L08:
Cross-Cultural Literacy and Communication
These days,
because of the globalization, multicultural and highly diverse workforce,
leaders are required to understand the cultural diversity, which is called
cross-cultural literacy. Understanding cross-cultural literacy means being
literate or knowledgeable about the fundamental differences across cultures. It
is very important that leaders have to realize the value of cultural
differences, which is a key component of emotional intelligence. In today
world, organizations seek diversity to become competitive, and leaders need to
be better educated about culture to lead effectively and to take full advantage
of the value diversity provides. In addition, understanding the cultural
differences enhances leader’s ability to interact appropriately with internal
and external audiences, as well as greatly improves leader’s interpersonal
skills and ability to communicate effectively with today’s diverse workplace.
Having said
that, leaders first need to know what the meaning of culture is. For
anthropologists, culture is ‘the way of life of a people, or the sum of their
learned behavior patterns, attitudes, and material things.’ It is the way
people make sense of and give meaning to their world. It is also the frame of
reference and the behavior patterns of groups of people. It includes social and
physical characteristics, gender, age, profession, organizational function, and
company structure and style. Therefore, when taking about communicating across
cultures, culture is a fuzzy set of attitudes, beliefs, behavioral conventions,
and basic assumptions and values that are shared by a group of people, and that
influence each member’s behavior and his/her interpretations of the meaning of
other people’s behavior.
Then, after learning
the definition of culture, leaders also need to recognize major cultural
differences, which they encounter in leading organizations in order to better
understand the diverse audiences they are communicating with in the universal
level. In this chapter, there are provided frameworks and questions to help
easily recognize major cultural differences. There are seven variables, which
are important to and applicable across all cultures and help leaders making
distinctions about culture as followings:
Context:
context emphasizes on what is going on outside and inside individuals
That influences
the way they interact with others and understand the words and behavior of
others.
Information
flow. The importance of context in a culture, high or low, influences
How individuals
approach exchanges of information and determines how messages flow between
people and levels in organizations. It also controls who initiates
communication and with whom, what kinds of messages are sent, what channels are
preferred and how formal or informal the exchange of information will be.
Time
Language. Language has been described as the ‘central influence on culture and
one of the most highly charged symbols of a culture or a nation.’ In
international business negotiations, we should always consider hiring our own
interpreter; even if we feel fairly comfortable with the language, to avoid any
misunderstandings or a contractual agreement we did not intend.
Power
and equality Cultures differ tremendously in how they view power and
Equality. Some
believe in strict hierarchies with clear distinctions between levels and
formalized respect for people at the higher levels of an organization. Other
sees everyone as equal.
Collectivism
versus individualism Cultural emphasis on context, on how
Information is
shared, and how power is viewed is influenced by how individualistic and
collectivistic a culture is.
Spirituality
and tradition: include religion and traditional values. The religion
And tradition
value is an important variable in determining behavior and how individuals will
communicate and interpret messages.
Understanding
each of these variables would provide leaders the platform on audiences’
analysis and help leaders to determine the strategy for communicating and
interacting effectively with people from other cultures.
Question
1.What is the
importance of Culture literacy?
Realizing the importance of cultural
literacy is a key component of emotional intelligence. Finding the standard,
reliable frameworks to use in learning about cultural differences, as well as
exposure to some guiding principles, will aid you in establishing a foundation
on which to build a better understanding and appreciation of culture and its
impact on the way we interact and communicate.
2.
Define culture and its layers?
Culture is the
way of life of a people, or the sum of their learned behavior patterns,
attitudes, and material things.
There are six layers of culture:
- A
national level according to one’s country,
- A
regional and/or ethnic/or religious and/or linguistic affiliation level,
- A gender
level according to whether a person was born as a girl or as a boy,
- A
generation level associated which separates grandparents from parents from
children,
- A social
class level associated with educational opportunities and with a person’s
occupation or profession,
- For those
who are employed, an organizational or corporate level according to the
way employees have been socialized by their work organizations.
good job
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