The first thing the Netherlands taught me was that I had to build an entirely new frame of reference. Not only for the big things, like registering myself with the Gemeente, but for the small ones too, like how to buy stamps and send a letter.
I’d moved there with enthusiasm and not overthinking it, the way I tend to move. Everything had to be relearned, down to the fact that cilantro was suddenly koriander, and that you bring your own cake to the office on your birthday. None of it was hard, exactly. All of it reminded me, daily, that the way I read a room was specific to where I’d come from, and that other people were reading me through a lens I couldn’t see.
I’ve done that four times now, in four countries, building teams across four continents. The work was rarely the hard part. The hard part was the friction between the frames of reference each of us carried, invisible until it had already cost something: trust, time, opportunity.
That invisible difference is what CultureFlow makes visible. We say everyone has a cultural shape and most people never see theirs. I believe it because I spent years feeling mine before I could name it.
Julian, who started this, is one of the friends I made in the Netherlands. We have watched the same problem from opposite sides of the same table for a long time. He built the engine that reads the shape. My job is to build the commercial engine around it, and to make sure the people who need this can actually find it.
I’m joining because I have lived the problem it solves. And because the next person who moves countries on enthusiasm and instinct should have something I didn’t. We’re working on some exciting things that I can’t wait to share with you all. I think it’s really going to change how we communicate and engage with each other - for the better.
That’s the work. If you’re looking to click, not clash, in your next cross-border encounter, let’s chat.