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Young German managers learning in Asia
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InWEnts Heinz Nixdorf Programme
Young German managers learning in Asia
Personnel exchanges between industrialised countries have a long tradition. With the globalisation of markets and worldwide availability of information, there is a growing realisation that all countries are developing countries – they just have different needs. So in modern networked society, international capacity-building needs to target deficits which stand in the way of globalisation. And that is precisely what InWEnts Heinz Nixdorf programme is designed to do.
For ten years, the Heinz Nixdorf programme has enabled young German managers to spend time in Asia – a chance for junior personnel with technical or business qualifications to complete a spell of practical training and gain valuable work experience in another continent. In China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, internationally geared companies and local units of European business enterprises take on young German personnel for a period of six months, giving them the opportunity, for example, to see how a joint venture is set up, how new products are launched or how software programs are developed. The expertise which programme participants thus stand to gain is not just professional; it is above all intercultural.
The first step in preparing for a stay in Asia was taken in February by this years batch of 48 scholarship-holders. During a two-day intercultural sensitisation seminar at the Heinz Nixdorf Museum Forum in Paderborn, they discussed the culture-clash experiences of former programme participants, put their own culture in perspective, studied the values of their host countries and developed strategies for dealing with misunderstandings rooted in cultural differences. Meeting old Nixdorf scholarship-holders returning from Asia helped significantly to achieve the seminarÕs goal. The first-hand information provided by last years programme participants was a valuable supplement to the content of the workshop.
During an evaluation seminar afterwards, the returnees looked back again on their experiences last year and agreed unanimously that they had been changed by their time in Asia. Professional skills had naturally been honed but what the ex-participants all found more important was the way their personality had developed, which they all put down to the intercultural contact they experienced during their stay. These key qualifications as well as their newly acquired knowledge of Asian languages will stand the returnees in good stead in roles at the interface between Germany and Asia.
Elvira Busch
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