I’ve learnt so much on this course, but nothing has been so surprising as learning that so much of what we take for granted is culture-specific.
We’re looking at causes of cross-cultural conflict within teams at the moment, and it’s been a real wake-up call for my future working in China. Systems that we take for the granted in the West are actually not very transferrable into other cultures.
One example I read about is discipline in the workplace. We take for granted that if we behave badly or perform poorly, we will be spoken to by our managers and face disciplinary action, hopefully with an opportunity to improve in the future. This works because our culture is a guilt culture.
In a shame culture, however, such as much of Asia and Africa, to be disciplined in this way is to bring immense shame on the individual, the family group, the community and the work group. One book I was reading said that such shame could, in extreme circumstances, lead even to suicide. The author then told how a similar problem was dealt with in an Asian context—the whole team was assembled, and the management stated that the team had not been performing up to scratch, and that the performance of the team would have to improve. The individual concerned was not directly challenged in any way, even though the whole team would have known who was responsible. This process was successful, and the team member improved and the team performance was restored.
I still don’t really understand this whole thing, as it is so foreign to my worldview, but I’m sure it will prove vital in working in China!
Another example is our practice of democracy as an individual vote where majority rules. In a shame culture, the minority would then feel so shamed as to withdraw from the situation. I read that often people in such a culture will try and find out how their peers are voting so that everyone can vote unanimously and no-one should be shamed. This is because decisions in their culture have traditionally been made by consensus rather than by majority. I had been attracted to consensus models in a previous term when we were talking about leadership, but seeing such an example in conflict resolution makes me realise I don’t understand this either!
It all reinforces the idea I keep having that the more we look into in this course, the more areas I realise I don’t understand, and didn’t even realise I needed to understand!