Tag Archives: cross-cultural skills

The Connection between Creativity and Intercultural Competence

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If I were to ask you what it takes to be effective across cultures, what comes to mind? If you are anything like me, then you have probably started to rattle off some of the classics: self-awareness, open-mindedness, curiosity, flexibility—maybe communication skills. All important.

But where is creativity in this picture? And why isn’t it closer to the top of the list when it comes to what it takes to be effective when working across cultures?

You could argue that creativity is an output of some of the above: if you are open-minded, curious, and flexible, you are likely to be able to be more creative, which will help you to be more effective. But I think it’s worth highlighting the importance of creativity as a stand-alone competency for working across cultures—especially when it comes not just to being aware of cultural differences, but being able to develop effective bridging solutions to differences you may experience.

Take Morfie, our newly named CD animal mascot, as an example. Sure, he may be curious as he scuttles across the ocean floor, but what makes him effective is his creative problem-solving in the face of challenging situations: his ability to morph himself into another sea-creature to ward off danger.

The importance of creativity is something I learned the hard way. When I first moved to Japan, I moved into an apartment subsidized by the company I was working for. There were all kinds of problems with the apartment when I arrived (for example, the heating was broken and it was the middle of winter in Sapporo—yes, the same location as the Winter Olympics in 1972). What would you do in this situation?

My initial instinct was to take a more ‘American’ approach—to take my contract in to my employer, highlight the conditions outlined in the contract that had not been met, and ask for these to be amended. But I wasn’t in the US. I was in Japan, a more relationship-focused and indirect culture. Surely going in and making these kinds of demands and pointing to a contract would not exactly start me off on the right foot with my employer, I thought.

So instead, I tried a more indirect approach. When they asked me how things were in the apartment, I remember trying to be subtle about naming some of the problems. I think at one juncture I might have even said something like, “This is the first time I’ve lived in an apartment where frost and ice forms on the insides of windows.” I kid you not. This raises a whole other topic of the ineffectiveness that can often happen when more direct speakers try to be more indirect.

The point of that story, beyond revealing how much I had to learn about Japanese culture when I arrived, was that I was far from creative in my solving of that situation. In my mind, I had two options: take the American approach, or take the Japanese approach (at least my limited understanding of it at that juncture). Be direct or indirect. It was bifurcated, dichotomized, overly simplified, and therefore ineffective.
  • What if I had invited some of my colleagues over to my apartment for a meal, during which they could have experienced the issues first-hand?
  • What if I had asked a colleague for a recommendation for a repair service? Or even asked them to call a repair company for me, since I had yet to learn the Japanese word for moldy?
  • What if I had written to the American colleague whose role I was taking over and asked him what he would do in this situation?

The point being, I could have and should have considered a lot more creative solutions here, but simply didn’t. And that’s really the point. Often when we are working across cultures, we stop at the first, most obvious answer, and that’s a limitation.

The good news is that my little housing adventure in Japan likely has helped me to become more creative—and it certainly proved the need for me to do so. Interestingly, recent research at Northwestern University in the US and INSEAD in France has highlighted that individuals who have lived abroad often demonstrate higher levels of creativity on classic ‘creative problem solving’ tasks.

That said, waiting until you are stuck in challenging intercultural dilemmas to flex your creativity muscles—or relying solely on living abroad to develop the muscle, doesn’t seem the right answer. It’s the kind of thing that you want to have so ingrained in you, that when you are faced with a tough situation, you naturally think through a number of different possibilities. In essence, it’s about learning to be Morfie-like, to be able to quickly run through a rolodex of possible options as to how to transform yourself effectively in those situations—and to continually be expanding your repertoire of possible options.

Developing your creative problem-solving skills is one of four main competencies we focus on in the newly released Cultural Detective Bridging Cultures for that reason. In the package, we go through a series of exercises that help people to expand their solution space—to really get beyond solutions of the generic, ‘he should get cross-cultural training, she should take the other person out to dinner’ nature. In an earlier post I shared with you an exercise to get started.

One really useful technique that we practice in the package comes from the work of Michael Michalko, a pioneer in creativity. It’s called challenging assumptions. The process is simple. When you are faced with a challenging situation, you name all the assumptions you are making about those situations and challenge those assumptions. The premise is that often the way we frame a problem limits the potential solutions to it.

If we go back to my Japan example, I made a lot of assumptions:
  • that I couldn’t take a typically American approach (yet my colleagues were very accustomed to working with US Americans)
  • that my colleagues were typically Japanese (they may have been attracted to the company I was working with very specifically because it wasn’t typically Japanese)
  • that the solution lied in me adjusting the way I communicated, from a more direct to indirect style (versus, for example, emphasizing another shared value we had), etc.

Challenging even just one of the assumptions would have opened up a lot of other options for me to effectively address this situation.

The experience I had in Japan was ten years ago now, but the lesson it taught me about the importance of creativity is invaluable. I now adopt a number of different creativity techniques regularly in my work. Beyond challenging assumptions, I also regularly change my physical location to prompt me to think about things differently, and I use techniques like thinking through analogies and wearing the hat of the other individual to help me identify more creative and effective solutions.

I would love to hear your experiences with creativity as they relate to intercultural problem solving: whether you’ve experienced situations similar to mine in Japan where it would have served you to be more creative; whether you’ve found other techniques that have helped you to continue to develop truly innovative intercultural solutions; even whether I should challenge the assumption I now have that creativity is a powerful, often overlooked skill in intercultural problem solving.

Developmental Intercultural Competence

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The ability to collaborate productively and enjoyably across cultures is more important than ever, whether we focus on communicating with elderly parents or teenaged children, or on building trust and producing results with colleagues at the next desk and across the planet. But what do theory and practice tell us about how to gain maximum effectiveness?

One exceptionally rapid and proven way to successfully improve cross-cultural competence is to use the MashUp: a natural and powerful combination of two leading intercultural competence development processes: Cultural Detective and Personal Leadership.

Starting in September we will conduct a four-month course that will transform your personal and professional practice. It will enable you to use the MashUp in a developmentally appropriate manner to support and stretch learners at all stages of intercultural development.

Coursework will be conducted virtually, allowing you to complete the assignments from your office, home, or during travels. There will be individual and pair assignments, in addition to online classes. Do not miss this opportunity to work with some of those who are doing leading intercultural competence work worldwide. Learn more.

Official Cultural Detective Animal

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We already have a Cultural Detective theme song (La Boca de Cultura) thanks to our multicultural, multi-talented friends Kotolán. I now suggest that, as do many nations of our world, we name an official Cultural Detective animal. And my nomination is the thaumoctopus mimicus.

While many animals change shape or color, the Mimic Octopus studies others and then mimics their movements and their looks — instantly! And this octopus’ repertoire includes at least 15 different species!

Come on, polyglots, global nomads, TCKs, and other blended culture people, can you top that? It changes its behavior to suit its environment, and its behavior is contextually effective. Sound like anyone you know? Wonder who teaches, trains or coaches these octopi?

The thaumoctopus mimicus, or Culturoctopus Detecticus, would definitely seem to be one ethnorelatively developed, or, ahem, shall I say, “marizo-relatively” developed animal. Below you can view a short video of my nomination in action.

Let me know if you have other nominations, or thoughts on this one!

Spiritual Traditions, Passover and Easter Greetings

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Throughout my life I have felt strongly that most of the world’s spiritual traditions, paths and practices share a great deal in common. Of course they have significant differences, and in understanding those differences we come to appreciate the true beauty of each. At their core are perhaps some messages hugely important to all of us and the well-being of our world.

Please allow me to wish those of you who practice a blessed Easter and a blessed Passover, Pesach Same’ach. I would like to take this opportunity to share with everyone a prayer and hymn which I sing in my heart frequently during my travels, whether I’m journeying through daily life or through the world at large. While it is a Christian hymn, I believe it carries a message that resonates with many of us who embrace interculturalism and diversity.

First in Spanish, as I most often hear it and think it living here in Mexico, then in English. The words are from Saint Francis of Asisi.

Hazme instrumento de tu paz,
donde haya odio lleve yo tu amor,
donde haya injuria tu perdón Señor,
donde haya duda fe en ti.

Hazme instrumento de tu paz,
que lleve tu esperanza por doquier,
donde haya oscuridad lleve tu luz,
donde haya pena tu gozo Señor.

Maestro, ayúdame a nunca buscar
querer ser consolado sino consolar,
ser comprendido sino comprender,
ser amado sino yo amar.

Hazme instrumento de tu paz,
es perdonando que nos das perdón,
es dando a todos que tú nos das,
y muriendo es que volvemos a nacer.

O Maestro hazme un instrumento de tu paz.

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Make me a channel of your peace,
Where there is hatred let me bring you love,
Where there is injury your healing power,
Where there is doubt true faith in you.

Make me a channel of your peace,
Where there’s despair in life let me bring hope,
Where there is darkness only light,
Where there is sadness ever joy.

O Master, grant that I may never seek
So much to be consolded as to  console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love with all my soul.

Make me a channel of your peace,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
In giving to all that we receive,
And in dying that we’re born to eternal life.

O Master… Make me a channel of your peace.

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Please, share with some of your favorite prayers, meditations and blessings, with a bit of context so that we might learn, won’t you? Another of my childhood favorites comes from the Navajo tradition, but I will save that for another time.

Designing and Implementing Global Diversity

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The global scene is expanding and our world has become borderless. Designing and implementing programs for global audiences presents unusual challenges. Familiar activities may be culturally inappropriate, simulations may need revision, or inherent cultural biases may limit our impact.

This five-day workshop will address strategies for adapting programs for highly diverse audiences, and for designing culturally responsive design and instruction. The facilitators will share a learning framework that will help you assess the impact of culture on teaching and learning. You will learn about the success, the challenges, and the next steps for preparing and delivering culturally sensitive global diversity programs.

To be held July 23-27 in Portland, Oregon, as part of the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication, the workshop is designed for intermediate and advanced designers, developers, and others launching or anticipating launch of a global diversity program within organizations, whether corporate, nonprofit, NGOs, or educational institutions.

In this session, you will:
  • Learn to adapt simulations, games, blended learning and social media for multiple purposes by tailoring design, delivery, and debriefing.
  • Explore multiple approaches to delivering global diversity.
  • Assess how cultural biases impact design and implementation.
  • Identify learning challenges in implementing programs across cultures.
  • Adapt instructional design for culturally diverse populations.
  • Apply new skills to deliver culturally sensitive and culturally adaptive instruction.

The Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication is one of the world’s premier professional development venues. Be sure to join us in beautiful Portland, Oregon this coming July.

“Diversity Training Doesn’t Work!”

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“Diversity Training Doesn’t Work: Rather than extinguish prejudice, diversity training promotes it!” This was the title of a 12 March 2012 Psychology Today online article.

While so many of us complain about media sensationalism, I begrudgingly have to admit that, in this case, the inflammatory title led me to read this article from among the 200+ crossing my desk that day.

The article’s author, Peter Bregman, relies on research from 2007 to prove his point. He repeats or paraphrases the subtitle four times throughout his article, each time stating it as fact. Yet, in reviewing the original research he cites, I feel it does not support his premise. The original paper is much more nuanced and even-handed (“certain programs increase diversity in management jobs but others do little or nothing”).

While I take issue with much of what Mr. Bregman says in his article (that there are two types of diversity training, for example: those that tell people what to say/not say, and those that break people into categories. Come on, really?), there is also learning to be gained from it. His conclusion: “We decided to [teach all managers] to listen and speak with each other — no matter the difference — which is the key to creating a vibrant and inclusive environment,” was one I could heartily agree with.

Let me focus this post on the constructive learning we might get from this article. Mr. Bregman urges the reader to do nine different things. I consolidate them, as there was quite a bit of redundancy. They are:
  1. See people as people instead of categories. Train them to work with a diversity of individuals, not with a diversity of categories. Move beyond similarity and diversity to individuality. Don’t reinforce labels, which only serve to stereotype. Reveal singularities. Help them resist the urge to think about people as categories.
    • I wholeheartedly agree! Yes!!! Please! That is exactly why Cultural Detective looks at an interactional process of how people communicate in real situations (using the Worksheet with real-life or prepared critical incidents).
    • It is why we have a package titled, Cultural Detective: Self Discovery, aiding users to create Personal Values Lenses.
    • It is why Cultural Detective: Blended Culture looks at the multicultural experience of so many of the individuals in our world today.
    • It is why our definitions of “culture” go way beyond nationality or ethnicity, and include looking at multiple influences on why we are the way we are (see Layering Lenses).
    • While we are all unique individuals, we are also all members of groups and communities, and our world views are shaped by those groups (cultures) in which we were raised. Cultures establish patterns of behavior that are historically sanctioned, so we each learn all kinds of things that seem natural, yet are culturally determined. Viewing people as unique individuals not influenced by culture is a step backwards, and not helpful in understanding others.
  2. Stop training people to be “accepting” because it doesn’t work.
    • Again I agree! If people can better understand themselves, and get a bit of insight into why others might behave the way they do, we won’t need to lecture them. These are two of the Cultural Detective Model’s three core capacities (Subjective Culture/know ourselves, Cultural Literacy/understand others’ intent, Cultural Bridge/skills and systems for leveraging similarities and differences).
  3. Teach people to have difficult conversations with a range of individuals.
    • Yes! The CD Worksheet came to life as a conflict resolution tool in multicultural workplaces in Japan in the 1980s and 90s. It emerged from diverse individuals having just such difficult conversations.
  4. Teach managers how to manage the variety of employees who report to them. Teach them how to develop the skills of their various employees.
    • While I might offer this as one reason to conduct diversity training, coaching, or mentoring, I can definitely agree with the goal. Cultural Detective offers a process for understanding, valuing and leveraging individual cultural differences. Our newest package, Cultural Detective Bridging Cultures, focuses precisely on skill development.
  5. Help them resist the urge to think about others as just like themselves.
    • Yes! Thinking about others as just like ourselves is one stage of a developmental process. Learning to distinguish the ways in which we truly are similar and different, seeing value in the similarities and the differences, and creating ways to benefit from them, is what Cultural Detective is all about.

The initial research referenced in the article, (“Diversity Management in Corporate America,” Frank Dobbin, Alexandra Kalev, and Erin Kelly, American Sociological Association, 2007), was a systemic study of 829 companies, designed to see which kinds of diversity programs work best, on average. A weakness in the original study is that it looked purely at diversity, not on inclusion or competence to manage diversity.

Having said that, the findings showed that diversity councils, diversity leaders, and mentoring programs most strongly correlate with increased management diversity, while training and diversity performance evaluations have a lower correlation. To quote the study authors, “On average, programs designed to reduce bias among managers responsible for hiring and promotion have not worked. Neither diversity training to extinguish stereotypes, nor diversity performance evaluations to provide feedback and oversight to people making hiring and promotion decisions, have accomplished much. This is not surprising in the light of research showing that stereotypes are difficult to extinguish. … Research shows that educating people about members of other groups may reduce stereotyping.”

“Optional (not mandatory) training programs and those that focus on cultural awareness (not the threat of the law) can have positive effects. In firms where training is mandatory or emphasizes the threat of lawsuits, training actually has negative effects on management diversity. Managers respond negatively when they feel that someone is pointing a finger at them.”

The original article by Dobbin, Kaley, and Kelley presents three broad approaches to increasing diversity:
  • Changing the attitudes and behaviors of managers
  • Improving the social ties of women and minorities
  • Assigning responsibility for diversity to special managers and task forces

These are all situations in which the Cultural Detective Model can be used to help shape constructive interactions and manage differences effectively.

What do you think?

What time should we meet?

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This cross-cultural dating mishap (in response to this post, and building on this thread) is a true story submitted by Erin in Sydney:

I have many cultural mis-step stories in general, but the only one date-wise I can think of is this one when I was living in Chile. (Warning: it’s not hugely funny or unique!)

First date: I turn up “on time” (Chilean time, e.g., 45 minutes late). He turns up on time (gringa time, at the agreed time). He was a bit peeved that I made him wait so long.

Second date: I turn up on time (gringa time). He turns up on time (Chilean time). This time I had to wait nearly an hour.

We ended up pololeando (a Chilean word meaning “dating”) … though the timing thing was always an issue.

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Thank you, Erin. Everyone, we are eager to hear a few of your “mis-steps!” It is our belief that sharing our Cultural DeFectives with others can even the playing field a bit, showing that intercultural competence is a lifelong enjoyable learning journey rather than a static state.

Mixed (&) nuts? A cross-cultural parenting perspective

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A Czech and a Jamaican walk into a…. relationship. And BAM! There we have it — my reality in a nutshell. Building my relatively new multiracial, multicultural blended family has been quite the ride: challenging, but worth all the energy, inspiration and personal transformation that the experience has brought about.

The key to making things work has been clear, open and respectful communication and a willingness to self-examine and adjust, while staying authentic and standing one’s ground about the key values that must remain uncompromised. As my sweetie and I say, if he and I can’t work through our differences, how can we ever expect the rest of the world to do the same?

In our case, in addition to the divergent racial realities we experience in this society (he as a black male, and I as a white female), the contrast between our upbringings and home community cultural values is quite vast. Our parenting styles mirror those which guided each of us, and they are nearly polar opposite! The parenting of our children from previous relationships, in fact, has been the hottest point of contention.

My style veers towards the permissive side of the spectrum which gives the child the time and freedom to construct his own internal moral compass experientially through empathy (of course, not totally without guidance). This parenting tendency reflects how I was brought up and is, in a way, indicative of the degree of the privilege, which has applied to me since childhood, to be generally relatively safe, and sheltered from strife.

My partner’s parenting method is authoritarian, bent on instilling strong discipline and ethic as a means to survive and thrive in a sometimes harsh world. His is a form of tough, protective love, “a strict and clearly defined” style, as he calls it. You could see how these vastly different philosophies could drive us nuts, but we are on a journey together, determined to respect one another and find meeting places somewhere in the middle. In fact, an interesting pattern is developing where we, the parents, are adopting a little of each other’s tactics as we evaluate which are useful for our particular circumstances. In short, we are really mixing it up in the mixing bowl that our family is.

What I am most excited about is that we are learning from each other and drawing on not only the richness of what was passed down to each one of us, but also from each other’s worlds. My hope is that this, for our children, rather than confuse, will open new doors and encourage new ways of seeing the world and interacting with the people in it.

Favorite Cross-cultural Dating and Pickup Mis-steps

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We’ve all had those dating, or invitation to date, “miss”es. Those times when cultural differences send unintended messages of the “I’m interested” variety. Many of these are funny, and fun to share. Come on, share some of yours, the kind that are safe for public consumption, of course.

A few of mine that come to mind:

  1. In a jungle lodge in northern Thailand, we spent the day on elephants, walking the river.  I remember smiling at one of the young guides. That night, after dinner, I climbed up to my sleeping bag, only to find it already occupied! NOT what my smile had intended to communicate at all!
  2. And, on the topic of smiles, it also caused problems for me in Italy. As I was leaving my room in the morning, the door to the room next door was open. I’m US American-born. I smiled at the guy sitting on his bed. That night he knocked on my door at 2 am, and kept knocking. Sob story told to me through the door about how his mother had just died, he was sad, and needed to talk to someone. Stupidly, I let him in. Incredulously, as he started to touch me, I started nervously laughing (I had spent a lot of time in Japan, and had picked up a tendency to laugh when nervous or tense …) Gratefully, my laughter must have offended him, because he left my room quite quickly after that.
  3. I am straight, but when I lived in Tokyo, I absolutely loved joining friends to go to the gay bars in Shinjuku-sanchome. We had great times dancing and laughing the night away! The guys didn’t seem to care I was hetero. So, when a girlfriend in San Francisco invited me to accompany her bar-hopping the lesbian bars of the city, I was excited. However, by the end of the night, I was depressed: not one person at any of the places we’d visited had asked me or joined me to dance, yet she’d danced the night away. “Well, Dianne, you do have that ‘I’m not lesbian’ sign on your forehead.” Funny I hadn’t noticed that sign when I’d powdered my nose earlier…
  4. Finally, this one from Brussels. Touring around the city, no doubt with a map in my hand, a young Belgian offered to show me the sights. “I don’t have money to pay a guide today,” I responded. “No, no, just as friends. I have free time. I’ll show you around.” After walking around and enjoying ourselves, we had a simple dinner and a beer. I offered to pay. “No, no; this is my city. I will pay.” So he did. As we got up to leave, I noticed my little purse was missing from my bag. I looked around for it, but it was not in the restaurant. My new friend helped me retrace our steps, to see if we could find it. Nothing. That’s when I noticed it: the omamori, or Japanese good luck charm, attached to my little purse. It was hanging out of his pocket. “Do you have my purse in your pocket?” I asked. My new friend threw the purse at me, shouting, “I toured you around all day! And you can’t even buy me a beer!” Then he ran away.

Ok, everyone, I’m looking forward to hearing a few of your “Cultural Defective” dating mis-haps. And for all of us to reflect on what we learn from these often funny and painful experiences. Please share your story via the form below, or in the comments. Thanks for helping us build a better world!

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Layering Lenses: We are All Multicultural Individuals

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“As an ethnic minority woman working in a large multinational firm, too often I feel like I have to learn only, to fit in. For the first time since I’ve worked here, I can now see, and explain, the unique and valuable perspective that I have to contribute as well!” she said, her face positively glowing.

The privilege of experiencing such affirming responses from Cultural Detective customers is part of what makes my job so incredibly worthwhile. This woman had just spent time creating her personal Values Lens, using Cultural Detective Self Discovery as well as a selection of Values Lenses from various other CD packages.

While the core of Cultural Detective is its process, which enables ongoing learning, collaboration and conflict resolution, the Lenses play an invaluable supporting role. As shown in the diagram above, one important role the Lenses can play is to help us realize that we are all unique, individual composites of the various cultures that have influenced and helped form us over our lifetimes. We are not “just” Chinese or Brazilian; we are much, much more than a single story, as Chimamanda Adichie so well told us.

In international cross-cultural work such as I’ve done over the past 34 years, too often people limit their definitions of “culture” to “nationality.” Culture goes way beyond nationality. Since by definition culture is the shared norms, values and behaviors of a group of people, culture can also include ethnicity, language group, physical ability or mobility, sexual orientation, or gender identity. More often than not, in my experience, while nationality(ies) tend to have a strong impact on our behavior, professional training, the culture of the organization to which the person belongs, the team culture, their socioeconomic level, generation, their faith or spirituality … all of these influence behavior as much as or more than national birth culture. It’s worthwhile for all of us to know ourselves in all the layers of our cultures: why we are the way we are, how we got to be who we are today. In this way we can better predict how we’ll respond, and better explain ourselves and our motivations to others, powerfully transforming collaboration.

People often ask me, where does personality end and culture begin? As a practitioner, my response is, “Does it really matter? Is there an objective, accurate answer?” We are all unique individuals and we are all also influenced by the multiple cultures in which we’ve grown up, been educated and trained, worked and lived. If we can keep our values and our goals clearly in mind, we can be flexible in our behavior and creative in our approaches, in order to perform at our highest and best in a broad variety of contexts.

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This post was part of the #MyGlobalLife Link-Up