November Blog Post
Cultural Diversity
A quote from one of the
readings, “Cross-Cultural Diversity” stated “Culturally determined differences
in values, beliefs, and assumptions cause at least two types of problems for
conducting business across cultures”, it then goes on to describe these
problems. For example, people misunderstand when others use a similar gesture
as they do but it means something completely different this leads to confusion
disappointment when people do not fulfill other’s wants. This quote and the
idea behind it reminded of some of the currents issues that have been going on recently.
Because there is such a diverse range of
cultures in America now, it can cause barriers when trying to communicate with
one another. However, it is important that both parties communicating try and
meet in the middle in order to hopefully avoid some of the barriers.
An article that helps to
illustrate this is, “How Does Cultural Diversity Affect Communications?” The
article starts out by explaining how important it is to handle your
communication with others correctly because it influences how they perceive
you. A person’s culture can be affected by many things, religion, values,
beliefs and even region. Every person that you come in contact with is going to
have different values and a different culture and it is important to be aware
of those things in order to communicate with them in the best way possible. A
specific example of this would be in the workplace, if a coworker values
accuracy over speed while working and you value the opposite it is important to
know how to communicate your values to that person in a way that does not seem
rude or judgmental. If you communicate this the right way it can be the
difference between getting that person to agree with you and causing them to
feel judged.
Remembering that there is
a lot of cultural diversity around us is a key component when it comes to
communicating with those around with us. If we are able to remind ourselves
that everyone’s culture differs from our own it will make communicating with
others easier in the long run.
Reference
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