It’s not easy to go against your natural preferences. To manage cross-cultural teams successfully, you need to flex your own style. We happen to have the loveliest British neighbours who invite us for dinner often. When we were moving to the UK, French friends told us, The British never invite you for dinner, which is a common social activity in France. But individuals are unique you can never predict a person’s behaviour based on his or her nationality. Learning about differences can be useful as a starting point. In fact, there are quite a few cross-cultural trainings in the market that are focused on memorizing cultural differences and can reinforce stereotyping. It’s also common to rely on oversimplified clichés about people from different cultures. In a previous company I worked for, countless times I’ve heard the French complain about the Americans in an ethnocentric way and vice-versa. Ethnocentrism also creates an “us versus them” mentality that can be detrimental. We perceive other’s behaviours as odd and improper. As a result, we negatively judge behaviours that don’t conform to our world vision. Ethnocentrism happens when we implicitly believe our way of doing things and seeing things is the right and only way. We all have a natural tendency to look at other cultures through our own lenses. Six key barriers for cross-cultural communications 1- Ethnocentrism I’m focusing on what you need to know and to do in order to avoid cultural misunderstandings and navigate nimbly cultural differences. This is the second part of a three-part blog series that explores cultural diversity: key concepts, barriers and enablers.
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