Excellence among Friends | The Hague, Netherlands | 11th – 13th June | 2024

In the words of our Managing Founder, Steve Dept:

They flew in from A Coruña, from Antibes, from Budapest, from Corfu, from Dublin, from Istanbul, from Philadelphia, from Warsaw and from Zagreb to join the team already in Brussels. Twenty-five linguists, translation technologists and cApStAn teamsters. Aged 25 to 66, eighteen nationalities. We took a train to The Hague to reconnect face-to-face and team building activities.

About half of us could bring themselves to actually configure an out-of-office message, the other half realised that they should have, because the intensity of these three days did not leave much room for secretive catching up on our ongoing projects. Yes, there were beach games, there was a full-day coaching session that considerably promoted the approach of tailoring attitudes and communication styles to the personas of the colleagues we interact with. There were shared meals, walks, dances, a photo shoot.

I can imagine how reports of team building events can be uninteresting for outsiders. So let me just quote some of the gems I picked up during these three days. One of our colleagues, who finds religion and spirituality important, exchanged about his faith with several of us. He said “I have never encountered a group with such a high level of acceptance of one’s religious beliefs. Those who disagreed with me explained why, we argued in total mutual respect. Not one moment did I feel judged.” This is our company culture, it has not been imposed or even suggested, it grew that way.

Another colleague said “Constantly interacting with such brilliant minds and radiant beings gives me the feeling that just by rubbing my mind against theirs I become a better person, it helps me think better”.

Also this one: “what I find incredible in this team is that, when we face a problem, we meet and talk briefly, and then set out to solve the problem. There is never a guilty party, there just a shared focus on resolving the issue.”

And this: “after these three days, if one of my colleagues will ask me to help him or her out with a technical problem, it will be just as if my cousin or my niece asks me for a service. No way one would ever refuse anything to the family!”

cApStAn Linguistic Quality Control‘s Excellence among friends paradigm continues to churn out miracles at a steady pace.

I am very grateful to Savita Gauchan for all the hard work organising and coordinating this get-together, to Roberta Lizzi as well, and to the entire team for their engagement, their spirit, their sense of humour and their tolerance.