Dealing with diversity: a matter of beliefs

This article is based on the experience of a pilot training on “dealing effectively with diversity” for branch office bank personnel in The Netherlands. We conclude that being successful in serving ethnic minority clients is a matter of beliefs, playing a more decisive role than specific “intercultural” competencies. The experience of Rabobank shows that learning to deal with diverse clients, then, will only be effective if it is part of a larger change process, and if training is just one of several interventions: impressions and lessons learned from work in progress.