Diversity in the Workplace: must you understand others to understand yourself? To get along with Others? It helps, says the author of ‘Seven Steps for Defeating Bias in the Workplace’

What can we say about Americans, and how we are alike? Not much, except that … we hold a fondness for ice water!
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Leave it to fun-loving Mark Twain. This delightful spokesperson for the 19th century American popular culture, really did once say that ice water was the ONLY thing Americans have in common. Twain really didn’t know what he was talking about on this issue, but at least he wasn’t trying to force the term “melting pot” on Americans, a phrase that is still used by many Americans – and infers this country is nothing but a composite of cultures from around the world.

If not the melting pot phrase, how often do we hear something like, “It seems like every other country has a culture but we don’t” or “America is just a hodgepodge of group – we don’t really have any values that distinguish us?”

Social scientist Sondra Theiderman, a speaker and author on diversity, bias-reduction, and cross-cultural issues, asked this question in writing for Diverse issues, a Penn State publication. She is also the author of Making Diversity Work: Seven Steps for Defeating Bias in the Workplace (Chicago: Dearborn Press, 2003)

People talk about the "melting pot" and say that the United States is nothing but a conglomeration of cultures from around the world. Or they focus on this country as a "nation of immigrants," but there are still unique American characteristics that resulted from the synergy or coming together of these many cultures, Theiderman states.

But it is from that very fabric that a true American culture has developed, from the Puritan work ethic brought by the English to the "all-American" German hot dog, and such "American" French words as rendezvous and hors d'oeuvres.

So, it seems, we do have a culture – and there are many reasons why we need to remember this is so, most importantly to learn how to understand other cultures so we can get along with people who are different - by learning about ourselves, first.

Understanding other cultures, starts with knowing one’s own culture. And when we are master of both, it becomes far more possible to accurately interpret the needs and behaviors of colleagues, patients, and families who might be new arrivals to this country – people whose cultures have different ways of looking at the world.

Getting to a point of understanding of culture, might come through simply thinking of human beings as fish in a fishbowl surrounded by water and glass, and unaware these elements exist, thus distorting the view of the outside world.This analogy is used by Theiderman, and I think it works quite well.

Most humans functioning inside our culture (the fishbowl), have no idea that their own culture exists, let alone the cultures (fishbowls) of others, and vice versa.

To most people, cultural values -- what we do and the way we feel about things -- are assumed to be human nature, and many of us simply reason this is just the way ALL people act and behave.

Take the issue of eye contact. Americans generally believe it is a sign of respect to look someone in the eyes, or that this behavior is an accurate way to determine if a person is telling the truth.
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What we often may not realize is that direct eye contact is considered totally DIS-respectful in many cultures. While an American might see lack of eye contact as deceitful, uninterested, or shifty, a person from another culture often sees lack of eye contact as communicating respect.

A major trick for achieving and managing diversity in the workplace is to eliminate misunderstandings like this; to learn the basis of such cultural misunderstanding is first to become consciously aware of our own values and that our way of seeing the world is not automatically shared by everyone we meet, particularly from across cultures.

Once this is realized, that our views are not simply a fact of human nature, we can better interpret the behavior and needs of those around us. And voila! We have cross cultural understanding in today’s diversified workplace.

So how do we do this – become aware of how we see outside of the fishbowl, compared to the variety of viewpoints coming into the workplace from other ethnic groups and cultures?

Theiderman suggests a number of ways, including a quick lesson learned by looking at popular proverbs used in the American culture, such as “There’s no fool like an old fool” – a saying, albeit antiquated, that shows the value we place on youth.

While the saying is old, the practice continues, and the United States is practically alone in the world in its obsession with youth and cavalier attitude toward older people, suggesting it is critical that we stay alert to this contrast in values. Take a person who might be a Navajo; even as a citizen of the United States, he or she would most likely show respect for older people, looking to them for advice and counsel, because reverence for the elderly is a significant belief practiced by the Navajo culture

Hence, even for the non-Navajo person unwilling to accept advice from an elderly person, if they are going to be successful communicators with other Navajos, they must understand this cultural difference, at least when communicating across cultures. (Hopefully, the non-Navajo person who does not honor age will actually learn from the experience. But that’s another day…)

So specifically, how can one person learn values held by people from other cultures, in order to achieve better understanding? Theiderman believe this is achievable through several other means. Besides looking at proverbs, she also suggests listening to the stories told by families and cultures, to see what values they contain.

Stories are passed on through families and cultures for a reason – often, for instance, to impress values upon the next generation. A recently followed tradition for many African American families has been the telling of the story of Emmett Till, a cautionary tale for young people about a 14-year-old Chicago African American who was brutally murdered.

Emmett Till visited relatives in the Mississippi Delta in the summer of 1955, following the 1954 Supreme Court decision of Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education and the second decision, known as Brown II (“all deliberate speed” in enforcement of school desegregation).

Till did not understand the Jim Crow laws in Mississippi with respect to deference paid to white women in the state at that time, and he was brutally murdered after whistling at a white store owner’s wife.

His story was told thereafter to many black children by their families in order for them to understand the Jim Crow laws and the consequences if not followed. (Fortunately, the Till incident also brought people away from the civil rights sidelines and helped initiate the modern civil rights movement.)

Values transmitted in a number of family stories – inside and outside of the American culture -- might contain themes of perseverance, the virtue of hard work, the importance of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps or the value of appreciating what you have.

And, so...bottom line: how can we move our employees' and customers' fishbowls closer together – and get our fish to start communicating, even if they come from other fishbowls?

Examining our proverbs and stories are two methods that may help employees to start learning about and appreciating other cultures – two critical steps in bringing diversity to the workplace.
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