Winter 2006 IMQ

Intercultural Management Quarterly Integrating Culture and Management in Global Organizations

Winter 2006 Edition Volume 7, Number 1

Inside this issue of IMQ...

Page An Unfinished Conversation

by Lee Mun Wah 3 An Interview with Deborah Tannen

by Adam Mendelson 4 Intercultural Exploration of Political Boundaries

by Anat Hornung Ziff and Zachary Gabriel Green 6 Book Review: You’re Wearing THAT?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation by Deborah Tannen

by Michelle LeBaron 9 Meeting the Diversity Challenge: Six Steps for Creating a Culturally Competent Organization

by Ben Alexander 10 Families Valued: Considerations for Managing Across Cultures

by Terri Lapinsky 14

Intercultural Management Quarterly (IMQ) is a publication of the Intercultural Management Institute (IMI) at American University. IMQ is a forum for experts in the field of intercultural management to share their knowledge with a broad audience interested in intercultural issues. IMQ is produced with the active involvement of faculty, graduate students, and alumni of American University’s School of International Service.

INTERCULTURAL MANAGEMENT QUARTERLY: www.imquarterly.org INTERCULTURAL MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE: www.imi.american.edu

From the Editor

Best Practices and New Directions

IMQ STAFF Publisher • Dr. Gary R. Weaver Managing Editor • Adam Mendelson Publication Manager • Anna Lee Contributing Writers Ben Alexander Zachary Green Terri Lapinsky Michelle LeBaron Lee Mun Wah Adam Mendelson Anat Hornung Ziff

Welcome to the Winter 2006 edition of Intercultural Management Quarterly. We are pleased to bring you this special edition of IMQ released in conjunction with the Intercultural Management Institute’s 7th Annual Conference, “Best Practices and New Directions in Intercultural Relations.”

Putting together this edition of IMQ was an interesting, and somewhat exhilarating, experience. With each issue of IMQ, I and indeed all of the editorial review board are continually fascinated by the range of topics that intercultural communication and management are relevant Editorial Review Board and applicable to. In the past few issues alone, articles dealing with Dr. Gary R. Weaver, Dr. David Bachner, Sarah Crawford, Brad gender, linguistics, collective identity, health care, language training, David, Anna Lee, Annmarie McGillicuddy, Adam Mendelson, dreams, aging, and peacekeeping have all appeared in IMQ. The dyna- Darrel Onizuka, Sherry Zarabi mism and diversity of our field makes it an exciting and ever changing environment, and one which we hope is reflected not only in IMQ, but Interculutral Management Quarterly (IMQ) is published by also in our 7th Annual Conference. the Intercultural Management Institute at American University.

This issue brings together the work of an impressive roster of indi- IMQ combines original research conducted in the field of viduals who are participating in the Annual Conference. Several of the interculutral management with the applied perspectives of conference’s featured speakers and a number of session presenters industry experts, professors and students. have contributed valuable and thought-provoking articles, which we SUBMISSION GUIDELINES hope will engender much discussion at the Conference and among the Professionals, scholars, and students are invited to submit larger community of IMQ subscribers. articles of no less than 1,000 words and no more than 2,000 on This edition features an article from Lee Mun Wah, reflecting on a issues related to the contemporary study and practice of internoteworthy training experience which he had, and the larger thoughts cultural management. Submissions could consider aspects of on talking about diversity and difference which this experience helped training, research and any other scholarship that relates to the to precipitate. Also included is an interview with Deborah Tannen, touch- field of intercultural management.

Articles must be innovative and contribute to the knowling on themes of cross-cultural and cross-generational communication, gender, and the role of language in these discussions. Michelle LeBaron edge in this field and yet authors should avoid overly academic has contributed a review of Dr. Tannen’s new book, You’re Wearing jargon. Footnotes or endnotes are discouraged except for direct THAT?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation, which quotes, paraphrasing or citing the research of others.

Each submission is refereed by the members of the IMQ at the time of our publication in mid-February was entering its fourth editorial review board and accepted pieces are subject to editing week on The New York Times’ bestseller list. to conform with the writing style appropriate to IMQ. Anat Ziff and Zachary Green examine the important and fascinating intersection between intercultural dialogue, identity, and politics. Their IMQREPRODUCTION CONTACT article is a valuable insight into the role that intercultural communica- No part of this publication may be reproduced or No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in tion in general, and group relations theory in particular, can play in a any form or by any means, without the express written permisworld of clashing collective identities and sociopolitical conflicts. Ben sion of the Publication Manager. Please contact the Managing Alexander provides a highly useful model for how an organization can Editor for reprint availability. take advantage of its diversity and create a culturally competent organiCONTACT IMQ zation. He argues that this can allow an organization to become more Intercultural Management Quarterly successful because, rather than in spite of, its diversity. Terri Lapinsky AMERICAN UNIVERSITY Intercultural Management Institute discusses important issues of diversity and living cross-culturally by NW W A 4400 S H I Massachusetts N G T O N , DAvenue, C considering the opinions of immigrant kids and their application to the 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20016-8177 Offering over 25 sessions on intercultural strategies and considerations of managment across cultures. This discussion is exWashington, DC 20016-8177 Phone: (202) 885-6436 skills for international business, government, education, tended and amplified upon in Kids Like Me: Voices of the Immigrant Fax: (202) 885-1331 training and development professionals.

Experience, a newly published book by Terri and coauthor Judee Blohm. imqeditor@american.edu Thank you for your interest in Intercultural Management Quarterly.

Reproduction I hope that you enjoy this issue of IMQ, and I look forward to seeing No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted many of you at the IMI Conference in March. in any form or by any means, without permission.

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY

Best wishes, Adam Mendelson

2

W ASubscribe S H I Online N G T O N ,

Registration forms and additional information are available at www.imi.american.edu/conf2006.htm.

www.imquarterly.com

D C

© 2006 Intercultural Management Quarterly

An Unfinished Conversation

By Lee Mun Wah Buddhists say that a crisis is both a danger and an opportunity. I would say that that is equally true today, when it comes to trying to move towards having diversity become a reality rather than just a celebration in most of our workplaces.

After having been a consultant and diversity trainer for most of the top 500 companies for the past twenty years, I have come to recognize that achieving diversity has often been confused with simply numerical representation or an occasional celebration of diverse foods, clothing, or music. At issue is not simply the acceptance or the willingness to tolerate another’s differences, but whether or not there is a real desire to embrace and to explore our differences through an honest and personal exchange that could be uncomfortable, emotional, and require personal responsibility as well as institutional change.

Often, when we think of diversity, words such as respect, understanding, and working together in harmony come to mind. I call these United Nations words, because they are often easier to espouse than to be seen as useful or an integral part of our everyday business practices.

This rainbow mythology feeds our desire to see ourselves in such a positive light, because it is often more convenient and comfortable, demanding none of our time or effort to work towards these goals either personally or collectively.

About five years ago, I was asked to help stem the migration of minority students, faculty, and staff from a prestigious educational college in the Midwest. When I came in, I could feel the fear in the room, not so much in what they said, but in what they didn’t say, not so much in where they sat, but in where they didn’t sit. I started the session by sharing with them that I had no idea why the folks of color at this college were leaving. I had just arrived last night and would soon be departing on the six o’clock flight back to California. I suggested a novel idea, why don’t we ask them? Why don’t we ask the remaining folks of color why they thought the others had left and/or if they had similar feelings and inclinations, and most impor-

tantly, why? Immediately, I could feel the room stop breathing and the anxiety level jump up to the ceiling. It was as if I breached a line of protocol that had never been crossed or considered. I could sense an unspoken murmur in the room…we wanted him to help us, but not this quickly.

Someone once said that a courageous person is not without fear, but rather that they hung in there about thirty seconds longer than the rest of us. In other words, carpe diem – seize the moment. And so I did. I had all the folks of color come up to the front of the room. In the process, something occurred that would change the course of my life and the entire room.

As I had my back to the staff and faculty that were not persons of color, I could feel a strange tingling in the back of my neck. I turned around and realized that I could feel their resistance and fear of hearing the truth. And so, for the first time, I asked the most unlikely, yet obvious question, “How many of you want to hear the truth?” Only half of the group raised their hands. I thanked them all for their candor, especially those who hadn’t raised their hands. As you are reading this, what do you suppose were among the fears that some of the white folks had about hearing the truth? The top four reasons were quite illuminating as well affirming for many in the room, especially for the folks of color.

The first reason was that they liked what was familiar. The subtext of “familiar” was that the school used to be almost all white and they didn’t have to deal with so many complex diversity issues. Secondly, they didn’t want to hear the truth, because what if it got too emotional? Some of the emotions they were afraid of were anger, hurt, and grief. Thirdly, they were afraid to hear the truth because they might be responsible. And the last reason was that if they, as white men, gave women and people of color what they wanted, they would be out of a job. The folks of color were shocked, dismayed, and relieved. Partly, this was because many had suspected these attitudes were going on, but their questions and observations were never honestly answered or acknowledged.

To this day, I am stunned that they were

so publicly honest. In retrospect, I think it was because what I did was direct and that they sensed my sincerity. You see, I was simply noticing the elephant in the middle of the room. An elephant that everyone else noticed, too, but were too scared to say something about. In reality, we have no model for this kind of truth telling - nothing to give us a sense of safety or the encouragement to be real. It is my belief that we are all longing to be ourselves and to have that be enough and valued. Instead, what we have is a 500 year-old policy of don’t ask, don’t tell when it comes to dealing with diversity issues in the United States. That is why when I ask participants, “What were you like when you first came here and what are you like now?,” everyone laughs. But, it is an uncomfortable laugh, filled with resignation and sad familiarity for so many folks who have felt unacknowledged and devalued.

So, how do we break through this wall of silence and fear? How do we begin this unfinished conversation about difference and privilege? What will be required for us to begin this conversation is learning how to listen and to respond authentically and openly. Here are a few suggestions that might help: Intent & Impact Have you ever met some folks who seemed oblivious to the impact of their communications? And when questioned, they justified their good intentions, and seldom took any responsibility or asked any questions to find out why you might be feeling offended or upset? In all of our communications there is an impact or a reaction to what we are saying or what we are not saying. Noticing those reactions are key to a healthy communication exchange and the development of a trusting relationship. When you notice that someone has a strong response to what you are saying, share that you noticed their reaction, and be open to hearing why.

The Art of Reflection and Inquiry After someone has shared with you how they are feeling, repeating back their key concerns gives them a sense that you value what they have said, and in the proContinued on page 8

3

An Interview with Deborah T annen Tannen

By Adam Mendelson Recently, IMQ managing editor Adam Mendelson sat down with bestselling author, Georgetown University professor, and IMI conference keynote speaker Deborah Tannen. Reproduced in part here, our conversation covered a variety of thought-provoking issues. Yet we often returned to the theme of communication across different genders, generations, and cultures, topics which are found throughout Dr. Tannen’s work.

Dr. Tannen has examined language, communication, gender, and culture extensively throughout her distinguished career. Dr. Tannen received her PhD in Linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1979 and is now one of two University Professors in the College of Arts and Sciences at Georgetown University.

In addition to many academic articles, as well as a number of short stories, poetry, and plays, Dr. Tannen has also published pieces in The New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, and USA Today. She has appeared on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 20/20, 48 Hours, CBS News, ABC World News Tonight, Oprah, Good Morning America, CNN, Larry King, Hardball, and Nightline.

Dr. Tannen has written several awardwinning books, including Talking from 9 To 5: Women and Men at Work; The Argument Culture; I Only Say This Because I Love You: Talking to Your Parents, Partner, Sibs, and Kids When You’re All Adults; and You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, which spent nearly four years on The New York Times bestseller list, including eight months at number one. Her newest book, You’re Wearing THAT?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation, was recently published by Random House, and at the time of IMQ’s publication, You’re Wearing THAT? was entering its fourth week on The New York Times bestseller list.

We began our discussion by talking about mother-daughter relationships, the subject of Dr. Tannen’s newest book.

IMQ: How would you summarize the characteristics of mother-daughter communication that are different from communica-

4

tion in other relationships, familial or otherwise?

Deborah Tannen: One way that I sometimes put it is that the mother-daughter relationship is the literal mother of all relationships. I think that many of the processes and phenomena that characterize all relationships are more intense in motherdaughter relationships. The constant negotiation to find the right combination of connection and independence becomes very central here. I always say in much of my writing that we always have to balance in any conversation or relationship how close or distant do we want to be, and who’s up and who’s down. We have to figure out the right hierarchical relationship and the right closeness/distance.

It seems that women’s relationships and approach to conversation tend to focus more on that closeness/distance question.

On the other hand, boys’ and men’s relationships and friendships tend to focus more on that question of relative power and status, of who’s up and who’s down, who can tell the other what to do. Boys are focused on doing things together, and girls and women tend to focus on talk. So for boys and men, your best friend is the one that you do everything with. For girls and women, your best friend is the one you tell everything to. Given that role of talk in women’s relationships, mothers and daughters tend to talk to each other more than mothers and sons, or fathers and daughters, or fathers and sons.

The more you talk, and the more you talk about personal things, the more opportunity you have to feel close, but also the more opportunity you have to offend each other, because one wants more closeness than the other, or said something on a personal topic that really hit home.

There’s another risk: mothers often offer advice or suggestions to be helpful, and daughters often resent advice from their mothers because they want, most of all, approval, and hear advice or suggestions as implying that they’re doing something wrong.

IMQ: Can you talk about your research on gender and communication in the workplace in your book Talking from 9 to 5?

Has this research related to your current book on mothers and daughters?

DT: For that book I did a lot of fieldwork. I worked with companies that had come to me asking why are men progressing so much faster than the women when women are just as qualified. The companies identified several people who were willing to be participants in the study, and they carried tape recorders and recorded everything they said for a week (or as much as they felt comfortable recording). Then I hung around their workplaces, interviewed, observed, talked to everybody they worked with- superiors, supervisors, subordinates- and got to know everybody and what they thought of everyone. What I discovered is that women in authority were in a double bind. If they talked in ways that were associated with women, they were liked, but underestimated. If they talked in ways that were associated with positions of authority, the way a boss would talk, they’d be respected but they wouldn’t be liked, because they’d be seen as too aggressive. Women did have creative ways that they got around this, but it was a constant challenge.

A concept from linguistics called markedness is another thing that I discussed in that book. In language, words have a standard form and then we mark them to add meaning. So the standard form of the verb is present, and we add “–ed” to make it past, or we add a little word like “will” to make it future. Most words are considered male, and others are marked as female. So for example we have poet and poetess. As the linguist Robin Lakoff has pointed out, whereas –ess marks “poet” for female, it also has an unintended effect of making the poet referred to in this way seem less serious. The same thing for actor and actress. This concept helps explain a challenge all women face with regard to appearance.Women have a huge range of hair and clothing styles. Whatever choice they make will be the basis for how people evaluate them. She wears pants, she wears skirts. Does a woman wear makeup or not wear makeup? You could never say that a man doesn’t wear makeup. It’s unmarked.

He could wear makeup, and that would be Continued on page 5

An Interview ...

Interview...

Continued from page 4 marked, but if he doesn’t, it’s unmarked.

He can wear slacks to work and it’s unmarked. If a woman chooses to wear slacks to work instead of a skirt, then she’s interpreted- she’s the kind of woman who wears slacks. And the same is true for hair…there’s no hairstyle a woman can choose that is unmarked. There are so many styles that she can choose from, that whatever choice she makes will become the basis for interpretations about her personality or character. Although she is choosing a style that she believes is suitable, her choice will be the basis for people to draw conclusions about the type of person she is. She can’t just be neutral; every choice carries extra meanings, just as the –ess ending carries extra meaning. So for women in the workplace, this is a huge, huge challenge that they face everyday: how are they going to dress, how are they going to do their hair, are they going to wear makeup and if so, how much and what type? Whatever they choose is going to be approved of by some and disapproved of by others.

How does this apply to the motherdaughter discussion? One of the biggest complaints that I heard from daughters is that my mother criticizes my hair, clothes, and weight. Why are mothers so critical of these things? I had lots of evidence that they’re less critical of their sons. Then I realized that it’s this issue of markedness, that there’s a huge range that we have to choose from. And if I’m a mother, and I don’t think my daughter’s choice looks good, then I might tell her, whether I view it as my right or my obligation. So that’s a thread that connects those two areas of research- and it’s a function of their being women, that they’re judged by appearance and that they have a wide range to choose from, and so the choices they make might not be the best ones and their mothers may be likely to be critical.

IMQ: In your research, have you found any languages where the words are unmarked, which could affect how gender roles are perceived because there’s more equality between the markedness of the genders?

DT: No; languages do differ as to what’s

marked and what’s not, but they all have ways of distinguishing men and women.

There was a time when we said that English needed a neutral pronoun, and that part of the reason for our sexist society is that people always have to say he or she.

Then people pointed out that Turkish is a language where you do not have to say he or she, and it doesn’t make Turkey a less sexist society.

IMQ: So is it more how the culture or the history would impact upon the language rather than the language in and of itself that would have an effect on the culture?

DT: Yes, I think that languages often reflect the culture.

IMQ: How can cross-generational communication, whether it’s between mothers and daughters, fathers and sons or whoever, how can it be looked at, or even can it be looked at, as cross-cultural communication?

DT: In That’s Not What I Meant!, I talk about five major cultural distinctions— gender, region, ethnicity, class, and age.

Of those five, the one we know the least about is age. I think that absolutely you can talk about cultural differences between generations. Some of the ways that this shows up in the mother-daughter context is with the attitudes towards raising kids, housekeeping, gender roles. Expectations about all of those things change from one generation to the next, and that’s another reason that mothers and daughters are likely to be critical of one another because of these changing norms. And people of different generations are also likely to have different ideas about appropriate dress or hair styles. So what we think the kids are doing is totally out of line, and the kids will see the parents as being totally out of date.

IMQ: How have you managed to bridge the gap in your writings between academic and popular audiences?

DT: I love to write, and it’s fun to write in the different voices, like an actor who likes playing Shakespeare and then doing comedy. But they present different challenges.

The challenge in academic writing is to keep it lively. I don’t want it to be deadening prose, but I still want it to be academi-

cally rigorous. In writing for general audiences, the challenge is to represent academically solid ideas in a way that is readable. It’s easy in academic writing to fall back on jargon- it’s very comfortable. You know that people are going to look at it and think that it’s ok if you use the key words and cite the key people. I feel that I need to make sure that what I’m saying is solid because it’s accurate, and not because I’m using the same buzzwords that everybody else uses.

IMQ: Does the actual design of your research change according to what audience you’re writing for?

DT: Well, yes and no. The bedrock of the two is the same, and that’s the conversations that I record, and the transcripts that I analyze. And with my academic writing, it stops there. I might use something anecdotal to get into it, just as an opening.

For my general audience books, that would be the starting point, but then I use all kinds of other examples- anecdotes, people’s experiences that they tell me about, even interviews in which I explicitly ask for their experiences. I often use examples from literature, movies, and plays.

I have a much broader pool of sources in the general writing than in the academic.

IMQ: Does that make it more pleasurable for you, or does that make it more challenging?

DT: I like them both. Each has a different kind of pleasure. I am really an academic at heart, and I love being able to pick examples apart in detail. And it’s sometimes frustrating to me in my general audience writing that I can’t just go on and on, that I have to move on to the next example. I was asked to write an article for a magazine once around the time that You Just Don’t Understand was released, and I was so tickled that I had a single conversation with a cab driver that encapsulated all of the points that I wanted to make about women and men. I wrote it that way and they came back and said, you can’t write an article about one example. You have to have different examples for each point you want to make. Now in an academic article, that would have just been perfect- to find everything you want to say in this one Continued on page 12

5

Intercultural Exploration of Political Boundaries

By Anat Hornung Ziff and Zachary Green “The Garden of Forking Paths is an incomplete, but not false, image of the universe. Those fabrics of time that approach one another, fork, are snipped off, or are simply unknown for centuries, contain all possibilities. In most of those times, we do not exist; in some, you exist but I do not; in others, I do and you do not; in others still, we both do.”

-Jorge Luis Borges Introduction Social and political conflict in the modern world is increasingly illiberal — fundamental narratives are challenged and politics are perceived as existential and zero-sum. Social space for disagreement shrinks and violence flares as political opponents reject dialogue and embrace delegitimization.

Intercultural exploration in the context of group relations invites personal and organizational transformation as a means to enable individuals, groups, organizations, and nations to communicate and work more effectively with one another. An experiential process, intercultural exploration attends to the unconscious and irrational elements of human relationships that affect these relationships. A primary element in group relations is the concept of identity, or more specifically, the idea that identity is a system of collective identification which can also be termed “culture.”

In an intercultural system, the group relations approach creates a microcosm of experience to explore the nature of the interconnection and disconnection of identity – both individual and collective. The goal is to focus on interactions at the boundaries of the cultural systems and expose the hidden assumptions, prejudices, and projections impeding cross-collective dialogue and action. The group relations approach assists individuals and groups to alter their “systems-in-the-mind” – their familiar characterizations of self and others – and create conditions allowing the possibility of transforming oneself and, thereby, one’s world.

Identity, Conflict and Dialogue There are a variety of ways to think about identity. Beyond a classic definition whereby a sense of self-sameness is shared

6

with others, the degree to which identity is observable and immutable is often a subject of debate. While it cannot be argued from a cultural perspective that identity- which is seen, heard, and transmitted generationally- influences the daily lived experiences of masses of humanity, the possibility that such identities are a function of our collective creation and construction also holds much truth. Typically identity is used to characterize and differentiate persons or groups in ways that are recognizable and invariant. History teaches us that such use of identity is a powerful factor in human relations—one that many are willing to kill or die for, despite how opportunities for closer examination reveal socially constructed fictions buttressing these conceptions of identity.

(Anderson, 1983) Individual, racial, ethnic, national, and religious identities are all partially delusional in that they rely on illusion, myth, and distortion in order to maintain a sense of coherent wholeness in the swirl of constantly flowing and changing social and individual experience. (Lichenstein, 1977) In addition to the question of which group in the mind or in the external social reality is going to dominate the individual at any particular moment, the individual is also thrown into another quandary. The human dilemma is that one cannot be certain of ever being at one with one’s own unique experience—an experience that may be in conflict with all group identifications in external reality or in the mind.

Identity is also shaped by the existence of the “other” who is “not me.” From religious, ethnic, class, gender, racial, sexual orientation, and age perspectives (as well as others) each of us experiences “me” attributions and “not me” attributions. As part of our identifications with those whom we feel joined with, we share a reservoir of mostly desirable or good qualities, and a mythography of past glories that we can call upon during hard times, to bolster identity. In our collective identities we also share a receptacle in which we put bad, undesirable, or unintegrated qualities that we tend to attribute to the “not me other.”

In this receptacle are also memories of past

traumas that fuel our aggressive energies toward the denigrated or “bad” other.

(Skolnick & Green, 2004) The “uncanny” other is often not the true distant different, but the one perceived to subvert the contrast attribution. A live person or group can become threatening to us, as they seem to have bad or harmful intentions and great, almost supernatural forces, though we could never imagine their existence unless we felt them dimly swarming in some dark corners of our own personality. (Freud, 1919) Collective identities can often be based on historical traumas which breed insult and injustice, and which often come to dominate identity and overwhelm the differentiated individual within the collective.

Most conflicts between groups, social or national, are therefore not only about circumstances and resources, but also focus on values and morals. This existential identity conflict – wherein “truths collide” – involves collective memory and narrative.

Often, these narratives are photographic negatives of each other, zero-sum, wherein facts do not speak for themselves but someone always speaks for them. Group relations theory seeks to unpack the underlying elements of these identities and allow the participants in the system – in the culture – to examine their individual relationships to those elements.

Group relations theory is particularly applicable to a world where political conflict increasingly arises out of conflicts of collective identities and clashing narratives.

One Truth confronts another, one narrative its opposite, and the affirmation of one identity requires the negation of another.

These internal conflicts must be resolved for the systems to be effectively self-aware.

A formalized and well-managed dialogue process can reduce the destructive potential that exists in a conflict situation and can nurture constructive psychosocial processes. The dialogue process attempts to first identify and differentiate between the authentic and the unconscious projections and allow the individual the freedom to see and acknowledge the different feelings and images within oneself and the system.

The work of dialogue in the interculContinued on page 7

Exploration...

Continued from page 6 tural exploration takes place on three levels, aimed at revealing, experiencing, and reflecting on identity, myth, and stereotypes: • Dialogue with members of other system/ culture • Dialogue with members of the same system/culture • Dialogue within the self The group relations dialogue process develops spirally – beginning by encouraging the experience and articulation of distress and frustration; then engaging the sources and strength for engagement, trust, and acknowledgment; and finally by clarifying beliefs, feelings, and transformation. All this involves exploring self and other, processes of approach and aloofness, understanding and repeating frustrations and alienation.

Most commonly, such dialogue processes between groups in conflict are emotionally charged especially when participants feel that their own physical existence is dependent on the political beliefs and actions of the others in the room.

These encounters are suffused with strong and painful feelings, harsh expressions of suspicion, fear, pain, and insult.

However, this process can also open the way to feelings of closeness, understanding, and caring that moderate anger and helplessness.

The psychosocial dialogue process works through several conscious and unconscious perceptions that influence most of our social behavior. First, it explores one’s inner authority – to learn and know more, to manage uncertainty and frustration, and to acknowledge accountability.

Second, it studies the diverse identities within one’s self and in the system, without the objectified and clear distinction from the “other.” Thirdly, it seeks to understand and articulate the emotional experience of being in conflict. In this complementary process, identity is constructed not only through interaction with the “other” but also through an internal, yet systemic, continuous dialogue between the different, and sometimes incoherent and incompatible elements of identity.

Group relations theory argues that the ability to live with disagreement is inextricably linked to the individual and group’s capacity for being — enduring uncertainty, frustration, and the unknown with curiosity and faith – and requires that this be separate and distinct from doing – the active defense against experiencing and accepting an alternate reality. Dialogue exploration can develop this capacity to contemplate both being and doing, but emphasizes the distinct roles that they play in the formation of a systemic relationship between self and other.

An ongoing dialogue can create the conditions for negotiations that will satisfy identity needs, gain a better understanding and acknowledgment of all parties, and finally lead to agreements, in this intercultural space.

Developing a capacity for empathy at the expense of diehard defenses of identity may seem utopian, but in this shrinking and interdependent world, it is essential. Multiple, adaptable identities are likely to be the true “self” of the future in which separation of peoples behind impermeable boundaries or barriers becomes impossible.

“Authenticity” writes Ajami, in The Dream Palace of the Arabs (1998), is not a specific point in the past, “identity” does not require the return to a specific situation in the collective history of the group, and true “loyalty” is creativity that vitalizes culture, promising that “new” will continuously grow out of the “old.”

Implications Stability and Transformation An intercultural dialogue process follows group relations theory to examine and transform systems – individual as well as cultural. The process of organizational transformation needs to be viewed holistically. The desire to transform the system by interacting with other systems is reflected in the initiative and imagination of the leaders who must cope with their own resistances to transformation. Such leaders also must be confident enough to provide sufficient security and stability in the midst of the uncertainty to allow others in the system the space for their own transformation. The result is a more dynamic

institution – or system or individual – better positioned to cope with external forces and challenges.

Individual Values versus Proposed Transformational Values The transformation process challenges the personal, cultural, professional, ethnic, moral, and even gender values, which may conflict with the values of the proposed transformation. These diversities add another dimension to the system transformation dynamic. It is not enough to develop interpersonal and group skills around the internal life of the system. The relation between the values related to the system’s purpose and the values brought into the system from its contexts requires that experiential and personal values be taken into account Group relations methodology involving an intercultural process of exploration and dialogue allows systems to live, grow, and interact without having to privilege one narrative over others, or surrender uniqueness, or renounce otherness. It allows systems to develop a space wherein different identities, narratives, and truths may coexist — and thus enabling individuals, social-political groups, or nations to constructively relate to their own identities and to others without having to succumb to violence or delegitimization.

References Ajami, Fouad. 1998. The Dream Palace of the Arabs: A Generation’s Odyssey. New York: Random House.

Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities. London: New Left Books.

Bion, Wilfred R. 1961. Experiences in Groups. New York: Basic Books.

Borges, Jorge. 1944, 1998. “The Garden of Forking Paths.” In Jorge Borges The Collected Fictions, translated by Andrew Hurley. New York: Penguin Classics, 127.

Erikson, Erik. 1959. Identity and the Life Cycle. New York: International University Press.

Freud, Sigmund. 1919. The Uncanny.

New York: Penguin Classics.

Hegel, Georg. 1967. The Phenomenology of Mind. New York: Harper Row. Heifetz, Ronald. 1994. Leadership Without Easy Answers. Cambridge, MA: Continued on page 8

7

Exploration...

Conversation...

Continued from page 7

Continued from page 3

Harvard University Press.

Lichtenstein, Heinz. 1977. The Dilemma of Human Identity. New York: Jason Aronson.

Rioch, M. J. 1971. “All we like sheep(Isaiah 53:6): Followers and Leaders.” Psychiatry, 34, 258-273.

Sampson, E. E. 1993. “Identity Politics: Challenges to Psychology’s Understanding.” American Psychologist, 48, 12191230.

Skolnick, M.S. and Green, Zachary. 2004.

“The Denigrated Other: Diversity and Group Relations.” In Debra Noumair and Solomon Cytrynbaum (Eds.) Group Relations Reader 3. Jupiter, FL: A.K.Rice.

Smith, K and Berg, D. 1995. “Paradox and Groups.” In Jonathon Gillette and Malcolm McCollom. (Eds.). Groups in Context: A New Perspective on Group Dynamics. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

Wells, L. 1985. The Group-as-a-whole Perspective and its Theoretical Roots. In Arthur Colman and Marvin Geller (Eds.), Group Relations Reader 2. Washington, DC: A. K. Rice Institute.

cess, they might tell you more. Stay open and curious and notice if you are listening from your frame of reference or trying to understand theirs. Another important ingredient is asking questions about what they have said that will encourage them to expand or elaborate upon what they have shared. Someone once said that curiosity is the gateway to empathy.

Emotionally Nourish the Relationship Be real, not detached or distant when someone is sharing how they are feeling about what they have experienced. Notice if you are needing to be in control by finding an immediate solution or needing to define everything. Breathe and be present.

Simply listening and being witness to someone’s journey is a rare gift and often all that someone needs. Stay in the moment, not too far back or too far ahead.

Repeat back what they have said with the same emotional affect and impact. Share with them that it is understandable why they might feel the way they do, given what they have gone through. Compassion is often the key to intimacy and trust.

Beginning Where They Are Ask about the skills and the experiences that they bring to the workplace. Also learn about their family history and the impact that their culture has on their lives. Understand and appreciate how their past affects who they are today. By asking a lot of questions, you will be able to begin where they are, not where you want them to be. Ask how their past experiences affected them and how it affects their relationship with you. Learning another’s journey will help you understand the context of their lives and the impact it has on their present day experiences and relationships.

Anat Hornung Ziff is an Organizational and Management Consultant, with extensive international experience consulting with government, NGO and private sector organizations. She co-founded Group Relations organizations for Dialogue and Transformation in Israel and Peru, and is a member of the A. K. Rice Institute, Boston Center.

Zachary Gabriel Green is a senior scholar at the Burns Academy of Leadership, School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, College Park where he teaches on the psychological dimensions of negotiations. Dr. Green, who lives in the Netherlands, is a also a founding member of Group Relations International and an executive leadership coach for the World Bank Group.

Owning Responsibility Notice and share your part in the conflict or breakdown in communication. Practice saying that you don’t know or that you were afraid or hurt or upset. Anger is often not a primary emotion, hurt is. When our hurt is invalidated or unacknowledged, it often becomes anger. So asking how we might have hurt someone and taking responsibility for our actions or inactions deepens the possibility for a trusting relationship. All relationships have conflict. The ones that are healthy deal with the conflict by staying in the room and being open to change.

Buddha once said, “We all do not learn from experience, but rather by our willingness to experience.” Before we can celebrate our differences, it is equally important and imperative that we seek to understand those differences that separate and distance us from each other. We are all different, but it is the value that we place on those differences that either separates us or brings us together. It is my hope that through a meaningful and authentic dialogue about those differences, we can come to appreciate how unique we all are, and that the valuing of those differences will deepen our interconnectedness and humanity in our workplaces, in our communities, and for our children.

Lee Mun Wah is the Executive Director of StirFry Seminars & Consulting, and also the director and producer of The Color of Fear and Last Chance for Eden. He is located in Berkeley, California. For contact information, call 510-204-8840 or visit www.stirfryseminars.com.

Intercultural Management Institute Summer 2006 Skills Institutes 1. CULTURES OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; June 3-4, with JP Singh 2. GLOBAL POSITIONING: CROSS-CULTURAL NEGOTIATING IN A POST-GLOBAL WORLD; June 17-18, with Dean Foster For more information or to register, contact Anna Lee at imi@american.edu or 202-885-6439.

Registration forms and additional information available at www.imi.american.edu

8

Book Review: Mothers and Daughters T ogether: Puzzles or Pr ecious To Precious Works in Pr ogress?

Pro Review by Michelle LeBaron

You’re Wearing THAT?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation

By Deborah Tannen Random House, 2006 It’s difficult to venture into the literature on gender and communication without encountering the work of prolific author Deborah Tannen. In her latest book, she turns her scholar’s eyes to generational communication challenges involving mothers and daughters. She does so with characteristic attention to detail, careful documentation from actual communication episodes, and authenticity that comes from painstaking hours gathering anecdotes and stories from real mothers and daughters. With so many stories and an earnest attempt to gather accounts from diverse women, the book is bound to resonate with many readers.

Tannen, unlike many others writing on communication across different roles and identities, has clearly demonstrated her awareness of the dangers of essentializing and over-generalizing. Her scholarly work succeeds because of this awareness.

Work intended for broader circulation, like You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation and this new book You’re Wearing THAT?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation contains the obligatory disclaimers about the limitations of generalizing about group patterns of communication. You’re Wearing THAT? goes a step further than her earlier work, taking more care to include women whose ethnocultural backgrounds are different from Tannen’s. Even so, there remain significant biases in her work, the importance of which should not be ignored by anyone wanting to apply the lessons of the book in practice.

The people from whose experiences she draws in her book - her students at Georgetown University and the friends and colleagues in her Washington, DC world are generally united by social and economic commonalities. While allowing that many of Tannen’s readers may share similar backgrounds, it is very likely that the

patterns she identifies may not hold true outside these groups, and certainly not outside the United States. This limitation is important to keep in mind as a caution for those who might otherwise use this book as an encyclopedic guide to the sometimes difficult and complex labyrinths that characterize mother/daughter communication.

Exploring mother/daughter communication is not for the faint of heart. It has been the subject of scholars and writers from Sigmund Freud to Nancy Friday; it runs through countless plays and novels because these relationships can be dramatic and difficult as well as powerful and energizing. Tannen’s exploration is timely as well as adventuresome, because women’s roles have changed dramatically over the past two generations. No doubt these changes have had a ripple effect for mother/daughter relations, some of which Tannen documents in the book. In capturing some of the conflicts arising from the relatively rapid change, Tannen writes in compelling and thoughtful ways about the dynamics of ubiquitous yet poorly understood mother/daughter relationships.

I confess to being the kind of reader who reacts badly to being classified or identified as one type of person or another.

While recognizing that patterns of communication exist and generalizations can be useful, I rail inside when these patterns are used to label, limit, or excuse responsibility. It may be that this resistance to categorization made my reading of the book more difficult. At the same time, I would have been more receptive to the ideas in the book had there been less an aura of authority in Tannen’s writing voice. For example, she confidently recounts several stories (including some from her interactions with her mother) about mothers and daughters feeling insulted and invaded because of the others’ critical speech.

Accepting that the women she observed tended to be critical of each other, the question arises – are there groups of mothers and daughters for whom criticism is not a common characteristic of their communication? Do regional, age-related, religious, spiritual, ethnocultural, or personality-based differences change this tendency to criticize? I strongly suspect that they do. Tannen’s work would be stronger (thought perhaps less entertaining) with clearer acknowledgement of this limitation and more frequent references to the variables and groups not in her line of focus.

One of the strengths of the book is its stories. They give her work vitality and immediacy, drawing readers into the nuances and textures of mother/daughter relationships. The stories are variously funny, painful and engaging. They animate and ground her points, inviting the reader to comparisons with their own experience.

At times, the stories are so staccato that Continued on page 12

Sponsor an Issue of Intercultural Management Quarterly Sponsoring an issue of IMQ is an excellent way to make a valuable contribution to the study of creating better intercultural dynamics within global organizations. Not only will IMQ and its readership in general benefit from your contribution, but your organization will benefit as well. Included in your tax-deductible sponsorship of IMQ is a sizable amount of copies of IMQ which you can distribute in your organization in order to heighten your institution’s awareness of intercultural management issues. Your sponsorship will also be highlighted in IMQ and on the IMQ website.

For more details about this program, please contact the Managing Editor at imqeditor@american.edu or at (202) 8856436.

9

Meeting the Div ersity Challeng e: Six Steps for Cr eating a Culturally Diversity Challenge: Creating Competent Organization

By Ben Alexander

10

A restaurant invites friends and family of new employees to a free meal as part of its two week long training orientation.

An insurance company has a workforce with few young dependents and many pet owners. It expands its benefits program to include pet insurance.

A facilities management company installs information kiosks which allow employees to get answers to their questions about company policies and procedures in English or Spanish through user friendly computers or by telephone If you are wondering what these examples have in common, the answer is that they are examples of cultural competency being demonstrated in organizational settings.

In the first example a major chain with restaurants in numerous urban locations was aware that many of the workers hired into its kitchen assistant and server positions would come from the Generation Y (18-24) age group, have little or no experience with jobs requiring good work habits and high levels of customer care, and live with parents or family members who may be assisting their transportation and other work related needs. With the assistance of community organizations they used a highly competitive process to select 10% of the total applicant pool to participate in a two week training /orientation program that prepared them to meet the requirements of their new jobs as they also received information on developmental opportunities within the company. The invitation of family and friends to dinner was an important acknowledgement of the new employee’s “graduation” to a career opportunity as well as a recognition of the value that the Generation Y group places upon the inclusion of family and other support systems as part of the work-life blending that is important to many people today.

The second case offers an example of how a company made a decision to ensure that its benefits program addressed the actual needs of its changing population.

Feedback from workers enabled the company to see that the non-traditional benefit of pet care had become important and

relevant to the needs of a growing number of employees, giving them a competitive edge in employee recruitment and retention.

In the third scenario the company challenged the assumption that electronic posting of its policies and procedures meant that all employees could get their questions answered. In this case, a series of complaints led to a survey of employee needs which revealed that many of their predominantly blue collar workforce not only lacked access to computers, but that the policies often did not address their specific questions about issues such as work schedules and overtime pay differentials. They also found that while many employees were able to speak English well enough to do their jobs, many of the foreign born employees had difficulty comprehending the documents. However, the real surprise occurred when they found that these difficulties existed at all levels within the organization and that some employees wanted to just sit down and have a talk about their concerns. The kiosks gave broader access to information and available resources. The payoff was that complaint levels were reduced and relationships with managers and supervisors were improved as a result of this innovation.

These solutions go beyond independent actions by individual managers or decisions handed down by a judge or arbitrator. They are the result of new mindsets that recognize the need to pay attention to the characteristics of the different cultural groups that make up the organization and to use that information in making decisions that are beneficial for all. The ability of organizations, managers, supervisors, and employees to incorporate this mindset into their day to day decision making is referred to as having cultural competency. It is a relatively new area of competency that may very well determine the success or failure of organizations as we move into a future that will take us to higher levels of diversity in the workplace than have ever existed in traditional American business cultures.

This quote from author and manage-

ment guru Tom Peters in his 1994 book The Pursuit of WOW offers an example of this new reality that is becoming part of the organizational decision making process: “Large and small, hi-tech and low, the face of the American workforce is more varied than ever before in our history. This clash of cultures can cause conflict. But it can also lift a company to new heights.

The trick is in creating a corporate ethos that brings about the diverse workforce’s full potential.”1 So, what exactly is this “trick” proposed

by Peters as being essential to managing the dynamics of diversity in a manner that supports organizational effectiveness? To start, it may be as simple as asking a different question.

In my work on diversity issues over the past 20 years I have found that organizations experiencing problems in this area often ask the question: How can we be successful in spite of this diversity?

When asked to reflect on the negative assumptions behind the question they almost always agree that a better question is: How can we be more successful because of this diversity?

The “trick” is to shift the paradigm from one of diversity as a problem to be solved to diversity as a solution to be embraced.

Making this shift prepares an organization to take the steps necessary for cultural competency.

Step One: Create a vision and share it at all levels. A simple functional description of how the organization should be perceived is all that is needed for this one.

Of the many excellent statements produced by our client organizations, one of my favorites is: “We are a place where talented people want to come and want to stay because they feel respected and valued.”

Step Two: Ask employees at all levels for input on what must be done to bring the vision into reality and maintain it.There are many ways to get this type of employee input. One of the easiest is to simply convene a representative group of employees and ask! My favorite methodology for accomplishing this step is the Continued on page 11

Challeng e...

Challenge...

Continued from page 10

use of focus groups made up 8-12 employees who discuss what is working in terms of practices and working conditions that support the vision and what is not working in terms of forces that may hinder. I am continually amazed by the wealth of untapped knowledge and wisdom that organizations have in its employee base.

Step Three: Find out what it all means (analyzing the data through a cultural lens). Step Two will usually produce a gold mine of information about how employees feel and what is important to them. The information will often fall out in terms of issues and concerns that may be significant for specific groups of employees. At this point it is important to remember that cultural diversity is not limited to the most obvious aspects of difference such as race, gender, ethnicity, religion, age, and disability. It also embraces points of difference such as life styles, family circumstances, occupational groups, and generational differences. We use these characteristics and distinctions to identify similarities and differences that may have significance across cultural lines.

Step Four: Feedback and Action. Brief mangers, supervisors, and employees on the findings and recommendations from the focus groups and invite their collaboration in the formulation of next steps.

Some of our more successful clients have utilized an action learning process and created task force groups made up of a crosssection of employees from all levels who are interested in assisting in the implementation of future actions.

Step Five: Provide a Collective Approach for Communicating, Resolving Conflict, and Problem-Solving. Research has shown that high performing organizations are often successful due to the high value they place on productivity, teamwork, and customer satisfaction. Shared approaches to communication, problem solving, and conflict resolution are part of the foundation for this success.

Communication can be quite stressful when people are dealing with conflict situations involving cultural differences. At the same time the problem is likely to worsen if some positive exchange does

not occur. Developing shared expectations and accountability is an important component of cultural competency. A model that many of our clients have found to be quite useful is the ACT F.A.I.R. Model for developing and maintaining effective work relationships.

F eedback A ssistance I nclusion R espect The following questions will assist you in applying the ACT FAIR Model for the purpose of improving communications, resolving conflict, and solving problems.

Feedback • Has the problem or situation been communicated to all who are involved?

• Does everyone understand the situation or issue?

• Are lines of communication open for additional feedback?

Assistance • Does anyone need assistance or support?

• Have I provided adequate assistance and support?

• What assistance or support might be helpful?

Inclusion • Are all parties or groups included in this process?

• Do I engage in behaviors that cause people to feel included or excluded?

• Are you aware of any behaviors or conditions which could exclude certain individuals or groups?

Respect • Am I demonstrating appropriate regard for others?

• Am I being responsive to indications of disrespectful behavior or perceptions that people feel disrespected?

• Do I demonstrate awareness that respect may mean different things to different people and groups?

BOTTOM LINE: BE F.A.I.R. Step Six: Keep It Going. Now that you have gotten off to a good start it is important to keep the momentum going. One of the worst mistakes that organizations make in this area is kicking off a new direction and then failing to do what is neces-

sary to sustain the effort. I have found that successful organizations follow through by: 1. Talk It Up— Consistent communication is the key. Staff meetings, all employee meetings, and one-on-one discussions are all opportunities to reinforce the message and create links between the vision and the day-to-day business of the organization.

2. Walk the Talk—The top levels of management actively demonstrate behaviors that model and reflect the stated vision.

3. Accountability—-Managers and supervisors hold themselves and others accountable for demonstrating the behaviors that support the cultural competency vision. Special recognition and awards are given to managers, supervisors and employees who make contributions to the accomplishment of the vision.

Conclusion The ability to manage cultural dynamics in organizational settings has become a critical competency that can make the difference between success and failure in today’s multicultural business environments. The best way to develop this competency is to create an organizational culture that accepts and values the need to understand the culturally grounded similarities and differences among the individuals and groups that make up the organization. The goal is to create shared visions of success based upon respectful relationships, and to model the behavior that supports this goal in day to day interactions with all employees and customers.

References Peters, Tom. 1994. The Pursuit of WOW!.

New York: Vantage Books, 219.

Ben Alexander is a principal in the firm, Alexander Consulting & Training, Inc. He is a graduate of Johnson C. Smith University and the American University, where he holds the position adjunct professor. For over20 years, he and his partner and wife, Debra, have provided training and consulting services in the areas of organizational development, human resources management, and managing diversity to organizations in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

11

Review ...

Review...

Continued from page 9 they leave the reader the feeling of a smorgasbord rather than a satisfying feast. The scholar in me was left wanting more – more exploration of the psychological and sociological dynamics fueling and informing mothers’ and daughters’ communication choices. To her credit, Tannen does not venture far into this territory, but remains true to her expertise as a linguist. She might, however, have risked a bit more by engaging additional levels of complexity and meaning. I also yearned for more examination of the ways mothers and daughters can build synergistic and satisfying relations.

Tannen’s concluding chapter does provide some hope and particular strategies for improving communication. Tracing the evolution of mother/daughter relationships through aging and life challenges, she examines ways communication dances shift over time and strategies for shifting them in positive ways. In a telling passage, she refers to the evolution in how she perceived her mother over time, settling before her mother’s death into abiding appreciation and respect. I could not

help recalling a conversation I had enjoyed only the day before with a Punjabi 20-something woman friend. “My Mom and I are so close,” she told me, “we know things without having to say them. Spending time with her is easy because we understand each other so deeply.”

Did my friend and her mother always feel so close? No doubt there were bumps in the adolescent years. Yet there is a level of loyalty and easy acceptance between them that is mostly unechoed in the stories in Tannen’s book. The juxtaposition of this conversation and You’re Wearing THAT? left me with more questions than answers. Does a book focused on conflicts screen out the ways mother/daughter relationships work well? Could a more complete story be told, one that included starting points of pleasure and success alongside those of challenge and conflict?

Whatever the answers to these questions, I recommend Tannen’s book for its readability and the relief it offers to anyone who has ever regretted displaying impatience or frustration with a child or parent. By situating the communication

double-binds we encounter in seeking both connection and autonomy as mothers and daughters, she has normalized many conflicts and emphasized the shared dilemmas many of us face.

Michelle LeBaron teaches and consults internationally about gender, culture and dispute resolution. She has written several books on these topics, and is currently doing new work on connections between creativity, the arts and conflict resolution.

An Interview ...

Interview...

Continued from page 5 interchange. On the other hand, I get to be more playful with language in my general audience books, and to range further afield from the analysis of language alone, in exploring how conversational style affects interaction- and relationships.

Adam Mendelson is an IMI program coordinator and the managing editor of IMQ. He is currently finishing up his M.A. in International Affairs at American University’s School of International Service.

Announcing The Intercultural Exploration An Intensive Experiential Workshop in the Group Relations Tradition at American University’s School of International Service Co-sponsored by Group Relations International and the Intercultural Management Institute June 2-4, 2006 This workshop is: • An invitation to learn about leadership and communication in powerful new ways • An opportunity to face ‘real time’ challenges of working across cultural boundaries • An experience in entering the intensive dynamics of human systems Special rates available. Please visit the workshop website at www.imi.american.edu/tie.htm for details and more information about the workshop, or to register.

12

The Inter cultural Manag ement Institute Intercultural Management Associates Program You are invited to formally join us in the education and discovery of intercultural management and training at American University.

Become an IMI Associate and receive the benefits of being more closely involved with the Institute by receiving: -10% off all IMI workshops and conferences (this does not include Skills Institutes, which are considered academic courses through the School of International Service; also, 10% discount is in addition to any other discounted rates); -the IMI Update, which contains information about current trends and events in the field of intercultural communication, as well as announcements from fellow Associates and links to related intercultural web resources; -a one year subscription to IMQ and free e-copies of IMQ upon request; -invitations to Associates-only events.

Annual Association fees: Regular fee: $50 Student fee: $20

cultural Manag Subscription form for the Inter Intercultural Management ement Institute Associates Program

Signing up for:

Regular Membership ($50)

Student Membership ($20)

Name: Title:

Organization:

Address: State:

City: Country:

Email:

Phone: Check Enclosed

Zip:

Fax: Credit Card

(circle one)

MasterCard VISA AmEx

Cash Enclosed

Made payable to American University

Name on card:

Exp.date:

Card #: Date:

Signature:

Mail to: Intercultural Management Institute

Fax to:

American University 4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20016-8177 (202) 885-1331

Questions?

E-mail: imi@american.edu or call (202) 885-6436

13

Families V alued: Considerations for Managing Acr oss Cultur es Valued: Across Cultures

By Terri Lapinsky I grew up in Minnesota in the 1950s60s, where the dominant cultures were Scandinavian, German, Irish, and corporate. I felt exotic for having black hair and brown eyes and coming from a family without a pension plan. My first teaching job in the early 1970s was in the school with the highest percentage of minority students in Minneapolis and probably in the whole state, around 40% at that time.

Those students mostly were African Americans and a small percentage of Native American Indians; there were virtually no immigrant kids.

Yesterday I received a vacancy announcement in the mail for a professorship at the University of Minnesota. It said the position was “located in the culturally diverse cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul … [which have] the largest urban Hmong population in the United States, and the largest Somali population outside of East Africa.” It went on to say that the Minneapolis schools alone have “more than 10,000 students speaking more than 80 home languages.”

What does this type of population shift mean for the other American-born and immigrant managers, workers, students, teachers, parents, and community members across the U.S. who are trying to cope with its impact on their own lives? And what about the American expatriate managers and workers who are trying to adjust in their work overseas where the effects of globalization are causing similar migration patterns to evolve?

A Latin American colleague who worked in the U.S. once told me that the difference between working for a North American company and a South American company was that in the former you were expected to make the company part of your family and in the latter the employee expects to make their family part of the company, by bringing their family to work, and going home for lunch, for example.

But what happens when you are managing people from diverse cultures in the setting of a dominant culture, a situation becoming the norm throughout most of the U.S.? What does a manager need to know and do to keep the intercultural bal-

14

ance and the peace as well as the productivity in his/her office?

Given our backgrounds as educators and trainers, my colleague and friend Judee Blohm and I thought we should turn to young people for some answers to those and other related questions. For over a year now we have been gathering interviews with immigrant students who come from many different countries and live in several different states in the U.S. as the basis for our new book, Kids Like Me: Voices of the Immigrant Experience (Intercultural Press, 2006). Nearly all of the Kids are between the ages of 10 and 21, yet they already are able to reflect upon the roles that their families played in their adjustment. The rest of this article is about how those youngsters have taught me to be a better cross-cultural manager and perhaps even a better family member.

A question: Who is considered “family?”

The concept and definition of family certainly have changed over the years, even in the mainstream majority cultures in the U.S., due to higher rates of divorce, remarriage and adoption. For many immigrants, however, the definition of family evolves from circumstances over which they have had little or no control. Here are some things the Kids told us about that.

Anne Rose: When I was about two years old, my mother came to the United States.

I went to live in France, where my father and uncle had moved in search of work.

They worked long hours and it was difficult for them to care for a little girl, so I went back to French Guyana to live with friends of my family. This couple became— and I still consider them—my second parents.

Raoul: Most families where I come from in India raise the younger ones in one household so the children never have to go to daycare. It is common to be raised by uncles, aunts, older sisters, grandparents, and sometimes even by domestic help while parents go to work.

Jeff: I was born in the Philippines.

When I was a boy, my brothers were my best friends. We had moved from place to place so much that we were unable to attach ourselves to friends long enough to

label anyone as a best friend.

Sanuse: We came to the United States from Sierra Leone because we lost everything we had in our country. My father was shot by someone with a machine gun but he survived. My mother was captured by rebels and we never saw her again. Now I live with my father, stepmother, two brothers and two sisters.

Ramon: I stayed with my grandparents in Mexico for three years while my two older brothers worked with my dad picking strawberries and lettuce in California to make more money to send to us.

Manuel: My parents are really busy working in Peru and taking care of my eightyear-old brother. I live with my aunt in Arizona. She works for American Express and is an American citizen.

An answer: The reflections of these young people brought home the reality that family can be anyone that the person defines as family: nuclear, extended, adoptive, blended, good friends, domestic helpers. Ideally, family would be defined as whoever takes care of you (or you take care of) that loves you and you love back.

Another question: What are the roles of immigrant family members?

Immigrant staff members may have come to the U.S. for reasons beyond anything you might imagine and have responsibilities and customs at home that are crucial to their survival and happiness as they try to adjust to a totally new environment.

The Kids have many insights on those situations as well.

Inayet: Both of my parents are very religious and their faith has an effect on me, too. In communist Afghanistan, there was resistance to the occupation because they were trying to keep people from worshipping God. When we came to the U.S., they could worship freely without worrying that someone would come to the door and kill them or take them to prison. My mom almost always prays five times a day. She used to cry a lot when we first came to the U.S. In Afghanistan, there were always people to talk to. In the U.S. she was always alone. She didn’t know the language or have any friends. She got used to solitude over the years, but that was the most Continued on page 15

Families...

Continued from page 14 difficult aspect for my mom.

Pang Houa: My parents are sad that they did not have a chance to get an education [in Asia]. They have worked hard to be able to put us in private schools.

During the summers they were able to have a garden plot. They would raise as many crops as possible to sell to get extra money for our education.

Ramon: I’m not used to seeing parents so involved in school [as they are in the U.S.], talking with teachers about how their kids can improve. I know my father cares, but when it comes to education, he doesn’t know how it’s affecting me.

Kim: Although I wasn’t born in Holland and I have lived more outside of the Netherlands, I still consider myself Dutch.

This is because my parents and my whole family are Dutch…I speak the Dutch language, I follow Dutch traditions, and I have Dutch habits. My parents and I regularly go to the library to check out books …and they also promote me to get involved in sports and music, which I like very much.

Tim: My father was a miner in Kosovo, but like all Kosovar-Albanian workers, he was fired from his job and replaced by Serbian workers. Most of the Albanianspeaking high schools in Kosovo were closed then as well. I was only little when all this started, but I was very afraid. I worried all the time about what would happen to me and my family.

Natalia: My family and I moved to the U.S. from Brazil because my dad got transferred. My mom used to work as a teacher but she quit because she wanted to take care of me.

Jeff: We rarely told our parents how hard it was for us [when we moved to the U.S. from the South Pacific.] We knew our parents did not have it easy either.

An answer: Families (in their broadest definition) serve as the link to one’s birth culture(s), identity, beliefs, support system, opportunities for work, education and a decent life. The effects of separation and loss engender loneliness, fear, and instability, at home, at school, and in the workplace. The basic human needs to feel safe and accepted are amplified all the more when one is separated from those that he/

she trusts and cares for.

Strategies: Some Things Managers Should Know and Can Do Immigrants always have come to the U.S. for more freedom and economic opportunities, to escape danger and repression, to study, or to join family members.

Americans (especially managers) generally go to live and work abroad because they have a good job opportunity and/or are interested in the country and culture where they will be posted, because they like the lifestyle or because they want to offer assistance or are part of a mission.

The situation of the former group usually has a lot less to do with free choice than that of the latter.

Understanding cultures, clarifying values, and formulating equitable policies are what attract me to (and save me in) crosscultural management. I had no idea of how those issues played out in families and what to do about them until I was faced with many of these situations in my own family and then started paying more attention to my staff. If we analyze and take to heart what the young immigrants have told us, we can deduce much of what would be good interpersonal and cross-cultural management practice. Below are some generic categories that pose even greater challenges for managers working across cultures. Under each category are some “yes or no” questions for the reader to ask him/herself. These questions come from real experiences that helped me to understand better the cross-cultural relationships of family and work in order to find ways to adjust my management style and improve working conditions accordingly.

I. Rights and Responsibilities Noemi (Mexico): I dream to become a migrant lawyer.

Do you know the personnel policies, labor laws and practice in the country and agency where you work? If they are not “family friendly,” is there any flexibility for you as a manager to do something about that?

Are the rights of immigrant workers at all levels being respected in your workplace? If not, is there anything you can do

about that? Is there a union that represents or could represent your workers?

If you have any subcontracted services such as a maintenance company in your building, do you know the status and working conditions of those workers and what benefits and protections they are receiving or entitled to receive? (e.g. In the winter, is the heat turned off at night in your office building when they have to work?)

Does your agency have salary scales, clear job descriptions, hiring, promotion and performance evaluation procedures that have been explained to immigrant workers, preferably in their own language?

II. Time and Money Hewan: My mother moved to the U.S. from Ethiopia leaving behind my father and two other sisters to allow me to follow my dream of becoming a heart surgeon. Next month my father and sisters will be joining us in the U.S. Our family will finally be reunited after three years of separation.

Are there any low/no cost ways to help immigrant workers stay in touch with their family members (via e-mail, telephone calls)? Does your office have any free computers or equipment that workers’ families can use? Do you have any used office furnishings that you are allowed to auction or give away to staff?

If you are asking staff members to work longer hours or even attend company events during their free time, have you asked them first if there will be unfavorable consequences at home for doing so?

Can your office organize transportation or a car pool to help people get to work?

III. The Individual and the Collective Tim: My advice to immigrants is to take advantage of all opportunities to improve your situation, such as attending ESL classes, youth programs, and programs that improve your skills, so you can find a good job and make a good life.

Does your workplace provide a list of services that could be useful to immigrants and their families such as legal aid, healthcare, ESL classes, loans, job banks for spouses, information on local schools, youth programs and student scholarships?

Continued on page 16

15

Families...

Continued from page 15 Do you have a “buddy” or “sponsor” system in place for new employees and family members?

Is there a means by which employees can define their closest family members (not necessarily nuclear) for the purposes of receiving benefits, being able to participate in office activities, and so on?

If you have some kind of incentive or recognition program for workers, can their families attend the ceremony when those awards are given? Are any of your incentives or awards collective rather than individual—awards for cooperation rather than competition?

Besides staff meetings, are there any opportunities at work for staff to have some time to get together? In your staff room, do you have good dictionaries, world and country maps, telephone books, newspapers, and a vending machine or some snacks for breaks?

IV. Risk and Safety Sanuse: [In Sierra Leone] There were people looking for my father to kill him.

The U.S. accepted us. I won’t go back unless there is peace. If there is peace, then I would like to go visit.

Do you have a safe, anonymous process in place by which immigrant workers and staff can express their opinions if their status or culture doesn’t encourage that in public forums? When you have staff meetings, do all members take the opportunity to speak and if not, do you know why?

If you are working in a country where there is turmoil, does your evacuation plan include any provisions for your local staff and their families?

Do you know how to access immigrant legal services if one of your employees has a legal problem?

Does your office or organization reward stability (attendance, longevity, interpersonal relations) as well as risk (creativity, investment, profit)?

V. Melting Pot and Salad Bowl Jennie (China): [As an immigrant] you can still practice your same culture, but you must also realize you are on [foreign] soil…there are millions of other cultures.

Pushpa (Nepal): My advice to new im-

16

migrants is don’t assimilate too much; it’s nice to be unique.

Raoul from India says that where he was born they celebrate about 21 holidays, including all the Christian, Muslim, and Hindu festivals. Do you know what countries all of your staff members come from and what languages they speak? Do you know what holidays they celebrate?

Are there “floating holidays” or personal leave days available to staff, especially for observing their religious holidays, caring for a sick relative or attending a wedding or funeral?

Do you know anything about the children and/or outside interests of your employees? Have you ever been to the home of an immigrant staff member or invited the staff to your home?

Do you yourself speak another language or the language of the country in which you are working? Are you willing to learn a new language?

Conclusion Even after putting out here much of what I’ve learned these past few years about families and cross-cultural management, I must say I also agree with Naomi and Jeff from Kids Like Me and will close with their words: Naomi (Jamaica): In my opinion, you cannot help newcomers by reading or following some method you got from a book or learned in a workshop. You just have to be yourself and let things flow, and just let the words and the actions come from the heart. It’s important to do fun things with new people and provide all sorts of ways for everyone (in schools, communities, and neighborhoods) to be able to do things together. That’s how you get to know different kinds of people and learn to get along.

Jeff (Philippines): To new immigrants I say: Remain a strong family and grow as a family. Do not fight change. You will grow to love [your new] country and one day you’ll call it home as I do.

Terri Lapinsky’s career has included teaching diverse students in public secondary schools and colleges universities; training international youth program

staff and serving overseas as a country director for the Peace Corps and the American trade union movement. Terri and her husband, Albert, who emigrated to the U.S. as a young man,, currently live and work in Brazil and have the good fortune of being able to stay in ongoing contact with their family members.

Interested in contributing to IMQ? The Spring 2006 submission deadline is April 1, 2006.

Possible Topics Include: -Conflict/Post Conflict Management Overseas -Relationships between Culture and Development -Issues in International Human Resources -Intercultural Training -Culture and Technology -Cross-Cultural Negotiation -Issues in Development Management -Intercultural Management Theory

To subscribe or submit an article to IMQ, please e-mail the Managing Editor at imqeditor@american.edu