Fall 2010 IMQ

Intercultural Management Quarterly Integrating Culture and Management in Global Organizations

In This Issue...

Fall 2010 Vol. 11, No. 03

Bringing Cross-Cultural Communication Education into the 21st Century - Virtually............................................3

by Bram Groen and Alexandra Parrs The Toyota Congressional Hearings: A Cross-Cultural Conflict Situation.........................................................................8

by Motoo Unno Reality Therapy for Intercultural Training.....................12

by Ray S. Leki Mis-Understanding Arabs - Revisited..............................16

by Gary R. Weaver and Dan Deming Don’t Just Blend In: Cultural Training in a Post-Global World...............................................................................................20

by Dean Foster

From the Editor

IMQ STAFF

Publisher: Dr. Gary R. Weaver Managing Editor: Kathryn Schoenberger

Dear Readers, Welcome back to another edition of IMQ! This issue marks the beginning of my second year as editor of the journal and we have an excellent collection of articles to start this year off right.

First, Professors Bram Groen and Alexandra Parrs discuss a virtual cross-cultural collaboration between American and Middle Eastern students.

Next, Dr. Motoo Unno examines the clash of American and Japanese communication styles and cultures during the Toyota Congressional hearings.

Then, Ray S. Leki explains why we may have to go deeper into our own minds to provide effective cross-cultural coping skills.

In a reflective piece, our own Gary Weaver and Dan Deming revisit an article published in IMQ in the wake of the September 11 attacks, Mis-Understanding Arabs. They provide an update to see what has, and hasn’t, changed in American beliefs and behaviors toward Arabs since 2001. Finally, Dean Foster tells us how to best mix technology and cultural training in our post-global world.

I am also pleased to announce IMI’s 12th Annual Conference on Intercultural Relations, which will be held March 10-11, 2011, in the brand new School of International Service building at American University. I hope you can join us for what is sure to be another fascinating exploration of a broad range of topics relating to culture, business, development, training and much more.

Editorial Review Board

David Bachner, Dan Deming, 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 this issue and as always I welcome and look forward to your feedback.

Kathryn Schoenberger, Managing Editor

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY W

A

S

H

I

N

G

T

O

N

,

D

C

© 2010 Intercultural Management Quarterly

Bringing Cross-Cultural Communication Education into the 21st Century - Virtually

by Bram Groen and Alexandra Parrs

V

irtual, global communication has been evolving rapidly for several decades. The use of technology-mediated communication to form global virtual teams (GVTs) has become increasingly prevalent, while the range of information and communication technologies (ICTs) available enables cross-cultural communication in more sophisticated ways than ever before as a means of doing business around the world. Beyond business, GVTs are also used by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society groups to engage in international policy-formulation processes and for capacity building. GVTs are not only useful for the completion of specific projects, but are proven to be effective for cross-border educational exchanges, and most specifically also for cross-cultural education.

These insights are the foundation of a joint virtual crosscultural communication education project we have conducted since fall 2007 between students in American University’s School of International Service (AU) and students in the Modern College of Business and Science in Oman and the University of Bahrain (ME). With technical and financial help from the U.S. State Department, we have organized semester-long class projects conducted between the students at each institution in the form of GVTs and mediated biweekly video conferences. Our goals with this project were rather simple: a) connect students from vastly different cultures by introducing them to the complexities of communicating and collaborating virtually in preparation for their career realities; and b) enhance “grassroots” communication be-

tween American and Middle Eastern students; all this, while applying what they learn about intercultural differences in the classroom This article is intended to put our initiative into professional context, and to encourage those in our profession who teach cross-cultural communication to jump on this global, virtual bandwagon, if they have not done so already, as a number of US academic institutions have in other disciplines.

Virtual Learning Defined Much has been studied and written about virtual collaboration and learning, and a brief summary of the most important academic observations may provide context. Distinct from distance learning—which entails a separation of the learner from the teacher with students working individually or in teams through a variety of communication tools—cross-cultural virtual teams are comprised of team members who are, in part, collocated or geographically distributed, but who work together via ICTs to learn by completing interdependent tasks. We apply this method by forming teams of three or four AU and a similar number of ME students and asking them to engage in an agreed-upon study project requiring a joint class paper, while separately reporting on what they observe and learn cross-culturally from the practicum.

Defining virtual learning as a cross-cultural teaching model primarily facilitated by video-conferencing alone would be too limiting. While direct teleconferencing is generally cost-prohibitive (particularly with the availabil-

Bram Groen, PhD, is a full-time member of the International Communication faculty at the School of International Service at American University and an Instructor at the Intercultural Management Institute. His research interests are in Virtual Communication and Islamic studies.

Alexandra Parrs, PhD, is an adjunct professor of cross-cultural communication at American University. Her research interests are Arab American political activism, political Islam and interethnic relations in the Middle East.

Research support for this article was provided by Michael Schmitz, M.A. Candidate at the School of International Service at American University.

Fall 2010

3

Cross Cultural Communication Education... ity of cost-free alternatives), we encourage students to use Facebook, Skype, and e-mail at their discretion. Not surprisingly, some students find written communication (via e-mail and Facebook) less effective than may have been assumed: we have noted frustrations on both sides (particularly for the American students) associated with slow responses to written messages. As a result, spontaneity can be affected considerably. For example, the ME students will often end their e-mails with valedictions such as, “your loving Omani friend,” but do not always see this warmth reciprocated and then find the tone of their American counterparts “cold.” Any e-mail user can attest that without the contextual clues provided by tone of voice, body language, or facial expression, the intended tone and purpose of a message may be misinterpreted online. On the other hand, as Shachaf notes, when email (and perhaps Facebook) is used there is usually less miscommunication about details than in video conferencing; e-mail can also improve language accuracy and mitigate intercultural miscommunication. Our students

have acknowledged as much, particularly in relation to project planning and task assignments.

Thus, for the GVT learning environment to be most effective in classroom settings, it may be advantageous to utilize various tools, benefitting from their strengths while mitigating their respective weaknesses. Similarly, Cogburn and Levinson find specifically that combining both synchronous and asynchronous technologies is important in developing an effective distributed collaborative learning environment. Moreover, Shachaf finds that using synchronous textual chat and screen sharing during teleconferencing makes these modes of communication more effective. We may introduce this approach in the future (via collaborative software such as SharePoint or Elluminate) now that we have gained experience with this program. Considering the increasing ease with which students utilize multiple modes of communication on a daily basis (e.g., social networking sites, textual chat, etc.), integrating various ICT tools into the learn-

Visit the NEW IMI website for information about: • Skills Institutes • Membership • IMQ • and much more!

www.american.edu/sis/imi 4

Intercultural Management Quarterly

ing environment may constitute a natural atmosphere for today’s classroom experience.

The Virtual Cross-Cultural Learning Experience Structure The subject of the “structure” of the GVT may have important implications for the ability of students to work together and to learn. Cramton highlights that without applying some structure, members of geographically distributed teams may fail to identify the differences in context and situation of their remote partners, which could lead to conflict and misunderstanding and most importantly, lack of mutual trust. Jarvenpaa, Shaw, and Staples, studying heterogeneous teams, argue that the need for mutual trust is most likely to be highest in situations with weak structure, but will play little role in situations with strong structure. This conclusion would suggest that a strong project structure is beneficial because it presumably lessens the need to develop trust. In contrast, Piccoli and Ives contend that a relatively high degree of structure in distributed teams actually increases team vigilance near project deadlines and thus also magnifies the salience of team members’ failures to fulfill obligations, which in turn may lead to declining levels of trust. Thus, perhaps not all structure is helpful, and since learning about “trust-building” is one of the ingredients of the participants’ assignments, in our case we would caution against building too much structure into cross-cultural virtual teams and their assignments.

Structure and direction from the instructor may be culturally relative too. In the US, we help the students form the virtual teams and provide them with some overall objectives and guidelines, but then leave them as free as possible in finding their way through the challenges of the entire experience; in the Middle East, the teachers tend to play a more integral role in the entire project principally because of the students’ tendency to have high regard for authority.

Nevertheless some structure is needed at the beginning of these projects; although we do allow students to joint-

Fall 2010

ly “self-select” a study subject, it is more typical that we assign them subjects based on our and their preferences.

These subjects and include “Family,” “Religion and Culture,” “The Role of the Female,” “Advertising and Culture,” or “Entrepreneurship in Small Business.” We shy away from relatively taboo subjects such as romance or government policies. Not surprisingly, these subjects often end up being discussed by the teams informally.

Trust building Teams that report high levels of trust may be more capable of managing the uncertainty, complexity, and expectations of the virtual environment. Trust plays a pivotal role in our virtual classroom approach and is quite difficult for the students to come to grips with. After the initial excitement of forming the cross-cultural team and engaging in several written exchanges and a first video conference, the students discover the difficulties of moving their projects forward.

Initially, the Omani and Bahraini students are typically mostly interested in asking the American students relationship-building questions. They usually find it inconsiderate to discuss the project without having taken some time to review family well-being and health or the latest news. However, in later meetings they stereotypically expect that Americans “are all business, less interested in talking about families or making greetings, and being very organized.” When the joint team does not seem as organized, they’re unsettled. This comment by AU students in fall 2009 is telling: “We quickly realized that, although we had made an effort to get to know their likes, dislikes, and aspects of their culture, we had not built up the level of trust that is necessary in high-context cultures…Even without the proper foundation, we had to forge ahead with the project because we had a deadline.”

The “Time” Barrier Time zone and Western versus Middle Eastern “weekend” differences, as well as local holiday customs are

5

Cross Cultural Communication Education... not surprisingly one of the most challenging aspects of organizing this teaching model among the chosen geographies. Eight to nine hour time differences require the teams to meet early in the morning or late in the afternoon. Eid, Ramadan, snowstorms or unannounced holidays add to this complexity, while enhancing the overall learning experience. This sometimes unpredictable and often complex environment provides the teams with the latitude and opportunity to organize creative and alternative virtual ways to communicate.

Time is also a barrier with respect to the way it is perceived by different cultures—i.e., monochronic versus polychronic—and we note many frustrations about the “indirect/different sense of time” of the team members.

These comments from the students on both sides sum it up quite succinctly: “Life seemed, in general, less planned and less rigid. An example to illustrate this would be the difficulty we had in planning the Video Conferences. While we, the American team, tended to know our schedules weeks or even months in advance, the Omani and Bahraini students did not.”

– AU student “It was a new challenge for us in Bahrain, which involved team work, meeting deadlines etc., since the overall time for this project was very short, especially when we also still had to do our midterms. ” – ME student Generally, we are as yet not sure whether the students fully understand the impact of this complex cultural difference on their teams’ work.

• Motivation to engage across differences—produced by striving for common goals, where team members have equal status and receive institutional or social support; and • Information sharing—produced when inclusive and contextual (e.g., local customs) communication is encouraged.

Both factors are evident in the student projects, and relate to how the teams organize leadership, communication and decision-making. Although this subject has dimensions beyond the scope of this article, it is apparent that our students encounter numerous surprises and frustrations in this regard. We intentionally avoid guiding them on team leadership or decision making in their teams, to allow them to deal with potential complexities creatively. Some complexities are linked to culturally specific differences exemplified by the usually predominant role of male team members in the Middle East, and the rather linear sequence to project planning and decision making in the US. These two comments reflect the diverse perceptions our students have about this subject: “[Bahraini Male Student X] simply took the lead in all of our conversations…and seemed rather uninterested in our ideas. It took us a while to recognize that some of this was an expression of the masculine culture he is part of.”– AU Student “We had not heard anything for two weeks, and when we submitted our part of the paper, they simply changed it at the very last minute without even consulting with the entire team.” – AU Student

Leadership, Communication and Decision-Making Conclusion Cramton and Hinds assert that cross-national learning in distributed virtual teams is facilitated by an attitude of mutual positive distinctiveness, that is, “the extent to which the group respects differences among members in views, values, competencies, and practices and sees these differences as a potential source of advantage for the group as a whole.” They identify two factors that create an attitude of mutual positive distinctiveness:

6

We have grown convinced that this teaching method should become a regular component of any cross-cultural communication and intercultural skills development curriculum—from introductory to advanced levels.

There is no question that our students experience their projects as very worthwhile, and that our two goals—re-

Intercultural Management Quarterly

al-time cross-cultural virtual team education and facilitating contacts between American and Middle Eastern students—are being met. The students learn how essentially different the two cultural and social environments are, and they tell us, with few exceptions, how enriched they feel by the experience and how it significantly reduces stereotyping and prejudice. Our participant surveys support this contention, both sides reporting to be more optimistic about mutual understanding between American and Middle Eastern people [students] after the project than they were before. We have now formalized our survey methods and expect to report longitudinal findings in the future.

There is ample reason to teach cross-cultural communication, virtually:

The students are already “sold” in our experience. By connecting students from such different worlds as the United States and the Middle East, we may be able to help ameliorate the sometimes frustrating lack of mutual understanding while preparing them for their virtual job experiences, which are precisely the business of our intercultural relations discipline. With the “butterfly effect” in mind, to date, several hundred students on both sides have already benefited from our initiative and we hope many more will do so in the future. i

References and Further Reading Cogburn, Derrick and Nannette Levinson. 2008. Teaching globalization, globally: A 7-year case study of South Africa-U.S. virtual teams. Information Technologies & International Development 4, no. 3: 75-88.

• the technology is available; • students relate to this approach naturally, due to their familiarity with modern communications technology and global acquaintances; • any barriers imposed by governmental authorities or legal systems are offset by internet-enabled connections between people; • the operating expense has become minimal; and • the “return on teaching investment” is demonstrably high.

The complexity results largely from logistical requirements and resource availability. Instructor time must be invested to build the necessary collegial relationships across borders to align classroom approaches and project expectations and standards, which in our case were greatly facilitated by the support of the US State Department. Most importantly, it is necessary to gain administrative support for resources and leveraging cross-border academic connections. These are the caveats, and all of them seem to be on the side of the education provider.

Fall 2010

Cramton, Catherine D. 2001. The mutual knowledge problem and its consequences for dispersed collaboration. Organization Science 12, no. 3: 346-71.

Cramton, Catherine D. and Pamela Hinds. 2005. Subgroup dynamics in internationally distributed teams: Ethnocentrism or cross-national learning?” Research in Organizational Behavior 26, 231-263.

Jarvenpaa, Sirkka, Thomas R. Shaw and D. Sandy Staples. 2004. Toward contextualized theories of trust: The role of trust in global virtual teams. Information Systems Research 15, no. 3: 250-64.

Piccoli, Gabriele and Blake Ives. 2003. Trust and the unintended effects of behavior control in virtual teams.

MIS Quarterly 27, no. 3: 365-95.

Shachaf, Pnina. 2005. Bridging cultural diversity through e-mail. Journal of Global Information Technology Management 8, no. 2: 46-60.

Shachaf, Pnina. 2008. Cultural diversity and information and communication technology impacts on global virtual teams: An exploratory study. Information & Management 45, no. 2: 131-42.

7

The Toyota Congressional Hearings: A Cross-cultural Conflict Situation

by Motoo Unno

I

nvisible parts of culture had great impact in the recent hearings between Mr. Akio Toyoda, CEO and the grandson of the founder of Toyota Motor Company, and members of the U.S. Congress. The conflicts between Mr. Toyoda and the members of Congress were based on their own cultural values, beliefs and thoughtpatterns. This article will analyze cross-cultural elements at one of the Toyota Congressional hearings, examining why and how cross-cultural conflict situations occurred.

This article will also discuss how Mr. Toyoda and Congressional Representatives could become more effective at cross-cultural communication.

Low versus High-Context Communication Styles At the beginning of the testimony, Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee mentioned, that each Representative would have five minutes to ask Mr. Toyoda questions. Rep. Towns asked Mr. Toyoda to answer “… yes or no,” to these questions. Instead, Mr. Toyoda explained why unintended sudden acceleration occurred, examining four reasons for it and spending time on each of them in Japanese. His interpreter then translated Mr. Toyoda’s indirect long Japanese answers into English.

Mr. Yoshimi Inaba, CEO of Toyota Motor North America, also jumped in at times and added to Mr. Toyoda’s explanation, saying that he wanted to bring a different viewpoint.

At this point, Rep. Towns reminded Mr. Toyoda how he was to respond, saying, “I’m asking yes or no.”

Rep. Towns looked very frustrated with Mr. Toyoda’s Kabuki-dancing communication styles. His non-verbal cues showed his irritation, even pain. He put his right hand on his forehead and opened his mouth while he was listening to Mr. Toyoda’s answer. Rep. Towns was also impatient. While an interpreter was translating English into Japanese to Mr. Toyoda, he tried to interrupt a translation. Mr. Inaba told the Chairman that Mr. Toyoda’s interpreter was still translating.

From Chairman Towns’ viewpoint, Mr. Toyoda behaved as if he were dancing around the edge of a circle, never approaching the answers. There were two different communication styles between Chairman Towns and Mr. Toyoda: the Chairman’s were direct and focused, while Mr. Toyoda’s were indirect and circular. Interestingly enough, at one point during the hearing, Mr. Inaba said quietly to Mr. Toyoda in Japanese: “Shacho, tantekini, onegai itashimasu” which means: “Mr. President, please make it short.” Obviously Mr. Inaba, who can speak English fluently, recognized that Mr. Toyoda’s communication style was ineffective. This situation provided examples of a low and high-context of communication styles and the conflict that can occur between the two.

As Hall points out, context and communication are interrelated. In a high-context culture like Japan, messages are implicit. Mr. Toyoda often did not get to the point, assuming the representatives would understand. On the other hand, in a low-context culture like America, messages are explicit. Rep. Towns spoke clearly and directly.

Differences in their contexts made their communication difficult and ineffective, and that caused cross-cultural conflict situations.

Attribution Across Cultures

Dr. Motoo Unno is a professor at Meiji University in Tokyo, Japan. He was a visiting scholar at the Intercultural Management Institute from 20082010. His research focuses on President Obama’s leadership and communication styles. He is the author of 10 books, including Obama Grassroots (2009) and Japanese Subsidiaries in India and China (2008).

8

In addition to communication styles, other cultural factors created conflict between Mr. Toyoda and the Representatives, including cultural sources of attribution.

American people tend to think that behaviors are shaped by personal performances and dispositions. According to Morris, Larrick and Su, American negotiators tend to make dispositional attributions for their counterparts

Intercultural Management Quarterly

behaviors and ignore potential situational attributions.

In a negotiation regarding a U.S.-Japan joint venture I observed in Tokyo, the American CEO of a U.S. IT company asked a Japanese senior manager from a public relations company whether or not he was interested in this joint venture. The Japanese senior manager answered that he wanted to establish a long-term relationship. In the Japanese culture, that means “Yes.” But, this American CEO interpreted that the Japanese senior manager was not interested in this joint venture, because, to the American, he made an excuse. In fact, this Japanese senior manager had to have a consensus among his company and could not yet agree. Thus, the American CEO did not consider the situational factors.

At the hearing conducted by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Mr. Toyoda explained the possibilities of why unintended sudden acceleration occurred using a situational approach. He also mentioned that increasing the volume of the production of cars had taken priority over training and developing employees, another situational factor. Despite these explanations associated with situational aspects, some Representatives were very skeptical of Mr. Toyoda and were dissatisfied with his reasoning.

After this hearing, Toyota organized a town hall meeting with its American employees and dealers at the National Press Building in Washington, D.C. in which Mr. Toyoda made a speech in English. He suddenly began crying while he read his speech. Many Japanese people in Japan thought that Mr. Toyoda cried because of many hardships he had been facing, attributing his tears to situational rather than dispositional factors. At this town hall meeting American employees and dealers stood up and applauded him. However, most American people would regard him as a weak leader if they saw him crying in public. During the 1984 presidential election, Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro cried and that made Americans view her as a weak leader. Mr. Toyoda is supposed to be the leader of a global company. Could you imagine if the CEO of BP in U.S. cried after Congressional testimony because of an

Fall 2010

oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? If so, would you attribute his behavior to situational factors? I do not think so.

Consecutive versus Simultaneous Translation Another factor that could have led to cross-cultural misunderstanding was the use of consecutive translation at the hearing. As I mentioned before, each Representative had only five minutes to ask questions. Because of Mr. Toyoda’s long answers and translations, they did not have enough time to make arguments. Using consecutive translation may have been part of Mr. Toyoda’s strategy and gave him some advantages. One interculturalist who participated in my session at the Intercultural Management Institute (IMI) Annual Conference at American University in March 2010 emphasized that language is identity. Thus she pointed out that Mr. Toyoda made the right choice because he was keeping part of his Japanese identity by using his native language. A bureau chief of a Japanese television station in Washington, D.C. made the point that using simultaneous translation would have been a high risk for Mr. Toyoda because members of the Congressional committee could make more arguments and ask more questions.

On the other hand, many other interculturalists who took part in my session at the IMI Conference said that Mr. Toyoda should have used simultaneous translation.

These people noted that simultaneous translation is quicker and thus the hearing would have had a better tempo. Dr. Gary Weaver, professor at American University and executive director of IMI, also mentioned that Representatives were neither familiar with nor comfortable with consecutive translation.

Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-VA), a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told me in an interview that he met Mr. Toyoda before the testimony and found that his English was perfect.

Rep. Connolly expected that he would speak English in his testimony. He said he was disappointed with Mr. Toyoda and thought that Toyota used consecutive translation as a strategy to earn time.

9

The Toyota Congressional Hearings...

Table 1: Chairman Towns versus Mr. Toyoda To Do (Chairman Towns)

To Be (Mr. Toyoda)

Context

Low Context

High Context

Attribution

Dispositional

Situational

Translation

Simultaneous Speed Language as a tool

Consecutive Slow Language as identity

Face

Self

Others

Apology

Apology plus concrete action

Apology

Copyright 2010 Dr. Motoo Unno. All rights reserved

There are several arguments about whether Mr. Toyoda should have used consecutive or simultaneous translation. However, he should have at least spoken in English when he apologized to victims and their families.

That would likely have been more effective because Mr. Toyoda would have been able to convey his emotions by speaking English himself, instead of using a translator.

Effective Apology In this hearing, Mr. Toyoda apologized to the victims and their families repeatedly. “I am deeply sorry for any accidents Toyota drivers have experienced,” he said, in Japanese. He also told them that he sincerely regrets accidents. “Truly speaking, truly, I feel very sorry for the members of Saylor family who ended their life,” he said.

While Mr. Toyoda empathetically apologized, he looked pained.

In the Japanese society, a public apology with a deep bow to victims and the families of victims is needed before negotiations. Most Japanese CEOs pledge to resign from their responsibilities. A CEO’s apology in public has a deep meaning in Japan. Particularly, as Toyota is

10

an icon of Japanese business and representative of “Japan, Inc.” Mr. Toyoda’s apology would be enough for the Japanese who have a “To Be” culture.

However, for a “To Do” culture like the U.S. which values action, it is not enough to only apologize. People in a “To Do” culture need concrete actions to fix problems quickly because they are results and short-term oriented.

They look for tangible outcomes. Facing the midterm election this fall, Representatives had to make sure that Toyota had a persuasive action plan for consumers in their constituencies on how to prevent fatal accidents.

Toyota should have taken the different values and beliefs of a “To Do” culture seriously in order to persuade Representatives at the hearing.

Face Management Traditionally Japanese people have a tendency to value humbleness. “We will listen to customer complaints humbly,” said Mr. Toyoda in his testimony, expressing his and Toyota’s humility. Japanese are also sensitive about the other person’s face. Face is called kao or mentsu in Japanese (which have the same meaning). Al-

Intercultural Management Quarterly

though Americans also use face to mean honor, in the Japanese culture it is more associated with the concept of haji, or shame. In Japan people tend to avoid disgracing another person when they have conflict, debates or arguments. In other words, they are other-face oriented, giving a face to others and maintaining the other person’s face. For example, in a Japanese mediation, parties usually consider a mediator’s reputation and the mediator takes their reputation into consideration. A Japanese mediation is face-oriented, in that it works to preserve the standing of all involved, rather than being problemsolving oriented.

Although Mr. Toyoda apologized deeply during the testimony, some Representatives were not satisfied with his deep regret. “Where is the remorse?” asked Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), showing a book, The Toyota Way written by Liker. She argued that Toyota’s response to the recall problem was contradictory to one of Toyota’s principles, “Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time” described in this book.

From Rep. Kaptur’s point of views, Toyota was too slow to fix problems. From the Japanese viewpoint, she was not sensitive about Mr. Toyoda’s face and tried to make Toyota look bad.

In contrast, in the testimony Rep. Diane Watson (DCA) said in Japanese to Mr. Toyoda: “Konbanwa?” and “Arigatou gozaimasu” which mean, “Good afternoon” and “Thank you.” Weaver pointed out that this was the best chance for Mr. Toyoda to shorten the psychological and cultural distance with members of Congress.

Unfortunately Mr. Toyoda missed it. Since he had an earphone, he might not have heard her Japanese well and his interpreter might not have clarified because Rep. Watson spoke in Japanese. The bottom line is this: Mr. Toyoda should have personally given his feedback to her in Japanese or English immediately. Doing so might have altered the atmosphere of the hearing in a positive way and been a game changer.

Okinawa and taught English in 1970s, she understood this important piece of Japanese culture.

Conclusions As the old cliché says, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” In his testimony Mr. Toyoda chose the Japanese way by using a consecutive translation and by mostly speaking Japanese, instead of a more American approach, which would have meant speaking English and giving short direct answers. It seems that no one advised him regarding the hearing from an intercultural communication viewpoint. There were some cultural mine fields and pitfalls in this hearing that neither Toyota nor members of Congress were clearly able to notice or avoid. Obviously characteristics of “To Be” and “To Do” cultures greatly influenced the effectiveness on this hearing (Table 1). Toyota should have combined its strategies with these characteristics to use culture as a powerful resource to persuade Congress. i References Hall, Edward T. and Elizabeth Hall. 2000. “How cultures collide.” In ed. Gary Weaver, Culture, Communication and Conflict. Boston, MA: Pearson Publishing.

Morris, Michael W., Richard P. Larrick and Steven K. Su. 1999. Misperceiving negotiation counterparts: When situationally determined bargaining behaviors are attributed to personality traits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77: 52-67.

Liker, Jeffery K. 2004. The Toyota Way. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Weaver, Gary R., and Adam Mendelson. 2008. America’s Midlife Crisis. Boston, MA: Intercultural Press.

After the testimony I asked Rep. Watson why she spoke to Mr. Toyoda in Japanese. She answered that she tried to help him save face. As Rep. Watson used to live in

Fall 2010

11

Reality Therapy for Intercultural Training

by Ray S. Leki

F

or decades now, the idea of preparing travelers for effectiveness in foreign environments through cross-cultural and intercultural training has developed into mainstream orthodoxy in the business, academic, and government communities. While the value of the return on investment of various training strategies and efforts is open to debate, almost all would agree that travelers are better served by having exposure to some form of cross-cultural training. Nevertheless, satisfaction with the efficacy of these efforts remains incomplete.

Some travelers do quite well despite a lack of preparatory training, while others fall victim to intercultural failure despite very intensive and well-designed training. New understanding of the neurophysiology of the brain may offer an explanation for some of the gap between intercultural training and performance.

Tucked inside the brainstem lies the amygdala, a small part of the brain involved in the survival response of the individual. The amygdala is activated when an organism finds itself threatened by a stimulus in the environment.

As activation occurs and the amygdala asserts a greater degree of control over the individual’s attention, a corresponding decrease in the activity of the pre-frontal cortex (PFC) ensues. The PFC, one of the last of the brain structures to evolve, is associated with the executive functioning of the brain, the more complex and subtle thinking processes that involve analysis, the abstract, comparisons, and the higher brain functions. In other words, when an organism faces some threat, those very centers of thought that have been the targets of intercultural training efforts are inhibited and harder to acRay S. Leki is the author of Travel Wise: How to Be Safe, Savvy and Secure Abroad and an adjunct professorial lecturer in the School of International Service of American University. He has worked with students, business people, diplomats, development workers and others for 30 years and serves in the Senior Executive Service of the United States government at the Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute.

12

cess. The greater the threat, the greater the activation of the amygdala and subsequent inhibition of the PFC becomes. This makes experiential sense – few people have achieved or experienced that breakthrough moment of creativity, discovery or insight while looking down the barrel of some street hoodlum’s pistol.

But what would provoke that level of threat to a traveler crossing cultural boundaries? And why would a competently designed and delivered intercultural training program neglect to address something as simple as a basic survival response?

A survey of preparatory intercultural training design demonstrates a consolidation of thinking around the basic components of such courses. Most training programs of this type provide some opportunity for unearthing self-awareness and some reflection, for example, through an exercise to help the individual understand and articulate who he or she is and what is sought by leaving one’s culture to enter into another. From those activities, an awareness of the presence and power of one’s own culture (or cultures) can be built. It is here that the insertion of some culture-generic content can provide valuable learnings. Culture-generic content offers a review of basic concepts, such as defining and coming to an understanding of what culture is, how cultures vary, and the parameters through which all cultures can be understood and described. Here, old standbys, such as Hall’s Iceberg Model and other various systems for understanding and parsing cultures can be introduced. This can set an appropriate framework for carefully examining the target culture into which the traveler will be entering and allow participants to begin to identify and predict some areas of needed attention. That exploration can lead to a useful application phase of creating an individual-specific learning strategy for effective entry and success in a foreign land.

The content described above falls into the domain of cognitive learning. Simulations and other interactive activities can provide opportunities for affective and attitudinal growth as well as psychomotor skills development, but the learning impact of such activities is rarely specific

Intercultural Management Quarterly

to the target culture. In BaFa’ BaFa’, for example, cultural fluency in the Alpha or Beta culture hardly prepares one for effective entry into a real culture. In that respect, even important affective learning regarding the conflicts in an individual’s values and belief systems become abstract pieces of knowledge that must be applied through executive function cognitive processes to enhance performance upon entry into a real culture. That is, feelings of awkwardness or confusion evoked in a simulation only become useful to the sojourner upon encountering those moments in the target culture if the traveler is able to cognitively process and remember those affective learnings from a simulation and apply them in situ.

aroused and a cascade of catecholamine hormones and neurotransmitters are released. The fight/flight/freeze response is invoked and executive functioning is put on the back burner so that the individual may focus on resolving the array of threat inducing circumstances and stimuli. Fear begins to drive not only behavior, but the perception of threat in the environment. The surliness of the passport official is attributed to meanness or unfriendliness, rather than to the more likely exhaustion and ennui of a person in what is after all, a fairly repetitive and uninspiring vocation. Through the lens of the threatened, behaviors that are either innocuous or open to intercultural interpretation can further demonstrate the negatives of the new culture to the traveler. With the But what happens when one’s own culture is left behind PFC under wraps, the very tools that intercultural trainand a new culture is ing has provided to entered? All travelers deal with the chalwill feel some loss As a start, training individuals to be in touch lenges of successful of agency, personal with their own somatic realities provides a basis entry are inaccescompetency, and the for building self-awareness. sible. What might disorientation that have been interpretresults from the reed as the cheeky, but moval of the familiar. Furthermore, there is the subtle, refreshing individualism, of a person cutting in line to but powerful loss of what Herleman, et. al., conceptual- grab the taxicab the traveler was waiting in cue for, beize and articulate as ibasho, that place or sense of peace, comes further evidence that this new environment is a security, satisfaction, acceptance, and coziness that is hostile, intrusive, invasive and scary place. These cycles associated with the comforts of home. The relied upon of stimulus, hostile perception, negative attribution and infrastructure of daily living, from a favorite seat and stimulus tend to create a negative spiral that can seriousa favorite drink at the corner Starbucks to the sense of ly complicate the traveler’s mission and enjoyment of the connectedness that comes from a mail box and reliable intercultural experience. computer connection, is suddenly no longer accessible.

Furthermore, most sojourners endure the ardors of travel It is, of course, the much attenuated sense of threat that and fatigue, the blizzard of logistics, and the loss of con- makes experienced travelers more likely to not initially trol that comes from ever changing security measures, become “captured” by the amygdala response, and therelong flights, intimidating customs and border control after be able to use not only preparatory training but agents and other stressors. Arrival introduces the traveler prior experience as a reference base with which to more to a tsunami of unfamiliar sights, sounds, smells, and accurately assess, interpret, compare, and interact with behaviors that can overwhelm the senses and the mind’s the target culture – essentially use the executive funcability to process stimuli. The reality is that entry into tions of the PFC. another culture can be a threatening experience.

While there is scant evidence of the empirical value of Particularly for the less experienced traveler, this as- amygdala awareness and the use of calming techniques sault on the well being of the individual has a predict- in the cross-cultural literature, these techniques have able, but often unappreciated impact. The amygdala is demonstrated efficacy in other areas of human existence

Fall 2010

13

Reality Therapy... from which parallels can be drawn. In the evidencebased therapeutic treatment regimens for patients suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), in both cognitive processing and prolonged exposure therapy the patient goes through a series of exercises that are largely designed to regain executive control over an overly aroused amygdala. The extraordinary success rate of these treatments suggests that re-gaining control over the amygdala is of central importance in building and restoring the resilience of the individual. Similarly, in a program known as Trauma First Aid, practitioners train police, firefighters, EMTs and first-responders to recognize their own physiological distress and quickly calm themselves before delving into the work of disaster mitigation. Even schools for young people with special learning needs, such as attention deficit disorder, have successfully trained students to identify their own physiological symptoms of arousal as a trigger to practice calming techniques. Kids acting out are said to be in “an amygdala hijack” or “an amygdala moment” and they learn to invoke simple calming techniques as a means of self-imposed behavior modification. As with PTSD therapy, these techniques serve to retake control of attention away from the amygdala and cede it back to the PFC.

to calm the response. Simple skills like breath awareness and control, the use of calming mantras or thoughts and quick “self-awareness time-outs” can make a powerful addition to preparatory programs, particularly for students, and younger, less experienced travelers, or for those intrepid souls traveling into truly threatening places. Simply understanding that the amygdala will be aroused, why it will be aroused, and what can be done about it can help the traveler focus on those more subtle sources of fear and stress that are bound to be present in a new environment in the first place. i

References Hall, Edward T. 1959. The Silent Language. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications Inc. Herleman, Hailey A., Thomas W. Britt and Patricia Y. Hashima. 2008. Ibasho and the adjustment, satisfaction and well-being of expatriate spouses. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 32, no. 3: 282-299.

What does this mean for intercultural training? If indeed preparatory training is designed to facilitate the entry and success of the sojourner, then clearly some awareness of and practice in controlling the fear response of the individual takes on new importance. There are a variety of easy to teach calming and centering activities that can prove vital in restoring the individual’s ability to regain control of an over-aroused amygdala and return the brain’s attention to the pre-frontal cortex, where the valuable lessons of culture generic, culture specific and personal awareness content are processed.

As a start, training individuals to be in touch with their own somatic realities provides a basis for building selfawareness. Participants can be trained to recognize their automatic responses to threat – elevated blood pressure and pulse, shallow breathing, a sense of urgency, “butterflies” in the stomach and a heightened sense of threat.

After developing an ability to identify an aroused central nervous system, the next step is to introduce activities

14

Intercultural Management Quarterly

The Intercultural Management Institute is pleased to announce

The 12th Annual Conference on Intercultural Relations: A Forum for Business, Education and Training Professionals March 10 -11, 2011 on the campus of American University The 12th Annual IMI Conference is a two-day interactive dialogue and debate on the dynamic field of intercultural management and communication, bringing together business, education, and training professionals while covering a broad range of topics.

This year’s conference will be a vibrant exploration of global business management, training methodologies, global organizational development, and conflict management, as well as many other compelling and timely topics.

A unique opportunity for professional development, the IMI Conference is both academic and applicable to current topics in cross-cultural communication and training. Diverse program offerings include lectures, panel discussions, interactive simulation exercises and roundtables.

For the most up-to-date information visit:

www.american.edu/sis/imi/conference Early bird registration rates and scholarships are available!

202.885.6434 imi@american.edu

Fall 2010

15

Mis-Understanding Arabs - Revisited

by Gary R. Weaver and Dan Deming Editor’s Note: Part One of this article was originally published as a stand-alone piece by Gary R. Weaver in the Spring 2002 edition of IMQ, less than six months after the attacks of September 11, 2001. We have decided to revisit this article and update it with Part Two to examine how attitudes have (or haven’t) changed in the intervening years.

Part One

Some Americans’ anti-Arab reactions to September 11 were quick and terrifying. Taking the time to understand Islamic culture might have gone a long way toward speeding the healing process.

T

here have been numerous incidents of attacks against Arabs and vandalized mosques since September 11, particularly in the first weeks after the tragedies.

These attacks struck such fear in America’s Islamic community that some Muslim women avoid wearing their traditional dress on the street to prevent any possibility of harassment. At least one very public instance of racial profiling took place when a commercial airline flight was stopped on the tarmac before it could depart because passengers were “uncomfortable” with their “Arab-looking” fellow passengers.

Fortunately these incidents are decreasing and it is unlikely that Arabs will be rounded up and put in internment camps like the Japanese in California during World War II. However, it is important to remember that the U.S. did not arrest German or Italian citizens, take their property or transport their families to desert campsites during that war. What was the difference? Physical appearance and cultural difference.

When Timothy McVeigh destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma City, no one blamed young white Christian men or stopped them at airports to question them.

We knew that McVeigh was a deviant and a fanatic who did not represent all Christians or white males. We could even imagine him drinking with his buddies in some bar and devising a bizarre conspiracy theory about how the U.S. government was taken over by foreigners and actually was the enemy of good American Christians. Leaders of various Christian denominations spoke out and denounce his zealotry. We saw him as an individual, a criminal, not as a representative of an entire group of people.

Gary R. Weaver is the Executive Director of the Intercultural Management Institute and a professor of International Communication at the School of International Service at American University in Washington, D.C.

While all Americans have met white male Christians, very few Americans have even talked with an Arab.

Many are not even sure what Arabs look like. Indians, Latinos and even some Italians and Greeks have been harassed just because they “looked” like Arabs. Many Americans assume that all Arabs in the U.S. are Muslims when, in fact, over 75 percent are Christian and they come in all shades with every hair color and texture in the human race. In fact, the largest Muslim populations in the world are not Arab. Indonesia has the largest number of Muslims (170.3 million) followed by Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. These three nations alone account for over half of the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world.

Dan Deming is the Director of the Intercultural Management Institute and the former Managing Editor of IMQ.

Most Americans do not personally know Arabs and most have little understanding of Arab culture or Islam. This

Arab Americans have been shot at and beaten since September 11. Dark skinned cab drivers in Manhattan have been bombarded with stones. Louisiana Congressman John Cooksey even announced on a radio show in September, “If I see someone coming that’s got a diaper

16

on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over.” While he later apologized, he clearly felt secure making the comment at the time.

Intercultural Management Quarterly

contributes to the prejudice that leads to racial harassment and profiling.

Prejudice is primarily a combination of “rule-of-thumb thinking” and “being down on that which you are not up on.” These two aspects of prejudice are exacerbated and exaggerated in a crisis situation when we are afraid of those who are different.

We don’t consider how irrational it is to assume that the Arab-looking gentleman across the aisle who is quietly reading his book is more dangerous than the three skin heads shouting at each other in the front of the plane.

We notice that the Arab passenger doesn’t even make eye contact with us— and we might conclude from this that he can’t be trusted or is hostile. But, he may just be fairly traditional and therefore avoids making direct eye contact, especially with young females who may be the flight attendants. He thinks he’s being polite, not threatening or dangerous. Instead of considering the possibility that the lack of eye contact may be a matter of cultural differences, we’re ready to summon the pilot to stop from taking off.

Until very recently, most Americans had no understanding of Islam. Some even referred to the religion as “Mohammedism,” as if Muslims worship the Prophet Mohammed. In fact Islam is built upon many of the religious principles we find in Judaism and Christianity and all three religions go back to the Old Testament and Abraham. Muslims believe that Moses and Jesus were prophets but that the final prophet or messenger of God was Mohammed who was given the word of God in the Koran. Most interpretations of the Koran do not condone terrorist violence and there is a profound respect for all religions and religious people in Islam. Because we don’t know Arab culture or individual Arabs, it is easy to be down on them. We can easily dehumanize and deindividuate people when we don’t see our brother or sister when we look in their faces.

or “terrorists.” There are few media images of Arab parents playing with their children, families living average lives— loving each other, sometimes arguing, with teenagers who want to be like other teenagers.

If the image of African Americans in the mass media was as inhuman and negatively stereotyped as that of Arabs, we would all be protesting. It is difficult for Americans to empathize with Arabs as human beings when the roles they play on television and in the movies are demonic, less-than-human, terrorists. The point is not that Arabs should be portrayed as heroes rather than villains.

Rather, it is that Arabs ought to be seen as human beings with whom we can empathize. The film Executive Decision was the second highest grossing movie in the U.S. for 10 days in March 1996. In that film Palestinians hijacked a 747 en route to Washington, DC and intended to drop enough nerve gas to kill everyone on the East Coast. One of them held the Holy Koran in one hand, and before killing passengers, he prayed and then shouted out, “It’s the sword of Islam...sent to deliver a blow to the belly of the infidel!”

This is but one example of how Arabs and Muslims are routinely linked to insane terrorism in the mass media.

There have been dozens of other such movies in theaters and on television.

Until we understand Arabs as human beings—good and bad—it will be easy to perpetuate the racial harassment and even killings. Until we understand that Islam is not inherently violent or hateful, we will never be able to overcome the fear that caused many Americans to lash out in rage at Muslims.

The mass media has helped us perpetuate this prejudice with the continual portrayal of Arabs in the entertainment and news media as inhuman caricatures of “sheiks”

Fall 2010

17

Mis-Understanding Arabs...

Part Two

M

ore than eight years after Mis-Understanding Arabs was printed in this publication, America is still grappling with many of the same issues. The article describes the fear and harassment that Muslims in America faced in the weeks and months following September 11, when a rash of beatings and threats occurred against people who “looked” like Muslims. They were seen as “others” to be feared, and there was little understanding of Islam or Arabs in the United States.

At the time, the long-term effects of this fear and misunderstanding could only be guessed. American public opinion became stretched between insularity (close down the borders and don’t let any of “them” in) and calls for global unity (using the tragedy as a galvanizing force to end violence and increase understanding). Now, the national conversation has reached a point where those who speak the loudest and simplest garner all of the attention.

It’s often said of Americans that we prefer to keep things simple in our national debate, that we tend to eschew nuance in favor of a more stark “either/or” mentality.

This generalization, while not universally applicable, is a fair one: it’s reflected in many American sayings. “You’re either with us or you’re against us.”

This reductionist or Manichean perspective is clearly reflected in American media. Everyone knows which cable news channel is the “liberal” one, and which one is “conservative.” This is also true for our blogs and websites as well as most newspapers and magazines. It often seems like most of the space or time allotted is taken up by displaying and subsequently berating the views of the “other side.”

The tendency to reduce and simplify has been particularly damaging to the hope of progress on the issues discussed in Mis-Understanding Arabs. This can be seen in the recent controversy over what has come to be known as the “Ground Zero Mosque” in lower Manhattan. The name itself reflects a false simplicity: it is not at ground zero, and it is not a mosque. The proposed facility is an Islamic cultural center, several blocks away from where

18

the World Trade Center towers once stood. Certainly, there is space for prayer in the building; an art gallery and culinary school are also planned. One cannot see the building from anywhere on “ground zero,” but still the name persists. There are other, actual mosques in the area, but still the name persists. The building which is to be converted into the cultural center has been peacefully used as a place of prayer for many years already without any objections from the local community.

The reason why “Ground Zero Mosque” sticks, when “Islamic cultural center” doesn’t, is that the former requires no further explanation to pass judgment. Splitting these ideas apart neutralizes the negative impact: a “Ground Zero Hot Dog Stand” (of which there are many) sounds comically harmless, and an “Upper West Side Mosque” raises few eyebrows. But once those ideas are joined, it is no longer necessary to examine them in depth. You’re either for it or you’re against it.

On October 14, 2010, on the popular daytime television show The View, cable TV host Bill O’Reilly demonstrated the immense danger that this way of thinking poses. When pressed as to why building the Islamic center at the proposed site was “inappropriate,” he responded, “Because Muslims killed us on 9/11!”

This jaw-dropping statement, which caused two of the show’s hosts to walk off the set, perfectly encapsulates the American predilection toward simple, irreducible answers. In that simple sentence, there are no qualifiers, and we are not invited to supply our own. There is a “them,” and there is an “us.” O’Reilly’s assertion that a religion, rather than a particular group of people, killed “us” prompted Whoopi Goldberg, one of the hosts, to ask: “What religion was [Timothy] McVeigh?” (Perhaps Ms. Goldberg is an IMQ reader?)

This is not just parsing words: Bill O’Reilly is one of the most recognizable media personalities in the country, and hundreds of thousands of people watch his show every day. He clearly understands how to attract the attention of American viewers. O’Reilly later clarified that he meant “extremist” Muslims, and gave an artful pseudoapology: “If anybody felt that I was demeaning all MusIntercultural Management Quarterly

lims, I apologize.” But he did much more than simply demean all Muslims. He created an enemy image of onefifth of the world’s population.

O’Reilly also factored in another recent and relevant incident, the firing of NPR political analyst Juan Williams.

On O’Reilly’s show, Williams made the following comment: “You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.” It’s unlikely that a real terrorist would wear clothing that might appear to be “Muslim garb” when boarding a plane, and his remark reinforced the fear that many Americans have of all Muslims. Within hours of Williams’ firing, he accepted a three-year, $2 million contract with Fox News, reinforcing the notion that such ideas can go safely unchallenged.

Regardless of whether Williams’ firing was justified, or whether he should or should not have made the remarks, it is clear that this view that all Muslim-looking people are a threat remains prominent in the minds of many Americans. The American media went into a frenzy over whether or not Williams should have lost his job, but there was little to no examination of the cultural attitudes that underlay his remarks. Our failure as a nation to deal with these issues can only perpetuate the problem.

It is so easy to demonize and dehumanize those who are different. When we look in their faces, we don’t see our parents or siblings. We don’t identify with “them” as fellow human beings but rather as threats to our way of life. The problem is that paranoid or irrational fear of others leads to misunderstanding and prevents us from finding peaceful ways of dealing with them. The only path is often defensive aggression.

Cultural misunderstanding and paranoid fear persist and are perpetuated by many in the popular media. Pundits and personalities take extremist positions on talk shows to gain more listeners and viewers and to ultimately sell more products. Over 500 years ago, Machiavelli advised Fall 2010

the Prince to use fear to maintain popular support—fear not of the Prince but rather fear of some external threat.

Some politicians today use the same tactic to gain support from their followers and to defeat their opponents.

At times we seem to take two steps forward and three steps backward. There is also no question that we have come a long way since 9/11 and the earlier article. The American people elected a president whose father was a Kenyan Muslim. Although Obama is a Protestant Christian, he can recite verses from the Islamic Call to Prayer and he has spoken to Muslim audiences around the globe. There are two Muslim members of Congress and today most Americans know much more about Islam. At American University, the most popular language course is Arabic.

There are indications that there is greater understanding of Islam and resistance to bigotry, ethnocentrism and intolerance. The mayor of New York and the majority of people of Manhattan near the Islamic center, welcome its opening. Two of the hosts on The View challenged O’Reilly and walked off the set in protest. There are numerous videos posted online along the theme of “I am a Muslim,” in which people who all look and sound quite different from one another speak those words. Many of these videos are produced by various American college and university groups, and contribute greatly to the idea that the Muslim community in America is not the monolith that people like O’Reilly try to reduce it to.

The immediate, reactionary anger caused by September 11, and chronicled in Mis-Understanding Arabs, has transitioned into a more insidious form of discontent that seems to simmer just under the surface at all times.

A fringe preacher in Florida can garner national media coverage by threatening to burn the Koran. President Obama, nearly two years after his election, is still asked to “prove” that he is a US citizen, and to “prove” that he is not a Muslim, as if there’s something inherently wrong with being one. The warning that ends the original article is still very relevant. Fear of the “enemy” makes us far more susceptible to simplified arguments and demonic perceptions of others. Diversity is one of America’s greatest calling cards—why be afraid of that? i

19

Don’t Just Blend In: Cultural Training in a Post-Global World

by Dean Foster

T

echnology, as we all know, provides us with the opportunity for faster and more widespread communication of information and, as it does in all areas of business life, plays its role in learning, development, and training, mainly by advancing learning across time and space.

Both interactive and passive web-based learning offers fast and widespread communication of information and, if this information happens to be cross-cultural in nature, then web-based technology can become an effective tool for rapidly providing ubiquitous cross-cultural information.

The key words here, however, are “rapidly” and “ubiquitous,” and if those were the only criteria that learning, training, and development had to meet, web-based technology would be, hands-down, the only training technology to use. And admittedly, some information and certain types of learning require little more than the efficient downloading of quantitative facts and data—a scenario perfect for web-based technology.

Successful cross-cultural learning and the development of global effectiveness skills, however, require the satisfaction of a complex mix of criteria, not just speed and bandwidth throughout the organization.

Just as cross-cultural training has evolved from a way of raising awareness of the “problems” inherent in working across any particular culture to a more sophisticated inDean Foster is the president of Dean Foster Associates. He conducts cross-cultural training and consults on intercultural business issues worldwide.

Foster is the author of many articles on culture and the four-part Global Etiquette Guide book series.

Reprinted with permission of Worldwide ERC®, from the March 2006 issue of MOBILITY and Dean Foster.

20

tervention that helps people to leverage global cultural differences to the organization’s benefit, so has the learning technologies for the delivery of this information also evolved, from traditional “classroom-type” face-to-face, paper-and-pencil-type training to a structure that now includes a variety of web- and technology-based tools and information. This is a good thing, in that some kinds of cross-cultural information and skills-development can be advanced across time and space more efficiently via computers.

However, in terms of cross-cultural training, the speed and efficiency of online learning is not, by itself, a good enough reason to rely solely on computers. In fact, if we apply the more sophisticated criteria required by today’s advanced cross-cultural and global effectiveness training, computer and web-based training becomes just one among many possible interventions, many others of which, in fact, achieve more critically important criteria much more effectively.

Establishing Criteria There are many important criteria for successful “global effectiveness” training and development. For starters, it should be recognized that in today’s post-global world (yes, folks, it is way beyond just being “global”), it is not enough to just talk about “learning” cross-cultural facts.

Today, I prefer to speak not just about “cross-cultural” or “intercultural” training or learning, but rather the development of “global effectiveness skills.”

Much of what is considered cross-cultural training today is designed to provide cultural information to individuals and their families who may be relocating to a new host country abroad, as well as to individuals and their teams who may be working with foreign nationals or working abroad. In either case, in today’s post-global, multicultural world, information limited to explaining the traditional behaviors (as defined, incidentally, through research that was conducted in the pre-global world!) of a particular culture is of limited use: in reality, relocating assignees work and live in very global environments (living in most cases in major, multicultural inter-

Intercultural Management Quarterly

national cities, interacting with headquarters and offices in other countries that are most likely composed of multicultural staffs), and individuals and teams working together usually are strewn across a multitude of cultures and time zones.

Global Effectiveness Skills Rather than focusing on traditional culture-specific information, “global effectiveness training” should go beyond that to provide a larger “global mindset consciousness,” an understanding of the dynamics of effective multicultural teamwork, an appreciation for how globalization reshapes the fundamentals of traditional cultural values and behaviors, and an ability to work 24/7 with non-absolutes, no matter which specific culture one needs to succeed in or with.

Philosophically, this means that the goals of cross-cultural training need to shift away from focusing merely on overcoming differences to leveraging those differences to the benefit of all; from accumulating limited and culture-specific data to the development of new complex, subtle, and personally effective global behavioral skills.

The goal, in fact, should not merely be to access and download cultural facts on the level of an awareness of “dos and don’ts,” but rather, to be able to implement new and effective behaviors that work across all the cultures involved in one’s life and work abroad. And this needs to be done on two levels: both individually (“what do I need to do in order to accomplish my work and life goals abroad?”), as well as organizationally (“what does the organization need to do in order to accomplish its global goals?”). Global effectiveness must occur on these two levels: on the individual level in order to achieve tactical goals, and on the organizational level in order to achieve strategic goals.

It is not enough for expatriates and their families to develop their global effectiveness without the organization (especially the receiving organization) also doing its part: without organizational global effectiveness skills, we are developing conditions for tactical success in a strategic

Fall 2010

Intercultural Management Institute

Skills Institutes Fall 2010

Building Mediator Capacity in a Multi-cultural Context

November 20-21, 2010 Gururaj Kumar, Training and Policy Program Director, ICONS Project, University of Maryland, and Jared Ordway, Program Specialist, National Association for Community Mediation

Spring 2011 Personal and Organizational Security in a Global Age January 22-23, 2011 Ray Leki, Director, Transition Center of the Foreign Service Institute, Department of State

Intercultural Leadership Competence February 9-10, 2011 Bram Groen, Professor, School of International Service, American University

Gaming Simulations and Experiential Exercises for Intercultural Training March 9 & 12, 2011 Gary Weaver, Executive Director of IMI and Professor, School of International Service, American University and Gary Wright, Adjunct Professor, School of International Service, American University

for the most up-to-date information and registration visit: www.american.edu/sis/imi/

21

Cultural Training... vacuum, which ultimately will leave globally-skilled individuals unsupported and unsuccessful.

Today, the entire organization needs to have these skills, everyone involved in global work—and that means everyone from the administrative assistant answering phone calls originating abroad to the managers implementing global projects with global teams to the executive board creating global strategy—so that offices abroad working with international assignees also know how to interact with the assignee’s culture positively and effectively, and so that tactical, individual efforts line up with strategic, organizational goals. The values and best practices of all the parts of the global machine must be able to be communicated, shared, understood, and valued by all the parts of the global machine.

Finally, these global effectiveness skills need to be constantly refined. We have come to realize that the effective implementation of cross-cultural knowledge is not the result of a one-time event or a two-day cross-cultural training program, but rather is a process of constant learning, reflection, refinement, re-grouping, and re-application. Therefore, effective global skills development also must support this ongoing process, and cannot be just a one-time event. This requires both training and ongoing coaching.

Training and Coaching Training and coaching individuals and organizations to develop global effectiveness should rely on a variety of interventions and use all available tools. However, the criteria outlined above require more than just the rapid and ubiquitous sharing of cognitive information among many people in many places. The above criteria also require interventions that allow people to qualitatively change their individual and organizational behaviors, and accomplishing this requires far more than computer-based training.

While computer-based tools enable the rapid and ubiquitous exchange of some cultural information, real development of far more important global effectiveness

22

skills requires an emphasis on behavioral training that is best and most efficiently administered in a trainer-led learning environment that enables ongoing interactive training and coaching of a kind not possible with passive web-based tools.

Those seeking economies-of-scale, of spreading as much quantitative pre-global cultural data to as many people as quickly as possible, certainly will be able to achieve that goal through technology, but the cultural awareness that will be achieved without trainer-led sessions is the most limited and basic kind available, and has a growing irrelevancy to the real needs of a global organization operating in the post-global world.

Trainer-led, classroom-type training usually includes all the learning points that technology-based training provides, but goes so much further in addressing the more compelling issues outlined above. If one is to receive technology-based training without trainer-led classroom training, they lose out on all the learning required for true global effectiveness. Therefore, “blending” technology with trainer-led training, while intuitively appealing at first, on closer look, is redundant for those getting trainer-led training, and not enough for those solely receiving technology-based training.

A Cost or an Investment?

The possibility of cost-savings realized by using technology is of limited benefit if the information being provided is of limited applicability; in fact, the cost, though lower than trainer-led training, simply may not be worth it at any savings.

At the same time, the return on the significant investment required for relevant and compelling trainer-led classroom training, being an important investment in the development of real global skills and a globally-competent organization, needs to be guaranteed and made available to as many as possible as cost-effectively as possible.

Intercultural Management Quarterly

Within this paradox lies the real question: how to, with speed, ubiquity, and cost-effectiveness, provide meaningful, compelling, and valid trainer-led global effectiveness skills training?

coach-directed, or a passive, technology-based instrument?

Beyond Blending: Trainer-led Classes and Coaching

The opportunities for learning and development presented by the Internet are vast, but when it comes to meeting the criteria for successful global effectiveness, the Internet works only when it enables trainer- or coach-directed training. If an organization is to “blend” technology and classroom, it must not replace a tool for the trainer.

If the greatest cross-cultural need, both individually (tactically) and organizationally (strategically), is the ongoing development of appropriate behavioral skills based on an understanding of post-global (read: non-traditional, real-time, right now) cross-cultural phenomena, then trainer-led training is far more effective than technologybased information. And trainer-led training can be delivered both in traditional on-site classroom format as well as virtually, enabling us to realize both effectiveness and cost-savings.

The problem with most web-based cultural training is not that it is web-based, but that it is not trainer-directed. Most technology is passive, whether on the Internet or on a CD, as opposed to being real-time with a trainer.

The problem is not the technology or the classroom, but rather whether the session is conducted by a trainer (which can be done virtually or on-site), or is technologically passive and private.

It is important to state that while there are clear advantages to having all participants on-site at the same time, the disadvantages—as long as the training is trainer-directed and not a passive instrument—are minimal compared to the advantages gained. And because successful global effectiveness training must also be ongoing, and not a one-time event, “cultural coaching,” or the periodic, planned, and structured opportunity for an individual to work personally with a professional “cultural coach” toward the implementation and achievement of their global goals, is a second requirement.

Hi-tech and Hi-touch

You can have both meaningful and effective global effectiveness training, with speed and ubiquity, for everyone at every level, but to meet the real requirements of a globally effective organization in the post-global world, it must be trainer-driven, whether in the classroom or on the Internet. And it must be ongoing, integrated with a follow-up coaching plan (either virtual or in on-site meetings) for all individuals in the organization with global responsibilities.

So do not just “blend-in.” That is so 20th century, and so limiting. Get the best of both with trainer-directed “global effectiveness training,” both in the classroom and on the Web. You will need to evaluate the competencies of the global effectiveness program you are buying and the trainers who deliver it for you, but that is another article all together. i

Cultural coaching, as well as cultural training, also can be done virtually or on-site: here, as well, the issue is not classroom or technology, but rather, is the coaching truly

Fall 2010

23

The Intercultural Management Institute 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: * 20% off all IMI workshops and conferences (this does not include Skills Institutes, which are considered academic courses through the School of International Service; also, 20% 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;

* NEW! IMI Associate Spotlight!, a networking resource that highlights Associate Members from around the world; * Invitations to Associates-only events.

Annual Association fees:

Regular fee: $50

Student fee: $20

Subscription form for the Intercultural Management Institute Associates Program

Regular Member ($50)

Student Member ($20)

Name: Title:

Organization:

Address: State:

City: Country:

E-mail:

Phone:

Fax:

Check Enclosed

Credit Card

Made payable to American University

Name on card:

(circle one) MasterCard VISA AmEx Exp.date:

Signature: Mail to: Fax to:

Zip:

Intercultural Management Institute, American University 4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW Washington, DC 20016-8177 (202) 885-1331

Cash Enclosed

Card #: Date: Questions? e-mail: imi@american.edu or call (202) 885-6436