Module 10.10 - Dealing with Internal Differences

Module Introduction

Working effectively in an organizational setting involves understanding different cultural perspectives: the organization’s culture and societal culture, or more accurately, cultures. Knowing how to effectively work with people from other cultures and subcultures is critical. It is also important to know how to work with people from different organizational subcultures.

We need to understand other people’s perspectives and why they are different from ours. We need to know that there are nonverbal as well as language differences that can affect our interactions. It is important to know how people interpret their environments and what their values toward work are.

Understanding how we are similar and how we are different in our cultural frameworks is crucial in being able to work with others. We need to know how to effectively work and communicate with them if we are to reach our goals and objectives and the goals and objectives of the organization that we are working for.

1. Overview

Working effectively in an organizational setting involves understanding different cultural perspectives: the organization’s culture and societal culture, or more accurately, cultures. Knowing how to effectively work with people from other cultures and subcultures is critical. It is also important to know how to work with people from different organizational subcultures.

Societal culture is comprised of the shared values, customs, traditions, rituals, behaviors and beliefs shared by a social group (national, ethnic, organizational, etc.). Cultures also share languages, or ways of speaking. From a communication perspective, cultures are made and remade through the words we use to describe our world.

Organizational culture is the shared values, customs, traditions, rituals, behaviors, and beliefs shared in common by the members of that organization. Just as a nation generally has its own language or dialect, so too does an organization have its own language; that language consists of the jargon and ways of speaking that are particular to the people who work there.

2. Organizational Subcultures

We are often also part of an ethnic subculture in the larger context of our societal culture. This might be the French-Canadian culture or the Afro-Cuban culture or the Maori culture of New Zealand or any number of hundreds or thousands of ethnic groupings around the world. We might even have a religious aspect of our ethnic background. Many people around the world see their Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or any number of religious faiths as part of their ethnic heritage.

Communication scholars Myron Lustig and Jolene Koester define culture as “a learned set of shared interpretations about beliefs, values, and norms, which affect the behaviors of a relatively large set of people.” An organization’s culture is also a set of shared beliefs, values, and norms.

Just as there can be subcultures within any societal culture, there can also be subcultures within any organizational culture. While an organization has one overall culture, it is also composed of subcultures; different departments within the same organization can have their own subcultures. Each subculture will hold the organization’s beliefs, values, and norms in common with other subcultures in the organization, but will also have some beliefs, values, and norms that will be different, even if only slightly.

It is not too difficult to imagine that the sales and marketing department in an organization has one subculture and that the accounting department in the same organization has a different subculture. Just about every department that you can think about in an organization—from research and development to administration to public relations to maintenance to shipping and receiving—will have its own subculture.

3. Subcultural Differences

Any organization has members who have both cultural and subcultural perspectives. The larger society in which the organization exists will have its own culture with certain beliefs, values, and norms. Members of the organization will share those beliefs, values, and norms to some extent.

In addition members of the organization might come from any variety of other societal cultures or subcultures. They might have been born into a culture, but also have a subcultural heritage. Examples might be someone born in Argentina with Italian parents or an indigenous Canadian or someone who migrated to another country as an adult or someone who someone posted to a branch of an international organization in another county; the list is endless.

Members of the organization will also share the beliefs, values, and norms of the organization’s culture to some extent, as they will the beliefs, values, and norms of their organizational subculture (for instance as a member of the sales department).

Thus you will find in any organization some members who share the larger societal culture and its perspectives and frames of reference in common with most other members of the organization, but others who do only to a lesser extent or who also have ethnic subcultural perspectives. All members of the organization will share its organizational culture in common, but will also belong to an organizational subculture that will have some perspectives that differ, even if only slightly from the overall culture of the organization.

It is important to be aware of these differences and how they might affect your communication and relationships with other members of your team or department.

4. Intercultural Competence

Being aware of cultural and subcultural differences is not enough to communicate effectively with people from other cultures or subcultures, however. We also need to accept the differences for what they are and not judge them. People have been taught by their cultures to perceive the world in certain ways. Their ways are not necessarily any better or worse than our own, just different. Once we are aware of, and accept these differences, then we can find ways to effectively and productively work with people from other cultures.

Communication scholars Myron Lustig and Jolene Koester propose several ways to become competent in communicating and interacting with people from other cultures. Here are some of their suggestions that can help you more effectively work with others:

· Display of Respect: This is the ability to show respect toward others and to value them as fellow humans.

· Orientation to Knowledge: This is the awareness that each person has an individual way of perceiving the world, one based on cultural background.

· Empathy: This is the ability to try to understand other peoples’ cultural perspectives.

· Relational Role Behavior: This is the ability to establish harmony in interpersonal interactions with people from other cultures.

· Tolerance for Ambiguity: This is the ability to cope effectively with are new and uncertain circumstances. It means being able to adapt easily to new cultural situations.

Interaction Posture: This is the ability to view other cultures in a nonjudgmental manner.

5. Working in International Teams

There are also several important communication tactics that communication scholar Charles Bantz identifies for working in international teams. These suggestions can also be applied to working with internal differences, whether the difference are based on organizational subcultures or difference in societal or ethnic subcultures:

· Agreeing on long-term goals, while continuing to negotiate short-term goals.

· Maintaining social support by engaging in con organizationing communication even when disagreeing.

· Adapting to language differences by slowing, checking out, restating, and using more than one language.

· Repeating information when team members seem not to understand. For this to occur it is important to be aware of any nonverbal indications that a member of the team is not following the interaction.

· Discussing group procedures.

· Initiating social discussions of work life to determine cultural perspectives.

· Responding to political differences.

In summarizing his analysis, Bantz feels that there are four common threads to the tactics that international work groups can use to manage differences effective. Again, these can be applied to internal differences:

· Gather information.

· Adapt to differing situations, issues, and needs.

· Build social as well as task cohesion.

· Identify clear mutual long-term goals.

One of the best ways to deal with internal cultural differences is through active listening. One of the most fundamental aspects of effective communication is good listening. Active, effective listening can help you better deal with differences because it allows you to understand other people’s perspectives and frames of reference.

When people feel that they have been listened to, they are more likely to like and respect you and, thus, more likely to work with you to achieve common goals. When communicating with internal or external stakeholders, listening is one of the most important skills at your disposal for creating meaningful and productive relationships.

Listening shows that you value employees and their opinions. When your employees see that their advice and opinions are taken into account, they are further encouraged to share and often feel motivated to innovate and contribute in ways that they may not have otherwise.

Active, effective listening can help you better deal with information overload, minimize message distortion, lead to better quality problem solving and decision making, manage your time better, and also lead to better relationships—at work with people from different cultural backgrounds.

To become an active listener takes an understanding of the barriers to effective listening and the steps to better listening. That understanding then needs to be applied in everyday communication interactions, so that good listening becomes a habit.

Listening is hard work. Listening is not a passive process, but rather a very active one. It is characterized by faster heart action, quicker circulation of blood and a small rise in body temperature. You need to pay attention to what you are doing when you are listening, just as much as you need to pay attention when you are performing any task.

There are many barriers to effective listening that can prevent us from obtaining valuable information is any communication interaction. These are probably the most significant barriers to effective listening, thus worth noting separately. Being aware of these barriers can help us minimize their impact when we are listening to others:

· Prejudging the Message: deciding before hand or before the other person’s message has been fully heard that the message is not worth listening to. This means that we will tune out the message before we hear what it is about.

· Rehearsing a Response: starting to form our rebuttal when the speaker says something we disagree with or want to rebut. While we are rehearsing our response, we miss what the other person is saying.

· Making Unchecked Assumptions: believing we know what the other person means without checking whether our perception and understanding is correct or not. We all make assumptions. Not checking them out can lead to misinterpreting what the other person is trying to convey.

· Unconscious Projection: deciding who the other person is, rather than paying attention to who they really are. If we think that maintenance people are not very bright, we have projected our own biases onto them. Thus when such a person is giving us suggestions about how a job might be better done, we will tend to turn off our listening because we will probably project that “maintenance people aren’t smart enough to come up with any good ideas.”

· Red Flag Words and Phrases: allowing our emotional reaction to certain words or phrases to shut off our listening. When we hear certain words like: “You idiot,” we often get so upset and angry, we stop listening.

· Inefficient Use of Thought-Speed Differential: we can process information at 400-600 words per minute, but most people speak at about 125 words per minute. This leaves us extra time, which we often use to day dream or think of what needs to be done at work or home and takes our focus off listening to the other person.

· Focusing on Delivery, Style, or Language: focusing on the speaker’s way of speaking, accent, tone of voice, use of jargon or slang instead of the message the person is sending can prevent us from paying attention to the content of the message. Taking the focus away from the message for any reason means that we are not as effective a listener as we might be.

· Win/Lose Mental Set: when it comes right down to it, our mental set has a lot to do with how we listen. If we feel that communication interactions are mainly to decide a winner and a loser, we are setting up a very poor communication environment, one that is adversarial, where everything is a debate and a fight. A win/lose attitude means that we are not interested in building a positive relationship, but rather with dominating the other person. Listening is a supportive behavior that does not survive in this type of negative climate.

Awareness of barriers to listening is important, but only as part of a broader attempt to become a more effective listener.

9. Listening (Continued)

There are a large number of things that you can do to improve your listening. These are the steps to better listening that you can take:

Adopt a win/win mental set. Be sure to see listening as an interaction where all parties can win; be concerned with building cooperative relationships. People like to feel that they have been given a fair hearing. The importance of a win/win mental set is not necessarily to agree with the other person, but rather to understand them and their perceptions.

Be patient. Being a good listener sometimes means listening to someone who doesn’t come right to the point or who adds details you might not feel are necessary. You also need to be patient, to hear the other person out and not jump to conclusions or rehearse a response before the person has finished their thought.

Keep your mind open. We all have certain psychological deaf spots, the dwelling places of our cherished emotions, values, and convictions. When we close something off because it contradicts our feelings, communicative efficiency drops off considerably.

Beware of the emotional power of words. Certain words can easily arouse our emotions to a point where we react to the word and don't hear what is being said. Words like income tax, mother-in-law, sissy, landlord, tenant, eviction, and so forth can do this.

Listen for ideas. Good listeners focus on the central idea; they also tend to recognize the characteristic language in which central ideas are stated; they are able to discriminate between fact and inference, idea and example, evidence and argument.

Resist distraction. Try to eliminate or minimize any distractions that are in the environment or listening setting.

Capitalize on thought speed. Most people talk at about 125 words per minute, yet most of us think at about 500 words per minute. Good listeners use their thought speed to an advantage. Use your spare thinking time to:

· Try to anticipate what a person is going to talk about. What point is he or she going to try to make?

Pay attention. Concentrate; put your own ideas and responses aside; look for main ideas and speaker's intent. Listen critically; listen in a focused manner.

Listen between the lines. Pay attention to how things are said: voice inflection, rate of speech and nonverbal cues.

Paraphrase. Summarize and restate speaker's main ideas in your own words, even if that is just in your mind.

Evaluate. Make judgments and draw conclusions, but only after the entire conversation and after you've checked your own biases. Don’t prejudge the message.

Provide feedback. Provide responses that reflect your level of clarity and understanding.

Ask questions. Ask questions to clarify, to amplify, to probe, and to direct. The one single thing that will most help you become a more effective listener is to ask questions that help you understand what the other person is trying to get across.

Assignments

Multiple-Choice

2. We can find ways to effectively and productively work with people from other cultures:

1. ______ It is important to know how people interpret their environments and what their values toward work are.

2. ______ Cultures are made and remade through the words we use to describe our world.

4. ______ Some members of the organization will share its organizational culture in common, but will also belong to an organizational subculture that will have some perspectives that differ.

5. ______ Passive listening can help you better deal with differences because it allows you to understand other people’s perspectives and frames of reference.

7. ______ A win/win attitude means that we are not interested in building a positive relationship, but rather with dominating the other person.

8. ______ Awareness of barriers to listening is important, but only as part of a broader attempt to become a more effective listener.

9. ______ Working effectively in an organizational setting involves understanding different cultural perspectives.

Carr-Ruffino, N. (1999). Diversity success strategies. Boston, Massachusetts: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Golembiewski, R. (1995). Managing diversity in organizations. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press.

Ruderman, M., Hughes-James, M., & Jackson, S. (Eds.). (1996). Selected research on work team diversity. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

Culture - Shared values, customs, traditions, rituals, behaviors, and beliefs shard in common by a group

Empathy - The ability to try to understand other people’s cultural perspectives

Orientation to knowledge - The awareness that each person has an individual way of perceiving the world, one based on cultural background

Relational role behavior - The ability to establish harmony in interpersonal interactions with people from other cultures

Some qualities that will help you work more effectively with others are display of respect, orientation to knowledge, empathy, relational role behavior, tolerance for ambiguity, and interaction posture.

2. What are for common threads to tactics that international work groups can use to manage differences effectively?

Four common threads to tactics that international work groups can use to manage differences effectively are to gather information, adapt to differing situations, issues, and needs, build social as well as task cohesion, and identify clear mutual long-term goals.

To improve your listening, you need to adopt a win/win mental set, be patient, keep your mind open, beware of the emotional power of words, listen for ideas, and resist distraction. You should also capitalize on thought speed, pay attention, summarize, listen between the lines, paraphrase, evaluate, provide feedback, and ask questions.

1. Culture		A. The ability to establish harmony in interpersonal interactions with people from other cultures
2. Orientation to Knowledge		B. The ability to try to understand other people’s cultural perspectives
3. Empathy		C. The ability to cope effectively with new and uncertain circumstances
4. Relational Role Behavior		D. Shared values, customs, traditions, rituals, behaviors, and beliefs shard in common by a group
5. Tolerance for Ambiguity		E. The ability to view other cultures in a nonjudgmental manner
6. Interaction posture		F. The awareness that each person has an individual way of perceiving the world, one based on cultural background

1. Prejudging the message		A. Starting to form our rebuttal when the speaker says something we disagree with or want to rebut
2. Rehearsing a response		B. Means that wee are not interested in building a positive relationship, but rather with dominating the other person
3. Making unchecked assumptions		C. Deciding beforehand that that the message is not worth listening to
4. Unconscious projection		D. Concerned with building cooperative relationships
5. Win/lose attitude		E. Believing we know what the other person means without checking whether our perception and understanding is correct or not
6. Win/win attitude		F. Deciding who the other person is, rather than paying attention to who they really are

Module Introduction

Awareness of barriers to listening is important, but only as part of a broader attempt to become a more effective listener.

9. Listening (Continued)

Assignments

Multiple-Choice

End of Module