening the books to the union, like the previous owners used to do. Such transparency is virtually unheard of in high Power Distance cultures, though it is often practiced in low Power Distance cultures like the US and some Northern Europe countries. They are making decisions at the top, with little or no involvement from the workers. This is normal behavior in Brazil (high PDI), but perceived as offensive in the US/Canada (low PDI).

It's interesting to note also how language reflects culture. The expression in English is "to make a decision". This implies doing something, making something. It also implies the possibility of making something with others, doing something as a group.

In Portuguese the expression is "to take a decision". This implies that there is something on the table and someone has to "take" it. Should the union be allowed to "take it"? Heavens no! (from a high PDI point of view). It is the responsibility (and the privilege) of management to "take it".

There are power struggles between workers and managers in all cultures. In a "mono-culture" environment such struggles take less time to be worked out, because the parties involved understand where they are coming from. In a cross-culture environment the struggles may last much longer than expected, because the expectations on both sides are frustrated, due to lack of understanding of where the other party is coming from. The strike in this case is lasting six months...

The Swiss Vote (culture differences in the news 4)

The Swiss vote banning minarets is not at all surprising, when you consider: 1) Swiss culture scores 58 on Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI) in research; 2) the campaign against the minarets portrayed the "invasion" of Muslims as a terrible threat, mimicking the style of Nazi propaganda against Jews, and the reaction was "a vote of fear" (in the words of the French foreign minister); 3) research shows that the Swiss score low on Power Distance and high on Individualism, meaning they tend towards decentralized government and are resentful of any federal government initiatives, which they tend to see as an interference on local autonomy. Since the federal government was against the minaret ban, the natural attitude of the population majority was to be in favor of it, expressing their counter-dependence to federal authority; 4) research data also show the Swiss culture as being "normative" and focused on "what you are not allowed to do", so a ban is always quite appealing; 5) research shows the Swiss strongly valuing performance over caring for others, so the appeal about "freedom of faith" falls on deaf ears: it's about working hard and conforming to the norm, the rest is less important.

The polls prior to the vote painted a different picture. Most respondents said they would vote against the ban. This is misleading when the issue at stake is discrimination. As demonstrated during the presidential election in the US, people who discriminate do not admit in polls that this is what they do. There is a fear of expressing their discriminatory attitude in polls, because they fear being discriminated against for expressing an "anti-social" attitude. So people lie in polls and discriminate when voting. It happened in the US, it happened in Switzerland. There seems to be a "Swiss Connection" emerging with the US.

A huge debate has been revived all over Europe about discrimination. The findings of Hofstede's research (culture changes very little, very slowly, over centuries) are again confirmed: there was strong discrimination in many parts of Europe, a century ago. There still is. The irony is that, previously, it was against the Jews. Now, it is against the Muslims. Jesus Christ would be ashamed of these "false Christians" who are so hateful and intolerant of their brothers.

Moderates and advocates of freedom should not be silent or indifferent to what is happening. The silence of moderates allowed the rise of Nazism and Fascism almost a century ago. Let's not allow that tragedy to be enacted once again.

Fear breeds on ignorance. Stereotypes breed on ignorance. We need to foster knowledge, information, education, learning, interaction. Those are the only ways to avoid a slippery slide towards destruction and chaos. We need to promote cross-cultural understanding and build bridges across cultures. A bridge has just been bombed in Switzerland; let's re-build it.

Culture Differences in the news 3

In the International Herald Tribune today (Nov. 25), David Brooks writes that the debate in the US over healthcare is actually a debate about values... Indeed! Perhaps the coin is dropping at last.

The people inbedded in a culture are the last ones to realize the underlying values that shape it, so it is no wonder that Brooks says that the values in question are "vitality" and "security". Actually, he is not that far off the mark. Research shows that the dilemma in the American culture is between "performance" (and the status assigned to it) versus "caring for others & quality of life". It is what Hofstede labeled as "Masculinity" versus "Femininity", two terms that most Americans have issues with, because they immediately link them to "macho" behaviour and "feminist" issues.

Research shows (not my opinion, nor anybody's opinion, this is simply research data) that the US culture scores higher on "performance" over "caring". No wonder it has taken them so long to adopt universal health care (and the discussion is not over)... In the American culture, performing and being a "winner" is much more important than caring for others or than leading a life of quality rather than quantity. It's all about competing to win.

By contrast, the Dutch and Scandinavian cultures (according to research) favor "caring" over "performance", and they've had universal health care for many decades.

Brooks urges Americans to "make a choice" about what kind of country does the US want to become, and he puts it bluntly about choosing between becoming more "vibrant" as an economy or providing more healthcare. He talks about having to decide between allocating funds either to stimulate the economy or to care for "the elderly" and "the vulnerable".

If you look a bit deeper, however, you can see that the US has actually managed to have the worst of all worlds: its healthcare system is the most expensive in the world AND it does not provide full coverage. How come? How is it possible that The Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries, and even England (an Anglo-Saxon culture like the US) are all able to provide universal healthcare, yet at a lower cost?

Perhaps because America has unwillingly combined the worst bits of "savage capitalism" into its current healthcare model. By allowing a lot of freedom to private enterprises, which in the US culture (more than anywhere else) means "making the most money at the expense of all else" because "performance" and "the bottom line" is all that matters, America has created a "monster" in which healthcare PRICES are artificially high. Prices are not exactly the same as costs.

Yes, in theory it is possible to extend healthcare to everyone in the US AND to lower the overall cost. However, this would require to rein the healthcare companies who are making too much money in the current situation. There lies the hard part of this dilemma, because it goes against the cherished value of freedom of competition in a free marketplace. Many people in the US fail to realize that "freedom to compete" should not be equal to "freedom to rip off" the population who have a health concern. "Ripping off" means overcharging, but it also means over-prescribing, over-testing, prescribing testing and treatment beyond what is really needed.

The right-wing shouts "rationing", but there should be a way to reconcile this dilemma.

The American culture will not change. OK, maybe in a hundred years, when there are more immigrants living in the US coming from other cultures and they have influenced the way children are being brought up. So we can discuss it again at the beginning of the 22nd Century.

In the meantime, the US has to find a way to reconcile its moral preference for "performance" with the need to provide at least minimum health care for the masses. You don't have to go very far. In South America, most countries provide low-cost, low-standard universal health care. And the wealthy are free to be ripped off by the providers of their choice when they want high-standard medical services. It is socialism for the poor majority and market capitalism for the rich minority.

However, this collides with the American value of "equality". In the US it is not morally acceptable to have a "privileged minority" entitled to better medical care, co-existing with an "underprivileged majority" that has no access to that. This makes it more difficult to reconcile the dilemma between "performance" and "caring".

The paradox is that, over time (in the past 30 years), income distribution in the US is becoming more concentrated, while in Brazil (for instance) it is becoming less concentrated (see "The Economist" of last week). Perhaps in the 22nd Century the situation will be reversed... The US will have a "de facto" unequal society, while in South America people will enjoy the economic equality that was a 20th Century ideal.

Actually, that is not very likely. Culture changes much more slowly than in a century. What IS likely is that the US will eventually adopt a healthcare system that will continue to combine the worst of "savage capitalism" with the emphasis on "performance", thereby increasing prices and overall costs, leading to a slow deterioration of the American competitiveness and "market share" in the global economy. The US will still be one of the large economies on the planet, (second to Europe) but less dominant than in 1970 (when Europe was still fractioned) and more interdependent with the BRIC countries.

Like in the rental car ads of the seventies, the motto will shift from Hertz ("We're Number One, we're the best!") to Avis ("We're Number Two, we try harder!").

Culture Differences in the News 2

Should people be vaccinated against Swine Flu? Apparently culture has something to do with the issue...

In the Netherlands (low Power Distance, high Individualism) only 25% of nurses have agreed to take the vaccine soon to be made available. The overwhelming majority (75%) are suspicious of any "government-led" initiative, according to Radio Netherlands. "“For a start it is very difficult to really protect yourself against flu. Every flu jab targets a certain virus. And there are hundreds going around, so you are not protected at all. The side effects can be really serious. And it seems like there is a lot of panic-spreading going on. It is only the pharmaceutical industry that stands to benefit from it," said Ute.

Nannet van der Geest, company doctor at a Nijmegen hospital, is not keen on compulsory vaccination campaigns like the one in the United States. Instead she believes in providing the medical staff with the right information so they can make their own choices.

These opinions are typical of cultures scoring very high on Individualism and low on Power Distance. People show less dependent behavior and value dissenting opinions.

Meanwhile, in Brazil (high Power Distance, low Individualism) people are complaining that "the Government is not providing enough medicine against Swine Flu and the vaccination campaign is coming too late!" Typical of the Brazilian culture is to consider that it is the Government's responsibility (whether Federal or Regional) to "take care of the population". The vaccination campaign is perceived as "needs to be compulsory, otherwise people will not take the responsibility to be vaccinated. They need to be told!"

Very different approaches are needed to design public health policies...

Culture Differences in the News 1

Barack Obama (whom I admire) made the effort to go to Copenhagen and pitch for the Chicago candidacy to host the 2016 Olympics. He demonstrated how a culture bias can wreck the best of intentions. His plane landed at 7:00 AM. He spoke to the IOC at 8:30, and left for the airport soon after, taking off before noon. When the first voting results were announced, he was already airborne.

This was published by the International Herald Tribune: "former IOC member, Kai Holm, told the Associated Press that the brevity of his appearance may have hurt. Mr Holm called it 'too business-like. It can be that some IOC members see it as a lack of respect.' "

Obama acted in a typical Anglo-Saxon way, going straight to the point, and then leaving. He forgot that, out of 97 IOC members, less than a dozen come from Anglo-Saxon cultures. The vast majority of the world have cultures that value relationships far more than "the bottom line".

No wonder Chicago got the least votes of the four candidate-cities and was the first to be dropped from the competition.

Kevan Gosper, IOC member from Australia (one of the "less-than-a-dozen" Anglo Saxon cultures) said "I'm shocked. To have the president of the United States and his wife personally appear, then this should happen in the first round is awful and totally undeserving."

Well, well, Mr. Gosper: what would be more deserving? To have the president of Brazil personally appear and Rio be dropped? Or to have the prime minister of Japan appear and Tokyo be dropped? Or perhaps to have the king of Spain personally appear, and Madrid be dropped?

In Chicago, news anchors were questioning whether the IOC was "anti-American"... That is not the issue.

My dear friends, welcome to a multilateral world, the reality of the 21st Century is just beginning. America deserves the same respect as other nations, no less, no more. The Anglo-Saxon culture is as important as other cultures, no more, no less.

Bear in mind that the population of Anglo-Saxon, Dutch-Scandinavian and Germanic cultures represent 9% of the world's population. The remaining 91% are "Solar-System", "Family" and "Social Pyramid" cultures (Japan stands on its own, but that is another story).

No culture is "better" than another, but those belonging to cultures which are minoritarian in the world stage should at least try to understand what is going on in the other cultures. Or risk other unpleasant surprises in the years to come.

If you can't do anything useful...

A wise man dispenses advice to his son:

Go out and do something useful to make this a better world, my son.

If you can't do anything, become a Manager.

If you can't Manage, become a Consultant.

If you can't consult, write a book.

If you can't write a book, become a blogger!

...and keep me updated on Twitter.

Holding Your Liquor

There is plenty of advice available to teen-agers these days in terms of “drinking responsibly”. However, I find that none of it is as objective as it could be. Actually, most of it is rather confusing. No wonder most teen-agers pay little attention to advice regarding drinking, and the whole thing becomes a “you’ll have to learn on your own” kind of thing (which isn’t really very helpful, is it?).

To begin with, teen-agers notoriously aren’t very inclined to follow any kind of advice, specially the ones who call on them to “act responsibly”… They tend to think this kind of talk is lame, and it often has the exact opposite effect: teens will do precisely the opposite of what is being suggested, just to prove that they can feel independent and joyful when NOT acting responsibly, and that “acting responsibly” is for “squares” (I know that the expression “squares” went out of fashion a few decades ago, but bear with me.)

Therefore, let’s start by giving advice on how to “hold your liquor”, which is much more enticing than “acting responsibly”. “Holding your liquor” is about enjoying yourself, by drinking and not throwing up all over the place, spoiling the party not only for yourself but also for everyone around you. “Holding your liquor” means drinking smart, not acting like a bore. People who can hold their liquor are admired. People who can’t, are despised and pitied. People who “act responsibly” are considered boring party spoilers.

So let me be objective about it. Each person has to know their own limit, but usually you only find out what your limit is once you’ve crossed it (and made an ass of yourself). So here are some straightforward guidelines while you’re learning to test your own limits:

1. Don’t drink on an empty stomach, have something to eat before you start drinking.
2. Drink water or soft drinks alternating with alcohol.
3. Don’t mix your booze: if you start with beer, don’t change to whiskey, then to wine, then back to beer, etc. Stick with one kind for the evening, and respect the quantities below:
4. Respect these limits, if you’re male:
a) Two beers is OK; four beers is max (after that, you’re drunk)
b) One double whiskey is OK; two is max (after that, you can’t talk straight). This goes for all “strong” spirits like vodka, gin, rum
c) A glass of wine is fine; half a bottle is max (after that, you’re out)
d) Two glasses of champagne is OK; three is max (after that, your performance is affected)
5. For the ladies, the limits are smaller. It’s a plain fact that blokes tend to be able to drink more without it affecting them, as a general rule. There are exceptions, of course. Certain ladies will shame the lads in a drinking contest, but that is definitely not what you see in 90% of the cases. So ladies, look at half the amounts above to remain sober. If you go beyond half the prescription you are doing so at your own risk, and the consequences for drunken behaviour tend do be more severe for the ladies then for the men (right or wrong, it’s a fact in most cultures).
6. Speaking of drinking contests, don’t ever go into any kind of drinking game. These are truly stupid exercises which embarrass all participants, to the sadistic joy of the non-participating on-lookers, who cheer them on to their demise. You want people to have fun WITH you, not to make fun OF you. Plus, the game winners tend to wind up in hospital with a tube down their throats. Not worth it.
7. If you forgot how many drinks you’ve had, you’ve had too many. Stop and go home, while you can still remember where you live!
Learning something tends to be almost always enjoyable. Learning to hold your liquor can be enjoyable too. Just tread slowly and enjoy the scenery. If you go too fast you’re just spoiling your own journey.

Immigrants and integration

“Proud to be mixed”

Fernando Lanzer Pereira de Souza

Is this the beginning of the end? Are we beginning to slowly fulfil the prophecies of Nostradamus about the Apocalypse, moving towards the destruction of the world through a war between East and West? Have we come to the point where cartoons in Scandinavian newspapers have the same detonation power as the terrorist actions of 9/11? Or is everyone overreacting? It’s not easy to make sense out of the headlines you see on the media these days. It seems very much that we are moving to increased radicalization of opinions, right and left, and mankind seems to be taking several steps back, rather than progressing towards global understanding and harmony.

In trying to resolve the “East vs. West” conflict, why not look at the South, for a different perspective?

I’m a Brazilian National living and working in Europe for over seven years. I have watched with concern the increasing debate around globalization, culture clashes all over the world, and more recently the clashes between “the East and the West”, notably in different parts of Europe. I’ve seen it in the media expressed as conflicts between Turks and Germans, Moroccans and French, Arabs and Europeans, Muslims and Christians, etc. It seems that as the European Union started enlarging its membership, a sensitive nerve has been touched. Many people oppose Turkey joining the European Union on the grounds that “the Turks are not European”. “They have a different culture from ‘ours’”.

In the first place, let’s remind ourselves that the European Union is not about culture. It is essentially an economic cooperation union, which is something quite different. Many Americans have made the mistake of forecasting the failure of the European Union because “you can never unify such different cultures”. Well, guess what? It’s not about the unification of culture, it’s about economic cooperation!

“Globalization”, a term used loosely to name many different things, is similarly not about culture, but rather about economic interdependencies. National and regional cultures will remain differentiated (actually, they tend to become even more differentiated then they are today). Many authors have pointed that out repeatedly, but I’ll mention just two: Geert Hofstede and Alvin Toffler, who’ve been saying this for over 30 years! Will somebody from the press please listen?

There are two different issues at stake here: one is economic cooperation, the other is culture diversity coexistence.

Economic cooperation should continue expanding. Trade barriers should continue to be reduced. Turkey should be allowed to join the European Union, as I believe the economic advantages of that outweigh the economic disadvantages. But there will be many discussions about that, and it will take time (years) before it is settled .

But let’s look at the cultural coexistence angle. This is the angle that touches people’s emotions, and it sells more newspapers.

I believe globalization will work out, eventually. Fighting against it is futile. Mankind has been evolving towards globalization since the Stone Age, and if we didn’t evolve towards it we would still be living in tribes and beating each other up with sticks. It won’t mean unifying cultures, but rather learn to coexist respecting each other’s increasingly different cultures.

When I look around me today, however, I suddenly realize that we haven’t evolved as much as I initially thought: we have larger tribes and bigger sticks, but the stereotyping, discrimination and prejudice is frighteningly similar to what it was more than 1,000 years ago. A picture in the International Herald Tribune, of a policeman on horseback equipped with a helmet and long stick, charging against a mob of protesters in Israel, looked straight out of Ridley Scott’s film “Kingdom of Heaven”, depicting the Crusades in the Twelfth Century.

I still believe in the benefits of globalization, but we do need to do something about the process and begin deliberately managing the changes, rather than consider ourselves victims of the process and restrict ourselves to defensiveness and resistance. We need to give globalization a different shape and form, or else it might actually not work, after all. Einstein once warned against “underestimating the stupidity of mankind”. Indeed, as a species we still have the capacity to be so stupid that we just might end up shooting each other to extinction, so we need to realize the threats and the opportunities involved, and we will need to make some courageous choices to manage change towards a positive outcome.

In the midst of the on-going debates, I’ve seen comparisons between the different “models” of cultural integration adopted by different countries in integrating (or attempting to integrate) immigrants in their communities. I’ve read articles on the way the Americans do it (I wouldn’t call it integration, but rather “become Anglo-Saxon or remain in a ghetto for generations”), the way the British do it (not very different from the Americans, which is not surprising since the American and British are much more similar than either would like to admit, anthropologically and philosophically speaking), the way the Germans do it (and the debate in Germany now seems to be whether their model of integration should change more towards the Anglo-American “love it or leave it” approach) and the way the French do it (riots in France speak volumes about how successful that approach has been to date).

Please forgive my Brazilian bias (we all have our cultural biases, no exceptions) and allow me to invite you to look at the “Brazilian model”. It can hardly be called a model, perhaps, because I don’t believe what happened in Brazil throughout the 20th Century was actually planned, but there are lessons to be learned from what happened there, and such lessons might make the difference between global evolution and global destruction.

Brazilian society is far from perfect, actually riddled with deep problems which should not be emulated. I am not advocating Brazilian society as an example, not at all. What I am saying is, let’s take a look at the cultural integration of immigrants in Brazilian society, and whether there is something to be learned from that un-planned process.

Cultural integration of immigrants was not marvellous in Brazil. There was also prejudice and discrimination against the “foreigners” who came. But looking back, it was smoother there than in the U.S. or in Europe. And there are less conflicts around it today than you find in the so-called “developed countries”. So, what happened?

The answer is: sex! (A very “Brazilian” response, I admit, living up to the stereotype of Brazilians as “sex maniacs”, expressed in Rio’s Carnaval parades). A more “Western European” way of putting it would be: integration happened at the basic cell-level of society, the family. Immigrants started marrying people outside their original “tribes” and forming new “inter-tribal” families, rather than sticking to the ghetto-restrained relationships.

People started breeding across cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and created a more integrated society (from an ethnical point of view). Brazilians today are not the cause of integration, they are the product of integration.

When a Syrian Muslim married a Portuguese Catholic (just an example) in Brazil, before WWII, cultural conflict was brought into the two families in a very concrete way. It was at first painful and disruptive for all parties involved, but eventually they had to cope with it. Initially the new couple was often ostracized by both families, and ended up having to face all kinds of discrimination in society. It was a long process to establish themselves as respectable in the communities they circulated in. This often took years and sometimes generations of strife. But the offspring of the new “inter-tribal” family were raised in a different family environment, no longer “pure” (as in “limited by”) the standards of a single tribe, but rather enriched by the combination of both. Often the arrival of a grandchild brought the two original families closer, setting again a different environment for the upraising of such grandchildren. Regardless of their background, grandparents have a tendency to become much more tolerant of what their grandchildren do than they ever were in regards to their own children.

This new generation of grandchildren typically grew up to again engage in “cross-tribal” partnering, marrying partners coming from (for instance) a Japanese background, Brazilian Indian ancestry or African-Brazilian origins. After four or five generations of this, you have a society which is much richer in terms of its diversity and much more open towards further integration than any of the original cultures ever was. Still plagued with multiple issues, certainly not free from discrimination and prejudice, but much closer to being fully integrated than anything you can see in Europe or in the U.S. today.

What could policy-makers learn from this? For one thing, stop trying to “force” immigrants into integration, stop telling them “you need to abandon your roots and embrace the values of your adopted nation!” It’s not that simple. Cultural integration is a two-way street. The culture of the “host” country is also affected by the presence of immigrants, and the sooner everyone accepts that fact, the sooner everyone can move towards the development of a “new” culture, a culture that results from the combination of both cultures (or multiple cultures) rather than imposing one on the others. Have faith in the (true) integration process, for the combined culture will be better than the ones who originated it. Such is the natural law of evolution, not only in nature, but in social and political terms as well.

A second thing is to promote the richness of the “new” culture. Diversity is good for you. Develop the capacity of people to perceive the differences among them as a stepping stone towards understanding the similarities which lie beneath the apparent differences on the surface. The way a mother expresses love for her baby may be different from one culture to another, but that powerful feeling is the same. A culture that can harbour many different ways of expressing love will be much more gratifying to its participants than one which accepts only one way of such expression.

A third thing is to promote cultural integration in the “family cell”, the simplest form of social organization. Foster mixed neighbourhoods, mixed schools, “sleep-overs”, social events which bring people from different communities together (rather than “the English Club”, the “American Society” or “the Catholic Charity Group”, which all exclude people who are different). Gather people around common values and efforts which transcend cultural background, such as disaster relief projects, environmental awareness programmes or sports (but don’t encourage ethnic-based competition such as “the Blacks versus the Jews”).

Ethnic groups will exist. I’m not advocating to declare “English Clubs” illegal or anything like that. People need to keep in touch with their past, but with their eyes on the future. Such is the nature of human beings. Children need comforting as well as encouragement to grow up and develop. Cultures work in a similar way. There needs to be room for tradition, for feeling safe in regards to your identity based on your past. But just as children need encouragement to grow and develop, cultures also need encouragement to learn and broaden their repertoire, through interaction with different cultures. Cultures need to form ideals and a vision for their future which transcends their past. Policy makers need to put the emphasis on this, rather than on keeping people locked up in history.

So, Policy Makers: encourage people to be proud to be mixed, rather than ashamed of it. Encourage people to be proud to be mixed, rather than to be proud of being “of pure blood”. Take a hint or two from the Harry Potter books. Strive to be remembered in the future as the ones who pushed society towards development, rather than as the ones who tried very hard to keep things as they once were.
Be very much aware that cultural integration is a very slow and often painful process. It won’t happen over night. It will meet resistance from the many conservative groups which exist in all cultures. It will require persistence and patience. But it’s worth it. The future of our planet, of our grandchildren, depends on changing the way we approach culture, and shaping a new global society that can be fair and just for all, respecting the past, but creating a future that lies beyond the limitations of any past culture by itself.

"Delta 10" (or Delta Ten) refers to change (Delta) and the "4-3-2-1" principles of leadership. So Delta 10 is about changing to be a better leader.Everyone is a leader, to some extent, in some capacity. In this blog I will share my experiences on the road to become a better leader - - and hope this will invite others to do the same. This sharing of experiences aims to help all involved to improve their roles as leaders, in all aspects of their lives.