What happens when you mix a handful of nationalities together in an office? You do some cultural awareness and intercultural competency training!
As a company, we recently had the delight of partaking in cultural awareness training to learn about and embrace the diverse cultural backgrounds, beliefs, norms, values and differences our company shares.
Facilitated by Dr. Barbara van Heerden, internationally accredited coach, our Australian and Papua New Guinea team participated in two high-impact sessions where each nationality got together in groups for activities which explored their dominant culture, before sharing and comparing with the rest of the company. At Peopleconnexion, we aren’t just comprised of Australians and Papua New Guineans. True to the multiculturalism of Australia, our Australian team is made up of South African, British, Filipino and true-blue Australians.
While this diversity brings great strength, collaboration and enthusiasm, challenges also exist. One of the key takeaways from our training was identifying where each nationality views time, communication, the individual and team, and the nature of power and equality. Each of these are core aspects that affect the way that people work together. And they have certainly felt the differences in our team!
As we sat back and were enlightened to what each of these aspects meant, it became clear that our expectations in our work setting don’t always match the nature of an individual from a certain culture. Perhaps, the most im
portant learning was about developing curiosity as to the differences we experience rather than categorising people from different backgrounds!
As people, we tend to fall into habits of categorising and judging others’ behaviour when it doesn’t match our own. This is defined as ethnocentrism. Plotting how each of our cultures relates to time, communication, individualism, team, hierarchy and equality meant we were able to categorise certain behaviours based on the richness and historical context of a culture instead of a personality or an individual. One of Dr. Barbara’s final pieces of advice was ‘get curious.’ Instead of categorisation, embrace curiosity.
It is no doubt that cultures can clash; but, when we are curious about culture and behaviours, we can open up a dialogue to learn and appreciate the richness of cultures and their values, and in turn people’s individual’s values. This can ultimately result in an array of long-term benefits for organisations and teams such as strengthened communication and relationships, better collaboration and innovation and a greater sense of comfort and belonging in an organisation.
This training was an exciting journey for our company participate in. We are also really eager to transfer these insights as we move through the stages of developing and launching this as an official Peopleconnexion Training program. It is our privilege to provide other companies with the same rich journey of education, enlightenment and inspiration that we have shared in.
Watch this space . . . but in the meantime, get curious!