Dear AMCHAM members and Friends,
On Monday of this week, we were pleased to have had an excellent second monthly ABAL lunch on the topic of “Peeling the Cultural Onion” to promote understanding about the realities of Cultural miscommunicating, and give suggestions of solutions and strategies to mitigate adverse consequences. With over half of the inhabitants of Luxembourg being foreigners (and an additional 200,000 cross border commuters from surrounding countries coming into the country every day), this is a subject area which has been largely (and mistakenly!) taken for granted , with negative consequences throughout our society. We want this to change and strongly believe that more sensitivity and understanding in this area will pay significant dividends for both companies and individuals here in Luxembourg! Our sincere thanks to those of you who listened to our friend and colleague, Denis Neidringhous, and followed him on his story telling journey of discovery. From the look on everyone’s faces, during and post event conversations and the written comments we have received, Denis delivered a powerfully inciteful presentation which delivered great content and insight to our audience. Big thanks Denis for sharing your knowledge with us. We look forward to further events with you in the future!
We likewise express our appreciation for the very positive feedback we have received on the case study presentation by Geoff Thompson and for the two Newsletter articles of reflection towards HRH Queen Elisabeth. We are doing our best to serve and are gratified if our efforts touch our audience in the right way!
For our feature interview article this week, we have turned to Sebastian Eberwein, the long term Head of the Franklin Covey organization in Luxembourg. Our questions to him focused on office stress and the challenges for companies and their employees coping with the new realities of working life … and he shared very useful feedback.
As you read this Newsletter, I am in Sofia Bulgaria attending the annual meeting of the Association of American Chambers of Commerce in Europe (ACE), We are really lucky to have this pan European network of kindred allies and partners! Every European Country has an AMCHAM organization except Belgium, which has two (one for the country and one accredited to the EU Secretariate). All of the national accredited country specific AMCHAMs actively use the AMCHAM EU to keep our fingers on the pulse of what is happening in Brussels and to do our best to advocate for an international pro-business agenda on a pan European basis. We don’t talk very often about this outside of our organization, but I admit that I am happy we collectively have this strength at our disposal to use for the benefit of our members!
Enjoy a good read in our Newsletter and pass it along to your friends and colleagues.
Thanks for letting us serve you… stay in touch with us … and say nice things about us to your friends!
With my respect and very best wishes,
Paul Schonenberg
Chairman and CEO
AMCHAM.lu
