In our increasingly competitive (local) retail environment, offering great products isn't enough to drive consistent foot traffic to your store.…
The Language of Empathy
VEMT has a very international team with employees coming from 4 different continents. Working from our HQ in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, there’s a constant dilemma of learning the Dutch language to them. On one hand, it’s great to learn something new and it definitely improves each individual’s position in Dutch society, on the other hand: everybody speaks English in the Netherlands, it’s not an easy language to learn and the newly acquired skill set is pretty useless anywhere in the rest of the world. So, do you make the effort or not, is a question that most of them struggle with for years.
But we learn, express and update ourselves in more languages than just speaking English or Dutch: our dev-team speaks PHP and often more languages than just that one. Our project team speaks SCRUM and Agile, our sales team speaks retail, travel, marketing and CRM and our finance lady speaks Excel and salary slips.
Yet, the most important language that we are learning about every day is the language of Empathy. With our clients, with customers in our client programs, with each other. It’s the most difficult language – by far – , but also the most fascinating and challenging one to learn, master and use. Text books are missing and courses are insufficient, so we invent, invest and learn. Every day again.
Share your experiences with us on learning that fascinating language!