Cultural Communication in the Workplace

Although "sucking it in" is sometimes touted as a strategy for managing interpersonal conflict, a much better solution would be to become more aware of the types of messages that one is sending, and showing cultural sensitivity whenever possible. Given that all individuals and cultures have different ways of perceiving verbal aggressiveness, urging everyone to ignore the issue is not a real solution. Cultural sensitivity should not be confused with emotional sensitivity; instead, it is an effort to learn about other cultures and to strive to effectively communicate with people from a variety of backgrounds. Management strategies to achieve this goal can include learning how to avoid stereotypes in thought and language, learning about different cultures' paralanguage, and how to be conscious of the verbal and nonverbal messages that one sends. This will help to promote a more harmonious workplace, because managers and employees will have the necessary skills to help them be more effective communicators, regardless of who they are interacting with.

Verbal and other messages cannot simply be reduced to the "sticks and stones" adage in today's workplace. Globalization and the ability to communicate with others around the globe instantly means that employees must be able to know how to interact with other people from almost any culture. Different cultures perceive argumentativeness, humor, and seriousness in speech and paralanguage differently, and it would not make sense to expect a potential customer or business partner to simply "suck it in" if an employee makes a joke based on stereotypes, for example. There is no guarantee that individuals from other cultures would share a "sticks and stones" mindset, so creating workplace policies that attempt to ignore implicit and explicit message contents would be a poor idea from both personal and business standpoints.

Cultural sensitivity provides a workplace option that is superior to ignoring verbal aggression and other communication-based sources of conflict. This should not be confused with "political correctness" or having a "sensitive side." Instead, it is a process of education where one attempts to expand their own horizons regarding communication strategies used worldwide, and which strategies one can use to communicate to a potentially global audience effectively. This type of outlook can then be incorporated into business