Culture in Us

In group projects at school involving people of different cultural backgrounds, what are 3 things you have learned about working with people of different cultures?

A big part of my decision to study at a US Business school was to expose myself to cross-cultural team environment. At University, I have the opportunity to work with people from a multitude of professional backgrounds, from marketing to finance, with varying skill-sets and different future goals. With increasing globalization, the ability to work in a cross-cultural team is an imperative skill to succeed in any profession. Succeeding in an cross-cultural team not only calls for an openness of mind to accept and absorb different cultural nuances but also an ability to channel these differing personality traits into a constructive cohesion to create successful teams.

Amongst the many things that I have learnt during my group projects at University, I have found the following to be the most important:

1. Communication and expression: I believe communication, both verbal and non-verbal, is not just a way to work with people and share information about a group project; but also build relationships and establish trust. Being a non-native English speaker, I found it was critical to organize my thoughts before I communicate them in an articulate manner. I also observed and appreciated the fact that in a group environment, most people avoided metaphors or slangs which other might not be aware of. Another aspect which I found interesting was how every culture has its norms and interpretation of non-verbal things like facial expressions, gestures, sense of space, body language etc. For example, a common Indian habit is to nod left to right while expressing agreement or saying yes; which can be construed as no in most cultures. While this resulted in a few laughs in my study group, it set me thinking how important it is for every person, be it native or non-native to adapt to standard practices in order to ensure a smoother working environment.

2. Stereotypes and pre-conceived notions: The single most important learning has been to avoid generalizations and applying a pre-conceived to all people of a particular nationality or culture. I feel it is important to treat people equally and like individuals and assess them on the basis of their abilities and competence. It was refreshing to see that each one of my classmates and study-mates