Category: Psychology

Part of community engagement is understanding other cultures. It is important for all community engagement facilitators to understand and appreciate different cultures. It is imperative our police, fire, EMS, local and city government officials, as well as other individuals involved in community relations be experts when it comes to understanding and accepting individuals from other cultures.

Many organizations—both government and private—mandate periodic or ongoing cultural competency training. The term “cultural competency” is vague and people tend to think that going to a Chinese restaurant for lunch would be considered as aspect of cultural competency.

In a previous life, I did considerable research and practical work on the topic of cultural competency. I wanted to provide a top five list for teaching or facilitating cultural competency training:

1. Culture does not just equal ethnicity;
2. Levels of competency are misleading and redundant;
3. The best method is through interaction and partnership;
4. Our culture shapes everything we do, say, and think; and,
5. Learn cultural humility.

Culture does not just equal ethnicity. Our society has so conditioned the word “culture” to indicate ethnicity. People think of “cultural food” as ethnic food. People visit cultural fairs to see how other, different-ethnicity people groups live.

While ethnicity is a component of culture, there are many other aspects that make culture important to people. As I will discuss in another point, culture is ingrained in us. It describes our view of how we respond to individuals who are late to meetings or how much we eat. It is a component of our holiday activities–how and when we give gifts to people. Therefore, culture is not just ethnicity—it is so much more.

Levels of competency are misleading and redundant. Many of the cultural competency trainings available subdivide people into three or more groups. There is always a group of individuals who are fully competent — people who understand the foundational core of being open to different cultures. There is always a group of people who are ignorant to other cultures. And, there is always a culturally obstinate group—a group of individuals who refuse to accept any other culture.

These groupings are fantastic, but it is misleading or redundant to place people in groups. I personally know people who excel at being culturally competent in several areas except when it comes to their beliefs. That is, people who are open to understanding other people groups and cultural practices, but are offended that there is interracial relationships. It’s good to know general categories, but these should be taught as being a guide and not a collective bin or designation for people.

The best method is through interaction and partnership. There are numerous studies that demonstrate the best way to learn understanding and acceptance of people different than ourselves is to spend time with them.

In Kansas City, there is a group called the Crescent Peace Society. On a regular basis, they host “Meet a Muslim” meetings periodic around the KC area. I have attended one of these—it was incredible to see the interest of the community in finding out more about Islam and the mindset of Muslims. And, my perception was that the non-Muslim community who attended found out that they have more in common with Muslims than they originally thought.

Our culture shapes everything we do, say, and think. There was a training recently that talked about hidden rules among classes. Many of these aspects are part of our deep culture — things that go beyond just superficial. How we understand time or think about food can be a cultural thing.

We sometimes look at the manifestation of different cultural traits. For instance, there is a culture that is thought of as being generally late to every event. Is that culture? Maybe. It is likely more the manifestation of this particular culture’s view of time. Maybe this culture sees an event’s time as being a suggestion. Maybe this other culture values taking care of the person more than meeting others at a certain time. Who knows? Either way, it is important to understand that culture shapes most everything we do.

Learn cultural humility. The Dunning-Kruger effect is a social psychological phenomena when individuals with little skills or knowledge believe they have an enhanced level of skills. It is only until the point when they start to learn more, they realize they do not know as much as they think they do.

Anyone who knows me personally know that I would never, ever suffer from this effect. I definitely am always aware of my level of understanding on every topic. 🙂 This, however underscores the need for culturally competent or experienced people to remember they are always needing to learn. While I may understand a certain culture really well, I will likely never be able to fully understand every aspect of it.

As we move forward as a society–as Americans continue to embody the “one from many” (e pluribus unum) mentality–it is important for us to continue to be able to understanding AND accepting other cultures. Hopefully, these five suggestions will help in your quest.

 

See the full article here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cultural-competency-training-five-things-consider-darin-challacombe?published=t

A month ago, I was asked to write about my leadership style for a job interview. I have been fortunate in my previous positions to work under some really incredible leaders. One of my bosses at the FBI, Barry, patterned a leadership style called “commander’s intent”. (Interestingly, the FBI’s publication, Law Enforcement Bulletin, just published an article about this in October 2016, which can be found here: https://leb.fbi.gov/2016/october/commanders-intent-a-framework-for-success).

To me, commander’s intent is the opposite of micromanaging. The style involves two key components:

• A leader who has clearly defined goals and objectives for his business or department; and,
• Followers who believe in the leader/mission and are mature enough to work semi-autonomously.

The purpose of this approach is that a leader is not always going to be around to provide guidance or direction. The followers must be comfortable in making day-to-day decisions based on what they believe is the right way forward.

When I was with the FBI, I spent a considerable portion of my time collaborating with the State of Iowa. On a Sunday evening in the later part of 2011, I was asked to come to attend a meeting with several Iowa law enforcement executives. During this meeting, I was informed the (then) Vice President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, was planning in February 2012 to visit the US, with a stopover in Iowa (see http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/world/asia/xi-jinping-of-china-makes-a-return-trip-to-iowa.html). When I left the meeting, I reached out to my colleagues and supervisors for guidance on this planned visit. When I reached Barry, he thanked me for the notification and told me that he trusted my judgement in organizing this event.

For the six months leading up to XI’s visit, I frequently put in 60 hour weeks with weekend meetings. I participated in several external conversations and meetings, as well as authored a joint intelligence-based threat assessment in preparation for Xi’s 24-hour visit. Barry did not micromanage any of these activities—I briefed him regularly but I worked nearly autonomously. I followed a WWBD model — “what would Barry do?” — that was a question I asked myself when I was faced with a difficult decision. If I wasn’t sure, I would either ask Barry or, if I couldn’t ask him, choose the most risk-aversive option.

This example of the commander’s intent provided me with confidence. I remember several times when Barry would tell me “you were hired by the FBI because you were smart…I trust you to make the smartest, best decision.” This has stuck with me and helped focused my leadership style.

As I continue on through other management opportunities, I plan to continue to utilize this approach. Clearly, there are going to be situations in which followers may not be mature enough or believe in the leader or mission. However, I believe the if you show followers respect, then you will get respect in return. This can serve as a foundation for a successful leader.

In Chiou and Lee’s (2013) research, they examined how one-to-many social communication was making us less likely to understand others’ perspectives.

One-to-many social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter (and, perhaps, LinkedIn), allow individuals to post updates for others. Chiou and Lee (2013) found participants who indiscriminately utilized these techniques were less likely to adopt or even acknowledge another’s perspective. These individuals tended to become more self-focused and narcissistic.

The key term in this research is indiscriminate. The researchers do not suggest that all users losing perspective, just those who frequently post monologues. These individuals tended to be more self-promoting and vain.

Perhaps businesses should view their social media platforms as avenues for customer feedback as well as self-promotion. From my experience, Delta is a good example of this. I have utilized Twitter several times to tweet a suggestion or question to their staff, and have always received a response within a few minutes. I do not mind the frequent promotional tweets from them since I know I can utilize this vector to get service.

References

Chiou, W. B., & Lee, C. C. (2013). Enactment of one-to-many communication may induce self-focused attention to diminished perspective taking: The case of Facebook. Judgment and Decision Making, 8(3), 372-380. Available: http://journal.sjdm.org/13/13114/jdm13114.html