Chapter 2 - Understanding Culture in the workplace

Noticing Culture in the Workplace
All companies in all different continents have either offices or do business with different countries around the world. Hence understanding different cultures around the world or even in the United States alone helps individuals communicate successfully in the workplace. According to the book understanding culture or becoming culturally aware "is looking at what we do through someone else's eyes, through someone else's experiences." So what is culture? Culture is a vague subject that is hard to be defined in one sentence, however, generally culture is seen as a system of learned beliefs, values and tools that affect attitudes and behaviors.
Understanding the importance of Culture
The importance of culture and diversity in a workplace has become much more important lately and many organizations are embracing cultural diversity. Websites and commercials of major companies, these days, reflect this importance by placing pictures of diversified employee structure. Globalization is the unrestricted movement of ideas and people, services and systems, goods and money across national borders around the world, made possible because of cooperative global economics, politics, and technologies. The effect of globalization can be maximized if we are culturally aware. For instance, Health Canada managed to decrease their smoking rate by a substantial amount due to their difference in advertising compared to the rest of the world. We may be able to optimize how we appeal to our listeners, if we are culturally aware of other country's practices and using what was successful in their countries and applying them for ourselves. Localization is the concentration of goods and services based on one specific area. Localization is inversely proportional to globalization. However, if a company wants to globalize its products it needs to meet the specific needs of each different area, and thus localizing their product. Example, labeling and advertising a product in the local language, where the product is being sold. By understanding one's cultural values, we may increase our response, productivity, explanations and compliance.
Products need to be localized for various languages.
Analyzing Culture
Cultures can be analyzed by dividing them in three different categories - national cultures, organizational cultures and individuals and their cultures. The factors that differentiate national cultures are individualism, task focus, forthrightness, power distance, interaction, source of credibility, perspective, materiality and uncertainly avoidance. National cultures can be understood by understanding the language(s) spoken in the culture, the proxemics or personal space considered appropriate in that culture and the importance of time. Besides national cultures, an organization may have a culture of its own. Within a multi-national, multi-lingual and multi-cultural company, having an organizational culture can provide a common bond amongst employees and for global organization even across continents. There are a number of ways in which an organization can be viewed as different than another - how the company focuses on people, whether the company is results oriented or process oriented, are the company's employees' competitive or cooperative towards each other, does the company create its own rules or follow professional standards, is the company receptive to change, how restricted are resources to employees, how motivated are employees towards work, how engaged are employees outside work, how employees are respected by the company, the management style of the company, the communication style in the company and how strict the company is regarding rules and regulations. Besides national culture and organizational culture different people have their own culture beside them, based on their nationality, race, age, gender, residence, job status, education, income, health, marital status, sexual orientation, community, political views and religious views. However, these factors should not be a deciding factor for testing the capability of an employee or potential employee. Doing a job well depends more on a person's professional competence and motivation rather than physical abilities and individual culture.
Increase Cultural Awareness
Here are some suggestions to successfully increase productivity at work while respecting colleagues from different cultures - be a good observer of seating arrangements, body language, dress code interactions etc., it’s OK to ask questions as long as you respect other people's point of views and practices as well, show interest in other people's culture, listen carefully to understand things you may not know and to understand people's accents and vocabulary and finally consider alternative interpretations of facial expressions and body gestures.
Before actually entering a new organization it’s a good idea to be prepared as what to expect. Some of the things you can do are understand the hierarchy, get to know the people you will be working with, get to know the cultural customs of the organization, understand what contributes to credibility, and know the basic layout of the campus.
Upon arrival you should be ready to handle unfamiliar situations and be receptive and considerate. Expect the unexpected, be patient, identify absolutes that affect your daily life, be flexible and try your best to meet people and engage in conversations.