SELF-COACHING EXPERIMENT:Rebecca's Nepal Mount Everest Trekking Diary 16/19:TRADITION MEETS HIGHTECH
Updated: Apr 23, 2020
Nepal is also a country of extremes and contrasts. On the one hand it lives and loves its tradition, maintains Buddhist customs, handicrafts and caste systems. Most of the population still lives in agriculture and tourism.
On the other hand, the high tech world also plays a role here. Like this, we meet farmers in traditional costumes with an iPhone in their hand or a tea-house with cattle farming that has set up a modern solar power station, only to offer tourists a TV program. These extreme effects are surreal and sometimes difficult to understand, especially when considering that on the other hand there are still outhouses without toilet paper and lack of hygiene standards and laundry is still washed in the rivers by hand or Sherpa with worn-out flip-flops that march up the steepest mountain slopes and with that partly risking their lives.
And when I talk to my guide about it, he just answers with: " C'est la vie!" These extremes are often difficult to connect to. And yet they exist here and it seems to be working well, nevertheless.
In HR business terms, we call this state of tolerance of ambiguity. It refers to the ability to accept other opinions and views as well as to endure ambiguities and contradictions in situations and practices without feeling uncomfortable or being aggressive. In particular for processes to a foreign cultural situation, lack of tolerance of ambiguity can lead to malaise and confusion.*
I keep thinking about my many change processes that I have accompanied in international companies. Especially in intercultural teams, in merger activities of several parts of enterprises or company cultures changes often collide with extremes. It is difficult for many people to cope with ambiguity and react with fear or defense. And in particular, those cultures that have committed themselves to the plan-able regularity, process and quality to perfection (we Germans) often have the most to fight...
Do you feel caught by this description? ;) Maybe such an experience is just right for you. Such a trip to discover extremes is a super exercise to learn tolerance of ambiguity. Learn to accept and cope with things as they are, and learn that extremes can exist and coexist very well with each other.
* (Source: www.wirtschaftslexikon24.com)