Intercultural Competence and how it can help you to Thrive in Multicultural Work Settings 

1.Prosper cover slide 

2. Hi, I’m Sally Walker, Director of SW Career Coaching Limited, and I am a career and intercultural coach. I will be guiding you through this video which is designed to help you as PIs recognise what Intercultural Competence is and how it can help you to build effective, thriving teams in today’s multicultural work settings which are frequently becoming the norm. Please refer to the accompanying workbook as well for full information and further resources.  

3. As a result of engaging with this recording and the accompanying workbook I hope that you will have gained a greater understanding of the meaning of the broad term “culture”. You will better appreciate the meaning of Intercultural Competence and will recognise its importance for building strong working relationships with researchers and colleagues and will recognise its importance for careers within and beyond academia, irrespective of geographic location. You will be able to identify the benefits and challenges of working in a multicultural work setting and will seek to avoid negative cultural stereotyping.  

4. In this video I will cover these three main areas, definitions of culture and intercultural competence; the benefits and challenges of multicultural work settings and avoiding Negative Stereotyping. 

5. Take a moment to look at these six photographs on screen. Which one or ones best represent “culture” to you? 

Actually they are all representations of different cultural groupings, be that the culture that builds up around membership of a sports team, or by sharing a particular nationality which the world map at photo 2 represents, or the culture that builds in a professional, work setting, through being part of a particular religion, having a common educational experience or sharing a similar age.  

6. We are adopting Spencer Oatey’s (2021) definition of culture as the meaning systems that are shared to varying degrees by “interacting members of a social group” which influence, but do not determine each member’s behaviour and his/her interpretation of the ‘meaning’ of other people’s behaviour. This broadens out the popular notion of culture as being based purely on an individual’s nationality.  

Cultural identity can be described broadly as any aspect of an individual’s diversity, arising from a wide variety of variables including their age, gender, nationality, education, occupation, sexual or religious preferences, political ties and so forth. These all affect the way a person behaves and how someone else interprets that behaviour.  

The key point to emphasise here is that a culture grows wherever there are two or more people together. Your family is a cultural grouping; you will have certain accepted ways of doing things which other families may not share. When you visit another family often it will feel different to some larger or smaller extent – that is culture in action. 

7. So in other words, culture can be described simply as the “way we do things around here.” Culture is therefore not something that is easily defined. It is complex and resists essentialist labels such as “Americans communicate in this way,” or “British people negotiate in that way.” Culture is not fixed and is instead a process, something that is constantly being created. It is something that you can build in a team by agreeing on certain norms of working together. Academic institutions, private sector companies and charities each have their own unique cultures. Departments and teams within those organisations also will feel differently one from another; the cultural norms may vary very often based on the preferences and style of the team leader. As a PI and team leader, you are influencing the culture of the research teams that you support, whether you are conscious of this or not. 

8. So, given the definition above would you describe the following team as multicultural or not?  

“This is a UK based work team composed of men and women, spanning two generations, some in their 20s and the majority in their 50s from London, Yorkshire, and Scotland. The team includes members who have different ethnic backgrounds, a mix of religious beliefs, and sexual orientations. All are university educated.”  

This is indeed a multicultural team even though all of the team originate from the UK, and they are all university educated. The group is culturally very diverse, but the team members may be unaware of the full scope of this diversity. Would it be helpful for members of the group to have a level of intercultural competence? Yes it would! 

9. So let’s move now to a description of what is meant by Intercultural competence which you might also see or hear described as having a Global Mindset. It is described by Deardorff (2009) as “The knowledge, skills and attitudes that are required to get along effectively with an individual or a team with a different cultural identity to you.”  

10. To be more specific, intercultural competence requires you to be curious and open to differences, show respect and empathy towards others and to suspend beliefs, assumptions, and judgements wherever possible.  The skills of listening, observing, and evaluating, interpreting and relationship building are facets of intercultural competence.  

Intercultural competence incorporates the knowledge gained from cultural self-awareness, from knowing the local cultural context and from having foreign language – where appropriate – and sociolinguistic skills. The latter knowledge is invaluable for interpreting non-verbal body language.  

The need for intercultural competence is relevant for job roles within academia and beyond both for yourself as a PI and also for the PostDocs you are supporting in your research teams. Gaining this competence is an ongoing, life-long learning process. The more you engage with people from different cultural backgrounds to yourself the more likely you are to gain Intercultural Competence or a Global Mindset. 

11. So what are the benefits of working in a multicultural setting which might be similar the one I described in the case study earlier or might have you on assignment abroad or interacting regular with international colleagues? Research has demonstrated that there are significant benefits to having a diverse, multicultural workforce.  

From the organisation’s perspective a team with a varied cultural background frequently generates more innovative ideas, products, and services which in turn potentially leads to increased profitability or raises the reputation of the institution.  

As a PI, a multicultural work setting may offer a highly stimulating environment both in terms of the work content which might have international scope for example, as well as the opportunity to collaborate with talented researchers and peers. You may also benefit from forward thinking development and learning opportunities.  

12. There are however a number of challenges that you might face when working in a multicultural setting which might not exist when working in a more homogenous environment. Which of these have you experienced?  

Take the language challenge for example. When team members do not all share the same mother tongue there may be one language that dominates in the group, reinforcing the power and influence of some and leaving those who do not speak it as fluently potentially feeling marginalised.   

In a multicultural setting you might experience different styles of communication. In some cultures it is the norm is to be direct, clear and explicit to avoid misunderstanding where in other cultures a more indirect approach is the norm to avoid the possibility of rudeness and giving offence.   

You may find that there are also different norms of non-verbal communication including gestures, facial expressions, body language as well as acceptable levels of personal space.   

In terms of issues of power and status you may experience differing attitudes towards hierarchy that might cause conflict. Some cultures are very respectful of the seniority of co-workers where other cultures have flatter structures and tend to be more egalitarian.   

There may be opposing decision-making norms in the multicultural setting that you are part of. Certain cultures will expect a great deal of analysis and preparation before deciding upon something, whilst others prefer to move into action more rapidly based on adequate rather than full information.   

Finally, one’s relationship to time can differ between cultures depending on whether time is viewed in a linear or fluid way. This affects attitudes towards punctuality.   

Do reflect on what your preference is in each of these dimensions. The greater our own level of intercultural self-awareness the better we are at appreciating that there is no right, or wrong approach or way of doing things.  

13. Intercultural training which is focused entirely on the identification of differences in national cultural traits, such as the Dutch are like this, the Germans are all like that, runs the danger of producing negative stereotypes. Stereotyping is inevitable in life, it is a way of labelling our experience, giving us a short hand and can have a foundation in truth. However Adrian Holliday contends that stereotypes are “infected by prejudice which in turn leads to otherization,” so we need to be careful of falling into the trap of labelling others in the workplace. Intercultural competence is about suspending these judgements and being curious about a person you are working with as an individual. 

To gain greater insight into how your culture may be perceived or stereotyped by others the following exercise on screen may prove helpful. Imagine that a colleague or researcher is arriving who is new to your “culture,” be that new to your academic institution, or to your country. What notions or expectations might they have ahead of time? Where might they have gained these from?  

In a recent webinar that I delivered with PostDocs on this topic, a delegate mentioned that when she had been new to the Higher Education sector she had expected academics and PIs like yourselves to be very “scary” because of the way they are portrayed in films or by the media as “unintelligible boffins.” Instead in reality in her experience she had found academics to be accessible, open and supportive.   

Very often film or media representations can be biased or untrue. When developing Intercultural Competence, we are aiming to suspend our assumptions derived from these types of secondary sources.  

14. I hope that as a result of this short video you can now appreciate a broad definition of what is meant by culture as well as a multicultural work setting and can recognise the combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes which make up Intercultural Competence. You will have learned about the benefits and challenges of working in a multicultural environment and will in future be better able to avoid the pitfalls of negative cultural stereotyping.  

Please do refer to the list of resources included in the workbook for further information on the topics covered here.  

PI Video recording transcript: 

Building a multicultural team culture using Intercultural Competence 

1.Prosper cover slide 

2. Hi, I’m Sally Walker, Director of SW Career Coaching Limited, and I am a career and intercultural coach. I will be guiding you through this video which is designed to help you as PIs recognise the influence you can have on creating an effective culture within your multicultural research teams by consciously using intercultural competence. Please refer to the accompanying workbook as well for full information and further resources.  

3. As a result of engaging with this recording and the accompanying workbook I hope that you will appreciate that culture is something that can be created. It is a fluid concept. You will raise your self-awareness of your own intercultural preferences in order to better understand others and with this knowledge be able to build more effective, collaborative working relationships with your PostDocs and others. Finally you will learn how to constructively handle unexpected Intercultural Incidents.  

4. In this video I will cover these main areas, firstly I’ll talk about organisational cultures and how intercultural incidents arise where there is cultural diversity. I’ll share a dimensional framework to help you to identify your intercultural preferences and appreciate similarities and different preferences in others. Then we’ll use the SPLIT model as a tool for building an effective multicultural team culture and finally I’ll share the 3R model to help you interpret and learn from unexpected and challenging intercultural incidents. 

5. Please refer to the recording entitled “Intercultural Competence and how it can help you thrive in multicultural work settings” for full definitions of what we mean by culture, intercultural competence and multicultural work settings. As a reminder, culture is the norms of behaviour that build up when two or more people are in a group together or in other words “The way we do things around here.” If you joined this group initially you might feel like an “outsider” or as we say in English like a “fish out of water” until your learned the often unspoken rules or norms.  

6. Intercultural competence, or having a global mindset, is described by Deardorff as: 

“The knowledge, skills and attitudes that are required to get along effectively with an individual or a team with a different cultural identity to you.”  

In other words it is having the skills and attitudes that enable you to “fit in” more rapidly and effectively into situations of diversity. 

7. Organisational cultures, in academia and beyond, can vary widely depending in part on the different sets of values that they each seek to embody. For more on this topic do refer to the Hofstede Insights article in the Resources section. This organisational culture influences the norms of how relationships are built, how communication typically takes place, how trust is created and how time is perceived.  

As mentioned earlier, cultures are fluid rather than fixed and as a PI, you have an opportunity to influence and even create the culture within your research teams. In addition, you can encourage PostDocs in your teams to find out more about the organisational culture they are applying to, both in academia and beyond, by carrying out informal information gathering meetings with individuals currently working there. They should aim to speak to a cross-section of people including those who have only recently joined as they are likely to have experienced some sense of “culture shock” on arrival. They could enquire about the form that introductions and interviews tend to take, what the working culture is like and so on. 

8. When you interact with someone who is operating to a different set of cultural norms to your own it is possible that you might experience a sense of surprise, tension or even conflict. When these cultural experiences are unexpected we might call them “intercultural incidents.”  

Be aware that they are most likely to happen in these situations, during the application and interview stage if you are involved in these, when introducing oneself to new colleagues or researchers, when any gift exchanging is involved, and during appraisals, meetings and via email. 

9. A dimensional framework, such as the one outlined on screen based on the work of Erin Meyer in her book The Culture Map, and mentioned in the resources list, can be a helpful tool for raising your awareness of your own behaviours and preferred ways of communicating and interacting. Secondly, this knowledge may enable you to interpret and appreciate someone else’s perspective and behaviour without falling into the cultural trap of “othering”, that is, labelling others as “wrong” because their preferences or behaviours are different to your own. It may help you to interpret some of the unexpected intercultural incidents that arise in multicultural situations. 

In your workbook as I describe each of the dimensions, place an X to mark your own typical, natural preference on each of the eight scales. 

The first dimension is about how you prefer to communicate based on your cultural identity and background. You may be a low context communicator which means you are explicit, direct. Communication is precise, simple and clear and messages are expressed and understood at face value. “I think we should do it this way,” is an example of low context communication. Alternatively you might be a high-context communicator where you are more implicit and indirect and where messages are implied rather than plainly expressed. A high context communicator might say “I wondered if we could possibly consider other alternative ways of doing this?” Or you may be somewhere in between on the scale. Place your X. If you are a low context communicator you might perceive the high context communicators to be confusing, difficult to read or understand, or know what they really want or mean. The high context communicator might feel a low context communicator is being rude and prefers their own style which they perceive as polite and subtle. 

The second dimension is around evaluating and how you naturally give negative feedback whether this is done directly, and frankly, or indirectly where the messages are delivered softly and subtly, and positive messages are often used to wrap around negative ones. Place your X in your workbook! 

The next dimension relates to persuading and whether you prefer initially to focus on principles or applications first. Principles first means that you present a theory, or concept first before moving to practical recommendations. Applications first, means you prefer the reverse approach. When presenting to audiences with different cultural backgrounds to you, this is an important one to find out about ahead of time. An American colleague who has a preference for taking action and making recommendations, started with these in a presentation to German colleagues and was frustrated when they interrupted her early on and asked her to present the background methodology to the project first off. They preferred principles rather than applications first. 

Fourthly, on the leading dimension do you naturally prefer an egalitarian, flatter organisation structure or a hierarchical or multi-layered organisation where status and seniority are often of great importance? 

What about on the Deciding dimension, do you prefer a consensual approach sharing decision making in a group, or a top-down approach where decisions are made by individuals, very often the manager about what is to be done? 

On the Trusting dimension what’s your cultural preference? Do you naturally get stuck straight into a task and build the necessary working relationships to get things done, as you go along? Or do you prefer to spend time initially building key relationships and trust by sharing meals, or having informal coffee meetings and then progressing to the task?  

On the 7^th dimension, are you someone who views disagreement and debate as positive for the team? Open confrontation is acceptable and appropriate and will not negatively impact the relationship. Or are you someone who prefers to avoid confrontation as you view this as inappropriate and believe it will damage group harmony or negatively impact on your working relationship? 

Finally, where will your place your X on the Scheduling dimension? Do you have a linear approach to time, where project steps are approached in sequential fashion, completing one step at a time. The focus is on the deadline and sticking to the schedule. Here the emphasis is on promptness and organisation. Or is your cultural preference for flexible-time where project steps are approached in a fluid manner, changing tasks as opportunities and needs arise. The focus is on adaptability, and flexibility is valued over structure. 

Please remember that in doing this exercise there is absolutely no right or wrong answer. All of these preferences can be viewed positively if we are aware that when someone has a different preference to us, they are not doing so to be deliberately difficult, or rude but as a product of their cultural upbringing, background and personality.  

Take a moment to reflect before we move on about any specific intercultural incidents you have experienced which relate to one or more of these eight dimensions. Where have someone else’s preferences been different to your own? Was this during an interview process, meeting new researchers or whilst making a presentation? How can you now re-evaluate the incident so that you have greater empathy for someone else’s preferences?  

10. It may be tempting sometimes to believe that you have no control over the culture of the academic institution you work within. However, as noted earlier, culture is fluid, and you have a key role as a PI in shaping the culture of the research teams you are leading or are part of.  

Take a moment to consider and note down what actions you could consciously take to cover off the following areas which would help you to build a strong, collaborative team culture.  

What are your expectations of team members and how do you communicate them?  

How do you consciously build trust and strong relationships with your postdocs? 

How do you make everyone feel equal and welcome? 

How do you celebrate success? 

In the workbook I have included a list of practical strategies to guide your thoughts when addressing these areas, particularly when you are working with someone in your team who is struggling or you feel is being particularly challenging. The aim is to find common ground together. In order to achieve this you may well have to show vulnerability and empathy as a team leader. 

11. Leading a multicultural group of postdocs requires you as the PI to demonstrate high levels of intercultural competence. If you are successful at building an effective multicultural team, the results and benefits to the team members and your academic institution will be significant. The team will collaborate well together, and colleagues will appreciate and value the differences in others. They are likely to see the potential that comes from new perspectives. Research has shown that typically a multicultural team will outperform a homogenous one.  

As a part of demonstrating your intercultural competence as a leader, do make sure you have considered the following factors when setting up a new multicultural team or working with an existing one. Use the SPLIT – Structure, Process, Language, Identity, Technology Model to help you remember the key issues to consider. 

In terms of structure whether you are setting up a team or joining an existing one first consider what structures are in place to support effective communication between multicultural colleagues who are potentially sitting in different locations and possibly varied time zones. Identify successful multicultural teams that already exist in your organisation or elsewhere and learn from their best practices.  

You may want to start by organising a team meeting. The purpose of this group gathering is to build a greater understanding of the skills and knowledge that exists amongst members of your research team as well as informally creating a sense of community and collaboration. You could use a personality profiling tool, such as Myers Briggs (MBTi) to identify individual strengths and provide a common language amongst the team.  This type of assessment tool is available via the Prosper website.  

You might incorporate some intercultural training into your meeting to help members identify their current levels of intercultural competence using the materials covered elsewhere in these intercultural resources, to help them to avoid negative stereotyping and place the emphasis going forward on finding common ground rather than differences. Time should also be given for informal relationship building either with small break out groups where information about cultural customs might be shared by way of a conversation or even a game.  

It is helpful to agree on some team ground rules at an initial team building meeting whether this takes place physically or via video link. Aim to establish how the team prefers decisions to be made, agree on language requirements, consider cultural issues such as whether you are going to celebrate birthdays or other milestone events amongst the group. 

In terms of process, take time as the team leader to build trust with your postdocs. At an individual level find out about what motivates them, where they share common ground with you and where there are areas of difference.  

You may need to communicate more frequently with a multicultural team than you might have previously been used to. Make sure that you are clearly clarifying your expectations of each team member and give them time with you to ensure that these have been thoroughly understood and agreed upon. A brief regular call can help to achieve this and build trust and team involvement. Take time to listen and understand first of all. 

As work progresses you could instigate regular group and individual feedback sessions. Try to deliberately incorporate time for informal relationship building into these meetings at the beginning or the end, as well as covering the more formal, task related issues.  

As the leader, be alert to signs of trouble amongst your team and aim to diffuse these tensions early on rather than avoiding them. If you are providing feedback to postdocs, consider how to do this in the most interculturally appropriate way possible. Certain cultures will expect and appreciate direct, clear comments whilst others might interpret this as being harsh, and critical and would prefer a more indirect, potentially more sensitive approach. You could ask individual postdocs what their preference is to avoid making any assumptions.  

You may need to factor in additional time for discussion about key issues or decisions amongst multicultural team members. These sessions might even create some constructive disagreement amongst postdocs. As the leader, aim to role model asking constructive questions of the team. This opportunity enables the team to learn from one another, to gain new perspectives and potentially to generate different and hopefully better solutions. This is the real power and benefit of a multicultural team. 

Finally in terms of processes to be aware of, do consider how you are going to celebrate success within your multicultural team. Some postdocs will appreciate and even require individual thanks and praise to maintain motivation whilst others will find this very embarrassing and will prefer recognition at the group level. Use your early conversations with team members to find out which approach sits most comfortably culturally with them.  

In terms of language if you have a wide variety of languages spoken in your team, you will no doubt be aiming to find a common language which ideally all members can use with ease. In addition encourage the team to learn at least a few key phrases in the other languages. Where the chosen language of the team is the native tongue of some colleagues and not others, do remember that this might cause the native speakers to have more power and influence. Non-native speakers might not be able to contribute in a meeting as quickly and might therefore appear to be quieter and less involved.  

To minimise these issues agree on some language ground rules. Ask the native speakers to raise their self-awareness and dial down their dominance whilst non-native speakers should be asked to dial up their engagement. Ideally you are seeking a balance of contributions in your multicultural team.  

Try to use pictures, graphs, or data to support a conversation in the team. Avoid colloquialisms and slang, as well as words with multiple meanings. Keep your language as clear and straight forward as possible and provide a number of specific examples. Rephrase what you have heard a postdoc say to check that you have understood correctly and to help other team members to reinforce their own understanding. Normalise that asking someone to repeat themselves if they have a strong accent is fine and shouldn’t be viewed as a loss of face.   

Do allow for preparation time ahead of meetings for team members working in non-native language. Also allow for extra time to proofread material and to revisit a “final” decision multiple times. This will lead to the best decisions and help to avoid miscommunication.  

In terms of identity, find ways for each team member to share and celebrate their own personal cultural identity in the multicultural setting. Gather team members together and ask them to talk informally about what makes their culture unique in terms of factors such as the food, holidays, customs and so on.   

Do make sure you have a list of all of the relevant celebration days around the world and an understanding of differing work patterns so that you schedule meetings with these in mind. For example, typically in Middle Eastern environments people work a half day on a Friday. Do also consider dietary restrictions based on cultural identity when planning a team meal out. 

Remember that every culture and individual nurtures their own communication style including non-verbal signals, facial expressions, and body language. Don’t make assumptions about the meaning of these but double check either with the colleague concerned or an intercultural mentor. For example shaking the head is not universally used to indicate disagreement, so we need to take care.  

Finally in terms of T for technology, keep a heightened awareness towards the ways that you can use it to build trust and promote fairness, involvement, and harmony amongst the group. Consider your choice of meeting start times and varying these to accommodate different time zones. You also need to keep this in mind when setting deadlines for your team members. Watch the Top Intercultural Tips video with workbook to gain lots more tips about using email in an effective way. 

12. Even with all these intercultural tips and strategies it’s more than likely that you will still encounter unexpected, surprising situations or reactions which we call intercultural incidents. It can help to consciously reflect on or even journal about these experiences to learn from them using the 3R model from Warwick University as a framework.  

As you can see from the example on screen, first of all note down as factually as possible what was said, and any non-verbal body language involved.  

Next, reflect on the situation. Try to spot the problem. Why did it happen? Did it arise due to language difference, conflicting communication styles, or different cultural values and assumptions? Consider using the dimensional framework outlined previously to help you identify the issue.  

Finally re-evaluate the situation. What are alternative interpretations about what has happened? Can you take a different perspective and practice putting yourself in another person’s shoes to exhibit intercultural empathy? How might you now repair things, if necessary, to demonstrate your intercultural resilience?  

In the workbook you will find further examples of Intercultural Incidents which you could analyse using the Dimensional and 3R Models to enable you to view situations from multiple cultural perspectives. 

13. I hope that as a result of this short video you can now appreciate the influence you could have on creating an effective, collaborative culture in the teams you lead and are part of. I hope that you have greater awareness of your own intercultural preferences so that you can build strong empathetic relationships and that you have gained models and tools that help you constructively learn from intercultural incidents that naturally arise.  

Please do refer to the list of resources included in the workbook for further information on the topics covered here.