My lecture on cross-cultural awareness in the workplace that I’m preparing for the Leadership Institute is coming along very nicely. The central idea is that the culture you need to be aware of is your own. Because that will allow you to avoid seeing it as some sort of a universal standard.
I’m not the person who came up with the weird “cross-cultural awareness” title. But I’m doing the best I can with what I’ve got.
In business, you have bosses, clients and vendors from other cultures. It’s essential to know what their expectations, strengths and weaknesses are in order to work smoothly with them. Knowing your own culture isn’t enough. When are their holidays? What are their attitudes about schedules and quality control? What do certain phrases mean in other languages? (You would be amazed at the number of translations for a basic business term like letter or credit.) What is proper protocol for the exchange of business cards?
It’s essential to understand that cultures different, but if you want to be successful you need to do your homework about the people with whom you are working and their culture.
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I can’t make their lives for them in 40 minutes. 🙂 I can just give an opening into thinking about the issue.
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“The central idea is that the culture you need to be aware of is your own”
I agree completely, but that’s easier said than done without the kind of experience that most of your audience won’t necessarily find accessible. As they say, you don’t expect a fish to discover water….
It might also be helpful to tell people to not stress out too much. People from other cultures often enjoy being tolerant too, why deprive them the pleasure?
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“It might also be helpful to tell people to not stress out too much. People from other cultures often enjoy being tolerant too, why deprive them the pleasure?”
Absolutely. The worst thing is when people try so hard that they become creepy and weird.
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This is really important. The other point I’ve found useful to explicitly explain is how we continually create our culture in our interactions with our environment (including other people). Otherwise there is still a tendency to see it as a static framework based on our passport/religion/language/hometown/whatever.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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