Tag Archives: cross-cultural skills

Share With Us Your 6 Second Videos on Crossing Cultures!

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VineCDI used to really dislike Twitter — one more social media, and such short messages! We don’t need more information overload in our world, bothering us everywhere we go!

Then I reframed Twitter in my mind. I realized that those tweets (140 characters maximum) are like haiku! Their brevity encourages us to capture the core essence, the deep meaning, in a new and creative way! In that sense, Tweets are perfect for Cultural Detectives or anyone who bridges cultures, whether within the family, neighborhood, or internationally. Now I quite enjoy the medium.

Recently I learned that you can now stream video via Twitter in much the same way as you share photos via Instagram.

You download a free app called Vine, then use your iPhone, iPod or iPad to record and Tweet 6-second videos. You can also easily post the photos to Facebook. Want to see some samples? Looping videos, short and sweet: multimedia haiku.

So I thought this could be an enjoyable and useful activity for Cultural Detectives: sharing short videos with each other about crossing cultures, from wherever we happen to be based or traveling. Here is the proposal:

I have a fun and exciting challenge for you! Please, capture a short video of your experience crossing cultures: what does bridging cultures effectively, what does cross-cultural competence mean to you?

Then, Tweet it to us at @CulturalDetect using hashtag #XingCultures

And/or, post your video to our Facebook page

I’m sure this could be a whole lot of fun, and provide interesting material that many of you could use. We have followers all over the world, and if you participate and pass this on to your friends and followers, the reach will be even wider.

Looking forward to your insight and creativity!!!!

The Best-Kept Secret of Successful Teams

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4 Phase ModelAlmost every team and community today is diverse in some way or another: gender, age, spirituality, professional training, ethnicity, nationality… While we respect other styles and cultures, most of us still get stuck at some point where we say, “OK, we’re different; now how do we work (or live) side-by-side? How do we harness our differences as creative assets? At a minimum, how do we simply keep from driving each other crazy?”

We might work with partners who view time as flexible and events as unfolding. This may mean that, to them, deadlines are mutable and subject to change. Meanwhile, we push ourselves and our bodies, working overtime to make sure we honor our commitment to an agreed-upon deadline. While we may respect our colleagues’ view of time management on a theoretical basis, and perhaps envy them their apparently healthy work-life balance, how do we succeed with partners who don’t seem to respect their commitments to deadlines?

Perhaps we have a neighbor or even a waiter at a favorite restaurant who communicates very directly, yet we prefer a bit more indirection, thank you. While we respect their communication style, it can get irritating and try our patience.

Too often we fail to actively seek to bridge differences because we see them as something negative, as something that separates rather than unites us. Yet, by ignoring our differences, by pretending they are not there, we imbue them with great power. Eventually they can get the best of us, surprising us at awkward moments and causing frustration and tension. Our reluctance to address differences may stem from a fear that acknowledging their existence may push us farther apart rather than allowing us to collaborate enjoyably.

So, how do we transform these differences into assets? How do we convert them from something to be denied, hidden, or tamped down, into something to be embraced and used for the good of the organization and the team?

One model that has proven quite useful over the past two decades of use comes from the classic and widely used simulation, Ecotonos: A Simulation for Collaborating Across Cultures. Called the “Four-Phase Model for Task Accomplishment,” this very simple approach guides us to first identify the similarities and differences at play in our interaction, verbally affirm them, spend time understanding them and, finally, explore how to leverage them.

How a specific team leverages similarities and differences will depend on the members of the team and their shared goals and realities. Each team creates its own team culture, ideally based upon and growing out of the first three phases of this Four-Phase Model.

As you can see in the graphic above, the Four-Phase Model is not linear, but rather each phase weaves into and out of the other. For example, understanding may lead to further identifying, or leveraging may lead to added affirmation.

A text description of the Model accompanies Ecotonos and provides further elaboration of the graphic:

Identifying
  • Perceiving similarities and differences
  • Establishing which differences are divisive and which commonalties unite
  • Creating self-awareness of one’s own strengths and styles
  • Appropriate balancing of the tension between sameness and difference
Affirming
  • Confirming individual commonalties and differences
  • Substantiating that difference is desirable
  • Legitimizing difference in the eyes of the group
  • Welcoming conflict and paying attention
Understanding
  • Attempting to understand the other person’s perspective
  • Stepping into the other’s shoes
  • Mirroring/exploring and discovering together
  • Probing for deeper comprehension using various approaches
  • Seeing an issue from several vantage points
Leveraging
  • Defining how team members can contribute to goal accomplishment
  • Agreeing on methods for utilizing team expertise
  • Facilitating the generation of creative solutions
  • Creating a “team” culture
  • Focusing on efficiency and effectiveness

Once people become comfortable with the Identifying Phase, they may perceive the Affirming Phase as something unnecessary, a waste of everyone’s time. “We are all adults. We don’t need to give one another kudos.”

But my extensive experience proves, over and over again, that taking the time and effort to actively engage in the Affirming Phase is well worth the investment. Proceeding more slowly allows the team to accomplish more in less time, so to speak.

Below is one video that illustrates the value of affirmation in our lives. It is pretty long, but you’ll get the idea pretty quickly and I’m confident you’ll enjoy watching it.

The Four-Phase Model is one tool that can powerfully transform conflict into productivity and innovation. And, by the way, don’t forget that you are awesome!

 

A Living Example of the Funk Model of Personal Development

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Rita and Kevin Booker

Rita and Kevin Booker

You know that PRACTICE of intercultural competence, ongoing, sustained practice, has been a theme of this blog. I have likened intercultural competence to physical fitness, to maintaining a workout practice, to symphonic and jazz music, and also to spiritual practice. The theme is ongoing, structured use and honing of skill.

After receiving some news last week, I have realized that perhaps it was Kevin Booker who first implanted several of these analogies in my mind. Until that point I hadn’t connected the two, but with his passing from this life, I revisited his blog posts, and rediscovered this one, which so moved me when he first published it back in 2009. At the time I had just met Kevin—he had participated in a Cultural Detective Facilitator Certification in Granada, Spain. While I repost it here in its entirety, it’s worth clicking through to see the funkalicious colors and design of his original post.

A Bridge Between The Funk Model of Personal Development and Cultural Detective

—By Kevin Booker

I swam everyday this week.

I decided to change my physical training routine this summer by working more often underwater instead of lifting weights, the latter of which I have done on average three times a week for the past decade.

Not that lifting in the gym is stale by any means: I stopped counting reps years ago and learned instead to focus on the tempo and energy of the music in my portable music player.

Since most of my workouts are between 90 minutes and 3-and-a-half hours long, I’ve learned to challenge all my muscle groups by utilizing particular songs to motivate and encourage my movement and breathing, like a dancer uses music to improvise and discover new movement.

For example, I’ve used Janet Jackson’s “If”, not only because of the superlative Jam/Lewis production values, but because the tempo of the song is perfect for ab crunches on a decline bench at various angles. When I mix in Hamilton Bohannon’s “Disco Symphony“, Cameo’s “Word Up”, EWF’s “Can’t Let Go”, or Lyn Collin’s “Think”, I can easily repeat 3 sets of 15, at 3 to 4 different angles, for a continuous minimum of 30 to 45 minutes.

The result of doing this for a few years is that my lower back muscles are significantly stronger than they used to be and I now possess abs of steel.

Same with the shoulder press: I use Parliament Funkadelic’s “Flashlight” for strength training, along with The Gap Band’s “Burn Rubber” or a combination of Roger Troutman’s “Do Wah Ditty” and “So Ruff So Tuff” to hit all the right spots with stanknasty funk, say 3 to 4 sets of 15 reps using 25 to 35 kilo (55 to 77 lb.) weights. Not a lot of weight, but enough strength training in my shoulder and neck muscles to do headstands without using my hands at the end of my yoga stretching routines. No brag, just fact.

What I’ve observed is that most urban dwellers my age lack youthfulness and energy simply because they don’t workout enough to the funk.

Working out to the funk means physical movement expressed through multiple body rhythms, engaging in disciplined rehearsal of physical balance, strength, quickness, improvisation, circular movement and synchronization. When entrainment is achieved by diligent practice, funk becomes it’s own reward.

As Robert Farris Thompson has explained, the word funk is of ki-congo origin and literally means “to work out to achieve one’s aims”. This metaphor signifies an entire value system which Africans brought with them to the new world and represents the idea of achieving any goal by the use of extreme effort.

Thus understood, funk music culture is an excellent opportunity to understand a cultural value system in which highly trained cultural specialists leverage diverse ideas (obscure styles of music, varied costume designs, diverse eras in dance and movement, recombined stories and myths), distill patterns and compare archetypes while leveraging conceptual values, such as key signatures, tempos, mixtures of music theory and dynamic expression.

In sum, to understand, appreciate and utilize funk music organizational principles, one must cultivate a high tolerance for ambiguity, the skill to use diverse concepts and exercise a life-long commitment to uncovering cultural complexity. I am convinced that the people at Cultural Detective understand this.

The Cultural Detective Method provides a language to explain the mental programming with which we perceive, learn about and understand fundamental intercultural communication principles. It provides an innovative, enjoyable, culture-specific, cultural values and real-life situation based training approach which can enable and empower anyone to better understand and work with colleagues who have cultural histories which differ from their own.

It effectively distills and teaches the three necessary intercultural abilities required for global collaboration and cooperation:

  1. The ability to know and explain ourselves as individuals; this is known as subjective culture.
  2. The ability to better understand the intentions of other people; this is known as cultural literacy.
  3. The tools to work mindfully and consciously to leverage cultural difference, regardless of personal cultural history; this is known as cultural bridge building.

This innovative and painstakingly researched training method has been developed by the pioneering work of Dianne Hofner Saphiere and the thought leadership experience of at least 90 credible intercultural researchers, educators and specialists from all over the globe. This method has been tested, tried and proven to improve the intercultural communication abilities of co-workers from more than 96 cultures world-wide. Major corporations such as ABB, BNP Paribas Bank, Cable and Wireless, Handelsbanken, Mitubishi, Rohm and Hass, Royal Dutch/Shell Oil, Samsung and Texas Instruments have successfully used The Cultural Detective Method in Africa, The Americas, Asia, Europe and the Pacific. It is continues to be used as a highly effective method for intercultural team building, expatriate training and collaboration projects in business schools and institutions of higher learning around the world.

What I love about the Cultural Detective training method is that it uses universal teaching approaches, such as storytelling, which are quickly and easily understood by everyone on the planet.

Anybody, anywhere in the world can understand and appreciate a good story. Along with music and pictures, storytelling is the most ancient way we have to transmit and receive culture. Through stories, we pass on our values, beliefs, histories and traditions from generation to generation. This process is what general semantics specialists call time binding.

Cultural Detective uses storytelling and small group discussion to help us understand ourselves and others within the context of the unique and multiple core cultural values which motivate our behaviors, our beliefs and perceptions of our place in the world. This process enables us to see ourselves and others as unique individuals influenced by culture instead of one-dimensional stereotypes. Moreover, by promoting the development of common-sense strategies to improve intercultural collaboration, Cultural Detective helps us to understand cultural values as positive intention and discover new ways to resolve conflict in everyday life.

I personally believe that using the Cultural Detective training method is an excellent way for people to overcome their fear of the other, combat status anxiety and eradicate racism.

But please don’t take my word for it; try it for yourself.

In the meantime, I’m going swimming. For me, swimming provides an effective, low impact cardiovascular work out and I have come to use it as a training metaphor for overcoming fear.

Perhaps I should explain.

As a small child, I had a deathly fear of water. I do not know where this fear came from; perhaps it was because I lived near the ocean which to my young, inexperienced eyes was a vast, violent, unpredictable and unknowable place.

To my good fortune, my mother recognized this and helped me to overcome my fear of water by taking me to swimming classes 5 days-per-week, months at a time, every summer, 4 years in a row. Long story short, after enough training, I eventually entered a local marathon competition and at 13 years old, took first place over 40 competitors.

Of course nowadays, many years later, I no longer swim in marathon competitions, but when I do swim, I am still mindful of how much effort it actually takes to train and condition the body to use different strokes efficiently, how difficult it is to strengthen leg muscle groups for effective kicks and the amount of extra personal effort and determination it takes to build endurance.

As an intercultural education facilitator, I have come to believe that participants in human resource training programs need to understand this principle as well: it does not matter how one is led to water or how nice the pool is: if one does not make the extra effort to learn, one cannot learn to swim.

For this one lesson, I am grateful to my mother.

She was a master teacher who lived and worked as an advocate for cultural literacy for all people.

She was a lyrical soprano, accomplished pianist and an extraordinarily graceful dancer.

In her lifetime, she was able to develop a higher tolerance for ambiguity.

Every time I swim in a foreign swimming pool, be it in Aktau or Sao Paulo, Paris or London, Bucharest or Berlin or anywhere my unquenchable curiosity takes me, I think of her and am mindful of her commitment to life long learning as a method to extinguish ignorance and fear.

This is why I’m not too cool to swim.

Matter of fact, I can dance underwater and not get wet 🙂

***

Discover more about Cultural Detective®
http://www.culturaldetective.com/welcome.html

—

Thus concludes Kevin’s post.

Rest in peace, my dear friend and colleague. Thank you for so generously sharing your incredible talent, bottomless joy, support for others, and your never-ending source of creativity and energy. You were a living example of the fruits of discipline and practice: gifted in so many disciplines, other-centered yet always fully you, spontaneous and ready for anything. Our heart goes out to your partner and our teammate, CD Romania co-author Rita Booker-Solymosi, and all Kevin’s family.

“Collide-o-culture” or “Kaleid-o-culture”: GPS for Human Beings

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This graphic and the concepts underlying it are the work of Jackie Wasilewski.

“Collide-o-culture” or “Kaleid-o-culture”

I have long been a fan of Jackie Wasilewski’s. She is one of the brightest shining stars in our intercultural field, plus an all-around terrific human being and friend.

Her investigations are motivated by a couple of key objectives that dovetail beautifully with our work at Cultural Detective®:

  • How to include everyone (in her extended family at her holiday dinner table) in their full authenticity?
  • How to reconcile highly contrastive content (how to bridge), when it seems impossible to please everyone simultaneously?

Values ≠ Traditions
One point she makes is that values are not the same as traditions, and the two must not be confused. Values can be held while behavior is changed—a la Cultural Detective. Jackie told us in Spokane that when cultures get threatened, they get reified. That when cultures stop changing, they die. So, our quest needs to be, how to preserve and change, simultaneously?

GPS for Human Beings
Way back when Jackie conducted her Ph.D. research, she analyzed the personal histories of 192 multicultural people. That approach—learning from the inside-out rather than the outside-in, is also the Cultural Detectiveapproach.

One of the outcomes of her research was the graphic shown above, a “GPS” outlining paths to multiculturalism. The negative paths at the bottom of the sphere used to have only one label, subtracting, but over time this label has come to include destruction/loss and shedding, and Jackie tells us that the “choice” of this direction is often the result of oppression. However, this cluster of negative pathways also has a mysterious connection to the creation option at the top of the choice sphere. Sometimes the old has to be wiped away for the new to come into existence. At Cultural Detective we usually aim for mixing, creation, or adding. The final two options in her framework are maintaining and converting/assimilation. Here is a quote from the paper she presented:

To use this “GPS” effectively, each of us has to examine our goals and the characteristics of the context in which we are making the choice. Where do we want to end up? What are the opportunities and constraints of the environment in which we find ourselves? Where are our “degrees of freedom”? What are the costs and benefits of taking each direction? Which “direction” will lead us nearer our goal?

We have to imagine that we are like an aikido master standing in the center of a sphere consisting of the six options or “directions” [maintaining, converting, mixing, adding, creating and the subtractive cluster]. At each choice point, we have to consider all our options, just as if we were considering them for the very first time. None of these directions is better or worse. None is of higher or lower rank. Some are more complex to enact in a given context or set of circumstances. But the best choice is the appropriate one for enabling us to continue towards our goal in that particular context.

To manage these options productively people need a support network; a supra-ordinate goal; the ability to acknowledge their own complexity; the ability to transform negative emotional energy into positive energy; the ability flexibly to use the six options stated above; and at certain key moments, the ability to publicly stand for their full complexity so that new social space can be created.

“Collide-o-culture” or “Kaleid-o-culture”?
One of her definitions of “people power” is the web or sphere of interpersonal relationships we hold. Jackie tells us that if we think in relationships, then when we meet another individual we will realize that we are bringing together two communities. In her words, will it be “Collide-o-culture” or “Kaleid-o-culture”? If we see the relationships, we will be more motivated to try to understand.

Indigeneity and Respect
The concept of “indigeneity” emerged from work conducted by LaDonna Harris, a Comanche woman and political advocate, and Alexander Christakis, a systems scientist. They discovered that indigenous people and 20th century knowledge management specialists had similar approaches to the management of complex problems. The four principles they identified for organizing societies that are both inclusive and just are: Relationship, Responsibility, Reciprocity, and Redistribution. The result of these four R’s is a fifth: Respect. Goals of the ongoing work that has now been taken worldwide include maximum autonomy and maximum choice for the smallest units of society. To again quote Jackie’s SUSA paper:

Physician, therapist and healer, Brenda Davies (2007) says there is “nothing but communication.” Our truth, as we know it, is always what we are communicating. However, we have to be willing to update our truth every second. Our integrity is also a function of our truth as we know it. Each of us has a unique integrity based on our experiences. It constitutes our personal set of rules, but it too is always moving. Understanding another person’s integrity is the best we can do, and it allows us to love them separately from their behavior. The key would seem to be to create discursive spaces like the ones discussed above where we can all update our truth together and enable our mutual integrity to rise exponentially.

This is a VERY brief overview and of course does not do Jackie’s work adequate justice.  I trust it will motivate you to learn more about her work, and to use what she knows in order to use the Cultural Detective method and materials to the highest benefit. You can download a full copy of the paper she presented that this article summarizes.

(This post is taken in major part from an article I wrote in 2010.)

Una Jornada Intercultural con Dianne Hofner Saphiere

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Mil gracias a todos los docentes que asistieron, y también a SIETAR Argentina y AFS Argentina y Uruguay. Juntos podemos construir un mundo mejor!

 

Julia's avatarSIETAR Argentina

483621_450767178324906_1898862114_nEste Abril 2013, tuvimos el agrado de coordinar, presenciar y participar de un evento internacionalmente reconocido ya que Dianne Hofner Saphiere* estuvo visitando la Argentina.

AFS** y SIETAR Argentina coordinaron el evento, junto también a representantes del Ministerio de Educación de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires que promocionó la jornada entre sus docentes.

La jornada tuvo dos partes. Una, por la mañana, dedicada a los docentes de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires y otra, por la tarde, para los profesionales interculturales.

Por la mañana, abrieron la jornada con palabras de bienvenida Juan Medici –Director Ejecutivo de AFS Argentina y Uruguay – y Ana María Ravaglia – subsecretaria de gestión educativa y coordinación  pedagógica del Ministerio de Educación del Gobierno de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires.

Acto seguido, Dianne comenzó su presentación refiriéndose a la importancia de la comunicación intercultural como una clave para construir puentes. Con videos y análisis…

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El valor de las habilidades interculturales en el trabajo

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Video sobre los resultados de un estudio realizado por The British Council, Booz Allen Hamilton e IPSOS Relaciones Públicas, basados en los aportes de un grupo de Gerentes de Recursos Humanos de 367 grandes empleadores en 9 países: Brasil, China, India, Indonesia, Jordania, SudAfrica, Emiratos Árabes Unidos, el Reino Unido y los Estados Unidos. “Los empleadores reconocen la importancia de las habilidades interculturales en el lugar de trabajo.”

Video producido por Cultural Detective, Dianne Hofner Saphiere. Traducido al español por Nathaly Moreno.

Nuestro resumen sobre este estudio, escrito en inglés. Versión del video en inglés. Link al estudio original.

Catalysts For Intercultural Conversations and Insights: Advertisements

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Lipton tea Chinese flowersThis guest blog post is written by Joe Lurie, Executive Director Emeritus, University of California Berkeley’s International House.
—
Recently, I taught a course attended by Chinese and French students on the intercultural challenges of marketing across cultures. Midway through the course I asked students to select a print, web or YouTube ad describing how the following items reflected cultural preoccupations, values and behaviors in their cultures:

  • the product being promoted
  • the selection of words in the headers
  • the images and colors being used to reinforce the message

After analyzing the ad as a reflection of one’s culture, the student was to ask a fellow classmate from another culture why the ad would or would not work in their culture. In one example, a Chinese student demonstrated how Lipton tea is marketed in China. He noted that no tea bag was explicitly shown, as tea bags do not speak to the traditional way of preparing tea in China, and so not the best way to convince people to drink the Lipton product in China. Rather, the image was of green tea flowing from a cup on its side, producing green images in the style of Chinese paintings of mountains, fish and flowers, each with a particular symbolic value in Chinese culture. Lipton tea Chinese mountains The French student who was interviewed had no exposure to traditional Chinese painting and saw not lovely images, but rather incomprehensible splotches! He added that the ad would not work in France as tea drinkers are generally accustomed to black or brown teas.

Color in many other ads revealed the power and status implications of yellow in China, yet something to beware of in France where it often suggests infidelity. Below from a French student are two different ways that Volkswagon is promoted in China and France, reflecting a powerful individualistic/collectivistic contrast, and a terrific way for students to engage in a conversation of cultural discovery:

Below you will find an ad for a cleaning sponge selected by a French student, revealing what the student felt is a preoccupation with sex—reflected in explicit and other seductive ways in many other ads for other products in France. Sexual suggestions, so graphically portrayed, would not, according to the Chinese students in my class, be acceptable in Chinese product promotions. And in a French ad for BMW, a man is  shown making love to the body of a woman whose face is in fact a BMW!

BaijuuA Chinese ad for a very strong 38% alcohol rice beverage portrayed a bottle whose shape was interpreted by the French as a perfume bottle, and so it would not be a convincing way of promoting an alcoholic beverage there.

The bold red color signifying affluence and status for the Chinese was seen as over the top by the French students, who noted a preference in the French aesthetic for far more nuanced, muted colors. This prompted a spirited conversation between the Chinese and French in which it was revealed that ads with very high alcoholic content are discouraged or banned in France, but visual ads for condoms were common there, though not generally acceptable in China. That conversation ended with a comparison of toasting custom—the French “drink and sip” vs the Chinese GAMBAY or “bottoms up”—ALL at ONCE!

Should readers of this blog try this approach in their intercultural classes and training sessions, I hope you will consider sharing the fun and insights here….

—Joe Lurie
Executive Director Emeritus at the University of California’s International House, Joe is currently a cross-cultural communications consultant, university instructor and Cultural Detective certified facilitator. Contact Joe via email or LinkedIn.

You Trust a Quiz to Tell You Who You Are?

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Your profile now!

Depp photo @Examiner
Honsou photo ©Armando Gallo/Retna Ltd

You may have had the same experience I have: clients, students, trainees and colleagues often ask me what assessment tools I recommend. My response, of course, is “for what purpose? What do you want to assess?” Sadly they usually can not answer that question. They know they want something online, something quick. They want something that provides immediate feedback, either inexpensively or for free. But, they rarely have focused in on a purpose, on what they want to learn through the “assessment.”

Sometimes I hear, “To give our people a profile of themselves—a profile of their style that tells them who and how they are.” The assumption is that, by understanding ourselves via this hypothetical quick, online, inexpensive or free assessment, we will immediately (almost magically) become empowered to collaborate more effectively across cultures.

Now don’t misunderstand me: assessments and inventories can be incredibly helpful tools. We are all better served by understanding our learning styles, personality traits, and communication skills. Taking a quick online assessment can also be fun. Heck, those quizzes in the magazines can be entertaining: What kind of personality am I in the bedroom based on whether the quiz says I’m more attracted to Johnny Depp or Djimon Honsou. I had fun just writing that sentence!

However, I can’t help but feel the world is just a WEE bit out of whack when we trust a personal profile, produced by a quick survey, more than we trust our own 20, 50 or more years of experience living with and as ourselves. Profiles can be informative: they can stimulate thinking and conversation. But they are not going to, in and of themselves, improve my ability, either in the bedroom or to work cross-culturally.

What causes us to want a profile? We are by and large intelligent people. We are adults. We know ourselves. Many of us want the quick and easy “answer” because our days are so full. Many of us don’t take time for contemplation, practice, or deep meaningful dialogue—even though these are precisely the acts via which wisdom, happiness and, yes, competence are achieved.

Let’s face it: intercultural competence, like all the other important abilities in life (good parenting, sound health, even skills with technology) involves PRACTICE. We need to stay current, we need to both broaden and deepen our abilities and experience.

So, keeping in mind the importance of HOW we use assessment tools, and the importance of a regular structured practice to improve our abilities, there are a handful of “profile” tools in the cross-cultural field that I find useful. Why do I like these particular instruments? They involve or encourage the contemplation, practice and deep meaningful dialogue of which I’ve written, and that research shows is required in order to improve cross-cultural competence. Some tools I can recommend are:

  1. Cultural Detective Self Discovery: This unique product in the Cultural Detective series helps individuals to investigate their cultural identities and develop a “Personal Values Lens.” Through a structured sequence of short exercises and discussions, individuals identify their core values, the positive and negative aspects of these values, and the thinking and behavior that flows from them. They then explore how their values and behaviors may be similar to and different from those of cultural groups. This Personal Values Lens can be used in conjunction with the Cultural Detective Online system for individualized structured learning, or, better yet, with the guidance of a facilitator or coach.
  2. The International Profiler: This terrific tool by our friends and colleagues at WorldWork involves a web-based psychometric questionnaire, followed by coaching sessions, to help develop an individual’s ability to operate effectively in unfamiliar cultural contexts. Nigel Ewington has been piloting ways of combining The International Profiler (TIP) and Cultural Detective (CD), to harness the best of both. Perhaps we can ask him to do a guest post about that?
  3. Personal Leadership: This methodology offers a way of being and interacting with the world that begins from the “inside out,” one that asks people to be fully present in their lives, awake to their habitual behaviors, and willing to look at situations with “beginner’s mind.” Of particular interest in this context is the personal visioning practice. Barbara Schaetti and Heather Robinson and I have created a MashUp process aimed at leveraging the dynamic interaction possible with Personal Leadership (PL) and Cultural Detective (CD).
  4. The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), originally based on the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS), is a statistically reliable, cross-culturally valid measure of intercultural sensitivity. What I love about it is that it is developmental: great for charting individual or group progress. It can be completed online, with the assistance of a qualified administrator, and involves individualized feedback. Ideally the IDI is used as part of a process that also involves development planning and coaching.

We can have all the information in the world about ourselves, but if we do not have the courage and diligence to act on it, it is worth very little. None of the tools discussed above provides instantaneous transformation or the magic pixie dust of cross-cultural collaboration. Nor, I imagine, will they give me an evening with either Johnny or Djimon. But with ongoing, mindful practice and the guidance of a good coach or trainer, we will find worlds open to us that we might never have imagined, and we will develop the ability to collaborate more effectively across cultures—exactly what many of our clients are asking for. Each of the tools above dovetails very well with the Cultural Detective Series: TIP and IDI can help you chart progress using CD as a developmental tool, and PL helps ensure the inner work that should accompany CD use happens.

There are many more inventories, assessments and collaborative tools in the intercultural field. What are some of your favorites? How do you use them for maximum effectiveness? How do you motivate yourself and others to practice? What do you wish existed to address specific developmental needs and challenges?

Research Findings: The Value of Intercultural Skills in the Workplace

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IC Skills importance Culture at Work: The value of intercultural skills in the workplace
—A survey conducted by the British Council, Booz Allen Hamilton and Ipsos Public Affairs, of HR managers at 367 large employers in nine countries: Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Jordan, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US)

The Report’s Conclusions

“Our ability to engage successfully with other countries, organisations and people will depend to a large extent on whether we possess the necessary intercultural and foreign language skills to make fruitful connections, whether in trade and investment, charity/NGO programmes or as government and international organisations. This is fundamentally changing the way in which employers value and seek to develop intercultural skills in the workplace.”

“More and more business leaders are identifying real business value in employing staff with intercultural skills. These skills are vital, not just in smoothing international business transactions, but also in developing long term relationships with customers and suppliers. Increasingly they also play a key role within the workplace, enhancing team working, fostering creativity, improving communication and reducing conflict. All this translates into greater efficiency, stronger brand identity, enhanced reputation and ultimately impact on the bottom line.”

“Employers believe that intercultural skills are integral to the workplace.”

“A common challenge shared by employers around the world is finding employees with adequate intercultural skills. Given that the operating environments of all organisations is increasingly global, it comes as no surprise that employers need employees who can understand and adapt to different cultural contexts.”

What is the international reality in the workplace?

The research shows that employees in most large companies surveyed engage in extensive interaction across international borders.

More than two thirds of employers report that their employees engage frequently with colleagues outside of their country, and over half say that their employees engage frequently with partners and clients outside of their country.

THE BUSINESS VALUE OF INTERCULTURAL SKILLS
Intercultural skills provide business value and help mitigate risk.

The research shows that HR managers associate intercultural skills with significant business benefits. Overall, the organisations surveyed are most interested in intercultural skills for the benefits they bring—benefits that carry significant monetary value to employers:

  • Keeping teams running efficiently
  • Good for reputation
  • Bringing in new clients
  • Building trust with clients
  • Communicating with overseas partners
  • Able to work with diverse colleagues
  • Increased productivity
  • Increased sales

Employers also see significant risk to their organisations when employees lack intercultural skills. Top risks that organisations surveyed are concerned about are:

  • Miscommunication and conflict within teams
  • Global reputational damage
  • Los of clients
  • Cultural insensitivity to clients/partners overseas
  • Project mistakes

How do the organisations surveyed define “intercultural skills”?

The graphic below shows the words employers used, with size of the block equating to frequency of use.

define%22interculturalskills

The terms employers use to define intercultural skills
Source: Telephone/face-to-face surveys of public sector, private sector and NGO employers responsible for employment decisions. Base: Ipsos Public Affairs, 2012: Global (n=367).

In particular, employers highlight the following as important intercultural skills that they look for in job candidates:

  • the ability to understand different cultural contexts and viewpoints
  • demonstrating respect for others
  • accepting different cultural contexts and viewpoints
  • openness to new ideas and ways of thinking
  • knowledge of a foreign language.

How employers rank different skills in terms of importance

valuedskills

Graphic © the original report, with yellow highlights added by Cultural Detective.

How does the research indicate these skills are developed?

Most employers report encouraging their staff to develop intercultural skills through in-house training, meetings and events. However, employers also say that educational institutions could do more to equip students with intercultural skills.

The findings suggest that policy makers and education providers could do more to contribute to the development of a workforce with the necessary intercultural skills through interventions, such as prioritising:

  • teaching communication skills
  • offering foreign language classes
  • availability of opportunities for students to gain international experience
  • development of international research partnerships.

This research suggests that there is significant opportunity for employers, policy makers and education providers to work together to strengthen the development of intercultural skills to meet the needs of an increasingly global workforce.

“Signs” of Cross-cultural Difference: Lydia Callis

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Cultural Detective Deaf CultureIt seems I missed a huge fifteen minutes of fame during Superstorm Sandy. Such frequently happens to me, living in the “provincias” of Mexico as I do.

The events I mention involve NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s sign language interpreter, Lydia Callis. Reactions by the Hearing community to Lydia’s powerful interpreting skills were discussed on prime-time news and talk shows domestically and internationally. Parodies of Lydia signing appeared on a seemingly endless array of radio and television shows and internet sites.

Mayor Bloomberg deserves major kudos for including sign language interpreting in all major press conferences during the state of emergency. Not only did it convey important information to a large number of people, it raised awareness of the Deaf community and created opportunities for Hearing people to learn about American Sign Language (ASL), professional ASL interpreters and Deaf Culture. There is little question that Lydia is a skilled professional who loves her job. Want to see her in action? A video is below. (My apologies to those of you reading this from places where you are unable to access YouTube. And, the video does not include closed captioning.)

We all know that it usually takes controversy to create those fifteen minutes of fame. So where was the controversy? It centered around some in the Hearing community’s perception of the “animated” nature of Lydia’s “whole body” interpreting.

Just read some of the viewers’ comments posted to the video above: Lydia’s signing is “dumb,” “weird,” and one person types that Lydia looks like a “mime.” These are comments that come from a lack of understanding, from ignorance; they provide—or rather, demand—an opportunity for education.

This is exactly the classic Cultural Detective “critical incident”: one person behaving correctly according to the values of her (Deaf) culture, while “outsiders” (Hearing culture) negatively judge that same behavior. One of the strengths of the Cultural Detective series is that each of our Values Lenses includes the Negative Perceptions that may frequently accompany the positive application of values, as does our CD Deaf Culture Lens.

If we take a look at the Deaf Culture Values Lens image above, it’s easy to understand why members of the Deaf community could take serious offense at such evaluative comments. The Mayor understood it was important to get information to everyone. For some in the Deaf community ASL is their first language, not English. This was a way to ensure accurate information was communicated to the Deaf and Hearing communities simultaneously. Signing and universal access were finally getting the attention and respect they deserved.

Then came the spoofs. The icon of US late-night comedy, Saturday Night Live, aired a parody that involved an actual ASL interpreter playing Lydia’s role and using funny signs for “President Obama” (his big ears), “pizzazz” (jazz hands), and quite a few other terms. The SNL skit included a comedic contrast of New York City vs. New Jersey communication styles, as reflected by the two mayors and their interpreters, a spoof of Bloomberg’s poor Spanish, and a send-up of “white” US culture. Want to take a look?

Like any comedy, spoofs can offend, and this one is potentially offensive to interpreters, Deaf people, New Yorkers, people from New Jersey, Latinos and “las personas blancas.” No doubt I’m missing someone here! While I personally find this skit pretty funny, Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin, who is deaf, publicly stated that the skit was very offensive.

A Deaf commentator (video below) discussed this situation, and I find it quite interesting to view his take on the situation. Just the fact that he signs it (fairly silently), and that the video does include English language closed captioning, provides a bit of an immersion experience with which many of us who hear may not be familiar. This commentator is not using ASL nor any other of the world’s naturally evolved sign languages, but a more recent pidgin called International Sign, for accessibility to the greatest numbers of Deaf viewers.

So, what can we learn from all of this? Taking a look at Cultural Detective Deaf Culture, we learn that:

  1. Sign language is not universal: “Almost every country in the world has sign language; some even have more than one, as is the case in Canada, with ASL and LSQ (Langue de Signes Quebecois), and Switzerland, which has Swiss-German, Swiss-French and Swiss-Italian Sign Languages.” Like any of the world’s languages, some of these are more inter-related than others.
  2. Lydia’s “animated” interpreting is due to the fact that ASL, as most of the world’s other sign languages, uses facial expressions for grammatical features and emphasis. Again, quoting from CD Deaf Culture: “There are several common features of Deaf people’s language use… An example would be the use of adverbs in signed languages. Although the signs for actions such as ‘working’ and ‘driving’ vary from one sign language to another, inflecting these verbs (for example, ‘working hard’ or ‘driving very fast’) would probably not be accomplished by adding a second, distinct sign, but by altering the manner of making the action sign, including the use of facial grammar.” What a Hearing person might perceive as “animated,” a Deaf person perceives as clarity and accuracy of communication.
  3. Another quick look at the Deaf Culture Values Lens image above will show us why so many people were so deeply offended by the satires of Lydia’s interpreting. Deaf Culture values include pride, loyalty, and group orientation; of course satire could be offensive. Another value is straight talk, a reason so many may have spoken out so quickly and clearly. Here is an opportunity for clarity, for helping the Hearing world understand there is a Deaf Culture. Again, quoting from CD Deaf Culture: “It is often said that language determines culture, and this is true for Deaf people all over the world. Since Deaf people do not have easy access to the spoken languages that surround them, signed languages have developed over hundreds of years, in almost every part of the world, as the most natural mode for communicating. Shared language, traditions, folklore, a strong identity, and a sense of group cohesion work together to create a Deaf culture. “
  4. Finally, according to Anna Mindess, co-author of Cultural Detective Deaf Culture, “The kind of work ASL interpreters often do is interpreting between one deaf person and one hearing person, where we can judge the educational level and language style of the Deaf person involved. However, Lydia was interpreting for anyone who happened to be watching TV (in NY that certainly included foreign-born Deaf people who may not have full command of ASL and deaf people with more or less educational experience) so that’s another reason she made her interpretation so broad as to be clear to the largest possible audience.” Lydia herself, in the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, said, “I knew my audience was going to be very broad. I decided to provide as much access for the Deaf Community that I could by mouthing the words and using ASL so that people who fit all along the spectrum could understand what was being interpreted.”

There is much that the Hearing have to learn about Deaf Culture. I urge you to logon to Cultural Detective Online and take a deeper look at Cultural Detective Deaf Culture, authored by Thomas Holcomb and Anna Mindess. In the package resources there you will see links to other tools, including the terrific books and DVDs from Deaf Culture THAT.

I’d also like to share with you three other resources on this topic that I found interesting.

  1. The first is a quick and insightful read I found that explains some of the signs Lydia used, entitled “Why Do Sign Language Interpreters Looks so Animated?”
  2. The second is a great blog post by Kambri Crews, a child of deaf parents who explains both “sides” of the controversy and demonstrates the danger of right/wrong thinking.
  3. And the third is an interesting piece in Forbes Magazine in response to the Lydia Callis buzz, this one on the more general topic of interpreting and translating and their role in our world today.

Please let me know what you think about all of this. What role do those of us building cross-cultural understanding and collaboration have to play? How can we support interpreters as they work to translate not only the message but also the meaning?

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