11/08/2025 By David Rigby

That’s not allowed – going Dutch with the experts

Intercultural experiences in Netherlands

That is not allowed” were the first words from the waiter in Scheveningen, The Hague Netherlands when I asked to exchange Potato Salad for Chips with my Schnitzel, so I conceded. My first experience of Dutch restaurant culture. Made all the sweeter when he returned form the kitchen saying “We don’t have potato salad, would you be OK with chips ? “

I hope you like sandwiches (and raw herring)

My impressions were not improved when the only food on offer in my first restaurant in Utrecht was a choice of three sandwiches. OK but very expensive.

In Amsterdam I survived the ‘can you eat proper Dutch food ‘ with the Raw Herring test. It was good – followed by another lunch where only sandwiches were on offer and no red wine . You have to have good teeth for these.

Another restaurant, this time in Amsterdam South, late dinner at 7.30. We get told : “We have run out of chicken”, “Can I have the menu of the day?- No”.” Can I have a burger?” No – I told you we have run out of chicken (no mention that the burger is chicken anywhere in the menu). OK I’ll have the veggie burger “Does it come with fries/chips” Yes – but we don’t have any (and no alternatives offered) and so it went on ! And it was terrible.

Three pints of Guinness later…

The Indonesian Restaurant was good in Leiden but then it was after three pints of Guinness with my Irish friend. The Curry in Scheveningen was competent, and so were the Dutch Pancakes in Amsterdam.

*August in Sheveningan Den Haag – Mussels by the fire*

*Dutch “can you eat raw herring?” test and typical lunch*

*The exceptional Walter Benedict restaurant in Den Haag*

I mention the name of the restaurant, Walter Benedict, in Den Haag as it was, exceptionally, an exceptional restaurant/café. Superb food, service and ambience. But then at 45 Euros a head for two courses and no alcohol it ought to have been.
On the final night we braved the cold and lashing rain to have Mussels in a seaside café in Scheveningen. They had their individual gas fires in the middle of each table – after all it’s August !

What have I learnt from this?

What have I learnt from this? I went to each of these restaurants with someone local who, in theory, knows what they are doing. Those Dutch stereotypes about timeliness and cuisine are absolutely right and everything shuts at 9.30 or 10. I was also right to go out with 5 layers of clothes. I live in Spain where having wine or perhaps beer with lunch or dinner (at 10p.m.) is absolutely normal – everyone thought I was an alcoholic. July/August may be the best time to visit Netherlands but I was pleased to be back in Madrid at 38 degrees. Nevertheless the Netherlands experience, spending time with old friends, recent friends and making new ones made the experience a great one!

Smart Coaching & Training works with over 30 associates, in four continents speaking 14 languages. Most raised and working in a wide range of cultures and living in a different place than where they were born . See our associates here.

Many of our associates learned how to speak via Toastmasters and Professional Speakers Association Read more

10/04/2025 By David Rigby

Diverse teams generate fewer usable ideas

‘Diverse expertise is great if the goal is innovative ‘out of the box’ ideas, but if you need timely, usable ideas, you may want a more focused, uniform team’

‘Diverse expertise is great if the goal is innovative ‘out of the box’ ideas, but if you need timely, usable ideas, you may want a more focused, uniform team’” posted in WORK journal, one of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s publications. Is this one of the reasons UK is so behind in innovation and productivity ?

Brain Scanning – to see if there is any activity?

They used brain-scanning techniques to measure how people actually responded during team collaboration and found that teams with different skills and perspectives do come up with more original ideas, but they also ‘face friction when trying to turn those ideas into practical implementable solutions’. Interesting – of course – but if you get people who all think the same way then you get all the wrong decisions made faster.. This is about diversity of thinking but equally applies to all the other ‘Diversities’.

Stupid ideas so much faster

We have seen what happens when the male pale and stale brigade( and also straight and Catholic) govern a country. Stupid ideas so much faster. The saving grace is that if everyone else continues down the Diversity route they will be out flanked at every level. And, as we already see, their international influence is all but destroyed in a matter of weeks, which has to be a good thing…

*Smart Coaching & Training Team meeting in Barcelona with – David Rigby* , Jessica Breitenfeld, Alba Hincapié, Ian Gibbs, and special guest from Oxford UK, interculturalist Patti McCarthy

*Inclusive teams thrive – but not according to CIPD*

*Professional Speakers Association PRODAY in Barcelona (see below)*

“Diverse teams generate fewer usable ideas” .say CIPD. If you continue doing what you always did then don’t be surprised if you always get the same results. HR are notoriously conservative and generally perceived as ‘only wishing to ensure that the current laws are upheld’ Diversity by tickbox .

McKinsey and Inclusion

On the other hand McKinsey et al demonstrate over and over again that Diverse teams are the best ways to increase sales and profits. This only works when diverse components are ‘Included’. Celebrating the differences and having an open mind helps . people having to code switch when they come to work – language and accent – doesn’t help and it means those who do are also having to focus on ‘behaving’ rather than contributing.

British Leaders, CIPD management , Innovation and Disruption

With British leaders , and no doubt those in the CIPD management, still being brainwashed that only those with the right accent and who went to the right school, and therefore are risk averse and unable to manage their emotions, as they are the only ones whose opinions count we will not see the progress that true disruption enables.

Professional Speakers Association (Spain) – PRODAYS – Madrid 28 June , Barcelona 29 March

The pictures below and above are from the Professional Speakers Association PRODAY in Barcelona I am pleased to be organising the next one in MADRID on Saturday June 28th. why not come and speak? Ask me

*Professional Speakers Association Proday- Vice President Oliver Watson and President Marta Pardo*

Smart Coaching & Training works with 28 associates, in four continents speaking 14 languages and raised and working in a wide range of cultures. See our associates here.

Speaking

Many of our associates learned how to speak via Toastmasters and Professional Speakers Association Read more

03/02/2025 By David Rigby

Do you want to get to the top of the speaking business?

Imagine you are sitting the audience of the events hosted by Smart Coaching & Training Ltd Associates’ Jessica Breitenfeld and Alba Lucia Hincapié on February 15. What can you expect to see and learn ?

Speakers Luisa Montalvo, Darren Lacroix and Mark Brown are all Toastmasters’ World Champions of Public Speaking.

Pictured: David, Jessica and Alba *Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/american-society-of-barcelona-1706033218 and https://forms.gle/kFRrVfkGFQM5M2Ua6*

What is Toastmasters ?

Toastmasters International is a non-profit educational organization that builds confidence and teaches public speaking skills through a worldwide network of clubs that meet online and in person. Founded in 1924, the organization has approximately 270,000 members in more than 14,000 clubs in 150 countries.
Why are Jessica and Alba hosting these events? Jessica Breitenfeld , Alba Lucia Hincapié and SCT’s Clair Aghassipour and Caroline Dream are Europe’s Top female speaker, División champion of evaluation of speeches, European Champion, District Champion. They know how difficult it is to become a world champion, competing and winning through club, district, country, area and finally world competitions. And before that going through all the stages of the Toastmasters learning methodology before they are even allowed to compete. And all three presenters are prepared to show how they did it.

So you are going to learn some of the tricks or skills they learnt to get to the top.

All this sounds very academic, and in a way it is. But also remember these are public speaking champions and so they are also experts at entertaining and motivating the audience.
You can join Toastmasters just with a desire to learn to speak in public and the members will support you all the way to the top. You can do all the exams or just go along to polish your skills or just to support others. Many clubs are bi-lingual, so you can join a club which speaks in the language you are learning and become confident enough to present on stage in another language. Smart Coaching & Training’s founder David Rigby has done that with his Spanish.

Professional Speakers Association

The Professional Speakers Association is another way of developing yourself as speaker. In this organisation there is opportunity to develop your speaking business. There are many different national organisations, some of which belong to the worldwide organisation. Being a member of the PSA is a chance to mingle with and befriend people who make a good living public speaking.

Smart Coaching & Training associates Ian Gibbs and Caroline Dream created the Professional Speakers Association in Spain which now operates in both English and Spanish.

The Toastmasters methodology and membership of Professional Speakers Association does not guarantee you will earn a fortune as a professional speaker As PSA Spain says “Not Everyone wants to be a professional speaker but everyone needs to speak professionally “.

*Women’s Retreat Hosted by Jessica Breitenfeld*

*PSA President Marta Pardoe with Global Speakers President Rub Newell-Legner and Past President Tulia Lopes*

Smart Coaching & Training offers coaching from our champion associates and also has delivered training in public speaking in several countries. Some, like Ricardo Cabete are full time professional speakers. Of course our associates have delivered speeches at conferences and events throughout the world . See https://www.smartcoachingtraining.com/speak .
Do you want to learn some of the tricks to get to the top of the speaking business ? Get your tickets for the events Tickets: For Luisa https://www.eventbrite.com/o/american-society-of-barcelona-1706033218 and for Darren https://forms.gle/kFRrVfkGFQM5M2Ua6

Smart Coaching & Training works with 27 associates, in four continents speaking 14 languages and raised and working in a wide range of cultures. See our associates here.

04/12/2024 By David Rigby

Celebrating Success

Celebrating the success of just some of Smart Coaching & Training’s remarkable Associates in recent months in 2024

There are now 27 associates within Smart Coaching & Training Ltd. And we are asked all the time “Can I be an Associate please ?” We also have several people on the reserve list – particularly specialists who are vetted and so can be called on when opportunities arise.

The main requirements to be an associate are that you are qualified and a team player as you have to take the time to get to know other associates. So that when opportunities arise you are able to work as a team to satisfy the needs. Another requirement is that you are interesting – you have something to say and you do interesting things outside work. See our associates here

Who is in the photo ?

From top left

Peggy Li – here on Dubai TV talking about Chinese Hospitality in Dubai

Sheona Della Fort – At Change Days in Barcelona running workshops on Spirituality

Caroline Dream – At Change Days presenting on Failure and currently in South America running a series of classes on Clowning

Jessica Breitenfeld – Organiser of Change Days, TEDx Speaker and winner of countless Toastmaster awards on her world wide trip

Maxine Barnett – Giving the ‘Maxine Barnett award for HR Excellence in Trinidad while being extremely busy in Washington

Carol Glynn – Winner of “Most Impactful Financial Literacy Project” in Dubai

Clair Aghassipour – Winner of First Prize in the Toastmasters International Speak Contest and her work on Interculturality with Sietar

Helen Morris – personally invited to celebrate UK King Charles’ Birthday at the UK Embassy in Dubai

Ricardo Cabete – setting fire to his Wallet at the Professional Speaker’s Association in Barcelona

Ian Gibbs – getting continuing success with Learning Clubs, and his work with Professional Speakers Association

Marc Mekki – special mention for his amazing presentation on Artificial Intelligence in Seville. Watch here. And to Mahmoud Assy and Pari Namazie for their podcasts and interviews

David Rigby – particularly proud of being guest professor at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona talking about Cognitive Diversity to Interculturality Students and getting confident to speak rubbish Spanish from a big stage.

*Mark Mekki at the NEOM project in Saudi Arabia*

It’s difficult to choose from al those successes . So much talent from everywhere and who have been everywhere . Posted before the Christmas rush

Smart Coaching & Training works with 27 associates, in four continents speaking 14 languages and raised and working in a wide range of cultures. See our associates here.

17/11/2024 By David Rigby

Recruiting the right person for the team

Having a cognitively diverse team gets the best results

Many organisations have an HR department that ticks boxes on whether they enough women, gays, colours and nationalities and they think they have diverse teams. In general they only care about the law and diversity and pay scant attention to inclusion, interculturality, neurodiversity and generational diversity as it is not a legal requirement.

Who Needs To Make Money?

McKinsey have proved over and over again that having a truly diverse team is the best way to improve profits. And to develop customers it’s better to have someone who has similar characteristics to serve those customers.
No amount of ‘diversity’ in any of the above categories will be successful if everyone thinks the same way. And a recruiter’s in-built bias will ensure that they still recruit people who will ‘fit in’ rather than challenge the status quo. Your customers don’t all think the same way so neither should your team.

Holistic approach to recruitment

Recruiting a diverse team requires a holistic approach, recruiting the best person for the team is way more important than recruiting the best person for a particular job. Not an approach even thought about by most recruiters who still look for hard skills and experience rather than the soft skills required to work in a team.

FREE EVENT 23rd November 2024

DISCulturally Decoding Human Behaviour with Clair Aghassipour – see below to get tickets

*Smart Coaching & Training’s Clair Aghassipour*

*3 colours worldview – another way of profiling*

How do you go about this?.

Some people are more extrovert (or Active) than others and some are more introvert( (or Reactive). Some people absolutely rely on logic ( or Task Orientated) and have no time for emotion, others think emotion and behaviours such a empathy are very important (or People Orientated). Putting them all together which brings four combinations.
In reality everyone is a combination of introvert/extrovert and of logical/emotional but tend to be predominantly one combination such as ‘emotional/extravert’ , which can be expressed as through the colours red, yellow, green and blue.

Profiling Tools

There are many tools available to assess individuals as to which personality types. There are tools based on the work of Jung which include Insights, C-me and the variants of DISC. Others are MBTI, Enneagram which take a different approach.
Within Smart Coaching & Training we have expertise on many of these tools. And in order to gain an understanding of the concepts of DISC, SCT associate Clair Aghassipour is running a three hour workshop on Colour Profiling using DISC. This will cover the concepts of the understanding of individuals as well as combining to build a truly diverse team. (see details below)

Don’t believe all the stereotyping by Interculturalists

Many interculturalists believe that there are characteristics and behaviours based on nationalities, such as The Dutch are very logical and the Spanish are very emotional. To an extent this is the case, and is a good starting point. But given and even split of cognitive characteristics only half of the Dutch are logical and only half the Spanish are emotional. So the works of Hofstede are a good starting point , but also considering the way people think is a much more useful way of thinking.

*DISCulturally Decoding Human Behaviour 23rd Nov 9.45 CET with Clair Aghassipour – **FREE EVENT** but you have to reserve your place* . *Send request to [email protected]*

All about Human Behaviour

DISCulturally Decoding Human Behaviour Workshop 23rd Nov 9.45 CET with Clair Aghassipour – FREE EVENT but you have to reserve your place . Send request to [email protected]

Read also about Profiling in general here Read also about Cognitive Diversity here

Watch David Rigby give an introduction to Colour Profiling here and also …

David presented a 7 minute test speech for Madrid Toastmasters on Cognitive Interculturality here
Watch is webinar on Cognitive Diversity with DG Talks here
Watch his ‘hot seat’ interview on Cognitive Diversity for GLEAC here.

Smart Coaching & Training works with 27 associates, in four continents speaking 12 languages and raised and working in a wide range of cultures. See our associates here.

Intercultural experiences in Netherlands

I hope you like sandwiches (and raw herring)

Three pints of Guinness later…

What have I learnt from this?

Smart Coaching & Training works with over 30 associates, in four continents speaking 14 languages. Most raised and working in a wide range of cultures and living in a different place than where they were born . See our associates here.

‘Diverse expertise is great if the goal is innovative ‘out of the box’ ideas, but if you need timely, usable ideas, you may want a more focused, uniform team’

Brain Scanning – to see if there is any activity?

Stupid ideas so much faster

McKinsey and Inclusion

British Leaders, CIPD management , Innovation and Disruption

Professional Speakers Association (Spain) – PRODAYS – Madrid 28 June , Barcelona 29 March

Smart Coaching & Training works with 28 associates, in four continents speaking 14 languages and raised and working in a wide range of cultures. See our associates here.

Speaking

Imagine you are sitting the audience of the events hosted by Smart Coaching & Training Ltd Associates’ Jessica Breitenfeld and Alba Lucia Hincapié on February 15. What can you expect to see and learn ?

Speakers Luisa Montalvo, Darren Lacroix and Mark Brown are all Toastmasters’ World Champions of Public Speaking.

What is Toastmasters ?

So you are going to learn some of the tricks or skills they learnt to get to the top.

Professional Speakers Association

Smart Coaching & Training works with 27 associates, in four continents speaking 14 languages and raised and working in a wide range of cultures. See our associates here.

Celebrating the success of just some of Smart Coaching & Training’s remarkable Associates in recent months in 2024

Who is in the photo ?

Smart Coaching & Training works with 27 associates, in four continents speaking 14 languages and raised and working in a wide range of cultures. See our associates here.

Having a cognitively diverse team gets the best results

Who Needs To Make Money?

Holistic approach to recruitment

FREE EVENT 23rd November 2024

DISCulturally Decoding Human Behaviour with Clair Aghassipour – see below to get tickets

How do you go about this?.

Profiling Tools

Don’t believe all the stereotyping by Interculturalists

All about Human Behaviour

Smart Coaching & Training works with 27 associates, in four continents speaking 12 languages and raised and working in a wide range of cultures. See our associates here.

Contact Info

Recent Featured Posts click on pic to see title and connect to article

Social Media

We mostly post to David Rigby’s Linked In and Facebook

Instagram

Facebook