Understanding Cultural Competency
To understand cultural competency, we need to start with the basics of understanding culture. Culture represents the values, norms, and traditions that affect how individuals of a particular group perceive, think, interact, behave, and make judgments about their world. It also is the foundation for understanding differences among human societies. A November 2007 article in the Management Organizational
Review, titled “Cultural Intelligence: Its Measurement and Effects on Cultural Judgment and Decision Making, Cultural Adaptation, and Task Performance,” the authors offered this defi nition of cultural competency: “Cultural competency (or cultural intelligence) is the ability
to adapt, work, and manage successfully in new cultural set- tings. Culturally competent people recognize that culture may impact the way people perceive the same facts. When several competing interpretations of a situation may be valid, they can place apparent contradictions in cultural contexts and deal with the ambiguity.”
There are myriad misinterpretations of behavior and misunder-
standings that stem from cultural unfamiliarity and the frustrat- ing inability to communicate due to language barriers. “For example, some cultures have a humble demeanor, where they will not contradict a point or try to explain a wrong statement because they come from a culture that is non-confrontational,” says Sahar Andrade of Sahar Consulting LLC. “Eye contact is also a crucial characteristic of some cultures where it is used in a very seldom way or is considered rude. Some other cultures feel that talking about their achievements or education is brag- ging and is contrary to their nature and culture. Recruiters can make the mistake of misinterpreting the body language and lose a perfectly good candidate for fear that they won’t fi t into the company’s culture or that they don’t have the proper skills and qualifi cations for the job.” As the universe of companies that do business abroad
expands, legal executives are advised to strengthen their capacity for cultural competency.
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STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVING CULTURAL COMPETENCY Similar to any other corporate initiative, there must be a strategy that aligns with the corporate mission. Processes and policies take time to develop and cannot be rushed. Implementation must be carefully considered and rolled out. Professor Molinsky advises companies to overcome
what he describes as the “knowing-doing gap” in cross- cultural competency training. “Far too often, people leave training or coaching sessions with a sense in their mind about how they would ideally want to behave in a chal- lenging cross-cultural interaction. However, when they actually encounter such a situation, they lack the ability to translate this ideal into reality. “To be eff ective, cultural competency training must
not only sensitize people to the challenges of functioning cross-culturally, but also give them opportunities to practice new skills in realistic environments.” T e professor adds that crossing cultures is not only a cultural challenge, it is a psychological challenge. “Training people to anticipate and manage the psychological challenges of crossing cultures is a key challenge that is often underestimated in cultural competency training work.” One key to making training eff ective is customizing the training to fi t the organization’s and the individual’s needs.
DIVERSITY & THE BAR® MARCH/APRIL 2011 “T e elements that should be included in the cultural
competency trainings will vary based on the individual,” Odom says. “I would ask, ‘Has this person had the oppor- tunity to work with people from other cultures? Have they traveled outside of their country of origin? Do they speak another language?’ On a basic level, it would be helpful to understand some of the nuances in cultural diff erences and how culture can be. It’s understanding that people commu- nicate diff erently. T e trainer should keep this in mind.” Odom also cautions against the use of sweeping gener-
alizations in cultural competency training. “T e training should stay away from saying ‘this group does this’ and ‘this group does that.’ Some industries have tried this type of training and realized that such generalizations do not work.” Based on her experiences managing the professional
development needs of global teams that worked virtually, Hoey adds that realistic business examples are another essential for eff ective cultural competency programming. “Any cultural competency training needs to have real-life, actual case studies from the company/fi rm where the train- ing is taking place.” She further advises that a team that works on a case
study project should be included among the “trainers.” T e cultural competency instructors need to also under- stand the industry and delve deeply into the particular
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