Expanding Cultural Competence

so we're coming to the end of our journey and exploring Intercultural communication together and so I wanted to take a few minutes to kind of wrap things up a little bit and so to to quote the late great Paul Vasquez uh otherwise known as Double Rainbow Guy um one of the first viral videos on YouTube of course was the double rainbow and as Paul was just so enamored with this double rainbow that of course as we all know was all the way across the sky man but the most important question maybe that he asked during uh that whole experience and that fun video that we all got to enjoy is what is it mean what does it all mean and I think that's that's a fair question that's a great question we got to be asking about a lot of things in life but uh as as it relates to us we're going to ask that about Intercultural communication because you know really Intercultural communication is is an ongoing process developing our cultural skills and our Intercultural communication skills is an ongoing process that really truly never ends never ends so it's it's so we need to ask ourselves what does it all mean it's such a big part of our life what does all mean where are we going with this and why is all this important and and how do we use it really that I mean how do we use this how do we apply this new knowledge that we've gained so let's take a few minutes to talk about how we can expand our cultural competence okay we've been talking about Intercultural communication so we're going to talk about expanding our cultural competence so if we jump all all the way back in this video series toward the very beginning and and look at the definition for Intercultural competence here um we Define it simply as engaging with people from differing cultures in a manner that is both effective and appropriate within a given context simple enough straightforward and one of the things we we also looked at in an earlier video is the um the the work from Dr Darla deardorf who uh in Intercultural competence who in 2006 put forward this kind of model and what part of that was this pyramid model of Intercultural competence what we use this as a framework of sorts to to kind of frame our discussion uh on how we can expand our Intercultural competence because I think this gives us a great road map for moving forward here and how we can do that how we can continue to expand our cultural competence and our Intercultural communication skills so as you may recall Dr deero um set forth that that we have to start with the requisite attitudes and developing those then we move into developing our knowledge and comprehension as well as kind of simultaneously developing our Intercultural skills and the skills that are required for that then we move into uh developing the desired internal and external outcomes so I want to take a look at these individually here just briefly look at each of these stages and see that means for us so let's start with requisite attitudes and so want to talk about what I like to call the the Beatitudes it's a little play on words right if you're familiar with the Beatitudes but but the be attitudes of in this case for cultural growth have to do with uh ways of being right so we want to be these things we want to want to um you know take these on as kind of um mantras and and and and as as for our attitudes the way we approach life the way we approach the world um we ought to start by being curious we ought to want to know what's out there and be curious if we don't if we're comfortable right here in our bubble and we have no desire to ever see anything again I mean I guess that's fair but you're going to be missing a lot we have to really cultivate that curiousness right and cultivate that attitude of curiousness that really drives us forth to want to see these places I don't we love this show in our house the um reluctant traveler with Eugene Levy here uh is who you see in this picture uh he admits that he doesn't like necessarily new things or different things and so he has this show though where he goes out and travels and does different things and does NE things explores these things and and uh is reluctant to do so as the title would indicate but he does it cuz he's curious he wants to know what's out there you know's he's not real comfortable with it but he wants to know we have to have that Curiosity so you have to have an attitude of being curious number one you have to be open to new ideas be open to new ideas um understand that you know I'm not saying you have to accept every new idea or endorse every new idea but you have to be open to the idea that or to the fact that there are there could potentially be things out there that you don't know about or different ways of doing doing things than you might normally do them that would be you know just as good if not better right but there are you know regardless you have to have that attitude of okay I don't know everything and uh and and even if I did there may be different ways of doing things than I'm thinking of them so we have to be open to these new ideas and really you know Embrace that attitude of being open to those things we have to be an active listener uh you have to have this attitude of of I'm going to focus on my listening which is not an easy skill if you haven't really focused on this then you may not be as good a listener as you think you are um because we have to really cultivate those and and develop those active listening skills but we have to have that attitude of um it has to be part of our attitude that I'm going to be an active listener I have to be committed to that we have to be honest with ourselves and we have to know who we are we have to be honest about ourselves both in positive and negative ways right or in you know areas we have room to improve but also in the positive ways things we do well who am I and and that's going to help us understand who other people are and appreciate who other people are even if it's different from us even if they're very very different from us we have to be honest with ourselves both be honest um with ourselves and about ourselves to so be honest with and about yourself um is an important attitude the willingness to do that we have to be flexible we have an attitude of flexibility in some ways I mean it's good to have a plan it's good to know where you're going and and uh and to know what you're doing and and knowledge is good but you also have to leave room to go with the flow you have to be flexible when things um change you got to be like that Slinky right the classic toy from when I was a kid this was this was a major toy when I was a kid that's how old I am right so but we have to be flexible we have to have the ability to kind of you know ooze around right like when I was a kid and I told my mom there's always room for pudding right we can I can always fit more pudding in even if I'm full I can because it'll just it'll just fill in the cracks right all that's how we have to be we have to be flexible and go with the flow sometimes and really um be willing to just kind of see where life leads us in some ways right so we have to have that attitude of I'm going to go with it go with things and uh and and go with the flow and we have to be patient um I have a guitar player on here to kind of illustrate this because I I play guitar really poorly but I play guitar and I'll tell you one of it took me forever to even get started playing guitar because it is it can be hard to learn I'm really super jealous of people who pick it up just immediately one of our kids did I mean he just picked it up but immediately had an understanding of what he was doing and was able to do it it took me a long time uh and I I would put it down and come back to it and put it down and come back to it we have to be patient with ourselves these are not things that are going to come easily necessarily um some will come more easily than others but we have to have an attitude of patience being patient with ourselves being patient with others and and being patient with perhaps different circumstances and things so we that attitude of okay this is just it is what it is and I'm gonna just go with it I'm going to be flexible I'm going to go with it I'm gon to um be open to these things and and but I'm going to be patient in all of this and that's a hard thing for a lot of us myself included to do but uh but that's the attitude we have to have so these are the be attitudes meaning again these are the things we have to tell ourselves I have to be this I have to be curious I have to be open to new ideas be an active listener be honest with myself I have to be flexible and I really do have to be patient so we need to be all of these things that will help us develop the requisite attitude for developing and improving Intercultural competence um next up we had um knowledge and comprehension right so you know knowledge is power that's an old expression knowledge is power the more we know uh then the more power we will have in that situation not necessarily power over others it's not what I mean by power but I mean power to make effective decisions power to um have better understanding of things and power to uh uh perceive things in a significant way right have discernment so knowledge is power especially in Intercultural communication so to develop our knowledge um and so to learn these things and develop our knowledge and comprehension of Intercultural communication and Intercultural competence and other cultures in general we first have to um observe we have to observe we just have to you know pay attention to how things are done and how things are different how they're the same and and uh and how I'm behaving and how that fits in with everything we just have to observe others right observe others so kind of a a lesser known movie called The 13th Warrior right long time ago Antonio Banderas and he plays this guy who's from um Persia I think is what it was at that time um and he's gets in trouble and gets sent off to be the ambassador or whatever to Scandinavia and so but he gets hooked up with these Vikings basically right and he doesn't speak the language and uh but he eventually learns and they're amazed how did you learn our language and he basically said he said well I listened but really what he did is he just observed you can see in the movie he's just watching them and listening to them and connecting words with actions and oh so that word means this and and uh but he's also observing their their their behaviors and their their just the way they relate to and behave with one another and he just spends a lot of time observing and that's such an important quality if we're going to learn we have to be willing to just kind of take it in and and pay attention and observe these things we can also read we can I love to read and I you know most of the knowledge that I have is is totally random stuff but it's from what I read and how reading is an excellent way not only to expand our vocabulary but also to know about other cultures and learn history and learn uh what their you know customs and things like that our so we can read we can do some research and read and to understand different cultures we can ask some people if we know somebody who's a part of that culture we can ask them hey can you tell me a little bit about this or I'm going to be in this situation how should I behave and when I go to a business meeting how should I behave when I go to someone's home for dinner how should we can ask somebody who has knowledge of these things that's always a smart thing to do right is ask somebody who knows already and we can learn that we can gain knowledge from other people and then on the flip side that we can share and that's that also is going to enhance our knowledge because when we share others will share and so we can have round you know work we can have round tables and say hey here's what I know about this culture and then we can attend other things where people talk about cultures that they understand or we can so we can share and exchange knowledge in that way and so we can we can enhance our knowledge and our comprehension by observing by reading by asking by sharing and mostly just just taking in any information that we can and in whatever form it takes and however it comes to us and whatever we're doing we need to gain that knowledge gain that understanding right so our intellectual understanding of that of that uh U culture needs to be very strong then we also need to develop our Intercultural skills so that's the that was the kind of simultaneously we're work as I said we're working on our knowledge but also at the same time we're practicing right we're doing these things and and that's the first key is really practice practice PR practice uh if you're familiar with Malcolm Gladwell and his book Al talked about um the the idea of 10,000 hours right and uh 10,000 hours to master your craft and you see that that would be eight hours a day 5 days a week 44 weeks a year for 5 and a half years uh if we were really going to master something and that doesn't mean it has to happen in just like that but uh um but over time you know you collect these hours and when you do something enough times you get that repetition and that has to be good repetition though obviously if you do it the wrong way a bunch of times it's not going to help you but but practicing and practicing well is going to be critical to developing our skills so it's it's one of those things we just have to keep on we have to keep practicing keep trying it out keep working at it right so practice practice practice uh also know we can make a lot I can tell you from experience you can make a lot of ground make up a lot of ground really quickly through what we call immersion so you can immerse yourself in this culture um sometimes that means going there I had the opportunity when I was in high school to go live in Spain with the family and they did not speak English uh I was surrounded by people who did not speak English and and was really incredibly fortunate to live with this amazing family who was really patient with me cuz I had the vocabulary of like a three-year-old so they were really patient with me but I I came back and uh again I went over did not the greatest understanding of Spanish I have willingness to go and I love traveling and doing that kind of stuff that's what took me there not a really Advanced knowledge of Spanish when I came back I and I was I was entering my senior year of high school and I tested uh to and went to the college I was going to ATT and tested out of what I could in Spanish and I was amazed I tested out of everything possible I tested into the 300 level classes I'm just mostly based on immersing myself it's that's how the Army does it too if if they want to teach you a language they drop you in this program they have an incredible program language program they drop you in this program and you are not allowed to speak English you have to learn if you want to know where the bathroom's at you better learn how to say it in that language if you want to order some food you better learn how to say it in that language because you don't have a choice and we find we don't have a choice then we start learning so much faster and we develop these skills and they just become natural to us right when we're living dayto day in that world then uh then it just becomes part of our life becomes you know as natural as anything else to us so if we immerse ourselves and uh and sometimes we have the opportunity to do that by going entirely someplace and and living in that moment but other times it's just you know even if you're just practicing by yourself um for for a short period of time at home you can really focus and immerse yourself in that world and uh and just commit yourself to that so immerse yourself and develop your SK you know that will help you develop your skills get back on the horse this is a really important one I can't stress this enough these things are tough uh if you remember learning how to do anything right I I talking about learning how to play a guitar it didn't come easily to me I had to put it down sometimes for a while because I got so frustrated was either that or smash it like I was a rock star on stage right but but I didn't I put it down and came back to it but I got back on the horse uh when things don't go your way when you're developing any kind of skill you've got to have that attitude of I fell down but now I get up and then I'll probably fall down again and then I'm going to get up but I'm I'm going to fall down as long as you get up one more time than you fall down then you're winning right um but you've got to get back on that horse when you try things and you go places and you try these skills out these cultural skills and you fail you get it wrong for whatever reason you have to learn from that and get up and try it again and keep getting better and better and better right so get back on the horse that's a critical skill critical mindset for developing Intercultural skills whatever skill trying to develop and then I really can't stress this one enough either you just have to embrace the awkward sometimes when you're again when you're trying to experience you and you get it wrong you just want to put your head in the sand right it's embarrassing to get things wrong and to not understand things and to to be in a weird situation where you're not really comfortable it can be awkward right it can feel awkward and it just is what it is you just have to embrace that and say okay if I'm awkward it must mean I'm in an opportunity to learn um if I'm if it's not awkward you're probably not learning anything right um so you have to embrace that mindset so for example again when I went to Spain and when people travel uh to different cultures where kissing on the you know cheek is is common as a greeting um and first understand that at least where I was at um it was not a true kiss it was like this it was kind of an air kiss next to your face right it wasn't really kissing the other but it's still that's pretty close contact and you're doing that a lot and um it could be awkward at first but you can either say you know no thank you and shove people away or whatever and that's that's not going to be great right for getting to know people and and you know and not as long as it's not causing you like actual physical harm you just have to embrace the awkward and say well this feels a little weird but let me give it a shot that's what they do here so you know when in Rome do as the Romans do right and when and wherever do as they do again as long as it's not violating your your you know ethical standards or religious practices or or putting You In Harm's Way in some way or whatever but if it's a little awkward you know that's just part of it you got to learn to accept that um and it's not just going to other countries right uh we just have to embrace the and sometimes you know embracing is awkward in and of itself I was think of The Big Bang Theory and the you know probably the what I think was the most was the neatest relationship in that whole show was was actually Penny and and um and Sheldon right and they were never romantically involved of course but they had this really unique relationship and and it grew over time and you could tell that that he gotten more and more comfortable uh in a relative way with her and he did with with of course Amy fower as well but um in a different way is they got you know married of course but um you just have to embrace the awkward and say okay this is weird this is weird it's uncomfortable but I'm going to get through it it's not hurting me physically I'm going to do it I'm going to I'm going to make it work because this is how you learn learn about other cultures so and develop those skills if it's again if it doesn't feel awkward you're probably not developing any skills because that's not really an opportunity to learn if you're not in a position that that feels a little awkward so just embrace it and go with it because it means you're doing something right okay so let's talk about some internal outcomes and and what we mean by that are things that we have to be able to do uh internally so again developing those skills and and behaviors and things like that but these are really internal um attitudes and values and and things that we by internal I mean the they are internalized for us and they become just a part of how we live our lives really on a day-to-day basis they become that engrained within us so as we develop our Intercultural competence these are things that ought to be you know really just part of our our natural state of being over time one is flexibility again bring the slinky back you can't go wrong with the slinky you can't get much more flexible than that right um so um we will be flexible we will find ourselves flexible when we enter a situation the stronger our in our uh inter cultural competence becomes um that will be something that we Embrace and then it will be kind of internalist and something that we just kind of do naturally without really having to think about it we just are become more flexible and become willing to adjust and and to um to to try new things and to um and to do things you know color outside of the lines a little bit right have that kind of flexibility however you want to phrase it uh we need that to be part of our internal value system sense right adaptability is another we have to be able to enter a situation and quickly adjust and and adapt and and uh and be okay with that and just make that again a normal part of our of our being because every situation uh is different not you know the same thing's not going to work the same way in every situation we've got to learn from that experience and then be able to adapt and adjust um one example that always comes to mind for me of this is from the office I a long long long time fan of the office um both the British and the American version but this I'm going to talk about the American version because always reminded this when I think of when Jim in the office went to the Stamford Branch right he left the Scranton Branch went over the Stamford branch and we met some really cool new people there uh one of the first things we saw though is that he pulled the classic you know calcul ler or stapler whatever it is he put something of Andy's inello just like he did with Dwight right he did it with Dwight we saw in like the first episode of the show and it was hilarious and it's everybody loved it right it's kind of you know um it's kind of classic right so he did it with Andy right he knew it the stord branch he wants to make an impression so he puts Andy's uh calculator in um and in jello and of course it was really funny nobody knew he did it he he's smiling smirking you know we see him really having fun with it uh but then things things kind of go sideways because unlike the situation with Dwight earlier where everybody was laugh Dwight wasn't laughing but everybody else was laughing Andy did not find this funny he got up he kicked the trash can had a little out burst he was really angry about it and of course then Jim uh got very uncomfortable and uh really just kind of went back to work and kind of quietly went back to work and and ignored the situation um he learned very quickly that things are not always the same you know what worked in Scranton doesn't always work in Stanford right so you've got adapt and eventually he did and to be fair on the flip side Andy had to adapt a lot when he came over to the Scranton Branch eventually right we know that he had some frustrations really got angry put his hand through that wall a couple times he punched through the wall right so if you're again if you're familiar with the office you know that and we know that Andy had a journey throughout the show his story arc took quite you he took on several different person Personalities in a sense and and really grew throughout the show his character did and changed evolved I guess I should say not necessarily grew I don't know if he really grew but um but he evolved um and he adapted though he had to adapt to a different setting because what worked in Stamford didn't work in Scranton he had to um adjust in a sense and he you know was better about that at times than than others at sometimes than others but uh and then in the end of course you know e and Jim became friends they became Partners they became you know I wouldn't say necessarily BFFs but they were they became friends and and and respected one another over time and were able to adapt in their own relationship as well so we have to have that ability to say okay I'm I'm run up against something so now I've got to figure out how to get around that and do it differently and then when next you know I get to another uh closed door I got to figure okay let me adapt here and try it differently we've got to be able to adjust and adapt and those have to be just kind of our natural states of being uh to think that way uh the last one here for internal outcomes that is really critical is reframing we've got to have a mindset of reframing we've got to get out of this mind mindset of um everything's either good or bad or right or wrong or whatever sometimes things are just different now that's not to say there aren't things that are good or bad or right or wrong we have value systems we have morals we have ethics right and those determine those things but uh sometimes especially when we think about culture culture is not about good or bad culture is about different right and uh as uh uh Lauren Potter who's an actress um who was on the television show Glee if you remember that a little while ago now but she was Glee she played um Sue's cheerleader kind of assistant she was the young lady who has Down syndrome right she has Down syndrome and and she pointed out different isn't bad it's just different that's it it's different different is not good it's not bad necessarily it's just it's just different and that's it and that's culture culture is not different good or different bad necessarily sometimes culture is just different most of culture is just different not good or bad it's just different perspectives we have to be able to reframe and say okay I see it this way but they're seeing it differently so does that make it bad no not necessarily cuz sometimes people see things differently right I love this comic the guy on the island is so excited to see a boat the guy in the boat is so excited to see land almost like they're just going to trade places or something because they're so tired of of what they've had that that anything their perspective on the situation is just uh so different they're seeing complete opposite U uh benefits here right now uh it's not necessarily as simple as the the boss from Dilbert would put it and just say from now on we will refer to our problems as opportunities that's a great way to look at it in in many respects though um if a problem can be seen as an opportunity sometimes problems are just a problem but sometimes they opportunities opportunities for us to grow and opportunities for us to learn something new and to experience something new and that's wonderful right so we have to be willing to reframe it in that in that uh mindset and have that mindset right so you know when we see uh the the storm coming right sometimes people all we see is the clouds right that's all we see is the clouds and they it overtakes you know the sun is very dim not not just in the sky but in our mind um and and sometimes that's how our our life gets to right we can't see the sunshine we can only see the clouds but in in as much as possible uh our our mental state is so important and uh so we've got to be able to reframe and say okay no it's not that the clouds aren't there but they're not my focus I'm going to focus on that sun I'm going to really frame it up to I so I'm seeing the sun I'll deal with the rain it's not that not that we can ignore the rain in the storm we have to understand that and respect it but we can focus on the sun we can choose to see it as iur up in farm country rain is good often times there we need rain to help the crops grow um we need rain to avoid drought and uh so I mean rain can be a good thing of course we don't want it all the time but but they're they're positives to rain but we can reframe it and say I'm going to see the sun here I'm going to choose to see the Sun and so when we're in situations where we're in a different culture and and things are just odd things are different again they're awkward maybe we can choose to see that as an opportunity right instead of uh instead of only seeing the negatives and only seeing the downsides so finally we get to external outcomes so we've talking about how we how this will affect us internally right but externally what does this mean for our external behaviors and and things so we come back to this definition again Intercultural competence is an you know Intercultural communic ation is engaging with people from different cultures in a manner that is both effective and appropriate within that context so really our our our scoreboard for all of this is effective and appropriate effective and appropriate and so um our goal if we were to think about okay we've got these two things effective and appropriate so if we put out the if we pull out this you know the classic Vin diagram of course our our goal is to be somewhere in the middle we want to be effective of course and we want to be appropriate but ideally we will be we will be both effective and appropriate in our behaviors so it's important to keep in mind also though that effective is going to be determined by you effective behavior is determined by the individual by that we mean um we have a goal in every every communication interaction that we have we have a goal there's some purpose to that um whether that purpose is to uh get someone to buy something or to give someone Direction or if it's just to develop and maintain a relationship and just to you know help fuel that relationship maybe that's what that interaction is about but we have a goal and so we are determining ourselves we are the ones who determine whether or not is this this exchange is effective because we're the ones identifying for us what is our goal here other people are as well they have their goals but we're identifying what is my goal here so whether or not a behavior an Intercultural you know behavior is effec Ive really is is determined by us is it is it allowing us to achieve our goal in that situation okay so is that is that behavior effective and that's determined by you now the other side of things appropriate that's determined by everybody else either that the other person or persons depending on the situation um appropriate is determined by the rest of the group it's depending by it's determined by everybody else um whether or not they see your behavior as appropriate and that's situation now those two are connected of course obviously and that's why we want to have both because if you behave appropriately you're more likely to behave effectively and and achieve your goals of course right um and so effective Behavior then in turn is ideally appropriate because it's going to help you achieve your goals so um it's kind of a a you know a cycle there in this kind of circular uh motion of effective and appropriate effective helps you appropriate which helps you be effective which helps you be appropriate which helps you be effective right so U but we need to be both we want to keep both in mind but you determine and and you know in the end you're going to score it whether or not it was effective and other people though are going to identify and determine whether or not it was appropriate okay so we need to understand both sides of that equation so in the end though we you know we have that pyramid model the other thing that Dr deardorf um Extended with and and provided was for this framework was process then what does this look like as a process well it starts with you know the entrance point there is attitudes and that's where we get on the track right attitudes and and then attitudes will Fuel and feed our our knowledge and comprehension and and our development of skills which as I said we're are really kind of connected they happen simultaneously and note that both of those areas are really individual things they things we do as individuals um and not not determined by others not affected by others well I mean it's affected by others but but really these are things that we work on as individuals our attitudes and then our knowledge and comprehension and our skills are things that we primarily develop as an individual then the deter or the desired moves in to the desired indiv internal outcomes which then feed our desired external outcomes which are as we said affected by interaction they're determined by interaction because they are the appropriateness aspect of it is determined by uh the other people so um so interaction is key for for both of those things desired internal and and external outcomes individual becomes a really important Bridge there okay interaction does so and then all of that is going to feed our attitudes if it goes well it's going to help us develop a positive attitude if it doesn't then it's either going to challenge us or it's going to maybe diminish our attitude a little bit maybe give some more negative attitude but either way it's going to affect our attitudes which is then again starts this cycle all over again so we go through these these steps of the process of Intercultural competence as well with all those things that I just mentioned now the last thing I want to mention is something I've already talked about again in another video and that is the pro we have to put progress over Perfection uh developing these skills and and this knowledge and things is an imperfect process as I said we're going to fall down we've got to get back on the horse we're going to fall down we got to get up we're got to fall down then again we got to get back up and that's what I mean by but every time hopefully when we fall down we're taking lessons away from that we're learning from that we're um exper experiencing new knowledge and understanding and appreciation for a culture and that's progress that's important we have to put those things over this idea of a per perfect interaction right so over Perfection we can't get hung up on well that didn't go well so why Try Again well because we're making progress this whole thing is a process right and we're making progress a little bit day by day right if you can improve a little bit day by day that's progress you don't have to hit Perfection every day you just need to make uh step forward that's all we can really hope for okay if you have questions about any of of uh this I hope that you'll reach out through email I'd love to hear from you there um but I hope you have a a fuller understanding then of not only how we can expand our cultural competence through the the you know the techniques we talked about today and the strategies we talked about in this video but also through the other videos in this series and uh and I hope this has been helpful and informative for you as you've um begun the process of improving your own Intercultural communication skills