I was recently culturally profiled.
During the mingling portion of a business event, a fellow attendee found out that I’m American and exclaimed, “Oh, but you’re all born with a gene for small talk! This should be so easy for you!” She had no way of knowing about my personal development from a very shy child to a mostly small-talk competent grown woman. I took it as she meant it – positively – but there was still an inner, knee-jerk reaction that rejected being stereotyped. I’m an individual and I would like some recognition.
As an intercultural professional, I hear this point of view somewhat regularly. While some of us thrill at the cultural diversity of the planet and become curious about all of it, others believe it impossible to understand much about a person based on their national (or other) culture. We are all unique and must be dealt with uniquely. So are we the products of our cultures or must we be taken as individuals?
Yes.
Maybe an analogy will help. If you go to the doctor with obvious symptoms of arthritis, you expect her to listen to your complaints, draw on her knowledge and experience and begin a diagnostic process. You don’t want her to simply conclude that you have arthritis, because it could be lupus. Your mother had lupus. There’s a risk. You want her to see you and your individual traits and history to know if it’s really arthritis or something else you’re dealing with.
On the other hand, if your doctor sees you too much as an individual, she would have to throw out that knowledge and experience and start from the beginning with every patient. Lupus, arthritis, who knows! We’ll do all the scans and all the blood tests and in a few weeks or months, we’ll know more. That would be absurd.
Culturally competent people inhabit a similar sweet spot where they can draw on knowledge of another culture and experience working interculturally to know what to pay attention to, what questions to ask. They know it would be plain wrong to blame every misunderstanding on a cultural stereotype, just as it would be wrong to assume that culture never plays a role in any friction.
In practice, this could be a team member from China who never seems to speak up in the meeting. Is he individually shy and lacks ideas or is he frustrated that the meeting’s leader isn’t creating the appropriate space for employees to speak up without losing face? This could be your Filipino colleague who consistently ‘overshares’. You know more about her family and personal life than you ever cared to. Is she chronically without self-awareness or does she believe she is building a good working relationship with you?
In both these cases, the cause of the conflict could very well be individual character, but it could also have a cultural element. We are trained into culture-specific behaviors and outlooks. We are the product of our cultures. To deny that would be to practice culture blindness and simply ignore an integral piece of the individual.
If the cause is cultural, the steps to address it will be different than if the cause is individual personality. Cultural competence is the little flag waving in our brains, telling us to investigate, begin the diagnostic process, if you will, into the cause of the misunderstanding. We may employ a different tactic in the meeting, asking more open ended questions or collecting ideas and feedback prior to the meeting in order to address the points anonymously. If our Chinese colleague finds his voice, then we need no further action. If he still doesn’t participate, perhaps he really is just shy and we need a more individualized approach.
In the case of our colleague sharing personal information, maybe we understand that it’s too much in its current form, but also recognize what warm, reciprocal relationships she is able to foster. By structuring coffee breaks differently, for example, maybe we can harness and direct that impulse into a benefit for the whole team. And if that doesn’t work, we can still have an individual conversation with her.
Diagnosing the cause of some organizational or relational conflict like these is one aspect of intercultural competence. To draw out the analogy a little farther, doctors are also able to tell us what habits and behaviors we should have in order to live long, full, healthy lives. If they see risk factors in our records and are any good at their jobs, they will speak to us about preventive measures. In the same way, it would be a pity if cultural competence were seen solely as a diagnostic or therapeutic response.
The most bang for your buck in the area of cultural awareness and intercultural competence comes when we invest right at the beginning of a relationship, a project, a business partnership. Coming in prepared with what you should expect culturally, but – and this is critical – curious to get to know your counterparts as individuals is a strong starting position. With that posture, we are certain to avoid many misunderstandings in the first place. Imagine if everyone involved took on that attitude. No, it wouldn’t make everything easy. We would still miscommunicate, but less often and less severely, costing us less time and energy in the long run.
As for me, I know I’m not the stereotypical American, endowed with an innate gift of gab. Luckily I wasn’t culturally profiled about anything significant. Let’s all work to avoid making assumptions of each other and be curious to find out if our previous knowledge holds up in individual cases.
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