Why Should You Be Culturally Aware?

Just because people speak English doesn’t mean that they think English. That’s why!

Cross-cultural awareness is a key life skill in the 21st century - but it is also the world’s best kept secret. We tell you why you should take time to become culturally aware and guarantee you’ll get more out of life.

This Global Village of Ours

The world is getting smaller. We are going on holiday abroad more, we are working in other countries much more and the internet is bringing the world into our homes at the click of a button. Our cities are home to people of many nationalities.

The cultural balance of the world is undergoing a radical change. Whichever way we look at it - and like it or not - most of us live in a melting pot of cultures. And different people do things in different ways.

“People are increasingly having to interact, manage, negotiate and compromise with people from other cultures. The potential for management frustration, costly misunderstandings and even business failures increases significantly when dealing with people whose values, beliefs, customs and first language are different from your own” reports Lisa Hoecklin in The Economist Intelligence Unit book on ‘Managing Cultural Differences‘.

So whether you’re a high-flying globe trotter doing business all over the world - or a teacher in a provincial town teaching a multi-cultural class of students - or just going about your daily life in your home town - your life could be easier, richer and more effective if you are culturally aware.

Should You Get Culturally Aware?

But everyone speaks English wherever we go and anyway the world cultures are meant to be converging, aren’t they?

Don’t be so smug!

Just because people speak English, doesn’t mean they think English.

Ever arrived in another country and felt instantly at home? How about spending time in another country and just never quite settling, without knowing why? Ever had a conversation with someone else and come away wondering ‘I just don’t know where they were coming from?’ (figuratively-speaking of course). What about getting colleagues in other countries to get things done - when one emails you back the right stuff the next day while the other says ‘trust me, I’ll do it’ and it never quite turns up. What about marital arguments over how to bring up the kids? Ever wondered why a New Yorker becomes your immediate best friend while someone from Japan may never quite let you in?

Even the renowned television programme Big Brother was getting in on the act. Big Brother panned out differently in each country reflecting their different cultures, according to ‘The World is Watching … Big Brother‘ on UK’s Channel 4 on 16 September 2000. The programme asked what the behaviour of the house mates in each country told us about national stereotypes. While the Germans developed their relationships to the full, the Spanish rebelled against Big Brother, and the British just sat down and had a nice cup of tea whenever things got stressed!

Even Big Brother was panned out differently in each country reflecting different cultures.

Ever wondered about any of this? Then cross-cultural awareness will give you your answers.

The World’s Best Kept Secret

It’s true. Nobody seems to have heard of the discipline of cross-cultural awareness. It is a serious academic pursuit, it has its own gurus and more to the point after only 10 minutes you can understand the basics. After 10 minutes it can make a positive difference to your life.

Cross-cultural awareness really is a life skill for the 21st century. It should be introduced into the education curriculum right now - and into training programmes of corporate and governmental organizations.

Cross-cultural awareness should be introduced into the education curriculum and corporate training programmes right now.

Lisa Hoecklin continues in her book ‘Managing Cultural Differences’ “When understood and successfully managed, differences in culture can lead to innovative business practices and sustainable sources of competitive advantage.” This applies to nations too. The Observer article states “Diversity strengthens a country. It makes it more exciting. We have hundreds of languages spoken …”

If you’re a monolingual English-speaker, we guarantee that the odds are that you’ll be fascinated by the whole topic. And even if you’re only mildly interested we can guarantee it will make your life easier.

Find out about cross-cultural awareness right now. It will transform your life. Cross-cultural awareness will help you build better relationships with people in your everyday life - even if you don’t speak the same language. Cross-cultural awareness will help you to communicate better and hence you will be much more effective (and stress-free) in your professional life - whatever you do for a living. Global organizations that adopt the discipline of cross-cultural awareness can even get competitive advantage. Imagine that. And it really is so easy. Get more out of life now!

We’d love to hear about any experiences where you’ve worked in cross-cultural teams - both successfully and unsuccessfully. Leave your comment below!

- Sarah Carroll is the author of the Teach Yourself Business language and culture series.

cross-cultural awareness, cross-cultural teams, culture advice