We will never fully transcend our cultural influences to have
an objective view. Everybody is trapped by their history, community, education, language, family upbringing and body. Our five (or 8 senses) take in everything around us. If this information were to be made readily available to us, we would be paralysed and blinded; swamped by data overload…

“We should never denigrate any other culture but rather help
people to understand the relationship between their own culture and the dominant culture. When you understand another culture or language, it does not mean that you have to lose your own culture.”

Edward T Hall (Anthropologist)

to see the Cultural Whole.

By Matthew Hill

When we think of “culture”, we may see pictures, remember what we were taught in a geography class in school or think that sophisticated stereotypes represent the values and behaviours of a country and its people.

A large body of culture specialists exist working in this area including – academics, students and practitioners. Some of them are now feeling frustrated or even trapped by cultural oversimplifications. Psychometric tests, models and questionnaires appear to reduce and limit the individual or team being measured…

by Richard Cook

Why we need to become global networkers

When organisations ‘go global’ we often think of the formal networks that need to be stretched and expanded to accommodate the increase in communication that results. What we often fail to realise is that as individuals, we now need to network on a global scale as well, in order to maintain the effectiveness of our role. Having teams spread out across the globe, having key opinion leaders in remote offices means that our influencing skills can be severely tested as we try to continue applying them but now mostly virtually instead of face to face…

By Matthew MacLachlan
There has been a fantastic discussion happening at LinkedIn
http://bit.ly/dbfE86 about where the future of intercultural training lies.  I would like to briefly summarise here. There is a growing realisation that the models on which trainers have relied for so long (such as Hall, Hofstede, Trompenaars et al) are not sufficient to describe the reality of our own experiences…

There are many models that exist to describe the stages of emotions
and behaviours that one experiences during culture shock and the adaptation process. All of these models include periods of highs and lows, anticipation and resolution.  One model that describes the many ups and downs of culture shock is Rhinesmith’s Ten Stages of Adjustment.

Why is it that serious attempts at sharing knowledge acrosscross-culture
cultures frequently end in frustration, disappointment and a sense of aggrievement on all sides?

The problem is that people from different cultures have fundamentally different beliefs about the proper roles of bosses and subordinates, teachers and students, and even about the nature of knowledge itself.

Twitter Interview I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Cindy King a cross-cultural marketing expert living in France.  As Twitter was our interview medium, I haved blogged our conversation for those who missed the ‘live’ performance. 

‘Tweets’ are limited to 120 characters per post, so sometimes it’s a challenge to articulate what you think in so few words!  In part one of the interview Cindy asked me about my background and this can be found on her site. Part two, as blogged below, is all about cross-cultural things.

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What is Culture?

1. Culture is the heartware of a nation/race/culture; its soul and what makes it tick

2. Culture reflects widely shared assumptions and beliefs about life

3. Culture is so embedded that most people do not and cannot analyse it

4. Culture is what is ‘normal’ around here

5. Culture is learned from our superiors and role models

What is a nations culture? Many Governments and institutions around the world are engaged in a continual effort to preserve our heritage by restoring or maintaining ancient monuments and historic buildings. And, UNESCO’s programme aiming at the preservation and dissemination of valuable cultural heritages has been successful over the years in identifying and putting together some of the world’s most valuable archive holdings and library collections.

However, a nation’s cultural heritage often goes deeper than its physical ‘tangible’ manifestations. Each culture has its own ‘intangible cultural heritage’. But what is that?

According to UNESCO and the 2003 “Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage”, the intangible cultural heritage – or living heritage – is the mainspring of our cultural diversity and its maintenance a guarantee for continuing creativity.

The Convention states that the ICH is manifested, among others, in the following ways:

  • Oral traditions and expressions including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage;
  • Performing arts (such as traditional music, dance and theatre);
  • Social practices, rituals and festive events;
  • Knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe;
  • Traditional craftsmanship.

Anthropologists and interculturalists alike will express the importance of story-telling in relation to the embodiment of a culture. It’s good to know that UNESCO aims to help us be more aware of the importance of our intangible assets.