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1. CROSS CULTURAL COMMUNICATION
SESSION
"Communicating With Strangers: An Approach
to Intercultural Communication”.

2. CULTURE DEFINED
• Culture is a group which shapes a person's values and
identity. Cultural identities can stem from the following
differences: race, ethnicity, gender, class, religion, country
of origin, and geographic region
• The collection of values, beliefs, behaviors, customs, and
attitudes that distinguish a society
• Its core is to establish and understand how people from
different cultures communicate with each other

3. Corporate Culture
• The beliefs and values shared by people who work
in an organisation
– How people behave with each other
– How people behave with customers/clients
– How people view their relationship with stakeholders
– People’s responses to energy use, community
involvement, absence, work ethic, etc.
– How the organisation behaves to its employees –
training, professional development, etc.

4. Corporate Culture
• May be reflected in:
– Attitude and behaviour of the leadership
– Attitude to the role of individuals in the workplace –
open plan offices, team based working, etc.
– Logo of the organisation
– The image it presents to the outside world
– Its attitude to change

5. Corporate Culture
• May be driven by:
• Vision – where the organisation wants to go in the future
• Mission Statement – summary
of the beliefs of the organisation and where it is now

6. CULTURAL CONFLICTS IN WORKPLACE
• Cultural conflicts arise because of the differences in values
and norms of behavior of people from different cultures. A
person acts according to the values and norms of his or her
culture; another person holding a different worldview might
interpret his or her behavior from an opposite standpoint.
This situation creates misunderstanding and can lead to
conflict.

7. CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION
• We communicate the way we do because we are raised in a
particular culture and learn its language, rules, and norms.
Different cultures (and subcultures) may have different rules
and norms. Understanding the other's culture facilitates
cross-cultural communication.

8. Determinants Of Cultural Differences
• Power Distance
• Masculinity v/s Feminism
• Individualism v/s Collectivism

9. Impact Of Cultural Differences
• Motivational Factors
• Organisational Structure and Design
• Cultural Shock
• Loneliness

10. Cultural Differences

11. Why is Culture Important?
• Culture influences the success of people in organizations
• Research has indicated that culture is one of the six “key
strategic building blocks” of successful organizations
• Culture is a Key Building Block of Success
Corporate
Culture
Financial
Performance
Resources
Products
Markets
• Culture has a direct impact upon financial performance

12. Five Key Aspects of Culture
• Customer-Client Orientation.
• Employee Orientation.
• Performance Standards/Accountability.
• Openness to Change.
• Company Norms.

13. Problems Faced
• Perception
• Groupism
• Ego
• During Festivals

14. Multi Cultural Management

15. UNCERTAINTY & ANXIETY
• Generally, in communication, we seek to reduce
uncertainty. Communication with strangers involves
relatively greater degrees of uncertainty, due to the
difficulty in predicting a stranger's responses.

16. STRATEGIES TO REDUCE ANXIETY
• We may reduce our uncertainty by following three basic
strategies.
• One may passively observe the stranger.
• One may actively seek out information from other friends of
the stranger, or from books.
• Finally, one may seek information directly from the stranger
by interacting with them and asking questions.
• Also, offering information about one's self often prompts
reciprocal offerings of information from another

17. How To Resolve Conflicts
• (1) the parties describe what they find offensive in each
other's behavior;
• (2) they get an understanding of the other party's cultural
perceptions;
• (3) they learn how the problem would be handled in the
culture of the opponent;
• (4) they develop conflict solutions.

18. 5. Learning about other cultures
• People can prevent cross-cultural conflicts by learning about
cultures that they come in contact with. This knowledge can
be obtained through training programs, general reading,
talking to people from different cultures, and learning from
past experiences.

19. 6. Altering organizational practices and
procedures
• Often the organizational structure reflects the norms of just
one culture and gives rise to cultural conflict in the
workplace . In such cases, structural change in the
organization becomes necessary to make the system more
sensitive to cultural norms of other people

20. Discrimination
• Cultural conflicts lead to Discrimination toward or against a
person or group is the prejudicial treatment of them based
on certain characteristics.

21. Dealing with Discrimination in the Workplace
• In the last few years, charges of gender discrimination (man
vs woman) in the workplace have increased. Racial bias,
while no longer the most common complaint among
employees, remains a problem, as does age discrimination.

22. Dealing With Discrimination At Workplace
• Dealing effectively with discrimination is a twofold process:
• Become knowledgeable with regard to antidiscrimination
laws,
• Pay close attention to what’s happening in your company

23. Types Of Discrimination
1.Gender discrimination
• Socially, sexual differences have been used to justify
different roles for men and women, in some cases giving rise
to claims of primary and secondary roles.

24. GENDER STEREOTYPING
• The United Nations had concluded that women often
experience a "glass ceiling" and that there are no societies in
which women enjoy the same opportunities as men. The
term "glass ceiling" is used to describe a perceived barrier to
advancement in employment based on discrimination,
especially sex discrimination.

25. 2. Language discrimination
• Diversity of language is protected and respected by most
nations who value cultural diversity. However, people are
sometimes subjected to different treatment because their
preferred language is associated with a particular group,
class or category. Discrimination exists if there is prejudicial
treatment against a person or a group of people who speak
a particular language or dialect.

26. 3. Disability Discrimination
• People with disabilities face discrimination in all levels of
society. The attitude that disabled individuals are inferior to
non-disabled individuals is called "ableism".

27. CONTD……
• Disabled people face discrimination by employers. They may
find problems with securing employment as their handicap
can be seen as a risk to the company,
• Once in employment they may find they are overlooked for
promotion opportunities.
• Similarly, if an employee becomes disabled while employed
they may also find themselves being managed out the
company by HR departments.

28. Managing Cultural Conflicts

29. Here are some general guidelines for managers to
overcome conflicts in workplace due discriminatory
attitudes of employees
• Pay attention to what you don’t always see. You can’t always
see it, prove it, or stop it, but if you ignore even the hint of
discriminatory behavior, you and your company could suffer
in the long run. Low morale, employee conflicts, and even
lawsuits are just a few of the serious problems that could
arise.

30. Don’t play favorites
• If you offer certain benefits to employees, make sure these
perks are available to everyone. For instance, if you want to
provide a flexible work arrangement for your older workers,
avoid appearing discriminatory by being sure to offer this
option to everyone

31. Keep your personal beliefs personal
• Your personal opinion regarding race, religion, sexual
orientation, and other potentially contentious issues should
not affect your duty to monitor workplace discrimination.

32. Be careful of what you say and to whom you
say it
• It’s easy for an off-the-cuff remark — said by either you or an
employee — to start a torrent of bad feelings and even a
charge of discrimination. Think before you say something that
might be misunderstood, and teach your employees to
conduct themselves similarly.

33. Respond quickly
• If an employee expresses concern about possible
workplace discrimination, do what you can in the
shortest period of time to resolve the issue. Allowing it
to linger will only add to the employee’s anxiety and
allow whatever may be occurring to continue. Talk to
the accuser and the accused trying to find out what
exactly happened.

34. Educate yourself
• Stay informed about workplace discrimination. Talk with your
peers in similar and different industries, read your daily
newspaper for information about what’s happening locally,
and conduct research on discrimination and harassment law.

35. Formalize the policy and the consequence
Create an antidiscrimination policy (or consider paying an
expert to create one). Keep in mind that no
antidiscrimination policy will be taken seriously unless you
take concrete action against any possible wrongdoing.. If you
discover that some kind of discrimination has taken place,
decide if you will start with a warning, insist on counseling, or
formally terminate the accused.

36. HOW TO DEAL WITH DIFFERENTLY ABLED
PEOPLE AT WORKPLACE
• Most of the time, the way we interact with these people
means a lot. There are tactful ways to approach them.
• For example, people in wheel chairs definitely sit at a lower
eye-level than the rest of the walking population. So when
interacting with them, be sure not to lean over them since
this might be an encroachment of their personal space. If it’s
just for a few moments, consider squatting. If the
conversation would take long, pull out a chair. This way you’d
still be eye-to-eye with the person.

37. DEALING WITH HEARING IMPAIRMENT
• You should also be very careful with how you communicate
for people with hearing problems for their benefit of
course. Speak slowly to make sure that the person can hold
on to every word. Some can lip-read so be sure not to
cover your mouth while speaking. Hearing aids tend to
magnify all sounds, so better go to a more quiet place and
converse there.

38. DEALING WITH SPEECH IMPAIRED
• Problems may also affect speech. Stroke victims for example,
may have speech impairments causing them to speak slowly.
Be a patient listener and avoid cutting them off in the middle
of their sentence.

39. DEALING WITH VISUALLY IMPAIRED
• For the blind or those with visual impairments, be sure to
identify yourself. Use your normal speaking voice so that the
person will be able to recognize you. If the person was born
blind, avoid making references to visual cues like describing
things like color or starting conversation with “Have you
seen…?”

40. Be Sensitive
• It may seem like tough work but being sensitive to these
things would make interacting with them a lot better.

41. Always remember that there are always
Varied solutions to problems
• one set of steps or one
solution that can resolve
every issue – does not
exist. Each issue and set
of circumstances are
different and might
require yet another
approach.

42. How Can Culture be Managed?
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43. Culture Management Process
Define the Culture Needed to Support Long-
Term Success (“Desired Culture”)
Identify the
Current Culture
Identify And Analyze Significant Gaps
Between Desired Culture And Current
Culture
Develop Culture
Management Plan
Communicate The “New” Culture, As Well As
The Steps Being Taken To Manage It
Monitor Implementation Of Desired Culture
And Update/Refine The Culture
Management Plan
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44. Step 1: Define the Culture Needed to Support
Long-Term Success (“Desired Culture”)
Key Question:
What should our culture be, given our current stage of
development and our future goals?
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45. Define the Culture Needed to Support Long-Term
Success (“Desired Culture”)
• Identify The Elements of Your Organization’s Culture
With Respect to:
– Treatment of Employees
– Treatment of Customers/Clients
– Performance Standards/Accountability
– Openness to Change
– Company Norms
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46. Step 2: Identify Your Current Culture
• Methods to Identify Your Current Culture
– Stories – What is life like here?
– Interviews.
– Analysis of
symbols, language, rites/rituals, rewards, heroes, and
web sites (“Artifacts”).
– Surveys to Measure Culture.
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47. Step 3: Identify and Analyze Significant Gaps Between
Desired and Current Culture
Identifying Gaps Using Qualitative Methods
• Analyze information collected about the organization’s
current culture.
• Identify the “key elements” of the current culture, based on
this analysis.
• Compare current to desired culture and identify gaps.
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48. Steps 4 to 6: Develop, Implement and Monitor a
Culture Management Plan
• Identify Strengths and Opportunities to Improve
• Identify Areas of Focus and Analyze
• Develop the Culture Management Plan
• Implement the Culture Management Plan
• Monitor Results
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