Summer 2009 IMQ

Intercultural Management Quarterly

Integrating Culture and Management in Global Organizations

In This Issue...

Summer 2009 Vol. 10, No. 2

Managing Communal Space ................................................ 3

by Richard Harris Walking on Eggshells, Part 2 ............................................... 7

by Barbara Deane and Donna Stringer The Language of Diversity ................................................. 11

by Anna Marie Trester Intercultural Immersions as a Means to Cultivate Cultural Competency in Preparing Seminarians to Minister in Today’s Global Reality ........................................................................... 14

by Joseph S. Tortorici and Shenandoah M. Gale

From the Editor

IMQ STAFF

Publisher: Dr. Gary R. Weaver Managing Editor: Dan Deming

Dear Readers, The tenth year of IMQ is in full swing, and I’m pleased to present another issue for your reading pleasure. The announcement of the “digitization” of IMQ at the 10th Annual Intercultural Management Institute Conference this past March generated a lot of buzz, and we’re very close to giving our journal the full online presence it deserves. Stay tuned for important updates concerning our efforts in this arena.

This issue kicks off with the latest and greatest from Richard Harris, and this time he’s tackling Communal Space and its effect on the human social condition.

Barbara Deane and Donna Stringer offer the second half of their article on the fear of talking about differences in the workplace, concluding the article from the Fall 2008 issue.

Anna Marie Trester provides a sociolinguist’s perspective in the intercultural management discussion, reminding us of the Protean nature of modern language.

Finally, Joseph Tortorici and Shenandoah Gale present research on intercultural immersion programs in seminaries. We welcome their perspective; it’s a new one for IMQ.

Editorial Review Board

David Bachner, Annmarie McGillicuddy, Adam Mendelson, Darrel Onizuka, Chris Saenger, Karen Santiago, Gary Weaver, Sherry Zarabi The Intercultural Management Quarterly (IMQ) is published by the Intercultural Management Institute at American University. IMQ combines original research conducted in the field of interculutral management with the applied perspectives of industry experts, professors and students.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Professionals, scholars, and students are invited to submit articles of 1,000-2,000 words on issues related to the study and practice of intercultural management. Articles must be innovative and contribute to the knowledge in the field but should avoid overly academic jargon. Footnotes or endnotes are discouraged except for direct quotes or citations.

Each submission is refereed by the members of the IMQ editorial review board. Accepted pieces are subject to editing.

REPRODUCTION

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of the Publication Manager. Please contact the Managing Editor for reprint availability.

CONTACT IMQ

Intercultural Management Quarterly Intercultural Management Institute 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20016-8177 Phone: (202) 885-6436 Fax: (202) 885-1331 imqeditor@american.edu

I hope you enjoy the Summer 2009 issue of IMQ, and as always, tell me what you think!

Dan Deming

Managing Editor

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© 2009 Intercultural Management Quarterly

Managing Communal Space

by Richard Harris Part Five of a Series When asked to predict the most important environmental influence on behavior in the twenty-first century, researchers almost invariably give the same answer: urbanization, or making places citylike without necessarily making cities.

--Winifred Gallagher

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umans are, with a few notable exceptions, social animals. All over the world in a multiplicity of environments they live and work together in settlements of widely varying size and form, sharing the space and its resources according to the rules and traditions of the community. So effectively and unconsciously are these rules and traditions internalised, though, that over time they harden into cultural values, attitudes, and assumptions with regard to the use of space and its concomitant rights and responsibilities that appear to the members of the community as universal common sense, rather than the often arbitrary cultural constructions that they are. Within the culture, then, such assumptions are widely understood and rarely challenged; it is when members come into contact with representatives of cultures holding different values that conflict is the almost inevitable result.

How do we define, for instance, public space as opposed to private, and what are our rights and responsibilities with regard to each? Failure to appreciate differences in these concepts has led to tragic results, as in the case some years ago of the Japanese exchange student in Baton Rouge, who was unaware that, unlike in Japan, a householder’s private property, along with his or her right to react to a perceived trespass with lethal force, extended to the sidewalk. The ‘zero tolerance’ policies of some U.S. cities with regard to graffiti would perplex visitors from India, where even the outside walls Richard Harris is a tenured professor in the Faculty of Management at Chukyo University, Japan, where he has lived for over 25 years. He teaches intercultural communication in Japanese at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He is the author of Paradise: A Cultural Guide, a study of cross-cultural concepts of the ideal.

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of individual houses are considered public space, and are freely used, without the need for consent, for advertising or political slogans. How do visitors to a settlement recognise ‘safe’ areas and distinguish them from ‘no-go’ zones? Whose responsibility is it to clean the shared walkway used daily by three families in a block of apartments? How should such questions be resolved? With over half of the inhabitants of the planet now living in cities, people all over the world are losing the old certainties of community life and moving into a physically ambiguous environment where, all too often, their only contact with neighbours comes through conflict over different expectations and assumptions regarding the sharing of space. Even in Portland, Oregon — often cited as a model of urban development — two of the most common disputes brought to mediation centres are over barking dogs and housefront parking.

In similar fashion, vastly increased mobility in the world of work has engendered its own confusions. Moving from one company to another, especially but not only across national cultural boundaries, is to walk into an invisible minefield of tacit understandings as to who has rights over which space, and what constitutes territorial violation. What rights do individuals exercise over their own office or cubicle, or common area, in terms of decoration or music? And woe betide the newcomer who sits in Rebecca’s chair in the common room, or takes the space where Jerry has parked for the last ten years.

A useful starting point for a discussion of settlement patterns and their influence on attitudes to space is the distinction made by the German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies in the late 19th century. Tönnies identified two general types of human association which he termed Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. Often translated as ‘community’, Gemeinschaft refers to a loose, organic, essentially unplanned organisation, to which members are oriented as much as, or more than, their individual considerations, whereas Gesellschaft denotes a structured, purposive form of association that is maintained by individuals acting in their own self-interest; the term means ‘company’ in German, but is also used to describe the structure of civil society, in which rules and control are seen to be

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Communal Space… necessary. The model for Gemeinschaft organisations is the family, but any association based on shared place or belief (such as a religious group) would meet the definition. Agricultural villagers may feel an allegiance to extended family and locality far stronger than that to their employers or to civil society at large. A modern business, or a new city, on the other hand, may be much more of a Gesellschaft, in which people are linked not by shared values as much as self-interest: the need to make a living.

As noted above, rapid global urbanisation has clearly encouraged the development of more individualist attitudes toward the sharing of space, with a concomitant breakdown in communal solidarity. (In the United States, this decay in social cohesion has been persuasively described by Robert Putnam in his 2000 book Bowling Alone.) In some cases the company has served as a kind of surrogate community or extended family for displaced workers, as in the paternalist firms of Britain’s nineteenth century, or the company towns of postwar Japan, and workers responded with loyalty and a sense of belonging. Indeed, in Japan, a worker’s first allegiance, or at least identification, may until recently have been to his company, rather than his family; but as the economy changes, and the promise of lifetime employment disap-

In reality, of course, most human associations exhibit elements of both types, but individual attitudes to such ideas as responsibility, hierarchy, and boundaries may be strongly influenced by their exposure to Gemeinschaft or Gesellschaft environments. The collective sense of loyalty to the whole felt by members of Gemeinschaft Surveys across the globe routinely indicate that the deorganisations will result sire for community is strong in the alienated, urbanised in a greater sense of reworld, and its loss is keenly felt. sponsibility with regard to the maintenance and care of resources common to all, and thus there is less pears, so the entire web of reciprocal obligation collapses. need for external control. Such coercive management is Companies such as WalMart or Starbucks may try to disnecessary in Gesellschaft associations, however, since in- guise the true status of their employees with labels such dividuals feel less connection to those resources shared as “associates” or “members” but few are fooled: workers by other members of the organisation. in the modern economy are expendable units rather than family.

Garrett Hardin’s famous essay on the ‘tragedy of the commons’ can be read as an illustration of how GesellNevertheless, surveys across the globe routinely indicate schaft attitudes can destroy a Gemeinschaft entity. Basi- that the desire for community is strong in the alienated, cally, Hardin argues that the ancient idea of public urbanised world, and its loss keenly felt. Whether this common land, to which each stockowner has equal graz- feeling of loss reflects an actual disappearance, or is more ing rights, will inevitably be destroyed, since there will of a romantic nostalgia for a world that never existed in always be some who will take economically rational ad- reality, is beside the point. People yearn for community, vantage of this unregulated access by grazing more and defined by memory or imagination, both in their living more of their own animals on the land until the resource arrangements and in their working conditions, and such is depleted for all. Obvious parallels exist at all social yearning is all too rarely satisfied in today’s globalised citscales, from industrial abuses of the environment, such ies and corporations. Movements such as the Communias overfishing, through the greed of those financiers who tarianism outlined in the writings of Amitai Etzioni or contributed to the recent global economic crisis, to the the New Urbanism of Peter Katz and others are examples person who fills his or her giant flask at the company of creative responses to this perceived social malaise. coffee machine. In each case, in the absence of external But what is community? Clearly the concept has difregulation, rational self- (or national) interest prevails ferent meanings according to cultural background and over considerations of responsibility to the larger whole.

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Intercultural Management Quarterly

individual experience (or imagination), although Peter Block’s definition may be both basic enough and sufficiently comprehensive to elicit widespread agreement.

“Communities” he says, “are human systems given form by conversations that build relatedness.” The two central ideas in this formulation are communication and connection, which are also implicit in Robert Putnam’s notion of social capital, by which he means “social networks, norms of reciprocity, mutual assistance, and trustworthiness.” Putnam, though, goes on to distinguish two types of social capital, which he terms bonding and bridging.

Bonding social capital tends to be inward-looking, connecting people who already share similar opinions and worldviews. Bridging social capital, on the other hand, is outward-looking, seeking to connect people of differing experience and perspective. Any society or association consisting only of bonding social capital will tend to segregate into mutually exclusive or even hostile camps, creating the conditions for conflict over shared resources, from car parking to coffee to copy machine use. A true community needs bridging social capital to enable it to incorporate difference not just peacefully, but productively.

Block’s definition of community, cited above, suggests that the way to create bridging social capital is through conversation, but he charges that the conversations we are used to having are based on questions without true transformative power. Examples of these empty conversations include offering explanations and opinions, blaming and complaining, making reports and descriptions, defining terms and conditions, retelling your story many times over, and demanding quick action. Such conversational tropes have face validity as well as the authority of tradition, and may even be satisfying at some level, argues Block, but the creation of an accountable and hospitable community requires a very different kind of dialogue.

In contrast to the conventional type of conversation described above, Block proposes six transformative conversations based around the ideas of invitation (participation is encouraged, but not mandatory), possibility (the collectively desired future), ownership (personal respon-

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sibility for, or contribution to, the present unsatisfactory state of affairs), dissent (doubts and disagreements with regard to proposed changes), commitment (non-contingent promises of contribution), and gifts (focus on talents and potential contributions of members). The role of the leader, or manager, in such conversations is to frame powerful questions such as, “What do you plan to contribute to this meeting?” rather than the conventional “What do you expect from this meeting?” and to maintain the focus on possibility for the future rather than description of the present.

Other approaches to building relationships in neighbourhoods or workplaces have much in common with some of Block’s ideas. The positive focus brings to mind David Cooperrider’s Appreciative Inquiry method, where the best of the past is used to plan and build a shared future vision, and Block’s reframing of questions is strikingly congruent with Kegan and Lahey’s insistence on the power of transformational language in addressing issues. Physical space, though, is often assumed to be a neutral factor in such discussions, and it is refreshing to read Block’s arguments for the importance of setting, and his assertion that most meeting spaces are designed for control and persuasion. He is in fact quite specific about the requirements of such spaces: “Community is built when we sit in circles, when there are windows and the walls have signs of life, when every voice can be equally heard and amplified, when we all are on one level — and the chairs have wheels and swivel.” A nightmare for traditionalist managers, perhaps, but if the physical environments that frame our cultural backgrounds have influenced our attitudes and behaviours with regard to shared space, then attention to setting must be a factor in modifying such attitudes.

Clearly, attempts to create or enhance community in any of the ways outlined above can have positive consequences far beyond resolving disputes over common resources. While such incidents, therefore, are often seen as symptomatic of the breakdown of community, they can also serve as points of entry for its reimagination.

The tragedy of the commons is not an ineluctable development, just the most likely outcome in a world that

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Communal Space… neglects the possibility of experiment and open dialogue.

Cultural attitudes to shared space are certainly resistant to change, and may often be unacknowledged; but given the right conditions — including powerful questions posed in a physical setting conducive to respectful, open discussion — they can provide the impetus for a renewed commitment to community. The possibility, indeed, of common ground. i

Gallagher, W. (1993). The Power of Place: How Our Surroundings Shape Our Thoughts, Emotions, and Actions.

New York, NY: Poseidon Press.

Hardin, G. (1968). The Tragedy of the Commons, Retrieved July 13, 1998.

Katz, P. (2000). The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Kegan, R., & Lahey, L. L. (2001). How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work: Seven Languages for Transformation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

References and Further Reading Block, P. (2008). Community: The Structure of Belonging. San Francisco, CA: Barrett-Koehler.

Low, S. M., & Lawrence-Zúñiga, D. (Eds.). (2003).

The Anthropology of Space and Place: Locating Culture.

Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Cooperrider, D., Whitney, D., & Stavros, J. M. (2003).

Appreciative Inquiry Handbook. Bedford Heights, OH: Lakeside Publishers.

Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Etzioni, A. (1993). The Spirit of Community: Rights, Responsibilities, and the Communitarian Agenda. New York, NY: Crown Publishers.

Putnam, R. D., Feldstein, L., & Cohen, D. J. (2004).

Better Together: Restoring the American Community. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

IMQ publishes book reviews, case studies and other articles that explore culture and management in global organizations.

Write for IMQ The submission deadline for the Fall edition is September 1, 2009 send submissions to the Managing Editor at imqeditor@american.edu 6

Intercultural Management Quarterly

Walking on Egg Shells: Fear of Talking About Differences in the Workplace

by Barbara Deane and Donna Stringer Part Two of a Two-Part Series Organizational Implications of Fear of Talking Across Differences

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rganizations often hire women and people of color hoping to benefit from their unique experiences and contributions. If they do not teach employees the skills to talk about differences, they run the risk of losing the very value they hope to capitalize on. This can also reduce effectiveness in three key elements of organizational performance: 1) employee engagement, 2) high performing teams, and 3) employee satisfaction.

Examining each of these components through the lens of people’s fears and concerns about interacting with each other can expose some of the assumptions about diverse workers and relationship issues not being addressed.

Employee engagement Engaged employees demonstrate emotional and intellectual commitment to their organization or group. Specifically, engaged employees may be described as: - Being enthused about being a member of the organization

- Eagerly referring the organization to others (potential employees and customers) - Exerting extra effort and acting in ways that contribute to business success (Hewitt, 2004; BlessingWhite, 2006, Corporate Leadership Council, 2004) Inclusion refers to creating a work environment where individuals feel a sense of belonging, respect, acknowledgement and challenge that allows them to contribute their best at all times—in other words to be engaged.

Across the board, studies show that organizations with highly engaged employees perform better and have stronger bottom line results. Engaged employees deliver a much higher level of discretionary effort and are much more likely to stay with an organization (Wellins, Bernthal & Phelps, 2006).

However, the recent Gallup Management Journal’s semi-annual assessment of the number of engaged employees in companies identified 29 percent of those surveyed as “truly engaged”, while a whopping 54 percent were “not engaged” and 17 percent were “actively disengaged” (Phelps, 2004). A specific contributor to employee engagement was found to be the degree to which people felt they could make friends in their work

- Seeing themselves as doing meaningful work Barbara Deane is Vice President of The GilDeane Group, Inc. in Seattle, Washington and editor-in-chief of its publications, DiversityCentral.com and the Cultural Diversity at Work Archive.

Donna Stringer is a social psychologist and President of Executive Diversity Services, Inc., an organizational development firm specializing in cultural competence, diversity and inclusion located in Seattle, Washington.

The authors wish to thank Kyla Meyers, managing editor of DiversityCentral.com, for conducting some of the research on employee engagement for this article, and Mindy Printz-Kopelson who provided constructive feedback and recommendations for improvement.

Summer 2009

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Eggshells… environment and the degree to which they felt their relationship with their manager was both trusting and supportive.

sire to leave a company (Corporate Leadership Council, 2004).

The message to organizations seems clear: engagement is not a practice to ignore. Lack of engaged employees leads to higher costs and lost opportunities; engaged employees produce improved performance.

The Journal also reported that “negative workplace relationships” may be a big factor as to why many American employees are not engaged at work. In a survey of 1,003 employees nationwide, the Journal found that engaged What seems to be missing from the engagement literaemployees “are much more likely” to report that their organization “encourages close friendships at work.” Of ture is a consideration of diversity. Our assumption about engaged employees, 82 percent either agreed or strongly inclusion of diverse groups and employee engagement is agreed that friendships were encouraged at their work- that neither will happen if employees are uncomfortable places, while only 53 percent of the “not engaged” agreed with or around each other. Nor will they happen if the and only 17 percent of the “actively disengaged” agreed organizational culture is not supportive of managers and with this statement. Gallup’s global practice leader, Tom employees taking time to develop trust and engage in Rath, states, “Our favorite moments, jobs, If employees fear talking with co-workers who differ from groups and teams rethemselves, particularly in terms of race and gender, then volve around friendtheir ability to develop friendships at work will be thwarted. ships with other people.” But, he says, the American worker spends very little time or attention on building work- courageous conversations. If employees fear talking with place friendships (Crabtree, 2004). Further, The Confer- co-workers who differ from themselves, particularly in ence Board (2005) reports that the satisfaction of U.S. terms of race and gender, then their ability to develop workers continues to decline, suggesting that this is an friendships at work will be thwarted. If employees and issue industry must pay attention to if a competitive managers fear interacting with each other, then employedge is to be maintained. ees’ goals of developing a trusting and supportive relationship with their managers will be unlikely to occur, as In the race to attract and retain talent, employee reten- will the engagement of the employee. tion goes hand in hand with employee engagement. Research studies show that organizational success depends on the effectiveness of employees; if they are not engaged High-performing teams there is far greater likelihood of losing them to the competition. The cost of turnover (estimated to be $5 trillion Earlier in this article, we identified “partnering,” or annually in the U.S.) directly impacts customer loyalty and company profits. The challenge to companies is to relationship building, as one of the most common acfind ways to retain talent so that they reduce costs and tivities in teamwork. We defined partnering as the ability of team members to get to know, trust and respect improve performance (Frank et al., 2004). each other for who they are so that their team can carry One study reported increased engagement may result out quality processes (Stringer & Valenciano, 2004). in as much as a 57 percent increase in discretionary ef- These “human connections form the basis for support, fort and as much as an 87 percent reduction in the de- cooperation and team spirit that not only make for high morale, but the kind of effective communication and

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Intercultural Management Quarterly

creativity that lead to greater productivity” (Gardenswartz & Rowe, 2003). In the process, employees create a safe working environment in which they are more likely to take risks and explore innovative approaches.

Organizations often assume that team members can automatically engage in the partnering or relationshipbuilding activity. Most teamwork models, and most communication models, are based on similarity among the participants (Deane, 1989). When white men were the dominant members of organizational teams, most organizations assumed that men could accomplish their performance goals and gave little, if any, attention to any differences they might encounter among themselves. In other words, their similarity—white skin and male gender—would drown out any differences that might affect their performance (Gardenswartz & Rowe, 2003).

Enter diversity. Even though organizational members have become increasingly diverse, the historical assumption about teamwork has not changed very much. Most organizations still assume that team members will figure out the partnering activity, in spite of, or perhaps by ignoring, their differences.

Research on diverse teams, however, indicates that such groups are more creative and productive once they have developed solid relationships and understanding of each other (McLeod, et al. 1996; Sommers, 2006; Thomas, 2001; Watson, et al. 1993).

If team members are afraid to talk with each other because of their racial or gender identities, then little progress will be made in developing the relationships and understanding required for partnering effectively and unleashing the creativity and innovation that are characteristic of high-performing teams.

Employee satisfaction Employees who like their co-workers and are more satisfied with their work environment, contribute more to

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their company’s success. This contribution comes in the form of staying with the company and serving its customers well. Research shows that improving an organization’s environment and employee satisfaction directly impacts customer satisfaction and bottom line performance (Haskett, et al., 1994; Richman, 2006).

Needless to say, employees who fear talking with their co-workers due to their differences will have a hard time getting to know their co-workers, much less knowing if they like them or not. The inability to engage in this important relationship-building communication sets up a chain reaction of lost opportunity for the organization.

Solutions: No more Egg Shells What, then, could help in overcoming employees’ fears so that engagement, high-performing teams and satisfaction flourish? As with many other changes involving human behavioral change, it will be important to provide a combination of awareness, information and skill development.

Awareness For individuals to be willing to engage in conversations about differences, it will be helpful to develop awareness of why those conversations are avoided and the value they can have to both individuals and organizations.

Such awareness can be achieved in short presentations or discussions and should include awareness of personal fears as well as the time required to develop trust. Both managers and employees will need to be aware of their own fears or concerns if they are to be prepared to engage in such discussions. It will also be critical to create an awareness of the time required to develop trust and have such conversations. If discussing differences is treated as another “quick fix task” it will surely fail. This is also an opportunity to validate the concerns white men expressed about the time required to establish authentic relationships.

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Eggshells…

Information Perhaps the most critical information managers and employees need if they are to engage in conversations about differences is related to communication and conflict styles. Brief educational sessions about these differences allow people to have discussions with others whose styles are different from their own without misperceptions or negative evaluation. A perfect example of this is the concern white women expressed that women of color would get “defensive.” Without denying that defensiveness can occur, the authors have also observed women of color using more expressive communication styles and more confrontational conflict styles as a means to engage and to understand and be understood—not as a way to avoid such discussions. If white women misinterpret these styles as defensiveness and therefore back off, they can be achieving the exact opposite results of those intended by women of color. Conversely, if women of color interpret this avoidance as white women not caring about them, when the behavior is often intended to be respectful, we again have a result that is opposite of that intended. Understanding cross-cultural communication styles and conflict styles can facilitate greater understanding and a willingness to engage in difficult discussions with fewer misperceptions. (Condon & Yousef, 1975; Hammer, 2003)

Skills Developing the skills of dialogue will allow people to explore their differences without a need to win and to see the conversation’s purpose as developing a deeper understanding of each other. Once we understand each other better we can then move into a highly productive task orientation with each person contributing their greatest skills. The conversation is not intended to determine who is “right” but to identify the many “right” things each individual can bring to the process. Thus, it is also not about agreeing or disagreeing but about understanding a range of perspectives. (Fuller, 2003; Isaacs, 1999; Scott, 2002)

Dialogue is a conversation with the sole purpose of more effectively understanding another person. It is not a debate, problem solving or decision making. It is a conversation that allows each person to more fully understand the perspective of the other(s). Use of this skill is increasing in organizational settings and is a way to more fully understand and utilize the valuable differences employees bring to organizations. Because of the organizational barriers discussed above, dialogue is often counter-cultural and consequently requires practice and reinforcement. Offering sessions for managers and employees to develop dialogue skills can result in the opportunity for each individual to engage in conversations that can reveal fears, deepen understanding and maximize the organization’s ability to utilize the richness of its entire employee base.

Conclusion Our findings indicate that women and men, both whites and people of color, all share fears and concerns about talking with each other in the work environment.

These fears and concerns adversely impact organizational climate and performance, specifically in regard to employee engagement, high performing teams and employee satisfaction.

If organizations want to reduce “walking on eggshells” about these fears, they have to do something different!

Organizations will benefit in both improved employee engagement and bottom-line productivity results if they provide opportunities for three key activities: help employees identify the reasons they may not be talking about differences, offer skill building in how to have such conversations and allow the time to engage in such conversations.

Rather than a “waste of time” or a “distraction from productivity”, the research supports the qualitative and quantitative benefits to talking about differences with each other in the workplace. i

For a complete list of references, please visit www.imi.american.edu/imq 10

Intercultural Management Quarterly

The Language of Diversity

by Anna Marie Trester

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lmost everything that we do at work is accomplished through language. It is through language that we communicate information, but it is also the means by which we make requests of one another, make decisions, and create and sustain relationships. We use language to negotiate intangible things, like who gets to communicate what information (and how, when, and where), who gets to make the decisions, and what determines a successful relationship. Sociolinguistics, the study of language in its social and cultural context, is interested in how speakers use language to create meaning—how language can reveal how speakers understand themselves and their actions relative to other people and discourses, and further, how power and worldview get produced, and reproduced, through language.

As a sociolinguist, I have a deep commitment to showing how language is an ever-present (and powerful) influence on how we interact socially every day. Such a conception of language stands to provide insight to why it is, particularly when engaging with issues like diversity, we find that language itself can seem to get in the way of the conversation. Sociolinguistics can contribute particular insight into why it is that discussions around diversity can be constrained by the very labels themselves. While most often the mechanics of language occur well below the level of conscious awareness of speakers, a greater awareness of the interactional dynamics of social (especially intercultural) contact can help us to more deeply engage in important discussions like the changing conversation around diversity.

Reference, a central property of language, is one point of entry into thinking about how ideology is linguistically moderated. Communication could not work without reference, or the ability of language to “point to things.”

Anna Marie Trester is the Assistant Director of the MA Program in Language and Communication in the Linguistics Department at Georgetown University, where she is involved in raising awareness of the usefulness of Sociolinguistics in today’s workplace.

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When talking with others, we need our language to be able to refer to things (things present and not present) so that we can achieve a common understanding (imagine how impossible it would be to talk about things like the presidency if every time we wanted to refer to the president, he needed to be in front of us, so we could gesture towards him: “that guy!”). It is through this process of reference, however, that we find our language can at times embed a particular perspective, a point of view, even an ideology. Nevertheless, every time we use language we necessarily make decisions to say one thing and not another. Every linguistic structure, every word, every sound is packed with meaning precisely because it is articulated at the expense of myriad other possible yet potentially meaningful and communicative options. It is for this reason that linguists spend almost as much time analyzing what is not said as what actually is. The way that you refer, the choices among something as simple as verbs, locates you as a speaker in discourse, negotiating relationships among speakers, hearers, and ideas, and it is in this way that language can accomplish (or damage) our interactional goals and relationships.

Consider some of the recent changes in conversations around diversity such as the move from the use of terms like “tolerance” and “sensitivity” to “cross-cultural competence.” The impetus behind these shifts includes the idea that each of the former terms presupposes a relationship between groups (i.e. one group that is being tolerant or sensitive towards another) but crucially, a relationship that is unequal in terms of power. One who “tolerates” or who is in a position to be “sensitive” towards another person or group holds power and influence over that person or group. In this case, the language cannot work to create a relationship among equals because the language itself embeds a vantage point and social context for the speaker that is privileged.

As another example, the word “inclusion” bears an interesting relationship to the now more frequently used concept “diversity.” Rather than pointing to a situation in which one group decides to include another, the latter term frames the situation as being one in which we all bring different socio-cultural identities to the workplace.

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Language…

Thus, one of the most powerful frameworks for aiding our understanding of the language of diversity is that of framing, which has been brought to the light most recently by George Lakoff in his work on messaging in the political sphere. For Lakoff, every word is defined relative to a conceptual framework. A very powerful example he gives is the term “illegal immigration,” which he aptly points out is a label that is “anything but neutral.”

Like the classic cognitive linguistic example after which he named his recent book, “Don’t Think of an Elephant” makes everyone think of an elephant. Similarly, the word “illegal” invokes a legal frame, when indeed immigration could just as easily be defined as an employment problem, a civil rights issue, and a humanitarian concern. Framing the issue as a legal one defines immigration in a very particular way, constrains the discussion around the issue, and ultimately limits the solutions that may then be found to address it. Moreover, as Lakoff (2006) explains, “illegal,” when used as an adjective in “illegal immigrants” and “illegal aliens,” or simply as a noun in “illegals,” defines immigrants as criminals, “as if they were inherently bad people. In conservative doctrine, those who break laws must be punished.

But this frame need not be invoked for having a conversation about immigration. Consider for a moment if anyone who got a speeding ticket were described as an “illegal driver.” In both cases, a law has been broken, but in making choices in the way that we talk about it, framing can change how the infraction is understood, and what solutions must be taken up to address it. The same processes are present in the changing language of diversity. For example, diversity practitioners point to how “homosexual” as a referring expression can seem to constrain the discussion of sexual orientation in the workplace. “Homosexual” evokes a clinical frame, which can constrain conversations about work practice. It is precisely in providing greater insight into such linguistic choices and their consequences that a linguist can add value.

Other problematic referring expressions include “the girls,” “those people,” or “old guys” in the context of discussions about aging in the workforce. Such exam-

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ples call attention first to the difference between referring terms and address terms. Referring terms are the language that we use to refer to people. Address terms, by contrast, are the terms we use to talk to people directly (think of the difference between “my mother” and “mom”). Much of the discussion in the context of diversity centers on referring terms (and not address terms) and one specific type of discourse: discussions of workplace practice. Given this context, one reason that “the girls” or “those people” can be problematic as a referring expression is that it has an “othering” effect, seeming to establish an insider community by calling attention to others who are somehow outside the norm. “Old guys” draws the listener’s attention first to a characteristic, rather than the person, much in the way that “wheelchair” functions as a referring expression. Research into the language of diversity (Castania 2003) speaks to a broader trend of finding terms that “put the person first” (e.g., ”person with epilepsy” instead of “epileptic”).

Frustration with the term “reverse discrimination” brings this discussion to larger questions of how language embeds worldview and can perpetuate problematic prejudicial attitudes and beliefs. In this case, using the term “reverse” as a modifier of the process of discrimination is to say that there is an expected (or unmarked) direction in which discrimination operates (those with more power on a social hierarchy exerting control over those in a subordinate position). The problem is that in an example such as this, the language itself provides a type of erasure (Coupland 2007) to obscure the fact that in both cases, the issue under consideration is in fact the same: discrimination.

As the above examples have illustrated, a central property of language is that words can carry meanings beyond the words that are spoken (and the concepts and ideas in the world that they refer to). As explained by Bateson (1972), every communication must simultaneously communicate two messages, the message and the “metamessage:” a second message, encoded and superimposed upon the basic, which indicates how someone is supposed to interpret the basic message. Sociolinguistics, by focusing on the mechanics of talk, provides

Intercultural Management Quarterly

a unique perspective into the question of how these metamessages work to communicate social information, including relationships of power and ideology. And another thing that linguists know very well is that language is always changing: it has ever been thus and will always be thus. As such, there will never be a way to “get it right” in conversations such as these by simply memorizing a list of what to say and what not to say. More powerful is a deeper recognition of how it is that language can embed a prejudicial perspective. By gaining this deeper appreciation, the possibility exists to better avoid the perpetuation of unconscious stereotyping, and engage in more meaningful dialogue both in conversations about diversity and in conversations more broadly. i

Acknowledgements and Selected References on page 19

IMQ online: research at your fingertips www.imi.american.edu Summer 2009

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Intercultural Immersions as a Means to Cultivate Cultural Competency in Preparing Seminarians to Minister in Today’s Global Reality

by Joseph S. Tortorici and Shenandoah M. Gale

My sensitivity and awareness of other cultures has increased ... as well as my desire to inquire and learn more and be genuinely interested in those who cross my path. It has flowed into my preaching, teaching, leading of worship, and in my service and leading in mission projects. — Wesley Graduate

Today’s Global Reality

T

he capacity for people to think beyond limiting worldviews is critical for competent and effective ministry in our increasingly culturally co-existing domestic and global contexts. The degree to which we are successful in our ministry mirrors the degree to which we are willing to learn about and interact with those who exist beyond our worldview. For those of us involved in ministry formation, and specifically field education, how do we prepare students for culturally competent ministry? What methods of education, practices in supervision, programs of continuing education, and professional guidelines cultivate an increasing capacity for cultural competency? Many fields of ministry currently engage these and similar questions regarding this critical capacity.

This article presents research findings and critical reflections on the preparation of seminarians for culturally competent ministry through short-term intercultural immersions within the context of seminary field education. Wesley Theological Seminary graduates, and faculty and staff of thirty-four Association of Theological Schools seminaries participated in a study involving an on-line survey and phone interview. The general question guiding the research was, do students experience a transformation to an increased capacity for cross-cultural competency in ministry?

Intercultural Competency Broadly, intercultural competency reflects a student’s ability to effectively interact and minister with people of cultures other than his/her own. Higher education research literature categorizes intercultural competencies as the knowledge, skills and attitudes that enable someone to be effective in interpersonal behavior across cultural contexts.

In her doctoral dissertation, Darla K. Deardorff surveyed and interviewed experts in the field of intercultural studies, as well as administrators in higher education, to ascertain a consensus on their understanding of intercultural competency. Deardorff found agreement that the acquisition of intercultural competency involves a process and is developmental. This is congruent with the work of Milton Bennett, a pioneer in the area of intercultural studies who conceptualized intercultural competence as a developmental model. Bennett defines the attainment of intercultural competency as a process “in which individuals progress along a continuum toward the goal of “successful acquisition of the international perspective.”

Building upon the work of interculturalists such as Milton Bennett, Deardorff developed a competency “Pyramid Model.” This model summarizes the outcomes (internal and external) and competency areas (attitudes,

Dr. Joseph Tortorici is the Associate Professor of Contextual Education, and the Director of Intercultural Immersion Programs at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. Shenandoah Gale is the Director for Anti-Racism Commitment in the Office of the Presiding Bishop at Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Chicago, IL.

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Intercultural Management Quarterly

knowledge and skills) agreed to by her subjects. Our research uses Deardorff’s model (Figure 1) as a conceptual framework for cultural competency capacity.

The Research Generally stated, the goal of immersion programs is to provide adequate and appropriate preparation for ministry and mission within a many-cultured global reality. To explore this goal, MA and MDiv graduates of Wesley Theological Seminary and Association of Theological School (ATS) faculty at 34 other seminaries participated in a research project consisting of an on-line survey and phone interviews. The ATS faculty participants for this research were self-selected from a larger group of ATS seminaries (89), who indicated in a prior survey that their school required, or offered as an elective, an intercultural immersion experience. Thirty-four faculty members completed the on-line survey, and nineteen were interviewed.

Slightly more than one hundred Wesley graduates responded to an on-line survey, which asked them to share if and how the immersion was an effective learning experience. The survey also asked what the experience has meant for them personally and for their ministry post-graduation. Twenty of these graduates were randomly selected and interviewed by phone to further explore the impact of the immersion on their ministry.

FIGURE 1: Deardorff’s Pyramid Model

Desired External Outcome Behaving and communicating effectively and appropriately (based on one’s intercultural knowledge, skills and attitudes) to achieve one’s goals to some degree Desired Internal Outcome Adaptability (to different communication styles and behaviors; adjustment to new cultural environment); Flexibility (selecting and using appropriate communication styles and behaviors; cognitive flexibility); Ethno-relative view; Empathy

Knowledge and Comprehension

Skills

Cultural self-awareness; Deep understanding To listen, observe, and interpret; and knowledge of culture (including contexts, To analyze, evaluate, and relate role and impact of culture and others’ world view); Culture-specific information

Requisite Attitudes Respect (valuing other cultures, cultural diversity) Openness to intercultural learning and to people from other cultures, withholding judgment Curiosity and discovery (tolerating ambiguity and uncertainty)

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Intercultural Immersions …

Research Findings: General Both survey and interview data reveal that, in general, the intercultural immersion is a significant experience for most students and imparts a long-lasting impact on their lives. For example, when asked to describe their immersion experience, forty-seven percent of Wesley graduates responded that it was “a highlight of my seminary studies,” sixty-five percent indicated that it “sensitized me to another culture,” and forty-four percent responded that “it was a life-changing experience.” ATS faculty were similar in their responses: ninety-four percent reported that the most often stated response by students about their immersion was “it was a transforming experience,” and forty-three percent reported that the second most frequent response from students was “it was the best thing I’ve experienced in seminary.”

The opportunity to become aware of and suspend limiting worldviews to see the world and church as others see it, was a welcome challenge. As one graduate said: “I had to set aside a set of lenses through which I viewed the church and the world and learn to observe at a more basic level, to defer conclusions in the interest of just taking in images, and to let those images reveal the truth at the core of the experience.” Another graduate shared that her immersion “reinforced my understanding of how much of who I am is shaped by my cultural background and environment. I was reminded that there are lots of ways of living life and my way isn’t the only way or the right way.”

The immersion is not, however, deemed valuable by all students. Ten percent of the Wesley graduates indicated that “it was OK” while two percent stated it was a “waste of time and money.” Reasons for these responses varied from frustration about the degree requirement to a dissatisfaction with the immersion experience not living up to expectations. ATS faculty also reported negative responses which they had heard from students – “it was not worth the time and money” (0.6%). Overall, the majority of graduates and ATS faculty report immersions as an impactful, important method for seminary education for cultural competency.

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Research Findings: Intercultural Competency Do intercultural immersion experiences contribute to competency in ministering with persons of other cultures? Sixty-two percent of graduates responded “yes.”

Words such as sensitivity, awareness, openness, understanding, confidence, compassion, empathy, and perspective were used to describe ways in which immersion experiences impacted their formation for ministry.

For example, the immersion “helped me communicate with other cultures and be a better listener,” “increased my ability to see the world as others see it,” “helped me personalize a culture,” “helped me be more confident in reaching out to other cultures,” and “increased my objectivity about people.”

The competency area WTS graduates considered most important for being effective in intercultural ministry was that of attitudes. Having an attitude of openness to people from other cultures and possessing a respect for and acceptance of differences, were the most often named by students. One graduate responded that “... the skill most needed is openness. We are all too quick to judge people who don’t do things the way we do. It limits God’s grace.”

Knowledge of one’s own and another’s culture is also an important component of cultural competency. Such knowledge includes an understanding of the contexts, role, and impact of culture on one’s worldview. “Because of my immersion I now have the knowledge needed to share the traditional Indian stories with those whom I minister. Knowledge of the stories and rituals is important.”

The ability to listen, observe, and more openly interpret others’ behavior are basic skills in any ministry, and all the more so when trying to effectively minister within a cultural context with varied languages, values, nonverbal behaviors, traditions and customs. “I think the big one is stopping to listen to what something means to people from their own perspective instead of rushing in to interpret it from my perspective.” Given that there are cultural differences and perspectives among peoples,

Intercultural Management Quarterly

it is important to “learn to wait and see what something means for another person.”

Students may also develop the skills for new or increased capacity to feel empathy and compassion for others and become “emotionally connected.” An ATS faculty member reported that after an immersion to Indonesia he noticed a common theme in the student papers: “for example they would never look at the Islamic religion the same. We (they) slept at Mosques. They mingled with Muslims, and came to understand they were highly intelligent, religious, and not terrorists. One of the comments made by a student was that whenever any difficulty or disaster occurs in that part of the world they will always be emotionally connected to that people because they have become their people as well.”

Research Findings: Transformation The majority (88%) of Wesley graduates interviewed described their immersion as transformative, and that a shift in worldview often resulted in a more inclusive, discriminating, open, reflective, and emotionally flexible worldview that is irreversible. Phrases such as, “I will never be the same again” and “It was a life-changing experience” capture this description.

Spending time out of their own cultural context challenges and stretches students’ worldview of self and other in transforming ways. In the real estate world the age-old maxim is “location, location, location.” In ministry we can say it is “context, context, context.” Understanding the context of the people among whom we minister is crucial to being effective.

An often-mentioned consequence of an immersion experience is a new sensitivity to stereotypes, racist references, and prejudicial attitudes. Students who grew in such sensitivity reported working at making changes in their own language and viewpoints, as well as working to bring about shifts in the perspectives of those whom they serve.

Wesley graduates described their experience as challenging, “A hugely different experience from anything

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else I had ever encountered,” “it was just so not what I was expecting, it was such a surprise,” “eye-opening,” and “mind-blowing.” For many graduates, Wesley’s short-term immersion served as an initial stage of transformation, a process that takes place over time.

Reflection on Findings What have we learned about intercultural immersions as a method of seminary preparation for cultivating cultural competency for ministry? Our learnings fall into five categories: pre-immersion preparation, the primacy of the immersion group, student expectations, theological reflection, and debriefing sessions.

Pre-immersion preparation is critical for the learning process. This takes several forms, including directed reading on a specific culture, cultural orientation sessions, and group identity development. One of the ATS faculty participants noted the need among his students for serious academic cultural study and added a pre-requisite course. A Wesley faculty leader found the necessity for large groups to do group building. Two weeks of constant travel together, disorienting experiences, sharing rooms, and simply being with one another can produce conflict. Thoughtful pre-immersion preparation is invaluable.

Consideration needs to be given to the notion that the primary immersion culture for group immersions is the group itself. The diversity of students due to age, race, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds creates its own intercultural context. When this is compounded by being immersed within a new cultural situation, the cultural dynamics of the group must be reflected upon as part of the learning experience. This diversity needs to be explicitly included in the learning and reflection process.

The issue of student expectations needs to be addressed in any pre-immersion preparation. Expectations can be quite different for students for whom the immersion is a requirement than for those for whom it is an elective.

Given that it is a requirement for graduation at Wesley it has become important during orientation sessions

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Intercultural Immersions … to elicit any existing resistance to the requirement. The Wesley data indicated that although only a small percentage responded that their immersion was a waste of time, others in open-ended questions gave vent to their resistance to the requirement. Some felt that their previous experience of living in other cultures for significant time periods should be seen as a fulfillment of the requirement. It is important to help students recognize that they are now in a new context for their life and call, and that they should participate in a group immersion in which they have the opportunity to explore the theological and ministry issues of intercultural engagement.

A key component for seminary faculty-led immersions is the opportunity to engage in theological reflection during the immersion experience. The format for such reflections varies among faculty leaders. Whatever the format, the time to focus on daily experiences and grapple with scriptural and theological issues is regarded as important. Skilled design in the reflective process in needed – even more so when the cultural context has similarity to the culture of the student. It is integration time, time for making connections with the tradition, and time to struggle with disconcerting theological realities. It is within a culturally different context that scripture can take on new meanings, and thus be transformative.

Many seminaries require one or more debriefing sessions following the immersion. The debriefing component has been a challenge at Wesley. Given the diversity of students and the number of part-time students it is difficult to identify adequate blocks of time for any indepth sharing and consideration of the impact of the immersion. In order to partially address this issue, faculty leaders have been encouraged to plan a debriefing day at the end of the immersion prior to the return trip home. The authors’ own experience with implementing this kind of debriefing was very positive since it provided for reflection while still within the cultural milieu. Chapel celebrations, discussion forums, seminary newsletter reflection articles, and community presentations all serve to share the experiences within the seminary and the wider church community, and provide students with avenues for integration of their experiences.

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Conclusion Research data give evidence that intercultural immersions are an important part of seminary education for intercultural ministry competency in our many-cultured domestic and global reality. Through transformation of their own worldviews, students are more likely to be open to learning the competencies necessary to minister effectively with individuals and communities of different cultures.

Intercultural immersion programs are gradually becoming a component of curricula at North American seminaries. The common goal is to intentionally prepare students for ministry and mission in a multicultural global reality. The intercultural immersion experience and the connections formed by students and seminaries throughout the world are transforming the face of theological education, and, we hope, the effectiveness of church leaders ministering in today’s global reality. i

Notes 1 Darla K. Deardorff, “The Identification and Assessment of Intercultural Competence as a Student Outcome of Internalization at Institutions of Higher Education in the United States”, Doctoral Dissertation (unpublished), North Carolina State University, 2004.

2 As cited in Deardorff, 2004, p. 42.

3 As cited in Deardorff, 2004, p. 42.

4 Bennett, M.J. (1993). “Towards ethnorelativism: A developmental model of intercultural sensitivity.” In R.M. Paige (Ed.), Education for the intercultural experience (2nd ed., p.24). Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press.

5 As cited in Deardorff, 2004, p. 196.

6 Research was supported by a grant from the Association for Theological Field Education (ATFE).

7 As cited in Deardorff, 2004, p. 196.

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Language of Diversity from page 13

Acknowledgements This article came about as the result of participation in the Language of Diversity Panel organized by the Business Professional Women’s Association at their National Employer Summit. My thanks go out to my fellow panelists for stimulating my thinking on this topic: John Lancaster, Ed Renfern, Linda Tepedino, Muriel Watkins, and Seanta Williams. My appreciation also goes out to Dr. Deborah Schiffrin for her feedback and continued support of my endeavors to bridge sociolinguistic theory and practice.

Selected References

Intercultural Management Institute

Skills Institutes Summer-Fall 2009 Global Positioning: Cross-Cultural Negotiating in a Post-Global World July 17-18, 2009 with Dean Foster, President, Dean Foster Associates Personal and Organizational Security in a Global Age September 12-13, 2009 with Ray Leki, Director, Transition Center of the Foreign Service Institute, Department of State

Bateson, Gregory. [1955]1972. A theory of play and fantasy. Steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Ballantine Books, 177-193.

Multinational Teambuilding September 26-27, 2009 with Lance Descourouez, CEO, Lance Consulting

Castania, Kathy. 2003. “The Evolving Language of Diversity: A fact sheet from the Cornell Cooperative Extension.”

Gaming Simulations and Experiential Exercises for Intercultural Training October 24-25, 2009 with Gary Weaver, Executive Director, IMI, and Professor, School of International Service, American University; and Gary Wright, Adjunct Professor, School of International Service, and former Vice President of Campus Life, American University

Coupland, Nikolas. 2007. Style: Language Variation, Identity and Social Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lakoff, George and Sam Ferguson. 2006. “The Framing of Immigration.” Rockridge Institute Website.

Accessed on March 27th, 2009. http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/research/rockridge/immigration/ Scollon, Ron and Suzanne Wong Scollon. 1995. Intercultural Communication. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Managing International Student Exchange Programs November 14-15, 2009 with Fanta Aw, Vice President of Campus Life, American University

www.imi.american.edu for schedule and registration

Summer 2009

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