What about Me?

So, what do we as individuals need to possess if we want to be equipped for the challenge of increased intercultural contacts? I would suggest the following four qualities.

1. Awareness of your own national culture. Solving problems where another culture is involved requires you to think in another dimension. And you have to know what your own perspective is before you can make sense of what you see. Even if we have not been there, most of us would recognize a photo of the Taj Mahal taken from the front, but what about from the side, or from a helicopter directly overhead? And if the camera were being held at a distance of a yard, the picture would look quite different from one taken from a distance of fifty yards. You need to know where the camera is positioned and its angle in relation to its subject if you are to make sense of the picture it takes. Similarly, you have to learn to think about the angle on life and business taken by the members of your own culture, and what influences their (and your) attitudes, beliefs, and behavior at work.

2. Awareness of the culture of your own company or corporation. Two successful companies founded the same year, of similar size , and with headquarters in the same city may have entirely different corporate cultures if one, say, produces fire extinguishers and the other sells IT solutions. The culture of the company or corporation you work for is bound to have an effect on the way you treat your coworkers and your customers, and to influence everything from your expectations about job security to the way you dress. If you work for a global corporation, can you spot its country of origin in its mission and vision statements, or in the proportions of different nationalities in the membership of its top management? If you work for a national rather than a multinational company, how open is it to learning from similar companies operating in different countries or from employees with roots in other cultures?

3. Awareness of your own personal cultural profile. All countries are made up of subcultures. Divisions can be along geographical, religious, class, or ethnic lines, to name just a few, and sometimes differences between these subcultures cause serious tensions and rifts. But they are usually overridden by unifying factors such as a common language, a shared educational system, or loyalty to a royal family or system of government. Or perhaps you share with fellow nationals a preference for coffee served in a special way, or a certain long-running soap opera. We all have to be aware of the complexity of our own individual cultural heritage, whether we are a middle-class African American with a dash of Welsh blood, a working-class Irish Protestant with Jewish roots, or an Afrikaans-speaking South African of Indian extraction. This awareness of our cultural roots brings with it self-knowledge . Together with our cultural identity, our personal characteristics (gender, age, ethnicity ) and social situation (married or single, white-collar or blue- collar , manager or secretary) give us each a unique profile. This profile affects how we look at the world, and how we are regarded in return.

4. Awareness of the culture you are going to meet, and a willingness to look at it in a spirit of interest and respect. An interest in learning about the culture you are going to meet, and in what motivates and influences its members, makes an excellent start to a good relationship between people of different cultures. Possession of even basic pieces of information can help remove some of the stumbling blocks that act as barriers in intercultural relations. This book aims to provide some of this information, as well as inspire you to discover more for yourself.

I expect that if you work in business or industry you will be able to identify with the problems described in the book even if you aren t, I sincerely hope, likely to experience all of them personally ! I also hope that by raising questions and sharing concerns, businesspeople all over the world will come a little nearer to understanding each other ”and themselves .