The world today is composed of an ever-growing number of communications between people with diverse linguistic and multicultural backgrounds. Our text (Shockley-Zalaback, 2009) cites the famous Hudson Institute’s workforce 2000 report in describing workforce diversity trends indicating that women, minorities, and immigrants will make up the vast majority of the future workforce. Due to globalization and the importance of information, it is communications skills that will determine how well individuals, organizations, industries, and nations do in both acquiring and applying knowledge; the better the communication, the greater the likelihood of success. Thanks to the rapid changes in communications technology, the chances for contacts with people from other cultures have also increased dramatically over the past few decades. Globalization has enabled U.S. businesses to expand into world markets allowing people who have never actually met face to face to connect via answering machines, faxes, email, electronic bulletin boards, and the internet.
Culture affects every aspect of our lives, especially how we communicate with others. As an employee of the U.S. government, I have had the benefit of travelling internationally to live in various countries and work with a variety of individuals have personally witnessed the benefits that someone skilled in successful Multi cultural communications receives but have just as often seen the unfortunate effects that those unwilling or unable to engage in communication in an increasingly multicultural world. One thing I often hear about is how Americans who travel to other countries seem to have a habit of projecting their culture specific values to those of the country they are visiting. One example illustrating this is the case of the American woman newly arrived to work here in Kuwait. The climate being very hot, dry, and often humid, many American and European women will often choose to dress lightly in shorts and casual shirts when shopping or otherwise out and about. From these women’s point of view they are doing nothing wrong, however, to the average Kuwaiti (or other type of Muslim here in the Middle East) she is sending a nonverbal signal that she is either a prostitute or otherwise “loose”. This is because it is a general rule in the Middle East that since it is taboo for lone women to approach men, those women who are prostitutes will often dress in what is considered “western style” clothing to differentiate them. Also, there are many in the Gulf Region who based their ideas of Westerners solely on the exaggerated images and portrayals of they see on movies and television despite how anachronistically inaccurate or unrealistic. Nevertheless, in many cases, women wearing something as plain as simple blue jeans and T shirt are harassed and sometimes assaulted by Middle Eastern men. As one can imagine, this can often lead to unfortunate misunderstandings that often call for police action. Unfortunately many Western and European women forego the free diversity classes and training available that would have taught them the cultural customs of the country, most notably that Kuwait, although progressive as far as Muslim countries go, is still a Muslim country where most women do not appear in public dressed like that or rarely walk alone.
In many Muslim countries, there are many “cultural codes” that govern relations between the sexes, some of them territorial with strict boundaries defining the spaces belonging to each sex. While to the average American or European, a woman shopping alone dressed appropriately for the weather is nothing to think twice about, in Kuwait and other Middle Easter countries, women dressed in shorts, casual shirts, who are out shopping alone are considered to be crossing said boundary as well as thought by both Middle Eastern men as well as women to be acting sexually aggressive and exhibitionist.
However, it should be noted that many Middle Eastern men automatically assume that women from Western/European countries are by default sexually aggressive and immodest so may just consider them to be acting according to their nature therefore warranting such attention. By the same token, many Western women who somewhat understand the reasons behind the behavior still do not accept it and some chose to continue to dress the way they wish, many doing so as a form of defiance of what they consider as the widespread oppression of women in the Middle East. In either case, each is oversimplifying and stereotyping the other.
Those who partake of the various courses in multicultural training offered by their various businesses and government organizations have gained the cultural knowledge to place cultural behavior in context and reduce misunderstanding. In multicultural settings it is beneficial to at least do some basic research on diverse beliefs. We should not assume because another’s values and beliefs differ from our own that we are being challenged or that there is one right way to communicate; the preferred rules of interpersonal relationships in my culture does not always universally apply to others. It is important to understand that just because something is different from me does not mean that it is less than me. One way that I have learned to resist the urge to resort to default assumptions is from a seminar I attended about five years ago that due to my frequent overseas travel, I have been able frequently utilize in understanding and working within a diverse workplace.
Transpection is the process of empathizing across cultures and is now taught at several business schools as well as a component of the annual diversity training required by U.S. Federal government employees. Transpection involves trying to learn foreign beliefs, foreign assumptions, foreign perspectives, and foreign feelings in a foreign context. Transpection training can help to avoid assumptions and move closer to tolerance, sensitivity, respect, empathic listening, and effective communication responses. In organizations this mainly translates to actively listening carefully to co-workers, understanding their feelings, being interested in what they have to say, being sensitive to their needs as well as trying to understand their points of view Transpection also stresses gaining cultural and linguistic knowledge with the understanding that the more our beliefs overlap with those from other cultures, the less likelihood for misunderstandings. Reading, observing, asking questions as well as visiting places where there are people from different ethnic background is a good way to achieve multicultural understanding.
As opposed to the American women in the earlier example, there are many who engage in at least some form of transpection before arriving to Kuwait and therefore know fully what to expect should they go outside the local cultural norm. There are also many Kuwaiti and other Middle Eastern men and women who have engaged in transpection due to either also having travelled abroad or otherwise at least taken the opportunity to get to know some Americans. Many who have done so have been surprised to find that religious difference aside, that they do have much in common. Many Middle Easter Muslims are often very surprised to find out that there are American born Muslims, something which, particularly in this day and age, many find quite impossible to believe exist.
With Globalization increasing the chances of working with other cultures, another aspect of diversity and multiculturalism in organizations that should be understood is how individuals from different cultures pursue and obtain goals; an example being that Americans and others in most Western countries are generally motivated to high achievements with the belief that hard work will eventually pay off. Oh the other hand, I have observed that people here in the Middle East often expect to be rewarded or otherwise taken care of based solely on the social position of their family or “clan”. Here in Kuwait such a system is even formally recognized as one having “wasta” or the influence to get their relatives jobs or positions within companies despite qualifications or the lack thereof (Al-Fuzai, 2008).
Americans are also motivated by a strong sense of individualism in which a strong belief in themselves to make their own decisions, develop their own opinions, solve their own problems, have their own things, and generally learn to view the world from the point of view of the self. Researcher Geet Hofstede found the United States to be the most individualistic of the forty nations he studied with the highest being other Western or European countries. The lowest were in either Asian or South American countries.
Collectivism, the opposite of individualism, is the belief that it is right to subordinate personal goals for the good of others. Collectivists view the good of the whole over the needs of the one and consider shared identity over personal identity. Here in the Middle East for example, a person is often referred by name and place according to birth and position in the family (Aseem, son of Ibrahim, father of Arif).
People in collectivist cultures are more comfortable in relationships in which some are afforded more status than others as opposed to those from individualist cultures prefer relationships where everyone is of equal status. Therefore in organizations, while those workers who come from collectivist cultures may be seem hesitant to compete on a personal basis, they may compete strongly for the good of the group while a person from an individualist culture with the high achievement mentality will of course do all they can for the good of self.
Although touched upon earlier, gender roles obviously also matter in terms of cultural roles in multicultural communications. Those from what are defined as high feminine cultures believe women should be nurturing and sympathetic and generally more tolerant whereas high masculine cultures believe that men should be concerned about wealth, achievement, challenge, ambition, promotion and they should be assertive, competitive, tough, and recognize achievements.
For some, becoming comfortable with diversity is not easy but for those that choose to attain some form of multicultural understanding in this increasingly multicultural world, they will discover increased opportunities for advancement with their organizations. Understanding culture and accepting diversity is becoming more important since cultural groups both from abroad and our own country (U.S.A) demand recognition and respect and it is from these groups that the majority of the workplace of the future will consist.
Shockley-Zalabak, P. (2009). Fundamentals of Organizational Communication. New York, N.Y.: Pearson.
