| Wednesday, November 09, 2011 - Newsletter: Open-mindedness |
Open-mindedness
Having an open-mind is a choice. It's a conscious decision to be comfortable with different views of the world. That doesn't mean you have to like or agree with everything you see or hear. For me it's Lillian Hellman's question - 'Since when do you have to agree with people to defend them from injustice?'
The next step from open-mindedness is tolerance. But herein lies the challenge, because tolerance means that I do my thing, and you do yours and we just keep out of each other's way. Where's the connection? Where's the growth?
We won't all become freedom fighters or social activists, but that shouldn't preclude reaching out from our corners to understand why others take a different position.
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| | Tuesday, October 04, 2011 - Newsletter: What You Are |
What you are
‘What you are shouts so loudly in my ear that I cannot hear what you say'. Ralph Waldo Emerson was so right.
The man at the café wearing a t-shirt that said ‘Speak English or #*@! off’, left me outraged. Could I hear his point of view? No, I was much too offended by his apparent prejudice to even want to. Far from encouraging me to engage in a conversation, the t-shirt provoked an instant negative reaction. I immediately consigned him to the ‘bigot’ box without even a hello.
So much for tolerance. I’ll never know if he really thinks that way or if he was out to provoke. Nor will we have the opportunity to challenge each others view. For one who teaches about first impressions and the limiting effects of stereotyping it was a salutary reminder that there is always a chance that I might have been wrong about him.
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| | Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - Newsletter: Tourists |
Tourists
When you are a tourist you get to look at the curiosity in front of you, form an opinion, and walk away. Nothing has to change. You don’t have to engage or accept. You don’t have to understand or even like.
Being a tourist enables you to return safely to your own world, secure in the knowledge that you are okay.
Fascinating as it is, the tourist path doesn’t provide real connection with others. It’s not until you step off the path, out of tourist thinking that you get to see the other perspective.
The current massive influx of tourists here for the event-that-shall-not-be-named, has inspired a amazing array of opportunities to get inside New Zealand culture. Festivals, workshops, exhibitions, demonstrations. I hope that New Zealanders are taking advantage of all that is on offer to ensure we are not tourists in our own land.
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| | Thursday, April 14, 2011 - Newsletter: Putting the Shoe on the Other Foot |
Putting the Shoe on the Other Foot
Apparently Kiwis are a strange breed - rather like the upside down people, whose noses run and feet smell. One of our contradictions is that many Kiwis wear shoes inside their homes, yet go barefoot outside.
Other cultures regard wearing shoes inside as unhygienic, bringing dirt from the outside into a clean house. It offends the housekeeper, suggesting that their efforts to keep the house clean are not worthy of your consideration, or that the house might be too dirty to matter.
Having noticed that many Kiwis wear shoes inside, your hosts may tell you to leave your shoes on when visiting. After all, you are the visitor and will receive special treatment.
Best advice? Don’t! Keep in mind the Platinum Rule and treat others as they want to be treated. If you see that the house rule for your hosts is ‘shoes off’, then follow it. Just as you would hope your guests would be sensitive to your ways. Most often there will be slippers ready for you to borrow.
Second best advice? Make it easier on yourself by wearing shoes that are easily removed – and clean socks with no holes!
An increasing number of Kiwi homes are shoe-free zones, so maybe we’re not so different after all. Taking your shoes off when entering a home seems a small detail, but noticing and honouring someone else’s cultural practices builds connections.
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| | Monday, March 28, 2011 - Newsletter: Coming Through |
A weekend at WOMAD with 35,000 other festival-goers made me acutely aware of crowd behaviour. Just how do you navigate through a swathe of people going in the opposite direction?
I thought to follow the road rules and keep left, as I do on a city footpath. Nope. Then I tried keeping to the right. Nope. What about straight up the middle? Nope. It was a melee!
Somehow we all managed to get where we needed to go. A good-humoured crowd intent on enjoying the music and sunshine helped, but I’m still trying to figure it out. It resembled intersections in Cambodia, where there are few traffic lights or give ways and the rules are incomprehensible unless you are local. Yet almost everyone gets there unscathed.
I have a friend who ascribes to the Sir Walter Raleigh school of footpath etiquette. He always walks on the roadside of the footpath – apparently to protect ladies from the muddy splashes of passing carriages! So charmingly old-fashioned and yet more cultural incomprehensibility, unless you understand the reasons behind it.
Where do you walk on the footpath? Next time you’re out, watch how others use it too and your reaction to them.
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| | Tuesday, March 15, 2011 - Newsletter: Sleeping Arrangements |
Sleeping Arrangements
How do you sleep in a bed? A simple question, although perhaps a little unexpected. Unless you’ve had homestay students or visitors from cultures where bedding is different.
Faced with a bed with multiple layers, how do you know where to start? Sleep on top? Logical if you come from a hot climate. And if your habit has been to fold up bedding and put it away during the day, then what’s this all about? Duvets, sheets, blankets, quilts. So many layers, so many decisions.
It’s easy to assume that everyone knows your way.
It’s easy to forget that other ways are equally valid.
It’s easy to overlook the conversations that put others at ease with our ways and help us to understand theirs.
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| | Sunday, February 27, 2011 - Newsletter: The Worst and the Best of Times |
The Worst and the Best of Times
It’s nothing new to find that tough times can bring out the best in us, and amidst the tragedy, one of the most positive Christchurch earthquake stories this week reminds me of the power of connection.
An older woman lives next door to a house full of young men. They play their music loud and she doesn’t appreciate it.
Until this week when the earthquake struck and she answered her front door to the young men. They had come to check if she was alright and expressed concern that her chimney was in danger of collapse. They scaled the roof, dismantled the chimney and stacked the bricks neatly beside the house. Meanwhile she made afternoon tea and invited them in.
Stereotypes shattered and bridges built. A reminder that when we connect positively with people, when we come to like them and appreciate them, we can forgive a great deal.
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| | Tuesday, February 08, 2011 - Newsletter: Time for Dinner |
Time for Dinner
Dinner was great. Delicious food, interesting conversation, friendships cemented with shared stories and experiences. In fact it was a splendid evening, until it came time to go home.
Now my culture’s unwritten rules tell me to leave new friends after the post-dinner coffee. My gracious guests were new to New Zealand from a different culture. They stayed. And stayed. And stayed some more. Please understand that I’m an early riser, so by about 9.30pm I’m history. It became a struggle to keep the conversation going.
They finally left at midnight, amidst profuse thanks and invitations for dinner at their home next time. Glancing wryly at the pile of dishes, I headed for bed. Yes, it had been an excellent evening, but I wondered which of their cultural rules I might have unwittingly broken. I mean, how do you know?
I’d invited my guests to come at 6.30pm and they arrived on the dot. In some cultures arriving up to several hours later is fine. For me, the arrival window is maybe 20 minutes. I hadn’t given a leaving time, and having that conversation when I was running out of steam at 10pm seemed churlish!
It was another reminder that our rules of social etiquette vary widely. Talking about those subjects is a really important part of settling into a new country. It’s the kind of conversation you can easily have before it’s needed, and opens up sharing of differences that can make or break friendships.
So, next month when I join them for dinner at their house, I will ask what their cultural etiquette says about everything from what time to arrive, what to bring, table manners, and yes, what time to go home! Should be another very interesting evening.
Until next time,
Jenny
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| | Tuesday, December 07, 2010 - Newsletter: Opening Mouth to Change Feet |
Opening Mouth to Change Feet
If you could ask anything at all about a culture that is different to your own, what would it be? Yes, there are some subjects which we prefer not to talk about - Japanese learn not to ask New Zealanders how much they earn!
So often the driver for learning about other cultures is the fear of saying or doing the wrong thing and causing offense. Not meaning to offend doesn’t protect against getting hurt, so instead we end up saying nothing or the wrong thing.
Yet if we don’t take the risk of asking, we’ll never know. And if you don’t speak up in reply, then those difficult conversations will never happen. Learning isn’t always painfree.
When we offend someone intentionally or not, it breaks trust. It matters less how much difference there is between us, than it does how much skill we have in repairing the broken trust. That is far more valuable than trying to remember a checklist of cultural dos and don'ts.
Until next time,
Jenny
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| | Monday, November 29, 2010 - Newsletter: Blind or Blinkered |
Blind or Blinkered
Your culture teaches you what is right and wrong, good and bad, even beautiful and ugly. It provides a set of inner rules to live by.
It can act as a guide or blinkers. A guide provides a framework and a handrail to grab in uncertain times. Blinkers narrow your focus so there is no room for contrasting views. It’s far easier (and safer) to see your view as the best one. We each like to think that we’re right.
The cultural practices of others don’t make sense when viewed through our own eyes. They seem peculiar, an oddity to be marvelled at or condemned. And then we return to our own safe blinkered world, secure in the knowledge that we are okay.
What if, instead, you viewed your culture’s teachings as a springboard for starting conversations and growing understanding? It doesn’t mean you have to like what you see, to agree with it, or even to change – unless you find new ways that you prefer! But it does enable you to make room for other people’s beliefs.
So go ahead. Ask. Can you do that without judging?
Until next time,
Jenny
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| | Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - Newsletter: Who Are We Really? |
Who Are We Really?
Is New Zealand bicultural, multicultural or monocultural?
Professor James Liu from Victoria University describes us as formally bicultural, demographically multicultural and institutionally monocultural.
I agree. It’s all too obvious in organisations where difference is often regarded as a curiosity, rather than an opportunity. Where majority culture rules blindly with the expectation that if you don’t like it, then you should leave. In such organisations, the rules reflect the way majority culture sees the world, but leave little room for other views.
It intrigues me that while people expect to encounter cultural difference when they travel, many avoid it in the comfort of home. Blaming human tendencies to flock with those who are similar is easy, but it doesn’t address the issue that getting along well with people who are different from us builds a stronger community.
The more high quality contact we have, the better our understanding of each other. The fear of causing offence by saying or doing the wrong thing reduces when we get to know how other people think.
However you describe New Zealand society, we still have a long way to go.
Food for thought
* How comfortable are you with other cultures? Really?
* When did you last share a learning conversation with someone from a different culture?
* Who could you talk with today and what would you ask?
Until next time,
Jenny
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| | Tuesday, November 02, 2010 - Newsletter: Say What You Mean to Say |
Yeah Right!
Which part of 'no' don't you understand? I mean, 'yes' means 'yes' and 'no' means 'no'. Doesn't it?
One of the most striking contrasts between cultures is the degree of directness in communication. If you want to understand that in your own culture, look at the proverbs. My Pakeha Kiwi upbringing tells me 'get to the point', and 'don't beat about the bush'. I used to think I was quite direct, until I encountered Dutch, German and Afrikaaner cultures.
The difference is that direct communicators focus on the task while indirect communicators are more concerned with protecting relationships. Getting straight to the point can be seen as rude and abrupt, while being indirect may appear waffly and indecisive. Notice how we invariably put a negative spin on a contrasting style?
In cultures that are more indirect, 'yes' can mean 'I hear you', rather than 'I agree'.
Food for thought
* How do you tell the difference? Ask!
* If you're not sure, check what was meant
* Listen for the other person's style and talk about it in comparison with your own
Until next time,
Jenny
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| | Tuesday, October 19, 2010 - Newsletter: Yeah right! |
Yeah Right!
I just got fed a line of total nonsense. I knew it wasn't right from the start. All my senses told me, that what was being said and the real message were completely opposite. Why? The words said one thing, but her face and tone told quite a different story.
Professor Albert Mehrabian's oft-quoted research describes three aspects of face-to-face communication: words, tone of voice and body language. To be sure that someone really means what they are saying, we look for all three to be sending exactly the same message.
Focussing specifically on talking about feelings and attitudes, Mehrabian said that if one part doesn't seem to fit, then we are more likely to believe our reading of the body language message.
But body language differs between cultures, so how do you know your reading is correct? If you assume your interpretation is the right one, you may be completely wrong. The easy example is eye contact. You can read lack of eye contact in conversation as shiftiness, or as a sign of respect. Both are valid interpretations, depending on your culture's teachings. Misreading one for the other can land you in a power of strife.
Food for thought
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Next time, try this...
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Pause and ask yourself 'What if I'm misreading this?'
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Say 'I'm hearing X, but I'm reading Y in your voice and body language. What am I missing?'
Until next time,
Jenny
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| | Monday, October 04, 2010 - Newsletter: The Invisible Bubble |
The Invisible Bubble
I was in a queue of three at the PostShop the other day, and the woman behind me was standing close.
Too close. Way too close for comfort, so I moved forward. So did she. I moved again. And so did she. Now I was breathing down the neck of the person in front of me. It was beginning to feel like a bizarre kind of dance. Had she no idea about personal space? Apparently not!
It wasn't until she went to the counter that I heard her accent.
We each live in an invisible bubble that grows or shrinks, depending on the context. When you're with your partner or your kids, the bubble might be as small as a handspan, with the general public it might be a couple of metres or more.
Personal space involves all our senses. Loud music and unusual smells can affect us in much the same way as a person standing near. When someone gets too close there is a physical reaction, raising blood pressure and heart rate. We avoid eye contact and move away where possible.
Anthropologist, Edward T. Hall called it proxemics - the invisible rules of space between us. They vary widely between cultures. New Zealanders prefer far more personal space than people from Latin American, Mediterranean or Indian cultures.
For each of us there are basically two kinds of space, my way and the wrong way. We learn the unwritten rules of our culture early and then are quick to react when someone knowingly or unknowingly breaks them.
Food for thought
- What's 'too close' for you, in different situations?
- How do you respond when someone is too close for comfort?
Until next time,
Jenny
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| | Monday, September 20, 2010 - Newsletter: Once Long Ago... |
Once Long Ago...
Once long ago and far, far away, in a land that time forgot, a storyteller wove tales of magic that captured our hearts.
Somehow as grownups we lose sight of the power of story to positively transform rather than simply to entertain. A personal anecdote can connect us across cultural difference, a cautionary tale can alert us to danger, a visionary story can inspire a team to action. Each is far more influential than a dry, dusty manual on a manager's shelf.
Stories can generate new possibilities or reinforce old thinking. Just as we heard bedtime stories of the big, bad wolf, so too age-old adversaries tell stories of how bad 'The Others' really are. Retelling the grievances keeps the past alive. But what if the story was changed? What if we told each other stories to inspire and encourage, sustain and grow?
A story can be as simple as two lines - it doesn't have to be a novel. There are no guarantees of happy-ever-after, but we certainly have a better chance of understanding each other and learning about how we each deal with life.
Food for thought
- What stories have you been telling, that keep you in the same old space?
- How could you change them so that they serve you better?
- What story could you tell that would help others understand you better?
- How could a culture of storytelling transform your workplace? your family?
Until next time,
Jenny
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