The art of communication is the language of leadership
James Humes
The art of communication is the language of leadership
James Humes

Do you work in a diverse team and sometimes wish communication would run a bit smoother? Do you try hard to convey your message to your colleagues with a different cultural background, but you find that the result sometimes falls short of your expectations?
Good news! You are not the only one who has trouble navigating the cultural maze of a diverse team. More than a simple inconvenience, miscommunications and misunderstandings cost a lot of time and energy. This may ultimately affect your organization’s bottom line.
So instead of muddling through ‘business as usual’, why not call on someone who is well-versed in working with people with different cultural backgrounds and get to the root of the problem!
My name is Marlies van Exter and I am here to help you improve your intercultural communication.
Through training and coaching, we will work together to achieve a smooth, respectful, effective and inclusive communication for your organization.
Work with me
Training
Do you want to learn how to recognize and understand the cultural differences and similarities between you and your colleagues? Would you like to increase the effectiveness of your multicultural team? I’m here to help you.
Coaching
Coaching is an effective way to continue to develop your “intercultural intelligence”. An essential skill in today’s globalized world. And whereas cultural knowledge can be learned, intercultural intelligence requires practice.
Storytelling
Storytelling. How often have you heard this word lately? Everyone seems to be talking about it, but you – honestly – have no idea what it is exactly. Well, the answer is quite simple: storytelling is the telling of stories. “Really? That’s all it is?”, I can hear you think.
Blog
Want to work on inclusion? Changing your language could be a starting point
‘Where you from?’ sounds like an innocent question, right? However, not for Andrea. She was born and raised in the city of Leiden in the Netherlands. But her interrogators, mostly strangers, rarely seem to be satisfied with that response. “No, I mean, where are you really from?”, they subsequently ask. And although Andrea has come across it repeatedly, she gets downhearted every time again. “Don’t these people realise that the word ‘really’ sounds like I could never really be from the Netherlands?,” she sighs “As if there’s an unwritten rule that people of colour could never truly be Dutch. It gives me the feeling of not belonging to my very own country.”
Andrea has known it for a long time, and many people have known it with her: language is an extremely powerful tool.
Exploring the mind: traveling during coronatimes
Some of the most useful lessons I’ve ever learned were taught to me by a dead man. He had passed away some years already before he came into my life, but goodness, did he come into my life. I still vividly remember the pain I went through during my time as his apprentice. The terribly lengthy boredom. The frustration. The silence… I thought I would never, ever want him as my mentor again, but to tell you the truth… I might be ready for another round!
So, who is this man?
His name is Satya Narayan Goenka. A Burmese-Indian teacher of Vipassana meditation. Vipassana means “seeing things as they really are” and the goal is to purify the mind and eliminate negativities that make us miserable.
Surinamese adventures: are you experienced?
(for Dutch please scroll down)
Suriname was one of the first countries that entered my travel bucket list and there were a few reasons for that. First, there was Orlando, my friend’s father, who was born and raised in Suriname. He used to tell us these fantastic childhood memories, that triggered my imagination.
I started to read about Suriname. Books such as ‘The Queen of Paramaribo’, about Maxi Linder, the most famous prostitute of Suriname. Back in her days, she financially took care of the underprivileged. Sadly enough she died as a lonely spinster, in a dirty backroom. I also read all the historical novels of Cynthia McLeod, about the history of Suriname. Dutch colonisation, life at the plantations, slavery.