Créer une structure de connaissances (document en anglais)

Cultural Competence

Establishing a Knowledge Structure

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Companies like Hewlett-Packard, Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare and IBM consider cultural competence an important (important enough to hold managers accountable with financial incentives) management requirement. Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare's Vice- President of Diversity Barbara Stern, explains, "Cultural competence should be a part of everyone's strategy. We need to be good at working with people of all walks of life." R. Roosevelt Thomas, Jr., founder of The Institute for Managing Diversity and well known author asserts, "Companies that want to compete successfully must hold managers accountable for underutilizing people who are not like them." He adds, "This has nothing to do with prejudice or guilt. Managers must perform their role or be removed to another area where they can be effective. Understanding differences helps individuals learn how to get along." In essence, cultural competence and strong diversity management will help companies effectively draw upon talent, intellectual capital, and motivate more employees.

What Does Cultural Competence Look Like?: Alan Richter, partner at QED Consulting and creator of The Global Diversity Game, explains, "One dimension of cultural competence is the ability to deal with ambiguity. The more you deal with it the more effective you can be -- it's adaptive. Dealing with complexity is another skill. From a cultural perspective, it might the ability to switch between cultural paradigms." Deborah Dagit, Silicon Graphic's director of diversity adds: "Cultural competence is knowing what I don't know and learning to understand what other's expectations are. You have to ask questions to be on the same page." Sybil Evans, author of Resolving Conflict in a Diverse Workplace and conflict management expert, adds, "a critical skill is the ability to see issues from another person's perspective. Although it is a mistake to claim total identification with someone of a different culture, one can empathize with the person's feelings and communicate recognition, respect, and caring. Enhancing questions, listening and responding skills is essential to demonstrate this understanding."

At Ford Motor Company, leadership behaviors have been identified as they have integrated leadership assessment into performance management. Among the behaviors management are assessed on are: integrity, courage, durability, people development, teamwork, communications, drive for results, systemic thinking, and business acumen. Culture is integrated into these behaviors. For example, people development involves the valuing and confidently promoting a diversity of new ideas and workforce. For communication, managers are encouraged to demonstrate sensitivity to language and cultural communication requirements.

Conflict Management for Creative Tension: A Critical Competence: Cross-cultural encounters are bound to lead to conflict. According to Evans, three areas of miscommunication are likely to lead to this conflict: values, perceptions, and assumptions. She explains, "Managing conflict constructively requires checking assumptions, finding common ground, and generating solutions." Frank J. Quevedo, vice-president, Southern California Edison, adds, "We have tremendous opportunity to provide managers with basic conflict resolution skills. This is their reality, they need tools to manage across those differences effectively." When conflict can be thought of as an opportunity for creative tension, we begin to see a basis for better decision-making, more creative ideas, solutions to problems, and improved communication and interpersonal relationships.

Success was evidenced for Mercedes-Benz at their plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The Americans found that their styles for addressing issues differed from Germans and vice versa. Debra Nelson, administrator of external affairs at Mercedes-Benz U.S. International says, "We knew we would be engaging Alabamians, Germans, and people throughout North America as well as the 'Big Three.'" She adds, "It has taken a lot of work, including cross-cultural understanding and awareness, to help us be productive. The work has paid off. We learned communication was the key. Through communication we discovered our commonalities."

Developing cultural competence takes work and education, but is well worth the investment. Sondra Theiederman, author of Bridging Cultural Barriers for Corporate Success writes that learning about cross-cultural management is important because it will "allow you to maximize the chances that your multicultural workplace will be productive, efficient, and harmonious. It will also enable you to attract and retain high-quality workers of diverse ethnic or cultural backgrounds." Specifically, she notes, it will allow:

• "Better communication despite accent and language barriers.

• More effective motivation of workers through the accurate interpretation of behaviors and the design of culturally aware motivation strategies.

• The accurate evaluation of culturally diverse applicants and employees through a better understanding of presentation styles, behaviors, and language facility.

• Harmony and comfort in the workplace through an understanding of the motivations and perspectives of others.

Moreover, cross-cultural management minimizes:

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