How do different cultures communicate with each other?
That’s the question that Dr. Don Swanson, Chair of the University’s Philosophy, Religion and Interdisciplinary Studies Department, tried to answer during a seminar entitled “Challenges of Cross-Cultural Communication.” Swanson held the seminar in conjunction with Global Understanding Convention.
Swanson presented a slideshow trying to answer the questions of “How do people with different cultural backgrounds work in the workplace together?” He viewed the question as a case study and brought up examples from when he spent time in Guam.
Swanson was the Dean at the University of Guam, but he also worked with a company helping the workers to communicate better and understand the different cultures.
There were several different job titles that had people of different cultures working together. The managers in the company were either American or Japanese.
The middle managers consisted of Americans, Australians, Koreans, Filipinos, Chamorros (people indigenous to the Mariana Islands) and Chi. The number of nationalities represented at the University of Guam represent the U.S. territory’s diversity, as only 12 percent of its population is Caucasian. With all of these different cultures trying to work together in the same place, Swanson explained that “patience and tolerance” are the keys.
Swanson also spoke about the different ways that cultures think. Americans follow individualism while other cultures follow collectivism. Eighty percent of the world is collectivists, meaning that Americans are the minority, Swanson said.
Americans also are known for being materialistic, Swanson continued. “Does the person that dies with the most toys win the game?” he asked the audience, implying that material things do not mean much in the end. Meanwhile, other cultures are not as materialistic.
In cultures that stress collectivism, the term “we” plays a major role. Relationships are treasured and people will lie to keep a relationship from being ruined. On the contrary, the American culture has the attitude that the truth should always be told, no matter how much hurt it may cause.
Swanson compared American assumptions to Micronesian assumptions. Micronesians believe that nature will provide anything one would need and that life is controlled by destiny. However, Americans believe that they can control nature and the future. These two differing viewpoints cause problems in the workplace, Swanson said.
Any other attitude of looking at life is a hard concept for Americans to accept, Swanson explained. Americans have a missionary mindset which means that they see things as correct when they are done their way. “Americans have a great deal of resentment toward other cultures,” Swanson said.
However, when working with other cultures, Swanson explained that Americans should not be there to change others, but to work with them. This means that when working outside of the American culture, Americans must be careful with what they say.
One of the people Swanson worked with said, “If we don’t understand each other, it’s not my fault and it’s not your fault, it’s our fault.”
In other cultures, community values are put before operational values. If a group cannot work together then work will not get done. This is hard to explain to Americans because in their culture there is no excuse for not working one’s hardest, regardless of whether or not he or she gets along with others in the workplace.
Even though Americans may not understand other cultures, when working with them we must learn to respect them, Swanson said. “Cultural differences that we look at really do matter,” he added.
Swanson mainly focused on the differences between the American culture and the other cultures in Guam. “I thought that [the seminar] was extremely relevant to issues that business majors and communication majors will be facing,” said Leah Torres, sophomore.
