Collaborative Efforts a Must!
"We didn't all come over on the same ship, but we're all in the same boat." – Bernard Baruch, American financier and 1.___________ (STATE).
It's no secret that today's workplace 2.___________ (RAPIDLY, BECOME) vast, as the business environment expands to include various 3.___________ (GEOGRAPHY) locations and span numerous cultures. What can be difficult, however, is understanding how to communicate effectively with individuals who speak another language, or who rely on different means to reach a common goal.
Cross-Cultural Communication – The New Norm
The Internet and modern technology 4.___________ (OPEN UP) new marketplaces that allow us to promote our businesses to new geographic locations and cultures. And 5.___________ (GIVE) that it can now be as easy to work with people remotely as it is to work face-to-face, cross-cultural communication is increasingly the new norm.
After all, if communication is electronic, it's as easy to work with someone in another country as it is to work with someone in the next town.
And why limit yourself to working with people within convenient driving distance when, just as conveniently, you can work with the most 6.___________ (KNOWLEDGE) people in the entire world?
For those of us who are native English-speakers, it is 7.___________ (FORTUNE) that English seems to be the language that people use if they want to reach the widest possible audience. However, even for native English speakers, cross-cultural communication can be an issue: Just witness the mutual 8.___________ (COMPREHEND) that can sometimes arise between people from different English-speaking countries.
In this new world, good cross-cultural communication is a must.
(From Mind Tools)
TEXT 2 (B2/C1)
Choose ONE phrase from the list of phrases A-I below to complete each of the following sentences 1-8. Remember, ONE phrase is extra here.
A have an advantage during the hiring process
B that an increasingly globalized market demands more than hard skills
C despite that high demand for intercultural fluency
D is very important to their organization
E who can work well with peers from other cultures
F is useless in modern world
G workers who lack intercultural skills expose companies to greater to risks
H with 24 percent of businesses failing to look for such skills in the recruitment process
I most importantly as the workforce becomes increasingly mobile
Culture & Language Skills Set Job Applicants Apart
By Chad Brooks
Culturally savvy employees are in high demand by businesses around the world, new research shows.
In a study by Ipsos Public Affairs, on behalf of the British Council and Booz Allen Hamilton, nearly two-thirds of employers around the world said the ability to work effectively with individuals and organizations from different cultural backgrounds 1.____________________________.
Specifically, employers want workers who can understand different cultural contexts and viewpoints, demonstrate respect for others and comprehend foreign languages.
The study shows that employers see numerous benefits from employees 2.____________________________. Specifically, 40 percent of the companies surveyed said employees with intercultural skills help keep teams running effectively, while 35 percent believe such skills improve trust and relationships with customers and clients.
3.____________________________, such as miscommunication among teams and damage to the organization's reputation or brand, the research shows.
Clifford Young, managing director of Ipsos Public Affairs' Public Sector Research and Political Polling in the United States, said 4.____________________________.
"The three Rs — reading, writing and arithmetic — are just the necessary condition to enter into the workforce," Young said. "Now employees need to know how to work in teams, communicate and, 5.____________________________, they need to have the skills to negotiate different social and cultural environments."
6.____________________________, the research revealed that only one-third of employers think that education providers in their countries sufficiently develop students' intercultural skills. Employers also admitted to inadequate screening processes for intercultural competence in job candidates, 7.____________________________.
The study authors conclude that job applicants who demonstrate intercultural skills as well as formal qualifications 8.____________________________.
The research was based on surveys of more than 350 employers working in public, private and non-profit organizations in the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, India, China and Indonesia.
TEXT 3 (B2/C1)
Choose the correct heading for sections 1-5 from the list of headings below.
Write the correct letter A-F in the boxes given below. Remember, ONE heading is extra.
List of Headings
A Playing the Game
B Different world, different people, different lifestyle
C Culture – a Basic Definition
D Take a Plunge
E It’s a Small World
F Getting to the Core of Culture
Cultural Awareness
Remember a time when you went abroad and made some faux pas that caused amusement or dismay among local listeners? Knowing what exactly went wrong in this situation could help you understand cultural awareness. InterNations tells you more about cultural awareness and why it is so important for expatriates.
While living abroad, quite a few people inadvertently miss some social cues among their new colleagues, neighbors, or friends. They behave in what they think is a normal manner – and oops! Suddenly, other people seem amused, irritated, or simply confused.
You may not be able to explain what went wrong or, to ask an even more difficult question, why a certain type of behavior would be considered wrong in your host country. You did, however, notice that “normal” interaction and “common sense” failed you. Perhaps you even ended up upsetting other people.
Now go a step further in your quest for cultural awareness: Start reading a brief “how to” guide or “dos and don’ts” list for tourists, expats, or immigrants coming to your country. You may be surprised or entertained by the descriptions of your own culture and its basic etiquette.
If you talk to foreign visitors and expatriates whom you know already well, they may share their thoughts on living in your country: the stereotypes they had before coming here; their first impressions; which differences confuse them; what they find great; what they don’t like at all, etc. Again, the answers might astound you and won’t fail to increase your sense of cultural awareness.
Of course, clichés, personal impressions, and random bits of advice will only get you so far. Now’s the point when you might want to dive a little deeper into the theoretical background of cultural awareness, intercultural competence, and intercultural communication. These two articles explain these theories in greater depth, so you might want to read them first before continuing here.
First of all, in the context of cultural awareness, we have to understand what culture refers to. For this purpose, let’s simply define culture as all the (often unspoken) standards and (mostly unwritten) rules that guide a certain group’s behavior. Such a group can be a sub-set of the general population (a sub-culture) or an entire nation – the culture of Hong Kong or Italian culture.
Culture, in this specific sense, is often compared to an onion with several layers. The outermost layer of the “onion”, i.e. of a foreign culture, is what you can see, hear, and touch: its artifacts, products, and rituals. The next layer of a culture consists of its systems and institutions. Systems and institutions, in turn, are based on certain beliefs, norms, and attitudes. These beliefs then stem from the core of the “onion”, the most basic values of any culture.
It’s that core of different attitudes and values that is both the hardest to get at and the most influential element of all. And yet it’s to understand this core that cultural awareness is all about. It’s very common to classify this core according to several dimensions, e.g. the prevailing social attitudes towards hierarchy and authority (called “power distance”).
Cultural differences – which begin at the core of the onion and spread upwards and outwards through the various layers – mean that the hidden rules of everyday behavior might change as soon as you set foot on a distant country’s soil. In seminars on cultural awareness, coaches like illustrating the emotional effect of such a drastic change with the so-called Barnga simulation.
The Barnga simulation is often used in intercultural competence training. The participants sit down at several tables in several small groups and start playing a simple card game with a certain set of rules. Once they have learned the rules at their table, they mustn’t speak anymore. As soon as they know their rules and have played a few rounds, two people from each table move over to a different one.
What they don’t know, though, is the fact that the rules at every table are slightly different. So when they start playing elsewhere, it will soon cause confusion and irritation, even frustration and helplessness among the players. This is what immersing oneself in a different culture may feel like – the disorientation of culture shock. Being exposed to these feelings in such a context may help participants to appreciate the importance of cultural awareness and competence.
(From InterNations)