Partners: Cole & Elena

Building Cross-cultural Bridges to Communication 

-You are a 30 year old German female. Your company has recently purchased a Russian business and you are assigned to manage an office in a small Russian village. The current office supervisor is a 55 years old Russian male. He will remain in the office and report directly to you. All of the employees are Russian and they have been reporting directly to him.

As you discuss these scenarios, please consider the following questions:

Scenario: Female from German is sent to Russia to lead a male team.

 

-what communication barriers are evident in this scenario?

 – Language barriers 

– Age and Gender barriers

– Germans have a low-context and individualistic communication style

– misinterpretations 

-what cultural factors may be related to the barrier(s)?

 – one german member and the rest of the office russian 

– imbalance in power dynamics based on culture 

– mentality 

-how might the barrier(s) impact relationships? Team functioning? Workplace productivity?

 – impact top down functioning 

– Slow down workplace productivity by trying to find a middle ground

– it will take longer to establish clear and trustful relationships

-what specific behaviors could help decrease or remove the barrier(s)?

– Pay attention to nonverbal communication

– Share cultural knowledge

– Diversity training

– Prepare ahead of time, do research and explore the location/culture

 

Partner: Hedda

In what ways do you see this multi-literacies approach useful (or challenging?) in developing and adopting more effective communication strategies in the real context of workplaces that you are familiar with or that you imagine to work for?

Having a multi-literacy approach is useful when being culturally engaging and sensitive to others, however this can be challenging since there is not one selected and understood source literary causing confusion or miscommunication. The benefits of having a multi-literary approach as demonstrated in the readings this week, allows for business/organizations to engage globally and reach different audiences. Some examples include social media platforms, international business, call centers, housing or rental spaces, and tourism. Some of the challenges of a multiliteracies approach include miscommunication, misinterpretation due to cultural differences, and culturally neutral understandings. 

Places that inherit these skills of multi-literacy include tech companies and globalized businesses, this allows for a more diverse company culture and the reaching of a larger audience. Having a diverse company such as Apple or Google allows for a more skillful and technical employee base that allows them to reach global audiences. It enhances a company’s ability to know how to cater to other cultures wants and needs based on internal input. For employees, it allows for cultural diversity and learning by empowering one another to learn and teach through cultural differences and similarities. 

 

Partners: Elena, Mahima, Alden

Kill two birds with one stone – US 

Kill two rabbits with one shot – Russia

Shoot one arrow and hit two spots – India

The message: achieve two goals with one effort.

You are able to get two things done at once (multitasking or in relationships)

Does not actually mean killing or shooting instead it means to get something done. 

Actions speak louder than words – USA and Russia

The message: words should be supported by actions, in other case they mean nothing. 

What you do overrides what you say at the end of the day. You can always say you are going to do something but what you actually do is what you are speaking. 

A chain is as strong as its weakest link-USA

This message is about team unity and how a team or group is only as strong as their weakest member. 

This message supports the value of making sure your entire group/team is strong and that it’s important for everyone to have strength, not just one person. This message could be misinterpreted and being taken literally instead of what it actually means. 

Don’t poison someone whom you can kill with sweets.
Message: Don’t be rude if you can achieve the same thing by being sweet and kind to people.

This can be confusing if people think they could actually kill someone with sweets.

 Rains cats and dogs – UK

The message: it is raining heavily. Be aware of that and take an umbrella with you. 

It is hard to understand that this saying is about rain. Using words like cats and dogs, that are not related to rain, can be confusing for foreigners.  

Don’t count your chickens before they hatch – US

The message: Means to not count on something that has not happened yet.

Some might take this in a literal sense and be confused about why you’re talking about counting chickens. 

 

Partners: Marty, Aldern, Orestis, Zaina

Group 1

Campaign- BLM (George Floyd and after)

Goal- To spread (and stop?) awareness of police brutality among minorities

Call-to-Action- It had both a physical and digital call to action. Protests happening across the United States and even other countries after Floyd’s death on May 25th. Gained traction on social media. Big public figures speaking on BLM. 

Effectiveness- Still imbalance in the system, limited change however there were police budget cuts. Looting lead to a change in narrative that in turn reflected badly on the BLM movement, although they did not condone the looting. 

Did it create change? Yes. Companies all over the world campaigned with this movement as well. From Nike, to Vans, Forever 21 and many other multi-million dollar companies/ small companies;  they stood along the movement as well as citizens, celebrities and politicians.

 

Partners: Alden, London

What communication strategies may be more effective to reach out to people that are less privileged economically, socially, and politically?

Based on the readings and discussions of this week, communication strategies that may be more effective to reach out to different groups economically, socially, and politically are using different platforms and multilingual communication. This ensures that you are targeting people of all demographics and neighborhoods. Community outreach as well would be a strong way of communicating within different communities.

https://lacocinasf.org 

Tools and resources to start their own businesses. 

Sharing their story to gain support for their cause, 

Website, media team, robust communications team, newsletter, volunteers, drop in markets, orientations, 

 

In Class Activity

Partner: Mahima Seth

Cultural Artifact: Lord Jagannath

Observational notes: necklace, bright pink long chain with 3 different faces on it, not very big the size, made out of wood, hand painted

Personal notes: reminded me of a dream catcher to ward off bad spirits and bring in positive spirits

Interview: The artifact is one incarnation of Mahima god Jagannath. It is made out of a baby coconut shell. The god has a brother and a sister and they are the three faces on the artifact. The brother symbolizes (strength) and his name is Balbhadra, the sister name is subhadra. Jagannath is important as a god in Odisha. This artifact is more of a religious artifact such as a cross. Mahima values it because her dad values it and gave it to her as a parting gift when she moved.

Cost .25 cents  

Alexis Garcia, Regina Merrill, & Mahima Seth

Alexis and Regina both only speak English. They acknowledged while it’s a privilege to speak a language that is widely known around the world, they both wish they had experience speaking another language. Sometimes English-only speakers can feel guilty for having no other language skills when they travel, or feel like they are perpetuating stereotypes of the “dumb American” who expects everyone else to speak their language. 

Mahima speaks five languages because she was surrounded by these growing up. It was noted that unlike other countries, the U.S. is not surrounded by neighboring countries where other languages are commonly mixed in with English – the only way Americans typically learn other languages is in the classroom, with little natural opportunity to practice these skills. She noted that while her English is considered excellent, in academic or professional settings, she is always questioning whether she is being clear.

When communicating cross-culturally, being patient and asking questions is beneficial to understanding the message. Also not jumping to conclusions when it comes to what the speaker is saying. Looking at the article by Hayman and Fraiberg we see the disadvantages of getting hooked on one part of a communication exchange and how that can alter the perceptions of the receiver when trying to understand the message. A useful technique when cross cultural communication is going back to your understanding of what the speaker initially said and reiterating the message to make sure you are understanding it correctly to make any last minute clarifications. 

In the global context, communication needs to be very effective. The message sometimes gets lost in translations and interpretation. For example, in England some people refer to erasers as “rubber”. But we definitely can’t ask someone in America to pass a rubber. CHAT helps to understand and analyse the relationship between the human mind and the actions they do. So the misunderstanding between Secret Sauce and voodoo as a part of cultural misrepresentation which occurs almost everywhere in the world. To cope, we think actions would be more impactful than words.

 

Group: Alexis Garcia, Marty Bergh, & Cole Anderson

Question #4

What findings (based on Macdonald and Sundararajan article) do you see as intriguing or surprising regarding the expectations of students (both domestic and international) in terms of an opportunity to share cultural heritage and participation in the classroom? How do they relate to your own potential responses or experiences so far?

After sharing all of our perspectives we found the expectations of students (both domestic and international) wanting to share cultural experiences more than the opportunities already provided to them.  For international students being able to share their cultural differences and experiences when integrating into another culture has a direct correlation on their educational success and comfortability. 

(Alexis)

When studying abroad in Germany I noticed that most of my experiences as an international student stayed very secluded to my cohort. We did not intermingle very much with domestic students making everything feel more isolated. I think this type of experience allows you to create your own ideas about another culture instead of what it is actually like which is unfortunate. I also noticed this the other way around when being in the U.S. and having international students in some of my classes. I would make friends with them in my classes but that was the extent of our relationship. I think it would be beneficial to both parties if Universities established a stronger integration plan for international and domestic students in an effort to build educational success. 

(Marty)

When I was studying in Boston, there was a large group of Italian students and me who attended our senior year in high school abroad. For most of the school year the Italian students mingled together, while I was forced to assimilate to the American culture and get to know my fellow domestic students. Although it was outside of my comfort zone at first, I am very happy now that I was forced to get American friends. I also noticed that the teachers were far more interested in learning about the differences between the US and Norway when we were discussing topics such as gun control, ww 2 and other global topics. I was happy to share, and although I was assimilating to the American culture, it felt good to still be able to share my experience and culture with my fellow peers. 

(Cole)

I felt as though during my undergraduate years, the opportunities to share cultural heritage in the classroom lacked to a certain extent. My school did have a large population of culturally diverse students, but within the classroom shared experiences did not occur as frequently as I thought they would when originally attending a school with 40 thousand students. I believe that this had to do with the large setting classrooms where it was harder to speak up and use the experience as a sort of reflection. This was shown to lead to a better connection between international and domestic students. The connection between students and professors on the other hand severely lacked. This varied per program of course but was something interesting to take note of. 

Discussion Questions

1. How can schools create more of an engaging environment between domestic and international students?
2. Why do students tend to stay in groups that they are used to instead of branching out to students with different cultural backgrounds? 
3. Does integrating into another culture mean that you have to adopt more of their cultural experiences and expectations? 

Hi Everyone!

My name is Alexis but I like to go by Lexi. The pronouns I prefer are she/her.  This is currently my second semester in the MAPC program at USF. I am from a town called Los Gatos it is located between San Jose and Santa Cruz and even though it is named the cats everyone here prefers dogs/has a dog. A fun fact about me is that I used to be terrified of all things scary when I was younger now one of my favorite genres are thrillers and crime docuseries (just watched Night Stalker on Netflix). Recently one of my friends taught me how to crochet so I have been doing that in some of my downtime. Some of my favorite things to do include being outside. I love hiking, running, yoga, beach days, and snowboarding. When I am not outside you will find me in the kitchen baking something ridiculously difficult and out of my level of expertise or making pasta! <3