Two sharp and savvy bloggers have recently posted about the importance of cultural awareness and sensitivity. Diane Levin at Online Guide to Mediation posted "Developing cultural awareness in a global business age." Levin says:
For many of us in the 21st century, the map of our business and social networks has radically changed. Once local or regional, those networks have become global, thanks to digital technology, which has transformed the geography of our professional and personal lives.
Michelle Golden at Golden Practices blogged "Working Globally." Golden writes:
Knowledge of multi-cultural business and social etiquette is increasing in necessity. Living in such an electronically connected time, when even telephone access to the farthest reaches of the world are reasonable (or free with Skype! gotta love Skype...). Even I hardly go a day without speaking to or corresponding with someone from another hemisphere (and that doesn't include blogging).
Both point to a very informative post by Pam Slim at Escape from Cubicle Nation entitled "How not to be a cultural knucklehead in a global business world." Be sure to click on over and read what Slim advises.
Several years ago I conducted a couple of seminars for lawyers in San Francisco on cross-cultural communication. Here's an article I wrote about the programs for Lawyer Hiring & Training Report.
Why I Left My Heart in San Francisco: California Lawyers Expand Their Cultural Awareness
In January if this year, I offered two seminars to lawyers in California about the influence of culture on conflict resolution. One of the training programs was for the settlement attorneys of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and the other was for a group of approximately 25 lawyer mediators from various firms.
I felt very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with lawyers who were eager to open themselves up to new information and to shift old attitudes. Learning that many of our ideas are not universal but are instead a function of our culture -- are "culture-bound" -- can be disconcerting, and yet these lawyers were enthusiastic when working with the topics.
In learning about a culture (as well as many other topics), three areas must be addressed: . . . Download the rest of the article.
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