The Rumi Forum presented “Cross Cultural Understanding: A Practical Tool for Peace” with Dr. Robert Crane, Founder and Dean of the Peace School of Paris

Robert Crane, a management education expert who has done extensive work on cross cultural understanding among religious communities in Paris and beyond, joined the Rumi Forum for a talk addressing interfaith and cross-cultural understanding issues in France and his recent work with imams in Paris. Joseph K. Grieboski, Founder and President of Institute on Religion and Public Policy, moderated the talk.

Mr. Grieboski asked Robert Crane to elucidate upon few questions – What is cross-cultural understanding? How can it be used as a path to peace? What are the initiatives taken by educators like him to promote and build programs for cross-cultural training? Have any global initiatives been designed?

Mr. Crane believes that faith is the central component of life but recognizes that American, European, or western values and ways of thinking could not be applied to foster cross-cultural and religious communication. He began his management career with a focus on including cultural aspects in the curriculum of management programs. In his words, “I found myself traveling a lot. I worked in 60 countries; over and over again I found that the dialogue would stop if I didn’t have some understanding of the cultural background of the people I was talking to.” He wrote books about the history of a country from a cultural viewpoint – not the major historical events – but the events that crystallize the way of thinking and how that impacts management and the way of doing business in that country.

The program designed under his aegis reached out to the Islamic community from across France to participate in a program where the goal was to encourage dialogue. The effort was to highlight bridges and obstacles that hindered open communication between Islamic and other religious groups and produce solutions to surmount those issues. The wider goal, Mr. Crane explained, is to develop a grassroots level national program that uses cross-cultural tools to reach out to local and neighborhood priests, pastors, imams, and rabbis, along with believers and non-believers. He says, “There is a very clear link between trying to contain or eliminate violence to the expression of religious freedom.” Through the implementation of such programs a network between different religious groups can be created and with the creation of an information-clearing house, flow of information between France and other countries can flourish. This is the way in which people who have the same goals can come together and live in harmony and peace.

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Dr. Crane addressed the interfaith and cross-cultural understanding issues in France. He will also touch on his recent work with imams in Paris.

Having worked in the field of management education for over twenty-five years, Dr. Robert Crane has built a solid reputation for competence in the areas of international development, cross-cultural business applications and institutional entrepreneurship in eastern and western Europe and North America. Throughout his career he has been involved with such management institutions as the J. L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University near Chicago, EM-Lyon and CEDEP/INSEAD in France and the International Management Center (now the Business School of the Central European University) in Budapest. He has developed and/or run customized programs for executives for such firms as Baker & McKensie (one of the world’s largest law firms), McKinsey and Company, Societe Generale, Bouygues and others. Thanks to his wide travels and long-term residence in both Europe and North America, Dr. Crane possesses a privileged viewpoint on cultural issues. This perspective has allowed him to create customized cross-cultural business programs for multinational firms such as Royal Ten Cate (NL) and publish a series of books on cross-cultural business with publishing houses in the United Kingdom and the United States. His breadth of vision has also led him to create consortia both of universities offering joint degrees he helped design and of researchers working on collective publications. His long experience in advising companies has allowed him to facilitate idea sharing among firms as well as internal brainstorming for single companies. Finally, he has had the entrepreneurial vision and audacity to develop or enhance the global dimension of institutions (IMC, IGS) and companies (Baker & McKensie, Royal Ten Cate). As an entrepreneur, he created the first global executive education program in 1992; the first globally televised MBA program (through the National Technological University); and The Peace School, the first primary school to teach peace making to small children through a knowledge of cultures and religions. He has recently taught the future imams of France cross cultural understanding in a program organized jointly by the Institut Catholique de Paris and the Grande Mosquée de Paris. Dr. Crane holds degrees in French literature (B.A., M.A., Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and translation (maitrise or M.A. from the University of Lyon, France). He also studied management (Young Managers’ Programme or Executive MBA at Cranfield University in the U.K.).

Moderator :

josephkgrieboskiSince its founding in 1999, Joseph K. Grieboski has transformed the Institute on Religion and Public Policy into a well-respected global authority on the role of religious freedom in society and politics, culminating in its 2007 and 2008 nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. Mr. Grieboski’s guiding principle for the Institute is that religious freedom is not simply a church-state issue, but involves the engagement of every segment of society to secure freedom of belief for each person. As a religious freedom and human rights expert, he has testified before the United States Congress, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and many other legislative and international bodies.