Cultural Awareness and Our Workplace
Photo Credit to Mimi Thian
What is cultural awareness?
According to the Collins Dictionary, cultural awareness refers to an individual's "understanding of the differences between themselves and people from other countries or other backgrounds, especially differences in attitudes and values." To cultivate a sense of cultural awareness, we must acknowledge how big of a difference there is across cultures.
We often believe that one's facial expressions are a biological and inborn reflection of one's mental state. For example, you smile when you are happy, and you pout when you feel sad. Modern societies, especially those in the West, have already matched up to certain expressions with corresponding emotions. We, therefore, make judgments as to people's attitudes based on this set of rules and clues.
However, are our facial expressions pancultural and unaffected by culture? Social anthropologists tried to answer this question by asking Trobrianders from an isolated, small-scale society in Papua New Guinea to match up facial displays with different emotions and social motives. The result turned out to be of our surprise. Trobrianders perceive a gasping face, which gets generally regarded as demonstrating fear and shock by Western society as a sign of anger and threat, as well as an intent to harm.
This example shows an often-overlooked aspect of cultural differences and awareness. We have no problem acknowledging salient parts of cultural differences such as deities, rituals, and lifestyle habits. However, it is difficult for us to recognize that something we internalize as 'normal' and pancultural can differ from culture to culture.
Why is cultural awareness essential in corporations?
From the previous example, if we are unaware that the Trobrianders' gasping face is a sign of anger and threat, we can easily misinterpret their attitude and social motive towards us during our communication. It becomes especially important at work or even in our personal lives because the lack of cultural awareness can lead to miscommunication, misunderstandings, and conflicts. If we prematurely judge each other's emotions and motives based on the norms and rules of our own culture, conflicts can quickly arise. These differences occur when we interpret what is benign in another culture as something hostile as we usually perceive. Therefore, having the awareness that one's cultural background can significantly influence one's behavior and conduct is crucial to cultivate empathy, understanding, and adapt accordingly.
The importance of cultural awareness is becoming more highlighted in corporate training and coaching, given the heightened degree of globalization and the massive size and scale of multinational corporations. It is almost impossible for us, especially if you live and work in an international city, to not come across someone at work who grew up in a different culture than you did.
Apart from internal cooperation and management, cultural awareness is also crucial for a company that is seeking to build its brand in a different culture or country. To understand the target customers' culture, preferences and taboos are of paramount significance to marketing success. If we apply our values and taste to products designed for another target market, the result is likely to be far from what we expect.
How to instill cultural awareness and mutual understanding amongst teams in your employees?
It is not necessary for us to conduct a detailed research on every culture that we can possibly come across. Cultural awareness does not require us to be perfectly understanding and flexible. Instead, it is a growth mindset that we adopt to actively understand each other’s cultural background and what it entails in terms of our demeanor, values, and communication styles.
One way to be more culturally aware is to improve communication- training and coaching can help with it. By actively seeking to communicate more clearly, you avoid a lot of misunderstandings that would otherwise be interpreted differently. Ambiguous messages can entail a lot of different meanings that could easily be mistaken. Therefore, it is always important to say what you mean especially, to be clear and open when talking to a culturally diverse group of people.
It also helps to clarify with another person when you are unclear about their message. At FELIZ Consulting training, we use tools such as the AIMB (Audience, Intention, Message, and Benefit) to plan communication, clarify the message, and set the right focus. We also use LAPAC (Listen, Acknowledge, Paraphrase, Answer, Confirm) tool to clarify communication and create more alignment amongst different cultures. It is natural for human beings to make judgments based on others' facial expressions, demeanor, or language. However, these are many times inconsistent across cultures, and we should be careful with assumptions or generalizations.
Next time when you see someone being rude or hostile, contain your urge to assume this is their real intention. Instead, politely ask questions with an open mind and try to understand what they mean by their behavior, and explain that in your culture, you might gauge another message from that action, expression, or behavior.
Diversity and Inclusion corporate training and looking into our biases is another popular option for many large corporations. Through educating your employees on the importance of cultural diversity and with the help of group exercises, discussion, awareness, and training, it becomes much easier to develop a more inclusive and harmonious culture in your workplace.
FELIZ Consulting has an extensive range of training programs dedicated to improving diversity and inclusion in your company. We have ample experience with multiple international law firms, banks, and statutory bodies in conducting training on similar topics. To find out more about us, visit https://www.felizconsulting.com. If you are interested in working with us or have any inquiries, contact us via [email protected]
References: 1. https://www.northeastern.edu/graduate/blog/cultural-awareness-at-work/
2. https://www.pnas.org/content/113/44/12403#abstract-2
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd0aAFFjCUo&ab_channel=TEDxTalks
Malcolm Gladwell, Talking to Strangers