Tag Archives: global diversity

Film Review: The Lunchbox (India)

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MV5BMjM2ODkxMzA5NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwOTYwOTYxMDE@._V1_SY317_CR175,0,214,317_Another terrific movie for us to watch, thanks to the generosity of the very talented Sunita Nichani, President of SIETAR India.

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The Lunchbox by Ritesh Batra, screened during International Critic’s week at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival

A film set in Mumbai, around the service of the iconic dabbawallahs who ferry thousands of lunchboxes to office-goers in the crowded city without the slightest glitch. The film, however, revolves around one such lunchbox delivered to the wrong person, leading to an epistolary romance between the unintended recipient and the lonely housewife who prepares the gastronomic treats hoping to win her indifferent husband’s heart through his stomach.

What personally facinating me was the contrast between the almost antiquated means of communication showcased in the movie — a basket hanging on a rope to exchange tidbits with the upstairs neighbor, paper notes in the lunchbox instead of the ubiquitous text messages of today—and the modernity of the characters who each broke their cultural shackles to choose freedom and second chances.

Unlike typical Bollywood cinema, the film ends on an ambiguous note, letting the viewer connect the dots as s/he wishes. A wonderful visual resource for exploring some of the facets of contemporary evolving Indian society.

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Comment from Dianne: If you are unfamiliar with the dabbawallah system, you owe it to yourself to learn! Please click on this link for a quick intro.

Ubuntu, Nietzsche and a Learning Activity

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hsubuntuarewe2

This very interesting image is © Jean-Pierre Hallet, and is of an Osani (Congo) children’s game: http://www.connectingdotz.com/osani-circle-game/

A guest post by Joe Lurie

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” Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
—Nietzsche

Like the frog who could not understand the sea because it had never left its pond, so we often cannot see, hear or understand the meaning of behaviors beyond our experience.

So what do you think happened when the following game was once proposed to children in an African community? A basket full of luscious fruit was placed near a tree in the distance, and the children were told that whoever got there first would win the sweet fruits. When they were told to run, they all took each other’s hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats. When asked why they had run like that, as one of them could have had all the fruits for himself or herself, they said: “UBUNTU, how can one of us be happy if all the others are sad?”

“UBUNTU” in the South African language Xhosa means, “I am because we are.”

Perhaps it was this story that helped me understand the reaction of some Korean journalists on their first field study experience in the United States:

Perhaps, in the spirit of the Nietzsche quote, the Koreans did not hear our music. But then again, perhaps we often do not hear the music of “Ubuntu.”

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View Part 1 of this interview here.

HUGE Response to Our Post on Names Across Cultures

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Name ChangesOur first blog post on Names Across Cultures hit powerfully and emotionally for so many of you! A few typical comments include:

“Names are part of a person’s identity. If people ‘get it’ across cultures we often feel they ‘get’ us, too.”

“We can’t know all languages or accents or tones, now could we? Having said this I would consider it wrong to be forced to change a name because someone can’t pronounce it—are you kidding? Why should the weakness or inability of one (the name changer) be even acceptable?!”

“My name is a point of pride for me. Even though nearly nothing about me screams ‘I’m a Korean immigrant,’ my name tells a very interesting story about who I am. I suppose my life would be marginally easier and I’ve probably gotten looked over for a handful of jobs because of the ‘foreignness’ of my name, but I like it. It’s unique and it’s me.”

“Changing people’s names was another turn of the screw in the arsenal of tricks that the colonial powers used to subjugate people under their dominion.”

We very much enjoyed reading the stories and comments posted here on the blog as well as in the social media. Thank you! We found them quite insightful, and believe you will, too. We heard from people who:
  1. Feel they are avoided at parties and gatherings because others find their names hard to pronounce. “People are embarrassed to mispronounce my name, so they sometimes avoid me altogether.” Talk about insidious discrimination!
  2. Have had others correct their pronunciation of their own name! “Such arrogance! How dare they! Do they even look at signatures on emails? They invariably correct me!” Sadly, this wasn’t just one person sharing this experience with us.
  3. Have been told their name is “wrong,” because it’s a man’s name not a lady’s, or because its origins are in a certain language and this is how it SHOULD be pronounced.
  4. Express the opposite opinion: “Many of us actually mispronounce our own name without knowing it. People who live in countries with a long history of immigrants and their intermarriage, will in due time pronounce a name according to what their ‘new’ language has taught them. Is this now wrong? Well, maybe to some degree yes, but since the new pronunciation is not something done out of maliciousness but rather due to having been told of it wrong.”
  5. Proclaim, “Those of us with unusual names need to stand our ground!”
    1. “I am waiting for the day I can go back to my roots and not cringe every time someone speaks to me!”
    2. “I prefer to have people change my name than butcher (by mispronouncing) my name!”
  6. Advise, “Forget my last name; use my first!” (or vice-versa) for ease in pronunciation.
  7. Are happy to have a different name for the varied contexts in which they live and work.
    1. “If someone calls me Karinka, or makes up another name that is easier for them, or pronounces my name incorrectly, I do not mind at all. I myself am certainly not in a position to pronounce everybody’s names properly, and I know how difficult it can be.”
    2. “It is all relative. When people ask me ‘What is your name?’ I say ‘Marianne.” The spelling stays the same but I pronounce it differently: Marianne (pronounced the German way), Mary Ann (the English way) or Ma Li An (pronounced the Chinese way). Personally I like to make people comfortable in my presence and have no preference how people pronounce my name.”
    3. “My name is Robert. I call myself Rob. In Egypt I’m Mr. Rob, in Finland I am Roope, in China I’m Lobert’t, and in Japan I’m Lobba. I answer to them all, and I’m comfortable with them all. But, then again, I am an intercultural trainer.”
    4. “I had a friend in China and was trying really hard to pronounce his name in Chinese, except he got mad at me. He wanted to be called by his self-assigned English name, and considered it rude that I was even trying to pronounce his name in Chinese.”
  8. Find the whole thing amusing, and leverage the pronunciation difficulties as a method to build relationship and understanding: “I really don’t mind you butchering my name. I understand: Höferle is hard to say if you are unfamiliar with the German language. Changing my last name’s spelling to the English keyboard-friendly Hoeferle also hasn’t helped. It made for funny moments, though. Something sounding awfully close to ‘hopefully’ or ‘hofferly’ has been the usual outcome in recent years. No matter how often I tell people to just forget about saying my last name and instead stick with Christian, they still try to get it right. Which is a really nice gesture, I think.” Bravo! Christian even, most kindly, sent us a link to his blog post on names and a link to learn more about pronouncing names with umlauts.
  9. Comment, “My last name has been spelled, Simons, Simmons, Simms, Symonds, Simonis, Simon, Simone—sometimes two or more versions in the same document. I find this more annoying than mispronunciation, which I am used to and expect, given that I am widely traveled and have lived in a number of countries, and realize that different language speakers use their own preferences for how the vowels sound. Misspelling can make authentication of documents difficult. Sometimes my family name is taken as a first name in documents and George(s) becomes my last name.”
  10. Share with us, “US immigration officers in the 19th and early 20th centuries were not beyond renaming immigrants on the spot, crossing out ‘Walentinowicz’ and writing in ‘Walters.’ 

Catholic Baptisms were conducted in Latin years ago, and it was required that a Saint’s name be given a child. There is no St. Nancy, so my cousin was named Venantia Fortunata (which I never let her forget).”
  11. “Dutch speakers use their digraph ij pronunciation which is the wrong pronunciation for my surname, as the languages are not even remotely related. Ironically, English language has roots in Anglo Frisian, yet native English speakers seem to have more difficulty with pronouncing my surname than just about any other heritage speaker. I can understand difficulties arising from having no equivalent sounds in other languages, but can not fathom where anyone gets the additional consonants…”
  12. And the humorous, “I once dated a guy who couldn’t pronounce my name properly, even though his former girlfriend of seven years was also called Kaisa. No need to say it didn’t last long…”

Readers very much enjoyed the quiz we put together, and shared with us another name to add to it: by what far more famous name was Margaretha Geertruida Zelle known? (answer at the bottom *)

There was obviously a broad range of responses from one imaginable end of a continuum to another—just begging for someone to conduct research into naming and our responses to name changes, spelling and pronunciation across cultures.

How do the use, pronunciation and spelling of names affect international organizations? Readers expressed:
  1. A lot of resentment around computer systems not having non-“standard” letters, because it means that people’s names often show up with strange characters in them, rather than being spelled correctly (“Brünnemann” not “Brünnemann”). “I do wonder when big, supposedly ‘international’ organisations or institutes do not even have their software in a position to spell international names,” said one of our community members. We know first-hand. It seems every other week one of our web pages has spontaneously changed to show strange rather than correct characters in one of our author’s names!
  2. “Dear marketers and copywriters: Inserting umlauts into your American brand names, logos or slogans may help you create some awareness. But it will also let you look really ignorant of other languages and cultures.”
  3. “I do have a problem when, for example, I read in a Peruvian paper, ‘Principe Carlos,’ where both the word ‘Prince’ and ‘Charles’ were translated into Spanish. It would have been OK if it were only Principe Charles. Why did they not stop there? Why not call Michael Jackson ‘Miguel HijoDeJacobo’? I know the reason behind it, btw, nevertheless I find it amusing.”
  4. “It’s so unfortunate when people and institutions feel they need to change the spelling of my name. Went to vote today in the NYC primaries and somehow my name got automatically changed to Bo Y. Kang. I have never written my name like that and I’m super duper conscious of getting the whole Bo Young part right under the section that says First Name so that they realize that’s my first name. I always leave the Middle initial section completely blank. Other ways my name gets written even after I’ve spelled it correctly:
    1. The magical hyphen: Bo-Young Kang
    2. The other magical hyphen: Bo Young-Kang
    3. The switcharoo: Bo Kang Young (and all its variations Kang Bo Young, Young Bo Kang, Kang Young Bo, Young Kang Bo)
    4. The disappearing game: Bo Kang
    5. The other disappearing game: Bo Young (this one I don’t mind so much because it’s technically correct, just missing a part)
    6. The condenser: Boyoung Kang
    7. The other condenser: Bo Youngkang
    8. And those are just the ones that include all the right letters. You don’t even want to get me started on the Bow, Boo, Booh, Yung, Ying, Yong, Kan, Li, Rhee variations I get all the time. 
    9. My name isn’t that hard. It’s spelled exactly like it sounds.”
Strategies for dealing with difficult-to-pronounce names that our readers shared with us included:
  1. Rhymes and mnemonics you’ve made up to help people learn to pronounce your name: “

Over the decades I’ve created stories to help people pronounce my name—’Think of going to the MALL. After a long day of shopping, you need a cup UH TEA. 

One year ago, someone blithely said, ‘Oh, your name rhymes with ‘Quality.’ 

Now when I meet someone, I introduce myself cheerfully: ‘Hi, my name is Malati. It rhymes with ‘Quality.’ This immediately releases the tension. 

’Rhymes with Quality’ is on my email signature, business cards, nearly anywhere my name appears!”
  2. “An interesting way to learn about a new acquaintance can be to ask the meaning and origin of the person’s name. Every nation has a trend of calling up by some peculiar name which helps a lot for better communication and understanding.”
  3. “Years back while in Nigeria the head of the Media Department there was Igbo. One time I listened carefully and repeated his family name again and again and could never get it right—though it did sound the same to my year (and herein lies an importance to note) I could not do so. Time passed, making myself more familiar to the language so I tried again, and once more I could not achieve it. More time passed with the same negative results. He would smile at me every time I pronounced his last name, knowing I had it wrong but was at least genuinely trying. He was also nice enough to let me know I was the one who came closest to it and that no one before or after me ever tried so hard. Just so you know, the Igbo language is one of the few languages that actually has sounds going in (like inhaling) when speaking.”
  4. “I actually take great pains myself to repeat until I have someone’s name correct if it is ‘foreign’ to me … surely this is a minimum sign of respect!!!”
  5. “Your link to audioname.com is a terrific resource, and I recommend all in this community adopt its use. If your name is not hard to pronounce, you can use your 30-second audio-byte to talk about the origins of your name. It will encourage others to use this and help make our world more pronounceable and accommodating.”

The common theme, however, is BE CAREFUL WITH NAMES. Ask! Show respect. Discuss and don’t assume. And definitely avoid changing someone’s name without their permission; it’s a rare person who loves a nickname or name change that has been “assigned” or “imposed.”

I have one more video clip to share with you, from my interview with Dr. Emmanuel Ngomsi. In this short clip, he tells us how names are traditionally given in his home, Cameroon.

A common characteristic of many cultures around the world is the importance placed on naming a child. Factors that may be considered might include gender, birth order, astrological factors, family tradition, naming the child after a parent or beloved relative, date of birth, or characteristics valued in the birth culture or family and with which those naming the child want to imbue the newborn, among a wide variety of others. In some traditions family members do not share a family name. Do the parents choose a child’s name? Do the grandparents? Is there some ceremony in which the child chooses his/her own name? Does the state dictate selection from an official list of acceptable names, as has been the case in Iceland?

Here’s the video:

* Answer: Mata Hari

Please do share with us your further reactions, experiences, stories and advice. It is obviously a topic that merits some study as well as some training.

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See Part 1 of this interview.

My Global Life Link-Up

What do you REALLY intend?

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Car crashA guest blog by Susan McCuistion, Principal, daiOne—Strategy building for business and for life

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We see any situation we’re dealing with first from our own perspective. While this is a perfectly natural thing to do, if we don’t also think about the situation from other perspectives, we may jump to conclusions that are incorrect.

The Cultural Detective Model is a great way to help us interpret and understand different perspectives. Key to using this model is to assume positive intent on the part of all parties involved. This gives us the opportunity to step back from our immediate interpretation of a situation, based only on our own perspective, and consider other ways in which the same situation may be viewed.

While this external view—assuming positive intent on the part of others—is important, there is also an internal step we can take before any interaction. That step is to understand our own intentions in what we are communicating.

Let’s face it . . . we’re all human and sometimes we say or do stupid things. No one is immune. We often say we don’t “intend” to hurt someone or do something thoughtless, but whether we intend it or not, the impact of what we say or do is felt by other people.

If other people are continually upset by our words or actions, at some point, we need to stop hiding behind “I didn’t intend to do that.” When we keep bumping up against reactions and challenges that we did not intend to cause, then we need to understand that the impact of what we are doing is not effective.

intent impact

When we continue to do something “unintentionally,” after awhile, doesn’t that become “intentional”? If we aren’t changing how we’re acting or what we’re doing or saying, that means we’re intentionally choosing to remain ignorant of ourselves, our motivations, and the effect of our words and actions on others. If you are not self-aware, and you keep running into the same problems, then you’re just being deliberately unaware.

Getting really clear on what we want to say or do requires self-awareness. We need to be able to understand what we are feeling and take a moment to think before we act. We must take some ownership in the communication process, especially when the reaction we get is not what we expect. And finally, we must take time to develop an understanding of other perspectives, so we can recognize at least some of the ways in which our message might be received. Cultural Detective Self Discovery as well as all the series’ other packages can greatly help in this regard.

“That’s not what I intended” may be an excuse the first time, but not the tenth. Once you are aware of the impact of your words or actions, adjusting them is up to you.

New Study on How the Language We Speak Affects Us

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“The structure of languages affects our judgments and decisions about the future, and this might have dramatic long-term consequences.”

On October 1st I read an interesting article in Scientific American, entitled, “How Your Language Affects Your Wealth and Health.” Dr. Keith Chen, of Yale Business School, had conducted a study analyzing individual-level data — economic decisions, retirement assets, smoking and exercising habits, and general health in older age — from 76 developed and developing countries. He also analyzed national savings rates, country GDP and GDP growth rates. Premised on the fact that some languages have explicit future markers while others have more ambiguous markers between present and future, Dr. Chen correlated the economic and health data with language structure, with striking results. “Speaking a language that has obligatory future markers, such as English, makes people 30 percent less likely to save money for the future,” according to Scientific American.

I shared the article on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and today I came across a terrific little video that summarizes the study’s findings. Good visuals nearly always help me make sense of information; it’s why I made this video, summarizing a different cross-cultural study, earlier this year. I bet you’ll find the movie below helpful as well:

The original study is entitled, “The Effect of Language on Economic Behavior: Evidence from Savings Rates, Health Behaviors, and Retirement Assets,” written by M. Keith Chen, Yale University, School of Management and Cowles Foundation, April, 2013
Published in the American Economic Review 2013, 103(2): 690-731
Editor’s choice, Science Magazine, Vol 339(4)
Permanent address: http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.103.2.690http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/keith.chen/papers/LanguageWorkingPaper.pdf

Remember, Cultural Detective is a leading-edge process not only for understanding values and behavioral differences across cultures, but for navigating them successfully.

Names Across Cultures (First in a Series of Video Interviews with Authors!)

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Name ChangesThere are many reasons people change their names: some people have a stage name, pen name, nickname, religious name, or an earned title or name. All too frequently, however, a name is involuntarily changed when someone immigrates, or when a teacher or teammates have trouble pronouncing the person’s birth name.

Many of us work with individuals who have been “renamed” by other colleagues, or who have changed their names to make them more palatable and pronounceable in a new location. Other times people adopt a different name due to a change in circumstance, profession, or age. For example, as a kid growing up in a small town, my father was called “Charlie:’ however, as a middle-aged adult living in a different town, he became known as “Chuck.”

Many people’s names have special meaning or significance. An interesting way to learn about a new acquaintance can be to ask the meaning and origin of the person’s name. And, if we wish to build trust with our friends and colleagues, in addition to understanding the meaning of their names, we can learn to pronounce their names correctly. You may recall that in January 2012 we shared a link for a handy-dandy little software that allows YOU to record the pronunciation of your name, and add it to your email signature, website, LinkedIn account, etc. What a great way for those unfamiliar with your name to hear it prior to meeting you!

Perhaps you, like me, are known by several different names bestowed on us by friends and colleagues. Dianne is the name given to me by my parents at birth, while my name in Japan is Dai-an (大安 or “great peace”, also a very auspicious day of the month). My Spanish-speaking friends and colleagues call me Diana María, and close friends and family call me Di. In my case, I’d rather be known as “Diana” or “Dai-an” than have my birth name “Dianne” mispronounced.

In many cultures, such as Mexico where I live, it is a sign of cariño or affection to bestow a nickname on others (click here for a list of some unusual terms of endearment in various languages). However, many people worldwide love their birth names, believe they are imbued with power, and would honestly prefer we not change their names for them.

Yet some people do want to change their name for various reasons, and have done so. Here’s a special little drag-and-drop game for you, to see if you can match some famous people’s birth names with the names they are more commonly known by now.

I recently spoke with Dr. Emmanuel Ngomsi, a diversity consultant originally from Cameroon, about the topic of naming. Emmanuel has a wealth of experience, is very passionate, and a consummate storyteller, as you’ll see in the interview below.

Do you have a story related to naming that you’d be kind enough to share with us? Have you changed your name, or has it been changed for you? How do you feel about that? Do you have any advice for others about names and naming?

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See Part 2 of this interview.

Have You Taken Advantage of Our Free Webinars?

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Night work

  • “Really? You are logging into this webinar, willingly and of your own accord, at midnight? No joke? And for you it’s 3 am?”
  • “Yes! I am so very excited to be here! Thank you for offering this learning opportunity!”

The response to the free “Cross-Cultural Effectiveness” webinars we have been conducting since February of this year has truly overwhelmed me. We’ve already welcomed hundreds of participants from six of the seven continents, including a broad diversity of professions and experiences—from hospitals to schools, disaster relief to hospitality. I’ve had the pleasure to meet incredible people who are building cross-cultural competence and using or hoping to use Cultural Detective in the most creative and needed ways! It has been such a joy and learning experience. Thank you all!

People don’t need to be inconvenienced by the time difference to participate in these webinars. We offer them twice a month, once at times convenient to the Americas, Europe, and Africa, and another more convenient to Asia and Oceania.

Would you like even better news? Those who participate receive a COMPLIMENTARY 3-day pass to Cultural Detective Online!

I’ve promised myself to use a different critical incident each and every webinar, and it’s amazed me the richness of the discussion this has generated, the powerful ways in which we can overcome stereotypes, the innovative ways the groups have generated to harness the power of diversity.

We also are committed to conducting special-interest webinars for you, to aid in ongoing cross-cultural competence development. Thus far we have held two, both in partnership with customers and colleagues: one on virtual teaming, and another on coaching across cultures. Stay tuned for future additions to the schedule!

If you would like to participate in a webinar, or get more of your colleagues and friends excited about intercultural competence, please register now. We have just updated the calendar through the end of December 2013.

If you use Cultural Detective in your work, and you would like to share what you do and how you do it in hopes of helping others succeed, please contact us. We may be able to partner on an upcoming webinar, or share your story in a future blog post! We also welcome your topic ideas. Keep ’em coming!

Estereotipos: entre el bien y el mal

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(English follows Spanish)
La subjetividad es tan inherente al ser humano como lo son sus propias emociones. En el alma mezclamos de manera inseparable la voluntad, el intelecto y la emoción; y según cada una de estas “sea alimentada” podremos actuar de una manera u otra. De hecho es por esto tan famosa la llamada Inteligencia Emocional, que no es otra cosa que alimentar el intelecto y la voluntad para controlar las emociones (y que Daniel Goleman me perdone por hacerlo parecer tan simple).

Por nuestro lado, y digo nuestro porque aquí es lo que nos reune, la Inteligencia Cultural (CQ) busca entonces alimentar “el conocimiento” , la “aprehención mental de las diferencias” y modelar el “comportamiento” entre las culturas.  Obviamente el comportamiento se nutre de nuestras emociones y por ende de alguna manera querámoslo o no se relaciona con nuestra subjetividad.

Sin embargo, como si fuera parte de un círculo vicioso nuestra subjetividad cambia según alimentemos el conocimiento y nos dispongamos a aprender y aprehender. Sí hay que conocer y disponerse a conocer, además de buscar fuentes de información diversas… variadas y paradójicamente, objetivas.

Los estereotipos sin duda alguna son uno de los principales desafíos en nuestra interacción intercultural. Para algunos es el bien… la bendición y el llevar consigo ese pre-juicio (pre: adelantado…inferido…establecido… no cuestionado) que les abre puertas y que les da acceso a una serie de oportunidades negadas para otros.

Ejemplos de esto hay muchos. Podríamos comenzar por las diferencias de género y por ende los pre-juicios alrededor de hombres y mujeres para el desempeño de oficios y responsabilidades. Aún es una realidad latente que hombres y mujeres no recibimos la misma remuneración al realizar/ejecutar la misma tarea y ocupando la misma posición.

Nelson Mandela es tristemente célebre por luchar contra el Apartheid y entregar su vida por demostrar que el color de la piel no interfiere con lo que somos o podemos ofrecer. Los prejuicios sociales se dramatizan entre el amarillismo y el realismo trágico en miles de tragicomedias y novelas reflejando una sociedad estereotipada.  No hay que dar muchos detalles de lo que significa tener un nombre de ascendencia árabe y musulmán en los Estados Unidos luego del 9/11.

Y así hay otras tantas, como la que vivo cuando me discriminan por el lugar donde nací. Entonces los estereotipos se convierten en una especie de estigma, de etiqueta, de prejuicio sin sentido y sin razón. Aunque parezca irreal cuando vivía en Londres a una compañera del college le prohibieron hablar conmigo “peligro es colombiana” y en 1998 buscando un lugar para vivir, llegué a uno de los suburbios a una casa donde lo primero que me dijeron: es usted familiar de Pablo Escobar?

Al final no importa lo bueno que cualquiera nacido en este país pueda tener. Lo malo es la nube negra que nos acompaña, nos limita, nos cierra puertas y lo peor, muchas veces tristemente habla por nosotros y enmudece nuestra voz.

Hay problemas, tal vez más que en otras latitudes… tal vez menos y más publicitadas. Los estereotipos se vuelven peligrosamente en contra de todos, y nos llevan al facilismo de generalizar y el derecho sesgado del absolutismo puro. TODOS los nacidos son, o TODOS los hombres, TODOS los musulmanes, TODOS…. y no! No todos ni todas somos iguales, si bien es cierto tenemos rasgos y características compartidas, el absolutismo es negarnos la posibilidad de nuestro valor como individuos… lo que somos más allá de lo que otros dicen que somos o debemos ser.

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(English translation by Dianne Hofner Saphiere)

Stereotypes: Between Good and Evil

Subjectivity is as inherent to humans as are our emotions. In our souls we inextricably mix intellect and emotion, and we behave in one way or another depending on which one we feed. That which is famously called “Emotional Intelligence” (EQ) is, in truth, nothing more than feeding the intellect and controlling emotions (forgive me, Daniel Goleman, for making it seem so simple).

In our field, and I say “our” because it is what brings us together, Cultural Intelligence (CQ) seeks to feed “knowledge,” “mental appreciation of differences,” and to model “behavior” across cultures. Obviously behavior is influenced by our emotions and therefore, like it or not, it relates to our subjectivity.

However, as if it were part of a vicious cycle, our subjectivity changes according to how we nourish knowledge, and we can become better able to learn and comprehend. Yes, it’s necessary to know and to be ready to learn, to search for diverse sources of information — varied and, paradoxically, objective.

Stereotypes without any doubt are one of the major challenges in intercultural interaction. For some it’s the good; the blessing to take with them prejudice (established assumptions and inferences that are not questioned) that opens doors and gives them access to a series of opportunities denied to others.

There are many examples of this. We could start with gender differences and the prejudices surrounding men and women’s abilities to perform jobs and responsibilities. We live with the reality that men and women still do not receive equal pay for equal work or when occupying the same position.

Nelson Mandela is sadly famous for fighting Apartheid and devoting his life to demonstrating that the color of one’s skin does not interfere with who we are or what we have to offer. Social prejudices are dramatized between sensationalism and tragic realism in thousands of tragi-comedies and novels representing a stereotyped society. There is little need to give details surrounding what it means to be a Muslim man of Arab descent in the USA after 9/11.

And there are many more, like those I live with when people discriminate against me due to where I was born. The stereotypes become a type of stigma, a label, of mindless and irrational prejudice. Although it seems surreal, when I lived in London a college friend was prohibited from talking with me because I was “the Colombian danger,” and in 1998 when I was looking for a place to live, I arrived at a suburban house where the first thing they asked me was, “Are you related to Pablo Escobar?”

In the end, it doesn’t matter how good anyone born in this country might be. The evil is the black cloud that accompanies us, limits us, closes doors for us, and worse, that many times sadly speaks for us and mutes our voice.

We in Colombia have problems, perhaps more than in other locations; perhaps fewer but more publicized. Stereotypes come dangerously back against all of us, and they easily take us to generalizations and pure, biased absolutism. ALL OF US are born, ALL OF US are human, ALL OF US are Muslim, ALL … and not!

Not all of us are equal, even though we may share certain traits and characteristics. Absolutism negates the possibility of our value as individuals — it negates who we are, beyond that which others say we are or should be.

The “Veil” in Tunisia

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P1020927I am very happy to share this guest blog post, written by a new member of our Cultural Detective community, Dr. Larry Michalak. His story illustrates a topic we’ve posted about before: veiling and how easily people can jump to the (wrong) conclusions about a person’s appearance.

What I particularly appreciate about Larry’s piece is that his list at the end illustrates a vital cross-cultural skill: the ability to generate multiple possible motivations for behavior. This ability is crucially important if we are to get beyond our own biases and expand our worldview, really get to know others, and develop respect, empathy and the ability to collaborate. Here is Larry’s post:

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Sit in a café on any street in Tunis (one of the pleasures of life!), and you will notice that the women who pass are covering up more than they used to in years past. There is a new kind of women’s clothing that didn’t exist when I was here in the 1960s—headscarves and smock-like dresses that cover the arms.

This “veiling” phenomenon has become a widespread topic of conversation, journalism, and social and even political analysis. Women began covering up more in the late 1970s, the headscarf was suppressed by the government in schools and public offices until the Tunisian revolution in January 2011, and now women are free to dress as they please.

Some scholars count the percentage of Tunisian women who are veiled, and cite these statistics in articles. This mode of dress (the argument goes) has religious and/or political meaning. It shows an increase in religious conservatism, and/or means that the wearer of the veil is showing sympathy with Islamic politics, opposition to the U.S., etc. When these observations come from secularists they are usually accompanied by expressions of disapproval of the veil.

But there are problems with this argument. One of them is the difficulty of defining what constitutes “veiling.” There is the hijab, which in Tunisia can mean a headscarf or else a headscarf accompanied by a smock-like dress that covers the arms and comes down to the ankles. Sometimes there is just a headscarf, and sometimes the headscarf is worn to cover the woman’s hair—sometimes completely and sometimes not. Full veiling, such as one finds in the Eastern part of the Middle East (e.g., the chador in Iran, the burka in Afghanistan, and the nikab in Saudi Arabia), is very rare in Tunisia. The term “veiling” is used indiscriminately to refer to all these different ways of covering.

Some years ago there was an excellent article in Jeune Afrique by a Tunisian woman journalist who thought that fashion was probably the most important reason for veiling. Some women wear the veil as they would a miniskirt—because it’s the fashion—and the cut and the color are more important than any religious content. Many of these women who veil have never read the Qur’an or performed the prayer. Some go veiled on weekdays and wear bikinis on the beach on the weekend. Some wear the veil to nightclubs with their whisky-drinking boyfriends. And on the boulevards of Tunis, one can see veiled women holding hands with their boyfriends.

My conclusion is: You can’t tell much about people by looking at how they dress. Just as you can’t judge a book by its cover, neither can you judge a woman by her clothing. This goes for men, too. I have known traditionally dressed men with very modern ideas, and men in Western suits who would feel right at home with the Taliban. I once heard a scholar give a paper at a conference, with statistics on what percentage of the women he observed in different places and at different hours were “veiled.” But he was calling lots of things “veils” and assuming that the “veil” reflects religious and/or political opinions.

To make my point, here is a list of ten reasons, other than religious or political, that a Tunisian woman might “veil.”

  1. “I do it to piss off my parents—especially my mother, who doesn’t veil.”
  2. “On TV I saw some women in Egypt who wear it and I think it looks great!”
  3. “I just got married and now I don’t have to advertise my looks.”
  4. “I just washed my hair, and I can’t do a thing with it.”
  5. “So that the guys will leave me alone on the bus.”
  6. “I want people to think that I’m a virgin so that I can find a husband more easily.”
  7. “I’m on my way to have sex with my boyfriend and I don’t want anyone to recognize me.”
  8. “I’m so beautiful that I have to cover up to keep the guys from going crazy.”
  9. “I’m not attractive and I’m self-conscious about it, so I leave my looks to people’s imagination.”
  10. And, finally: “It’s cold out today and I want to keep my head warm.”

In other words, sometimes a headscarf is just a headscarf!

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Dr. Larry Michalak is a cultural anthropologist with degrees from Stanford, London and UC/Berkeley. He was Vice Chair of Berkeley’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies for 23 years. His specialty is the Arab World, especially Tunisia, where he was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the 1960s. He has now spent over ten years there. Larry is fluent in Arabic and French. In his retirement he has enjoyed traveling with his wife Karen as an enrichment lecturer for UC/Berkeley and the Smithsonian, and he has also taught on Semester at Sea.  His favorite topics are anthropology of food and anthropology of tourism.

Book Review: Global Dexterity

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GlobalDexterity

Molinsky, Andy, Harvard Business Review Press. 2013.
ISBN10:1422187276, ISBN13:9781422187272

When it comes to cultural competence, there are some big gaps between knowing about, knowing how to, and actually developing and applying the skills to manage self in real situations. Andy Molinsky, in his new book, Global Dexterity: How to Adapt Your Behavior Across Cultures without Losing Yourself in the Process, has provided us with a methodology for bridging into the third and most critical of these steps. His choice of the word “dexterity” in the title of the book is well chosen to express the fact that we become effective when we have learned how to develop “muscle memory” to respond to real situations in intercultural management and in life, when on strange turf. It is about translating knowledge into behavior and acquiring the habits that make us good at it.

The insights Molinsky provides are not so much about how cultures differ, though the stories he tells make the reader fully aware of the dynamics of these differences. Certainly, one must know and recognize difference, but the book’s key insights are more about how we function wholistically in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Global Dexterity is a workbook, and the work is up to the user.

Molinsky helps us identify our own “culture code” and that of others — differences in what he calls prototypical thinking and behavior, which may belong to people, to a place or a situation, or to all three at a given moment. In other words, the “detective” work of sniffing out the rules for what is seen as appropriate behavior in a specific cultural setting. The now online Cultural Detective, though not explicitly mentioned in Molinsky’s book, is a good tool for this work. Also, “culture code” as used here should not be limited to the Jungian approach for decoding cultural discourse developed by Clotaire Rapaille, for those familiar with it, though that is also a relevant form of investigation.

Since the variations in code can be almost infinite and therefore paralyzing when it comes to seeking out the right approach to a culture, Molinsky insists we not look for a single “right” behavior, but for a “zone of appropriateness,” a range within which to operate successfully in each culture. He then provides a practical navigational framework for looking into what is most likely to differ as we face situations in this zone. He asks us to pay attention to the relative measures of how direct, enthusiastic, assertive, self promoting and disclosing our behaviors are in comparison with those of the other party. These measures are, admittedly, not exhaustive, but are likely to give us the solid return on our investment of time used to understand and adapt our behavior.

Once aware of the culture code and the zones of appropriateness, the question is how can one stretch one’s comfort zone to overlap with the appropriateness zone of the other’s cultural code. Of course this can be a two way street, but in any case one must diagnose the situation, customize one’s behavior options to fit or bridge the gap, and, ultimately, integrate the customized behavior to the point that it feels right and can become the “new normal” for the situations it fits.

The author identifies three psychological challenges along the way, and he provides a process for dealing with them. First, he uses the word authenticity to speak of the challenge raised by conflict with values and beliefs. Secondly comes competence — does one have the know-how and skill to actually perform the new behavior? The final challenge is dealing with resentment — even if one can perform the behavior, will he or she feel embittered about having to do so?

The helpful metaphor in discussing these challenges is “acting.” An actor needs to learn a new role for a specific part of a drama. Here too, mastering the role needs to be seen as positive acquisition, the realization of potential, rather than as a loss or suppression of self. Today’s language teachers realize this when they no longer speak of “accent reduction” but rather of “accent acquisition.” The search for “authenticity” (the real me) unfortunately is wed to US pop psychology. Objecting, “It’s just not me,” is often an obstacle or an excuse for avoiding the discomfort involved in widening one’s repertoire. Thus, the theater metaphor is particularly useful here. In learning and practicing new skills, it is okay to say, “No, it’s not me…yet…”

So how does one make adopting new paradigm or behavior acceptable to the old self? Besides thinking of it as theater, one can enhance the recognition and acceptance of new behavior by calling on one’s own inner diversity to change one’s perceptions, viz., by aligning the new behavior with one’s goals, weaving it in with other personal or cultural values, or by working to understand and accept the other culture’s logic. If this automatically sounds like rationalistic deviation from what one holds as norms, it must be remembered that we regularly play one value against another in making changes and decisions, and that cultures themselves have both conflicting and complementary discourse to help us navigate life. The author again offers us process, “workbook” pages, for applying this alignment process.

None of this adaptation is likely to occur simply by knowing about differences, and it is here that Molinsky has most to offer to intercultural pedagogy and pedagogues. Few people can incoporate new and alien behaviors spontaneously. It takes practice, practice, paractice, and it is this feature that is most neglected in current intercultural praxis. Gone are the days when a trainer had four or five days to offer participants enough hands-on exercises to try out and then integrate new behaviors in a process of familiarization, rehearsal, and “dress rehearsal” or application to real situations. The reader will have to do this on his or her own, so the author provides pages, tools and questions to facilitate this. There is a potential here for online learning that should be pursued, and Molinsky’s approaches would combine extremely well with a subscription to the Cultural Detective Online tool to provide the ongoing, structured learning needed.

Inevitably, Molinsky points out, we are awash in trial and error, in the challenge of experiential learning. So, he offers further help. There are tips on how to increase one’s chances of being forgiven one’s mistakes, how to look for a cultural model to pattern oneself after, or even how to find a mentor who understands you and your culture well enough to provide feedback, information and support.

What happens, however, when absolutes collide, when ethical standards will be violated if one adapts behavior and accepts practices that are beyond the pale? Here is where the “without losing yourself in the process” line of the book’s title most comes into play. Our creativity for building options is challenged. Humor, gentle insistence, and, if the stakes are not too high, simply contradicting the local norm in your behavior, are given as examples.

Molinsky concludes the book and sums up its import with five key takeaways that compare conventional attitudes about cultural adaptation with the realities that become actionable using the insights, the paradigms and the processes he proposes.

The book is well written and an easy read. The challenge comes if one truly uses the tools it provides to put adaptation into practice. This is incumbant on intercultural professionals who need to model it for their clientele and students. We need to play with Global Dexterity’s excellent start and take it further, lest the old adage, “Those who can do, do; those who can not do, teach!” be applied to preachers of cultural competence who fail to develop and practice “dexterity.”