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Greg Nees, Ph.D.
Coach, Consultant & Author
Insights, Skills and Best Practices for Dealing with Differences
“Connecting Hearts and Minds is that rare phenomenon, something that really is too good to be true: a set of profoundly important concepts beautifully described and then brought to life with superb examples.”
Craig Storti: The Art of Crossing Cultures and Cross-Cultural Dialogues
“Greg Nees’ Connecting Hearts and Minds: Insights, Skills, and Best Practices for Dealing with Differences is exactly what it says it is. It is the most readable and comprehensive guide I’ve seen for dealing with many different kinds of difference – culture, gender, cognitive style, personality, history, values, the stories we tell ourselves…But what is truly remarkable is that Nees illustrates them all with dozens of stories and backs them up with recognized authorities and research in dozens of very diverse fields. Although this book is primarily targeted at “interculturalists” who deal professionally with cross-cultural interactions of all kinds – it is a veritable field day for anyone interested in dealing with any kind of difference. And that, I think, is all of us.”
Tom Atlee, author of The Tao of Democracy and Empowering Public Wisdom
“Culture and mind fit together like hand and glove and both influence the way we communicate. You can’t understand a mind without understanding culture because minds, like chameleons, adapt to their surroundings. And you can’t understand a culture without understanding how the mind works, because minds create cultures in the first place. Because communication styles reflect both minds and cultures, the way we talk exemplifies how these function, especially when we talk with someone from another culture who sees the world differently.”
“Humans are emotional beings who can, on occasion, think and communicate rationally, not rational beings who happen to have emotions. When we notice someone behaving differently, we are not inclined to rationally categorize the behaviour as ‘different’ or ‘unexpected.’ Instead, our brains evaluate the difference intuitively, and it ends up becoming stupid, wrong, dangerous or evil. These rapid autonomous judgments are often based on our cultural conditioning, and this is true even for people who are intellectually aware of the world’s cultural diversity and who would prefer not to react in such a judgmental manner. Nonetheless, when our expectations are violated our initial reaction is often judgmental.”
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Talking Together: www.talkingtogether.com