Danaë

Caleidoscope Academy

Recognise cultural patterns of behaviour

What we do

Caleidoscope Academy aims to increase the effectiveness of team members and leaders in an intercultural context. We do this by helping you to recognise and understand cultural patterns, both in yourself and in others.


Cultural patterns are often underestimated as a factor influencing behaviour at work. Thinking we are dealing with a skills related issue, we offer our 'difficult' team members help in changing their behavior to fit our expectations. We send them to management courses to become the leader we want them to be. We send them to communication courses to help them become more assertive. We coach them, we give feedback, we reward and punish where we see fit, and it all doesn’t help.  

Instead of wasting time and money and remaining frustrated, we could also work on our cultural intelligence; by becoming more aware of our own biases, culturally affected interpretations, perceptions, thoughts and actions. By learning how other people may perceive differently, and how this influences their behavior and communication, we can open ourselves to new interpretations. We can look at ourselves from different perspectives, and we can tap into the strengths of team members with different cultural preferences.

Only then can we start to appreciate and use differences as an advantage.


Danaë

About Danaë Huijser

Nice to meet you! I am a business psychologist, specialised in intercultural organisational behaviour. I have 15 years of experience as a trainer and coach in multinationals as lead consultant and owner of CMC, Culture & Management Consulting.  I founded Caleidoscope Academy during the COVID19 pandemic as an online learning solution, offering e-learning and virtual coaching to complement our in-company training and consulting projects.

I was born in France, studied in the US, worked in the Carribean, Brazil and  Portugal, and traveled the world throughout my life. Currently, I live in the Netherlands, with my husband and three children. I have a master in Business Psychology and in International Business. 

I am fascinated by what drives people; how do people act, think and perceive, make choices and judgements. (Sub)cultures – from gangs to families, from gender to generation, from businesses to societies - have always interested me. I am curious about their specific ways of giving meaning to the world, of cooperating, communicating, coexisting, of dealing with power, with rules, with autonomy and belonging, with freedom and security.

Members of different (sub) cultures do not always find it easy to work together. Differences in ideas and perceptions can make collaboration difficult. Nowadays we all work with people from other (sub) cultures. So we always work across borders, which makes our work fun, exciting and challenging, but sometimes difficult, energy-consuming and frustrating. In my work as a trainer and coach I help people to deal with these differences, to recognize them, acknowledge them and use them in a positive way.