Increase Your Culture
Fluency – Effective Across
Cultures Communication
Ben Yang
Executive Director
International Education & Training
Georgian College
May 8, 2013
“Culture can explain 60% of everything
in life.”
Communication
Styles
Approaches to
Knowledge
Attitudes toward
Conflict
Attitudes toward
Disclosure
Approaches to
Tasks
Decision Making
Defining Culture
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Culture is a shared system of meanings; it is
relative, learned and about groups. Culture is
not right or wrong, inherited; it is not about
individual behaviour. - Lisa Hoecklin
Culture provides the “lens” through which we
view the world; the “logic” by which we order it;
grammar” by which it makes sense”. - Auvuch
and Black
It is difficult to explain something as complex as
culture until you find the right metaphor.
Cultural Imprint and Culture Code
 The combination of an experience and its
accompanying emotion creates an
imprint.
 Every imprint influences our thought
process and behaviour on an
unconscious level.
 The combination of imprints defines us.
Triune Brain: Cortex – logic, Limbic –
emotion; Reptilian – instinct;
Culture has a strong instinctive and
emotional dimension.
“We don’t see the world
as they are; we see the
world as we are.”
Barriers that impede the development
of culture fluency
•Limited opportunities for receiving coaching
and corrective feedback
•Feelings of being overwhelmed by the
number of adjustments to make in a foreign
country
•Interpersonal anxiety in relating to host
nationals
•Threats to newcomers' original identity
(Mak, Westwood, Ishiyama, & Barker, 1999)
Culture Fluency: Attitude, Knowledge
and Skills
Attitudes are a settled way of thinking and feeling. It is an
individual’s worldview and outlook on life.
Although one can learn knowledge and skills to be qualified
to perform a job, it is one’s attitude that inspires excellence.
(Non-judgmental, empathy and sensitivity, curiosity for
others, ethnorelative mindset, mental agility to adapt
change, sense of humour, tolerance for ambiguity)
Development Model of
Intercultural Sensitivity– Milton Bennett
Ethnocentric Stages
Ethnorelative Stages
Denial
Acceptance
Defense
Adaptation
Minimization
Integration
Melton Bennett Development
Model of Intercultural Sensitivity
(DMIS)
Knowledge of Cultures: Five Basic
Culture Scales – “Cultural Intelligence”
Brooks Peterson
---------------------------------------------------------------------Equality
Hierarchy
---------------------------------------------------------------------Direct
Indirect
---------------------------------------------------------------------Individual
Group
---------------------------------------------------------------------Task
Relationship
---------------------------------------------------------------------Risk
Caution
Skills of Working Across Cultures
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Overcome language barriers (weather/sports
talk)
Learn and practice a new set of
communication styles, body language and
cultural assumptions
Bridge different values, behaviors and life
styles
Challenges of Working Across Cultures
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Confuse culturally influenced behaviors with
individual traits such as personality and
temperament
Judge others in terms of our own values
Avoidance and overcompensation (missing the
opportunity for meaningful engagement and
learning)
Assume exposure automatically leads to
meaningful learning (selective listening and seeing
tend to reinforce existing prejudice)
Achieve Higher Intercultural
Competence
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Be more aware of other self cultural identity and
ethnocentric tendency
Have a broad understanding of global issues and
events
Have a general understanding of the defining
characteristics of world cultures
Develop effective and appropriate
communication skills working across cultures
Reflection
“Seek first to understand, then
be understood.” Stephen Covey