Welcome to Dimensions of Intercultural Interactions and Conflict, lesson 1. Our objective in this lesson is to identify intercultural communication techniques and to discuss how conflict can arise from cultural differences. Why don't we dig into this? First of all, it's important to understand the definition of intercultural communication. In reading the slide, intercultural communication takes place when cultural group membership factors affect our communication process. So what does that mean? To all of us who are on this lesson, we have a bunch of our peers around the world listening in. Even that as an example is an important understanding that the world is getting smaller and smaller. Understanding each other is becoming more and more of a critical component of effective business execution. As a global footprint increases for most companies it is important to understand the nuances that make us different, along with identifying similarities in the workplace. Understanding the differences makes us more effective as individuals, within our departments we work in, in the divisions of our companies that we work in, in the overall organizations that we work within. Many companies have identified the importance of this understanding and have developed departments that focus solely on the inclusion, understanding, and celebrating the influences that an intercultural company population allows. Imagine yourself. If you had only people just like you to interact with, how much fun would that be? How many new ideas would be generated? Maybe even think to yourself if you were a part of a group in your life today, or in your department today of a group of people with different and varied backgrounds, genders, beliefs. How many more ideas would evolve? How much more enjoyment would you create from the new ideas that came about through the interactions that you had? That is the beauty of intercultural dimensions. In a conversation, there is the individual person and their unique traits, which include their intensity, their ability to focus, even their kindness. All of these are examples of personal traits. On top of someone's personal traits, is the learned behavior. That learned behavior comes from all of us as human beings being social beings. We're affected by our environment, how we get along, our personal desire to be connected. An example of how we show ourselves as social beings is how closely we stand to other people. Maybe how quietly or how loud we speak, or maybe even how fast or how slow we speak. These things are part of us being social beings and are another layer. On top of our learned behavior is our emotional intelligence. How well we are aware and know our own emotions, and what triggers them. And how those emotions show outwardly to other people. On top of that, there's our social interaction, how much we are aware of how others react to us? What emotional state those other people are in? And how the social interaction dance is happening between us and our other parties? Finally, above all this your individual unique traits, your learned behavior, your emotional intelligence and your social intelligence, is intercultural interaction. Interaction at a cultural level involves things such as symbolic exchange. As for culture, it is a set of rules or beliefs that are passed down from ancestors. With this we understand what is right or wrong per these rules in each of our cultures. Those rules help us to survive within our group. Maybe our family, maybe the street that we live on. Maybe the city we live in. But it certainly helps us get along amongst a group of people who identify with each other. And we're all playing for a game that we're trying to win. Survival, in the old days. Maybe nowadays, it's thriving in our culture as opposed to just survival. These rules as a part of the culture, help us make sense of what is happening in our daily lives, it brings a sense of shared identity between us. In the study of intercultural relationships, it is important that we become educated and aware of this layer, this extra layer called intercultural communication. And the reality of how it's influencing the interaction between us and other people that are involved in interactions in the form of the background that we have. Our traditions, our worldviews, our values, the rhythms of our lives, and the patterns of our lives. As I said earlier, in an intercultural exchange we have symbols. These are verbal or non-verbal things that have deeper meaning than what you see or hear. For example, a flag may mean pride to one person and oppression to another. For those of you who are familiar, in South Africa during the apartheid era, a flag to a certain race may have meant pride, and to another meant oppression for example. Then there's shared meaning. And in shared meaning we hope to use words that bridge gaps so that two people of different cultures start sharing the same meaning. So that they work together towards a shared outcome. When you have shared meaning, interactions become faster. Without shared meaning, there's more and more pauses and stops in our interactions. And having to recalibrate, having to re-explain what we meant to each other. So shared meaning's very important. And then there's given context. Given context means the surroundings of the situation that impact the understanding of the meaning of the interaction. For example, a conversation between two people about different races in a classroom, a very safe environment to discuss race, is a very, very different conversation in context than two different races holding guns upon each other on the street fighting over who gets to use a park to play in. Those are two highly different contexts with very much different energy in the two parties. Before we know each other as safe to one another in terms of interacting. There's a lot of inferring of intentions based upon what we know. That is why we study intercultural interaction and why it's important. This is really, and this whole class is really to open up our minds as libraries of knowledge to be aware of this extra layer called intercultural communication. That there this other layer of reality occurring between people of different cultures that explains the behavior of one another. And the social differences we have. It's so important to have this layer of understanding, because without it there's one more chance that an interaction could go wrong and we could choose either to disengage, or we could choose, even worse, to stereotype and generalize and separate and maybe even react. Which really at a global level would be a sad thing. The opportunity for all of us is to understand this layer and to work better and faster together. So what are some of the reasons that we would wanna engage in this class? In this learning? Globalization is increasing the volume and intensity of interpersonal interactions. I think all of us are feeling it, no matter where we are listening into this lesson. It's ever important to be aware of how to navigate such interactions. To harness the power of global resources. I have a question for you. How many of you, lately, have been on FaceTime, or Google Hangout, or Skype to chat or just on a video call with someone from outside your country. Family, friend, coworker. I would have to say many of us if not all of us. These technologies have been primarily used only in the last 15 years. And has allowed great intimacy between people around the world. With that intimacy comes an increase in transaction volume and intensity. What's another reason we'd wanna engage in this learning? Diversity. Diversity provides not only a wider range of information, but first is the process of thinking to include the ideas outside of our own. Thereby, diversity improves results and improves the process of interpersonal interactions. Think of it for yourself in the workplace. Work forces are becoming diverse, neighborhoods are becoming diverse, families are becoming diverse. For example, in America, there's a great debate over the terminology Asian-American, and distinguishing between a person of Asian descent, who is now in America, and calling them simply just American. With the integration of cultures a large volume of issues like this begin to arise. But the benefit of diversity is worth all this debate and conversation. In the United States, the rise of Spanish speaking residents, for example, have caused many government instruction manuals for residents to include Spanish translation. It is an accommodation the government has made to allow access to information to avoid disenfranchising a large population group in the United States. Thereby allowing the culture of that group to less quickly integrate into American culture. It would be very sad to not have this accommodation and the great upside or the opportunity in this is to allow this great additional resident group to interact more hardily and safely in the United States culture, which will only benefit all of the population. So let's talk a little bit more personal benefit. At a corporate level for each of you whose fully employed in an organization that may be global, speed to market is a great advantage of intercultural understanding. The expectations to bring ideas to market are ever increasing. The speed of business is another strategic weapon for companies. And as such, understanding cultural differences, provides a lubricant to accelerate global teams moving faster to produce results. Companies are looking to achieve greater revenue and lower costs through going deeper internationally. That requires trust. Important word trust, to be built over borders between people. In order to move people to act together faster and more effectively. When we are all moving faster towards a particular business outcome, it puts more stress on us as individuals to adapt and change, which only exacerbates the risk of a bad interaction between people and groups. Moreso, at an individual, team, and cultural interaction level.
