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A Uniting Culture for the New Multicultural Workplace
Never has it been more important in your organization to have a common language, and never has it been more elusive.
Today’s office typically contains individuals from many different cultures, not just within the US, but from all over the world. People with different customs, beliefs, ways of thinking and different first-languages come together to work together, and the result can be confusion and misunderstanding.
“We need a common language,” a manager from a state education agency told me the other day on the phone. She was inquiring about an Emotional Intelligence program, correctly thinking it might be the “new common language” for their agency. The old one, she said, something about “Steps” had worn itself out. It is not easy understanding people from different cultures. It’s not easy understand even on person! In the case of different cultures, we bring with us assumptions, stereotypes and generalizations which can get in the way of commonality.
Most of the time the technical vocabulary is understood, but other parts of communication are missed. Up to 90% of any communication is nonverbal, and gestures, postures, and expressions vary widely from one culture to another, as does intonation and phrasing.
It’s easy to misunderstand another cultures expression of respect or warmth. When you meet someone new, the other person may be expecting a slight nod of the head, a quick handshake, a bow or a hug with a kiss on both cheeks. How are you to know?
I was working with a manager the other day who had a problem within the ranks. One of the employees was harassing some women, not all of them, or so the women were reporting, and it wasn’t clear what was going on. When the manager called the employee in and got to the root of the problem, it turned out he assumed that women in marketing would not “mind,” while the
women in the other fields would. Where he got that idea wasn’t clear, but people have their ideas.
We could substitute –
·Men don’t mind ·Asian Americans don’t mind ·Short people don’t mind ·Presbyterians don’t mind ·People who haven’t finished college don’t mind ·Southerners don’t mind ·Rich people don’t mind ·Irish people don’t mind ·Hearing-impaired people don’t mind
Generalities like this simply don’t work.
In “Beyond Race and Gender,” author R. Roosevelt Thomas defines managing diversity as “a comprehensive managerial process for developing an environment that works for all employees.”
And “all” employees are individuals, so there you have it.
There remains the need for a common language, and given the extreme diversity these days, Emotional Intelligence is an excellent tool. I have trained coaches from all over the world in EQ, and the concepts are understood by all. In fact there’s interest in EQ all over the world.
Emotional Intelligence competencies include flexibility, intuition (good for reading nonverbal communication), resilience, interpersonal skills, communication and empathy. They are based on understanding one’s own emotions and those of others, and managing your own and those of others for the best outcome. People from all cultures have the same emotions and want to be treated with respect. Emotional Intelligence can bring the common language and culture that is missing.
About the Author
©Susan Dunn, MA, Emotional Intelligence Coach, http://www.susandunn.cc . I coach individuals in emotional intelligence, and offer EQ programs and cultures for businesses. Internet courses and ebooks available ( http://www.webstrategies.cc/ebooklibrary.html ) for a total program of personal and professional development. Mailto:sdunn@susandunn.cc for FREE ezine.
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Language Tools |
Translation of text and web pages between English and several European languages. |
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Gestures are a part of human language too. Some invented human languages have ... In human languages, the symbols are sometimes known as lexemes and the ... |
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English language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
Estimates about second language speakers of English vary greatly between 150 million ... Distribution of first-language native English speakers by country ... |
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SDL International is the world's number 1 provider of free and professional language translation services for websites and documents. |
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yourDictionary.com • Comprehensive and Authoritative Language Portal |
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iLoveLanguages - Your Guide to Languages on the Web |
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AltaVista - Babel Fish Translation |
AltaVista Babel Fish provides the online text and web page language translation! ... Select from and to languages, Chinese-simp to English, Chinese-trad to ... |
world.altavista.com |
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Learn French, Spanish, German, Italian and other languages with the BBC. Start up with our courses or brush up with our audio magazines. |
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The Klingon Language Institute |
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Home page for Python, an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented, extensible programming language. It provides an extraordinary combination of clarity and ... |
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SYSTRAN Language Translation Technology |
Machine translation products. Free online translation available (the engine used by Altavista's Web translator) - English to French, German, Italian, ... |
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Language, the official journal for the Linguistic Society of America, ... Edited by Brian Joseph , Language serves a readership of over 7000 and has been ... |
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Learn a Language :: English, Spanish, German, Italian, French ... |
English language courses online: e-learning, learn English online, ... English language learning events,news, conferences, workshops and seminars ... |
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Parlo - Welcome to Parlo - learn to speak a new language. |
Parlo helps you learn English, French, Spanish and other languages with free online courses, music, a magazine, flash cards, chat rooms, message boards and ... |
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PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor |
PHP is a server-side HTML embedded scripting language. It provides web developers with a full suite of tools for building dynamic websites: native APIs to ... |
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Ethnologue, Languages of the World |
Home page of ethnologue.com, a searchable database of language resources. |
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Language Log |
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