Cross Cultural Communication Training

Cross Cultural Communication Training - Intro

I really do not have the background or experience in any sort of healthcare workplace, so I am going to complete this competency based on what I have seen in the corporate banking world and what I have learned while working on the other competencies in this course.  Some of my experience is also rooted in 24 years of military service.  I have found that some of the skills/knowledge I gained there are useful in the civilian world, but some are not.  In fact, some needed to be unlearned in order to re-learn leadership and communication styles more appropriate to cubicles than ships and combat zones.

My organization, a very large international bank, suffers from poor communication across different cultures.  Large organizations with top-down management sometimes also get saddled with very top-down communications that are often directed at different, diverse groups, but are provided in a single senior/subordinate manner. I will create this training with my co-workers as an audience, not necessarily just Enterprise Information Technology, where I work, but the bank and all its employees.

The topic of this training is very broadly “Cross-cultural communication.”  The reason that formal training like this is so appropriate to my workplace is the many cultures that all work together to serve the financial needs of

clients that are even more diverse than our own teams.  An anecdotal reason I know that the topic is important to the executives and senior leaders in my organization is that we repeat annual training on several areas of diversity and inclusion.  Unfortunately, I have not noticed the training varies much year to year, so this is my attempt at creating something a little different. I understand that it takes an organization time to develop broad skills in cultural competency, and formal training is just one element of the continuous cycle of feedback and improvement.

The world continues to get smaller. Not in a physical sense, but in terms of the global economy and the interconnected nature of business. You work for a company with offices and banks in over 25 countries which means there are Team members from many cultures and backgrounds, as well as the customers we server.

One of the primary tenets of our Vision and Values is "Diversity and social inclusion" which means that we "ensure everyone feels respected with equal access to resources, services, and opportunities to succeed." 2

Cultural competency is important not only because it is good for business, but it is also good for our team members.  Watch below as Michelle Lee explains how diversity leadership drives employee engagement.

It takes consistent individual practice and the support of a culturally competent organization to continue to develop and maintain individual cultural competence. 1

Learning Objectives

1. Define Culture and its effect on communication
2. Better communicate with a cross-cultural audience
3. Have additional tools to improve communication in cross-cultural relationships.

Each of the above objectives will be covered in a separate post, so to see the entire series, use the label "comp1" to see just these training posts.

In the next post, you will be learning what the term culture means when applied to workplace communication.  In the third post of this series, you will learn some key points to remember when communicating with a cross-cultural audience.  In the last post, we will discuss some tools or skills that not only help improve your communication, but will also lead to better cross-cultural relationships.

But first, here is an example of the wrong way!

Things to consider:

What might he have done prior to this trip to prevent what happened?

Why do you think she reacted the way she did?

Write down a few thoughts, we'll attempt to answer these questions in the next post.

Next