Have you ever been in a heated cross-cultural situation? Have you had to resolve a situation that involved dealing with someone who had a different set of values that did not go well?

A lot has been written about cross-cultural competence in terms of learning how to observe and decode the culture of ourselves and others in order to succeed in dealing with people across a cultural divide.

Rarely do we get to hear about what happens when the communication fails and results in misunderstandings, stress and conflicts. This blog entry is trying to make sense of communication failure and the emotional aspects of our culturally learned responses.

It is clear that there is a direct link between communication and culture both when it succeeds and when it fails. Communicating appropriately according to cultural norms and expectations is how we are trained from the very beginning of our lives. As children we learn the appropriate ways of decoding dissent, signs of agreement and to effectively show our response to other people’s emotions in our communication.

What we do not learn is to disagree according to a different set of behaviours – i.e. we don’t learn how to deal with cross-cultural communication until we suddenly have to because we have fallen in love or become a part of a diverse workforce or otherwise had to deal with a different set of communicative expectations.

The ethno-centric impulse:

It is important to stress that being a cross-culturally sensitive person is completely counter intuitive for all human beings.  Cultural belonging is psychologically a feeling of security and certainty. It means that we can easily know what to expect and it helps us decide what is right or wrong and not least how to get along with each other.

Just as it is a natural impulse to either fight or take flight when we feel threatened, our first response when we get exposed to something we don’t quite understand is to reach out to our cultural upbringing.  It is nothing less than our “safety net” and our sense of security. All the things we were taught and told by our parents and painstakingly had to learn between the sandbox and the teachers at school – all that knowledge acts as our social safety net. However, this knowledge also is a restriction that keeps us in check until we learn any different.

Every time we experience something unexpected we immediately try to make sense of it by using the sum of all the knowledge we have accumulated and internalized as appropriate behaviour in order to make sense of the things we have observed. Perhaps it can be summed up by calling this process “emotional exchange in cross-cultural Communication

The main point in all this is that cross-cultural communication is perhaps understood far better if we see it as ongoing emotional exchange and sense- making.

Conflict and Failure

The way we chose to argue is deeply linked to our cultural upbringing too. All people from all cultures interact on an emotional level with one another. However the way those emotions are conveyed differs vastly.

These responses can be roughly classified in four variables in terms of the degree of directness and emotional expressiveness. According to Mitch Hammer, we can, from these variables, talk about four different types of ‘communication styles’:

According to this model – there are some clear distinctions to be observed in the way we have been raised to communicate in a conflict situation.

These differences exist because the meanings of social relationships differ from one culture to the next, and these differences produce different guidelines for the regulation of expressive behavior.

What is more, when we act under emotional stress we tend to become less cross-culturally competent or even incompetent. This is the foundation for understanding the impact of culture at its’ most rudimentary and destructive level.

This is why our own awareness of our identification with our primary cultural group, and how we manage that self-awareness is crucial for cross-cultural competence!

Seen in this way, culture is not a cozy concept or something entertaining – it is dead serious because of its ability to include and exclude based on superficial homogeneity and our impulse to seek our own kind under stress.

Dr Matsumoto

Dr. Matsumoto has long studied the correlation that exists between managing emotional responses and the ability to communicate under the influence of conflict and emotional stress. His research has showed that our emotional response management is key to handling conflicts:

“because once emotions are regulated individuals can engage in critical thinking and assimilation of new cognitive schemas that aid in adjustment”[1]

The big question is how to manage stress and emotional imbalances that occur when we cross the cultural divide.

The first step is to become aware of our first reactions. Some cultures like the Japanese are known as so called ‘emotionally restrained’. However, this does not mean that Japanese people are more cross-culturally competent than other cultural groups. They just live in a society where the social convention is to be less emotionally expressive in public. One could argue that being raised in a culture where emotional restraint is the norm, people would be more inclined towards exercising cross-cultural competence even if the Japanese culture is equally ethno-centric as many other cultures.

Being ethno-centric is always the biggest challenge to any attempt of becoming cross-culturally competent. That is why taking this discussion away from the perspective of the national culture is very important. Focusing on the individual and how we as individuals identify and interact with other people ultimately is what this is all about. Noone ever met ‘a culture’ in itself. Cultures are always driven by groups of people and we as individuals choose to adopt and express some parts of the cultures we are members of.

The emotional challenge that Dr. Matsumoto talks about is far more likely to be the emotional stress that happens between cultures. These are the times where there is suddenly a high absence of predictability and decreasing trust as the direct consequence.

Young Yun Kim

The deciding factor is about our internalization and ability to identify with differences around us. Young Yun Kim has described the emotional stress in connection with cross-cultural transition.

The basic argument here is that people have the ability to adapt to new cultural realities and that adapting to cultural differences is the only way to overcome culturally inflicted stress. In her world, we need to adapt to a changed reality in order to grow over time.

If we combine the points made by these two scholars, we get an interesting perspective on intercultural competence development. Matsumoto gives us a diagnosis of the core problem in cross-cultural communication and Kim gives us a way out by focusing on adaptation to cross-cultural stress factors in order to grow over time.

Psychologists tend to look at this ability to overcome culturally inflicted stress as hardiness. In a cross-cultural context, hardiness means being open towards differences and avoiding judgmental attitudes towards the new culture.

It requires an ability to withstand stress and remain calm even when situations or behaviors seem “wrong”, “impolite” or “strange”

The Kozai Group

A meta study was carried out by Mark E Mendenhal et al. with the Kozai Group. In their study they find that people who are good at their cross-cultural self-management have a high degree of self-esteem as well as self-confidence and mental balance.

Cultivating a curious attitude and seeking knowledge about the others is essential to this end. It the same time many cross-cultural conflicts will not necessarily get resolved from just having a hardy attitude and an in-depth understanding of where the other person is coming from. It helps a lot of course. However in order to resolve a heated moment between two people from different cultural backgrounds, people need to create trust with each other. And trust only emerges when trust is mutually shared.

Recommendations

At this point there are some tips that can be listed.

• Understand your own cultural preference and how it affects you when it is challenged

• Understand the general cultural pattern of the people who are different from you

• Be able to decode the general patterns of cultural-emotional responses

• Even though rejection is felt personally – try not to take it personal

• See the ambition behind the attitude

• Take responsibility for your own part in making the other person feel the same as you

• Compartmentalize different aspects of the odd behavior and try to adapt to it bit by bit.

Conflicts need to be resolved in a dynamic interplay between mirroring your own and the other persons’ communication style and understanding the difference between own cultural norms and personal ambitions.

Having said this – it is clear that our emotional response to cultural differences will play a part and restrict our actions every time we encounter something we have not yet become used to. The challenge is to compartmentalize the odd/challenging experience and to find a sense of security and ease with it one bit at the time. This will ultimately take the stress away and letting you adapt and interact more freely with a new potential friend waiting to happen

Your Muslim neighbor

Danish national television, Danmarks Radio recently made a very interesting survey about ‘your Muslim neighbour’ that tested the most widespread prejudices that the Majority of Danes might hold against Muslims. Mostly the questions centered on worshiping, social and societal conduct. You can take the quiz here:

http://www.eplugs.net/gfx/QuizStandAlone.htm?quizid=Quiz-95E62M

I took a test and the first thing that struck me was how mainstream the Muslims in Denmark have seemed to become as seen from a cross-cultural point of view.  The group seem to have similar values when it comes to marriage, divorce, upbringing and even cheating on the tax bill.

The Danish union for new Danes (Foreningen-Nydansker), whose mission has been “to brake down the barriers between new-Danes and the job market and make diversity management a natural and valued element of the Danish business life”, equally confirms the tendency. The CEO, Torben Møller-Hansen recently remarked, that the Muslims in Denmark have integrated very well over the last decade and the union’s work more or less has succeeded with its’ mission to a large extent.

The disproportionate relationship

In other words, there seems to be a disproportionate relationship between the behavior of this broad group of new (Muslim)-Danes and their families and the debate about them as it seems to continue on the political arena.

One could argue that there could be a politically motivated strategy in focusing on the 5% that act according to the stereotypical beliefs. Even so, I don’t think that is the case. Rather, I believe that it is a simple question of talking about them without them as it was voiced at a cross-cultural conference in Minneapolis last summer.

If the Danish Muslims – who seem to be quite mainstream in their values – are being referred to as unDanish and potentially disruptive for equal opportunities. To me, this disproportion means that we need to understand what the headscarf might signify. The growing popularity of the Muslim headscarf needs to be understood as a part of the dialectic dynamic within the Danish culture between different subcultures and not as a counter culture threatening to overturn the Danish society or its values. The headscarf in other words, needs to be read from within this specific well-integrated group in its’ national context.

An important distinction

It is important to note about culture – that even though there may not always be a culturally driven reason for disagreement, mis-communication or resistance, culture is always a possible explanation when there is more than one culture present. Therefore, even though some do, not all representations of Islam in Denmark have a cross-cultural reasoning behind them but it is however a possible explanation when two cultures are being identified. However, the cultural divide is also much easier to deal with when we can clearly draw a distinction.

The visibility of the headscarfs has seemed to create a clear boundary between the Muslims in the society and those who clearly perceive themselves as non-Muslim. On either side, one would clearly be able to see the divide – two distinct groups that create a divide in relation to Islam in the society and who use this difference to make sense of the world.

However, what we are dealing with here is a subculture – which means that there is an overarching national cultural context that serves as a common backdrop for all societal and social interaction.

The big gray area in between these two polar opposites is not as easy to categorize. Culture is never a question of either or but rather a loosely structured and incompletely shared system that emerges dynamically as cultural members experience and make sense of each other around different topics at different times and in different contexts. To illustrate this point feminist scholar, Joanne Martin once used this image to show the multilayered nature of our different cultural identities:

This is the reason why we all to a certain extent have a hard time making sense of cultural meetings and cross-cultural situations.

There are however certain steps to take in order to minimize the uncertainty. The literature has called this a need for building cross-cultural competence through knowledge, skills and attitudes.

Project implicit

The face of culture is a barrier of communication for most people. It is a fact that we organize our perceptions of cultural differences according to visual representations. An excellent example of this is The Project Implicit. It shows that our perception of beauty is closely tied to the ways our society has constructed the notion of what appears to be beautiful/not beautiful.

Our immediate perceptions of visual differences are sometimes hard to recognize as they tend to happen in a split second before our more controlled thoughts and conscious thinking takes over. If you want to test your own preferences in regards to any given difference whether it be Muslim, gay, disabled, black, overweight, Asian etc., I can strongly recommend The Project Implicit  at Harvard University.

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/selectatest.html

The way we perceive differences is almost exclusively tied to the superficial visible qualities. They tend to operate through very simple categories at first. The Project Implicit  operates through very simple distinctions such as Arab/non Arab. This way one is confronted with the core preference in relation to specific visual differences and the result will tell you something valuable about your own cultural layers.

We live in a time where visual representation is taking center stage in our identity construction. However we simply do not get the tools to decode the visibility by merely stating that there is a different visibility in itself. As is the case with the Muslim headscarf – we need to realize that we have to relate to more communicative aspects than just one reference to a religious practice.

In Denmark, we are slowly starting to adapt to making more nuanced distinctions when it comes to describing different types of head scarfs.  The majority now knows that a burka isn’t the same as the niqab and the tchador is different from the hijab. But as long as our politicians seem to operate along the same lines as The Project Implicit  in terms of Muslim/non Muslim then there is still a great need to making better distinctions. The headscarf cannot be boxed into only one meaning. Many women today practice their faith without wearing a head scarf and others in turn might be using the scarf for other reasons that cannot be entirely explained as a desire to express a religious affiliation.

How does one then relate to all these intersecting, incomplete and individual reasons in order to make sense of a woman wearing a headscarf?

First of all, we have to realize that not everything is culture. Craig Storti writes about this in his great book: Figuring Foreigners Out when he distinguishes between individual/personal expressions, cultural expressions and universal expressions. To explain this concept we can say that people have different motivations for their actions. To understand practices around wearing the veil we might start by placing this choice in an appropriate context.

The Danish State broadcaster initiated a headscarf competition in Denmark not long ago. This short clip from BBC shows some of these voices from within the Muslim community in Denmark:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7442244.stm

This youtube clip taken from Al Jazeera English was aired in 2008 and gives a great insight into the context of Egypt where there also exist a great number of very different reasons for wearing the headscarf. Some reasons are individually motivated and some are cultural – but they all share the universal trait that they are modern women in a globalized context

If you want to become more competent in relating to specific cross-cultural issues – start by going through this short exercise:

• Take a good look at your own personal behaviors in relation to how the veil has affected you.

• What characterized the reaction?

• Describe situations where you have noticed the behavior occurring – what happened, what was the reaction for you?

• How has this perceived difference affected your interaction with this particular group?

• How can you identify actions to mitigate this behavior and act differently?

If you have a specific task or if you want to develop your cross-cultural competence more, feel free to contact me through www.ponticonsult.dk or set up an appointment through this number: +4520225763

References:

Craig Storti: Figuring Foreigners Out

Joanne Martin: Cultures in Organizations

During the conference I spoke with a number of people, all of whom seemed to operate from a similar logic: Discrimination had to be eradicated in favor of a higher level of inclusion within the arts and that way obtain a composition of employees and customers that would be reflective of the society that presently has around 6% migrants with other ethnic roots than Danish.

Inclusion vs discrimination

Inclusion has often been made for a contrast to discrimination – so much so that these two concepts often are considered in debates about equality and diversity to be opposite concepts where discrimination mostly refers to the unfair judgment and treatment of minorities and inclusion on the other hand describes the attempt to embrace and accommodate the differences that are usually overlooked by the majority.

However, there is reason to dwell on these two concepts. Are they really opposed views of the same reality? I believe that the debate has become blindsided in its own attempt to make sense of a complex situation where clarity is much desired.

It is my belief that these two concepts are not opposing concepts but equally problematic for a number of reasons. Let us start the discussion by nuancing the ideologically motivated views that too often have been born from the perceived polarization of the concepts of inclusion and discrimination.

But before indulging in these two positions – let us establish the common ground that these two concepts share. First and foremost, they each relate to the ways we as human cultural beings make sense of differences in society. It is important to realize that we never see ‘a difference’ in itself, – it always  appears together with its own contrast. E.g. edible/inedible, good/bad, black /white. Every time we observe something, we are forced to observe it by giving value to the phenomena we encounter. The meaning of what seems to be ‘natural’ / universal is always already embedded in our cultural reality. common sense is therefore always – the cultured sense!

If we for a moment dwell on the substance behind the words like discrimination and inclusion, it is quickly evident that they are both embedded and born out of a long socio-cultural history. Ranging from anti-semitism, through apartheid to women’s liberation, these concepts have been used to create an ideological ‘us / them’ position. Even though they can be interpreted differently and may not have to be perceived as polar opposites – our culture seems to have negotiated these concepts that way.

But what is really behind these concepts? Let us for a moment release the accelerator and reflect for 5 minutes.
The way I understand it, discrimination means to distinguish. Being able to make many discriminations is the same as having many categories available for one’s observations of differences. This is for instance what Webster’s online dictionary writes about discrimination:

Adjective

1. Marked by the ability to see or make fine distinctions; “discriminate judgments”; “discriminate people”.

2. Noting distinctions with nicety; “a discriminating interior designer”; “a nice sense of color”; “a nice point in the argument”.

Verb

1. Recognize or perceive the difference.

2. Treat differently on the basis of sex or race.

3. Distinguish; “I could not discriminate the different tastes in this complicated dish”.

There are of course different ways of discriminating where some are highly limited and others are very sophisticated.

Actually, making distinctions is the only way we are able to give meaning to the world around us. Without the ability to make distinctions, the world would appear infinitely complex. Discrimination in other words, reduces complexity by distinguishing between different categories of phenomena in the world. However, when placed in an ideologically charged debate, discrimination is often disfavored due to the historical developments and thus making the act of distinguishing between differences a potentially risky endeavor.

Inclusion can mostly be perceived as a moral standpoint that tells us something about what we should do instead of behaving in a racist or xenophobic way. However, to be inclusive says something about what we should do, but nothing about how.

The concept of inclusion on its own therefore turns out to be everything and nothing at the same time. When used ideologically we run the risk of minimizing significant cultural differences. Even when the attempt is to distinguish and deal with the differences in practical terms, significant and meaningful differences can easily be called out as too categorical, limited or even racist and stereotypical.

The bottom line is this: The distinction between discrimination and inclusion is a false polarization and therefore, it is time to renew our conceptual repertoire.

Drawing a distinction

Firstly we have to acknowledge that differentiation / discrimination lies at the heart of any attempt to become cross-culturally competent.

Constructivism has since Niklas Luhmann’s use of Spencer Brown’s imperative (“draw a distinction!”) made it obvious that we cannot say anything meaningful without first having distinguished. This means that we distinguish everytime we observe something in front of us.

The challenge for the multi-ethnic and multicultural society is therefore to find a new framework within which we are able to observe each other. A part of this challenge is probably to cover the trenches between ideological positions and instead realize that racism is just as subversive for a debate as resisting to differentiate by including everything and nothing.

That is the reason why the real issue is a question about how we distinguish! Excactly how do we discriminate? How do we make sense of and room for each other in the multicultural society that we have chosen to live in?

It seems that we, as a society, need to acquire a higher level of consciousness in relation to distinguishing between cultural differences. A competence that can only be acquired through constant practice and a willingness to remain open, inquisitive and flexible to other cultures whether they are rooted in identity differences, sub- or national cultures.

As the above figure shows, the challenge is to escape the ethnocentric corner and move into a more ethno-relative paradigm where us/them distinctions do not make the agenda.

The next step forward?

In my view, the next step forward is to define inclusion as the need for acknowledging the differences among us while at the same time learn to navigate these differences effectively. The only way of doing this is by developing cross-cultural competence.

At this point it would be fitting to lend an ear to Andres Tapía who defines cross-cultural competence as:

“the ability to discern and take into account one’s own and others’ worldviews, to be able to solve problems, make decisions, and resolve conflicts in ways that optimize cultural differences for better, longer lasting and more creative solutions.” (Tapia 2009 p.84)

in other words, we are now moving away from this either/or mentality and embracing the difficult task of both including and perceiving cultural differences at the same time!

In this context it means that we must transgress the politically motivated false polarizations that seems to haunt the debate about integration. The environmental debate suffered this type of false polarization during the 70’ies and 80’ies. Then it was either progress or sustainability until we had our backs against the wall and we had to learn that there could be a viable business case for green industries.

Diversity management has been caught in an old sensitivity paradigm that the past 25 years focused on creating awareness and including more differences in our organizations at large – not just the arts institutions. However the way forward is to realize that we all share the responsibility of being cross-culturally competent – no matter who we are or where we come from. It doesn’t mean that active steps shouldn’t be taken to include more differences in our organizations. It just means that the new era of diversity management  without a doubt will be focused on our routes (i.e. where we are going) rather than our roots (i.e. where we come from)!

We must start perceiving diversity and cultural differences as the potential resource we can all learn to dig and cultivate. We all need to realize that ‘my culture’ is not by definition better than ‘your culture’, but equally complex and equally worthy. That we actually need each other’s differences to survive as a people. Let us hope that it won’t last a decade before we realize that politically motivated positions will make it difficult for us to move forward together. Perhaps this is particularly a challenge for the predominant part of the Danish national culture that is either blind to the cultural differences or prone to making us/them distinctions.

We simply need to become better at creating a more nuanced picture of the many cultures we meet on a daily basis and be better able to see the world with multiple perspectives in mind – not just our own!

Please contact PontiConsult for more information on diversity management and cross-cultural competence development

Sources:

Ole Thyssen: Værdiledelse

Andres Tapia: The Inclusion Paradox

http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/discriminate

I was on my way home from the airport the other day. On the train platform I noticed a Somalian woman in a hijab with a huge amount of luggage and four  boys of different ages playing around her with toy guns. I noticed that she looked very tired and she was probably exhausted from her journey. Our eyes briefly met and I could tell that she seemed confused like someone in need of directions. So I asked her if she needed any help and after a while I found out that she didn’t know how to get to Århus from where we were. I said that I was going to the main station and that I would be happy to help her to her connecting train that would leave from there.

I could tell that a sense of caution and doubt created a space between us so when my train came, I asked the Danish female train officer to please tell the Somalian woman that her connecting train would be leaving from the main station. I told her that the Somalian woman  was probably reluctant to travel with an unknown male and that she, as a train officer might be able to persuade her since she was both in uniform and a women. Then the train officer just looked at me and glanced back at the Somalian woman and said: ”She is Danish like the rest of us – she can just learn how to read the timetables like everyone else!”

I was shocked at the almost aggressive lack of sensitivity coming from her. I went back and told the Somalian woman that the train officer had confirmed that the train would take her to her connecting train – but when she was still declining to go I left on the next train and the situation ended unresolved.

The absurdity of the whole situation somehow reminded me of this drawing:



I felt like we were the fish and the monkey trying to convince the teacher that we climbed trees i. e. read the timetables in different ways and that one of us required a little support in doing just that!

In the context of animals it seems completely ridiculous to ask animals to do something they are clearly unfit to do. However, as soon as we start relating to fellow human beings and differences in culture, it suddenly becomes fuzzy and difficult to be empathetic. On the surface, we are all people but the way we relate to equally challenging problems is different. Our way of managing our existence as humans relates to the cultural upbringing we receive. In a certain sense that makes us all similar yet so different.  Edward T Hall described the paradox of cross-cultural sensitivity in his amazing book, ”The Silent Language” this way:

”Culture hides more than it reveals, and strangely enough what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants”

Hall examines the problem of becoming aware of the differences that are not readily visible for an outsider. However, the biggest challenge according to Hall is not to understand the foreign culture as much as learning to understand the impact of one’s own cultural preference patterns.

The invisible aspects of a culture or someone’s cultural identity is often described through an iceberg model that proposes that all the properties of any given culture only reveal a tiny part of its totality and that most of it is hidden away.

This is the primary reason why most people tend to be more aware of differences when they are most apparent but tend to overlook the hidden differences and especially those within themselves.

The way forward

The big mistake in all this is to assume that as long as everyone gets the same treatment, everyone will naturally coexist and work together without any problems.

The biggest problem then, is that the members of the majority in any culture will fail to see the problem. They really believe that everyone is being treated fairly when everyone is treated exactly the same. Nonetheless, the minority is not a minority for fun but because this particular group of people define themselves by having a different set of values – a different perspective of the world as they see it. This is the reason why any minority group will never see the world in the same way as the majority does. As a member of the majority of Danes, the ticket officer on the train failed to ask herself one simple thing:  “How can I help passengers with a different background who appear to have different needs?”

To me, this situation demonstrates clearly, that people who have a different cultural background than the majority also have different needs when compared to the majority.  And in order to be supportive and perhaps even service minded – it requires attention, recognition and action.

Building awareness

Without an initial awareness of being a part of a cultural group, any attempt to try to understand or be understood will be futile. Therefore the first step is to build self-awareness and thereby branch out to understanding that just as I belong, interpret and act within a highly complex cultural reality – everyone is equally complex and sophisticated in this kind of social conditioning.

The so-called equal treatment for all is never really ever the same as ’fair treatment’ for all. Why? Because the majority is always privileged in any society. Treating everyone the same way is the same as giving everyone the same shoes because it fits the majority.  Naturally, this way of thinking is completely blind to the differences that make a significant and important difference when dealing with other cultures and intercultural communication.

The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (aka the DMIS model) as presented by Dr Milton Bennett works with different stages of cross-cultural competence ranging from a worldview that is completely evasive/ignorant towards cultural differences to a highly sophisticated view of cultural differences that is incorporating behavioral changes when relating to specific cultural differences.

The DMIS model looks like this:

I will refrain from going into a detailed explanation of the stages of this model. However, it basically describes different stages of intercultural sensitivity in relation to how a person is able to distinguish and experience cultural differences.

The behavior of the train officer would likely fall into the category of Denial because her reaction to my question displayed an almost aggressive ignorance and blindness to the cultural difference at hand.

The challenge

Treating people fairly means treating them differently. Milton Bennett describes this difficult task when he talks about ’the golden rule’ that, in Western philosophy, has been mainly ascribed to Kant’s moral imperative.  The challenge is to understand that different perspectives require an understanding of what makes that person’s needs different from my needs. In short, it requires empathy. In practical terms, it means that when I need to communicate and act in a cross-cultural situation, I have to be curious, open and knowledgeable about the other culture. This way I am able to show empathy and thereby become able to treat people how they themselves would like to be treated and not how I would like to be treated – had it been me.

Nonetheless, cross-cultural communication often requires more than we are able to give. Especially in dealing with a cultural system that operates according to a clear division between males and females. When trying to help the Somalian woman, my presence as a man created a significant barrier for our communication – one that couldn’t be helped – no matter how ever helpful I would try to be. The situation required an understanding of the context, a recognition and acceptance of what she was willing to accept from me and then to act accordingly.

Different worldviews pose a real challenge for diverse organizations as well as societies in general.   As our societies and organizations become increasingly diverse, the bigger will the need be for a strategically sound and culturally sensitive approach. Hall focuses on the invisible culture within ourselves. To him the only way to become aware of ourselves is to invite the cultural differences in our midst and that way expose ourselves to contrasts and cultural differences and then hopefully learn how to “become more complete”*.

Feel free to browse through our website www.ponticonsult.dk for more information on how we might be able to help your organization. I can also be contacted through my email address: esben@ponticonsult.dk

*Please visit the About Me page for a reference on the following quote: “difference is not something we need to resolve; it is something we need to seek, so that through astonishment we may stay on the move between different worlds, and in that way become more complete”

Sources:

Edward T. Hall: The Silent Language

Milton Bennett: Basic Concepts of Intercultural Communication: Selected Readings

If anyone knows who made the drawing – please let me know

There are many different areas to cover when wanting to cover the cultural glue of a society and so the Danish citizenship test consists of 40 questions about historical events, cultural personas freedom of speech and democratic processes. It requires knowledge on historical events like the bombardment of Copenhagen during the Napoleonic war, democratic events such as the landslide elections in ‘73 or the role of the ombudsman.

Upon reading through these questions, it strikes me as odd that the content and level of detail in terms of showing core Danish values about democracy, freedom to vote, congregate and speak, abortion and arts seems out of touch with the reality that Danes share. My first guess is that only a good 50% of the Danes would be able to answer these questions correctly themselves.

Assuming that the Danish Citizenship Test is a telling account of the societal glue that ultimately connects us on some gut level as ‘Danes’ – isn’t it a problem then, if we are not even able to answer these questions ourselves?

This can only mean two things the way I see it. Either I am not educated enough about the Danish society and history although I have lived, studied and worked for more than 35 years in this country. Or maybe it is because the content of the test is out of touch with what we are able to define as obviously ‘Danish’ traits.

If the latter is the case we must ask ourselves if we are asking about issues that we really do not share at the end of the day (other than a common historical reference point). If so we must address the problem that the test refers to knowledge about the Danish society that is merely historical – i. e. not readily present among us.

Democratic base knowledge

When it comes to the questions about society and democracy there is a very good point in securing that everyone has the same base knowledge. However, many ethnically Danish first voters would not know anything about the function of an ombudsman, how many courts that exist in Denmark, what it means if a settlement is proposed or what nickname the election in 1973 got.

But even if most first Danish voters do not know the answers to these questions there is no need for dismissing the project of embedding democratic capabilities. However, it would be a much needed aspect of the Danish integration policy if this test was given not only to a select group of new voters but instead to All first voters. Then we could frame it more correctly as a democracy test that on par with a driver’s license would secure a common knowledge about the democratic process.

I believe that the glue that should be the common tenor of our citizenship must be a shared task between all groups in our society instead of a long forgotten war or tired art’s movement of the past.

It seems to me that our quest for creating integration fails mostly due to the fact that we don’t see the need for everyone to be equally responsible in the democratic process by only focusing on these matters on festive occasions such as including new citizens in our great society.

If we wish to use this kind of test as a way to make a select group assimilate to an otherwise fuzzy group of people with a wide range of capabilities in assuming democratic co-ownership – then we are not including ourselves as the most important component in the integration process. Everyone needs to actively acquire the democratic capability in order to fully partake in a political process whether we happen to be born here or not. And we certainly can’t exclude others on the basis of a test that we don’t wish to test on our selves as well.

Here is a link to the test online: http://web2.jp.dk/quiz/quiz/?q=755

Today’s multinational organisations are not only challenged as a result of the credit crunch but also as a result of the challenges imposed by the increased diversity of the workforce. The ability to ‘fit’ culturally within an organisation has come to be recognized as an essential component contributing to employee success. At the same time, multinational organisations have never been more culturally diverse, and that makes the case for selecting the right candidates with the ideal cultural fit very difficult. Securing ROI on an increasingly multicultural human capital has become a new parameter for success.

Adaptation is at the centre

When Charles Darwin wrote The Origin of Species back in 1859 he probably didn’t realise just how accurate he was when stating:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent ones, but the ones that are most receptive to change”

It means that those who are able to adapt to new challenges will survive in the long term. In this context “survival of the fittest” means your organisational responses to changes happening in the world. It literally means all important changes occurring around us – including a changed cultural reality. Adaptation is in other words at the centre stage. The organisational ability to adapt to a new multicultural reality is in other words the difference between success or failure in the years to come.

According to The 2008 Global Relocation Trends Survey (GRTS) report, the population of expats is on the increase, even though companies are trying to find alternatives to long-term relocations.

The business case for cross-cultural awareness and the need for structured action has never been more imperative. Outsourcing and off-shoring labour as well as the increased need for specialised knowledge workers, medical doctors or IT specialists have presented a real cross-cultural challenge for many Danish organisations. It is especially a challenge for those organizations that favour homogeneity and ‘fitting in’ with a certain Danish cultural reality rather than a more inclusive and diverse organizational climate. They need to wake up and join the world at their own door step.

If you can relate to the idea that these cross-cultural challenges are here to stay – then there is no denying that today’s organisations must address the issue of culture – not only as a ‘learning on the job’ situation. Policies and long-term strategies must be worked out in order to adapt the organisation to the changing cultural realities. RealitieS is in plural because behind the whole case for cross-cultural awareness lies the banal yet crucially fundamental acceptance of different perspectives.

Why cross-cultural awareness?

The aim of building cross-cultural awareness is to meet the real business need for holding on to talent. Expats make for a valuable resource – an investment that any organisation should want to nurture and encourage.

The best way to go about this challenge is to see the entire relocation as a tool for career development. The assignee needs extensive preparation as well as help to adjust to both the changed organisational as well as national culture. In order to become successful as a foreign assignee, one needs a combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes – and this is what a good cross-cultural trainer can provide. This will give the co-worker the tools to adapt to stress and reduce the cultural transition time markedly.

Developing cross-cultural awareness carries with it some challenges: First of all it requires acquiring both culture-specific and culture-general knowledge on how culture works. Furthermore, expats need skills such as being able to show empathy in the communication with someone who thinks differently than her-self.

Most importantly, one needs to have a curious and open mindset towards cultural differences as well as wanting to be flexible and be motivated to ask questions and learn from others.

The calculation of risk

The benefits of cross-cultural awareness training can be compared to the costs of doing nothing. Relocation of an expat is costly; and even costlier still is the cost of premature termination of an assignment, which in fact is estimated to be 3-4 times the salary of the position in question. Ernst & Young estimates the actual cost of losing an expat too early to be around 1,5 mio. DKK compared to the approximately 500.000 DKK it costs to relocate an employee in the first place. The average percentage for failed relocations lies between 30-40%, and around 50% of the remaining expats report being less efficient on the job due to family issues and personal adjustment difficulties. Add to that poor retention rates of expats once they are back, and relocation without proper care prior, during and after the stay suddenly becomes a very costly affair for everyone involved. This will make the decision to relocate for an overseas assignment a much bigger decision than need be. Viewed in this light, cross-cultural awareness training is much more than mere understanding between different cultures. There is in fact a real business case for implementing cross-cultural awareness and diversity policies in any organisation.

A call for action

The ROI on human resources is in other words something that demands closer attention, especially in a country with a growing number of expats.

The big question is how we can make sure that an international relocation becomes a success – not only in terms of completing the assignment but also in terms of using the newly acquired cross-cultural competence, know-how and technical skills.

There is no doubt that changes in the surroundings demands that management changes too. Managers face a specific challenge since they are the key factors for implementing any kind of change in an organisation. Therefore, they are the ones that need to establish an inclusive and sensitive working environment and they need to be equipped with the appropriate intercultural leadership skills. By acquiring the essential cross-cultural competence an assignee certainly becomes a stronger candidate for becoming a good future manager of diverse teams. They are better at assessing and acting upon HR related needs as well as dealing with cross-cultural conflicts in a balanced manner.

The only way to manage cross-cultural awareness is by implementing consistent HR-policies that focus on selecting the right candidates, training them before, during and after relocation and by making cross-cultural competence a mandatory component of a manager’s profile. This requires that diversity management is taken seriously, that cross-cultural progress is measured and that progress is being rewarded.

I can be contacted through esbenvontangen on skype or through this number: +45 2022 5763 for a further dialogue

Sources:

Expatica.com

Cartus.com

Society for Human Resource Management

The 2008 Global Relocation Trends Survey (GRTS)