March, 2019 Facilitating a workshop in a new cultural setting creates plenty of opportunities to try out new teaching and facilitating methods, to create spaces where the participants can learn from one another and to learn from them. My top 5 learning points from this one-day storytelling workshop:

Kita boleh – “yes we can”! The positive attitude is contagious. When I entered the room and got greeted by so many people with bright smiles, I immediately knew it would be a good workshop.

Learning styles are important; nevertheless, empowering people to share powerful stories has got a much greater impact on the participants than sticking to the “top-down” teaching.

Co-facilitation always is a jam session. No matter how well prepared, improvisation is part of the game.

Participants’ feedback is the biggest treasure that is really tricky to receive from the Chinese. We asked the participants to write the shortest story of the world (just six words) inspired by Ernest Hemingway to sum up what they have learned and what they are taking with them.

Always be prepared for cultural diversity, as you never know who is in the room. Malaysia is very multicultural and apart from Malay, there are Malaysian Chinese and Tamil in the country. In our case, the Malaysian Chinese were the majority, followed by the Malay. Nevertheless, we were prepared for all groups.

My favorite part of the learning journey during this facilitation was the moment when the participants talked about elixirs they are taking from the conference home. The elixirs that will help them to face some of their challenges. The use of stories to build common ground and community and, last but not least, the positive energy gained during the exchange with fellow interculturalists were some of the rewards. With story sharing, we definitely can contribute to the shaping of flexible mindsets. In the intercultural field, we also can work on leveraging storytelling to the next level – story sharing, which is when stories become sources of inspiration and creativity. Humans have remained in the world of cognitive understanding for way too long. We have almost forgotten that rational understanding is just the first step to enhance cross-cultural communication.

September 2017 The project „Stories for Europe“ emerged from our Beyond Storytelling initiative and can be seen as another outcome of the vivid exchange among storytelling practitioners. On a sunny September weekend (15th and 16th) in Aachen, next to the border with the Netherlands and Belgium we hosted our very first forum Stories for Europe and enriched the event by the visual storytelling applied in the world café facilitated by Jacques Chlopczyk and myself. The dialog that emerged was intriguing on many layers.

May, 2017 When I was opening the SIETAR Europa Congress on the second day, suddenly lights went off after a couple of the first sentences of my speech and I literally had a blackout. Remaining in the darkness felt like eternity. The result was that I started to improvise and actually said something that surprised not only the audience but also me. "In these turbulent times, we need more light than ever. We have turned from the interculturalists to the agents of hope and it is our responsibility to bring that hope to our clients, customers, and students, as there are so many fears in the world." The following keynote speeches by dr. Chan-Hoong Leong from Singapore and dr. Jo Angouri from Great Britain addressed that hope. The opening with these keynote speeches can be seen on the SIETAR Europa youtube channel under https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hvZkMfumgU You can skip the beginning with the introduction to the rating on the Congress app and jump directly into the content, starting in the minute 9:35.

30th of September 2016

Eröffnung Stefan Schostok Oberbürgermeister der Landeshauptstadt Hannover

Grußwort Piotr Golema Generalkonsul der Republik Polen in Hamburg und Niedersachsen

Festvortrag 25 Jahre Deutsch-polnischer Nachbarschaftsvertrag Gemeinsame Verantwortung und wachsende Freundschaft Doris Schröder-Köpf Migrationsbeauftragte des Landes Niedersachsen

Deutsch-polnische Nachbarschaft im Alltag BürgerInnen im Gespräch Moderation Joanna Sell

7th of March 2013 Poland meets Europe – Programm

Moderation and program facilitation Joanna Sell

Opening Michael Kern, General Manager AHK (Chamber of Commerce) Poland

General development of the ICT sector in Poland (Dariusz Bodgdan, Polish secretary of State at the Ministry of Economy)

Case study: best-practice experience Dr.-Ing Christoph Kurpinski, Vorstandsvorsitzender Comarch Software und Beratung AG

Case study: Best- practice experience of a Polish company in the field of international corporation (Dr. Radomir Grucza, REC Global)

12th of April 2013 Perfect planning - brilliant improvisation Halle 13, Stand F50, Business Forum 2/Business Forum 2 How should I act when cultures collide? An interactive presentation on intercultural competence in the business world. Focus on the importance of intercultural competence Time as a resource in various cultures, observing deadlines and attitude towards time management. How are the clocks ticking in different cultures? Use of different communication channels in various cultures, choice of synergy potentials and communication strategies. Speaker: Joanna Sell, Intercultural Trainer & Coach, Intercultural Compass