Spring 2009 10th Anniversary Retrospective by Intercultural Management Institute

Intercultural Management Quarterly

Integrating Culture and Management in Global Organizations

Spring 2009

Vol. 10, No. 1

1999-2009

In This Issue . . . Connecting Intercultural Communication and Management................................................ 4 by Gary R. Weaver Culture Matters..................................................... 6 by Lawrence Harrison Global Leadership: Giving Oneself for Things Far Greater than Oneself................... 8 by Nancy Adler The Unconscious Culture Gap ....................... 11 by Corey Flintoﬀ Hollywood’s War on “Reel” Bad Arabs ................................................. 13 by Jack Shaheen The International Thanksgiving Fellowship: A Case Study in Citizen Diplomacy ............................................... 15 by Sherry Mueller and Melissa Whited

IMQ STAFF

Publisher: Dr. Gary R. Weaver Managing Editor: Dan Deming

Editorial Review Board

David Bachner, Annmarie McGillicuddy, Adam Mendelson, Darrel Onizuka, Chris Saenger, Karen Santiago, Gary Weaver, Sherry Zarabi The Intercultural Management Quarterly (IMQ) is published by the Intercultural Management Institute at American University. IMQ combines original research conducted in the ﬁeld of interculutral management with the applied perspectives of industry experts, professors and students.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Professionals, scholars, and students are invited to submit articles of 1,000-2,000 words on issues related to the study and practice of intercultural management. Articles must be innovative and contribute to the knowledge in the ﬁeld but should avoid overly academic jargon. Footnotes or endnotes are discouraged except for direct quotes or citations. Each submission is refereed by the members of the IMQ editorial review board. Accepted pieces are subject to editing.

REPRODUCTION

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of the Publication Manager. Please contact the Managing Editor for reprint availability.

An Unﬁnished Conversation............................18 by Lee Mun Wah

CONTACT IMQ

Intercultural Management Quarterly Intercultural Management Institute 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20016-8177 Phone: (202) 885-6436 Fax: (202) 885-1331 imqeditor@american.edu

Economic Theory, Culture, and Antiglobalization.........................................21 by Geert Hofstede Challenges of Leadership..................................22 by Harriet Mayor Fulbright

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY W

From the Editor . . . Welcome, dear readers, to the 10th year of the Intercultural Management Quarterly! I feel privileged to be at the helm during this time in the IMQ’s history, and I’m grateful to all of you who hold this celebratory issue in your hands (or are looking at it on a screen—I’ll get to that in a minute). This issue, as you may have already noticed, is a bit of a change from what you’re used to. What we’ve done this time around is take a smattering of articles from the past ten years and bring them together in one issue. But mind you, this is not a “Best of” compilation—we’d have to include every article for that—but rather a “Retrospective,” a look back at some articles that helped, in their time, to define the publication. Included with each article are some notes on when the article was originally published, what it means today (if I might be so bold), and where each author is now. I hope you’ll find, as I did, that these stories, observations, and conclusions still resonate, regardless of the circumstances surrounding their creation. This Retrospective is not, however, simply a link to the IMQ’s past—it is a bridge to its future. With this issue we’re bringing the Intercultural Management Quarterly fully online. The digital editions of the IMQ will feature a truly integrated experience, with links to author webpages, further research, and all of the support and programs that the Intercultural Management Institute has to offer. In the coming months, we’ll be adding every single issue from the past ten years; all will be searchable and feature a state-of-theart user interface. For those of you reading this on paper: go to http://www.imi.american.edu to find out more. For those of you reading this online already, well . . . thanks! And of course, we welcome any and all suggestions as we strive to bring the IMQ to as many pairs of eyes as possible. Happy reading! —Dan Deming, Managing Editor

IMQ publishes book reviews, case studies and other articles that explore culture and management in global organizations.

Write for IMQ The submission deadline for the Summer edition is April 1, 2009 send submissions to the Managing Editor at imqeditor@american.edu

Spring 2009 IMQ 10th Anniversary Retrospective

Connecting Intercultural Communication and Management by Gary R. Weaver

Gary Weaver’s article “Connecting Intercultural Communication and Management” in the Spring 2000 issue of the IMQ coincided with the birth of the IMQ itself. As the title suggests, the article makes a case for the importance of culture in the workplace, and introduces, in broad form, the critical concepts that fuel the field of Intercultural Management. Dr. Weaver remains a key member of the faculty of the School of International Service at American University, and gives keynote addresses, lectures, training seminars, and workshops to various universities, nonprofit groups, government agencies, professional organizations and business groups in the U.S. and abroad each year. The topics range from working in a multicultural workforce, law enforcement in a culturally diverse community, culture shock, and cross-cultural negotiation to conflict resolution, American identity movements, and multicultural childcare. Dr. Weaver has also been the Executive Director of the Intercultural Management Quarterly for the entirety of its existence.

ost management principles are based upon American case studies, quantitative research at universities, and even laboratory experiments with animals. Many are built upon American psychological and pseudo-psychological research. While these principles are useful, they must be carefully and critically examined and questioned in the context of the multicultural or international workplace. Most are not validated across cultures and thus can only be applied to a fairly homogeneous, mainstream American workplace. It may be true that the average American is primarily motivated to be productive and remain with an organization because his or her need for individual achievement is met in the workplace. The employee is rewarded for hard work with a higher salary. However, a joint venture may involve employees from traditional non-European cultures or a company in Detroit may find an increasing number of employees who are female and from Latin American backgrounds. These employees may be more concerned with long-term security or being valued as part of a group. Intercultural management takes cultural context into consideration. The stick and carrot that work best depend on the background of the employee. Most importantly, an effective manager is able to communicate with people from various backgrounds, not simply co-workers from his or her hometown or home state. It is tempting to take the position that those who are different ought to fit into the organizational culture.

That is, the organizational culture trumps all other cultures. Somehow people leave their ethnic or national cultural identities on the sidewalk before they walk into the building each morning. When they behave like everyone else in the organization and share the dominant values, they will be fine. Those who hold this position support training programs to help those who are different fit into the dominant organizational culture. For example, a few decades ago when large numbers of women entered the workplace, “assertiveness training” programs were available. Most of these programs were designed to help women to learn to be as aggressive and assertive as their male counterparts. Under this model, the only thing really wrong with women is that they act like women. If they acted like men, they would be perfectly competent human beings. This is not intercultural management. This is cloning. The goal of multicultural management is not to eliminate differences but rather to use those differences to enhance creativity within the organization. If we were trying to come up with innovative ways of solving problems, why would we want women who think like men sitting around the conference table? Don’t we want the feminine, the Chicano, the African American and the white American viewpoint? Surely if we believe that we carry our cultures into the workplace and those cultures are valued by the organiza-

Intercultural Management Quarterly

tion, then we look forward to coming to work everyday. This, in turn, increases retention and productivity.

egories of tree—pine trees, oak trees, maple trees -- and still acknowledge the individuality of each tree.

Of course, everyone ought to be aware of the organizational culture’s fundamental values and behaviors. Orientation to the organizational culture is vital for all newcomers. And, managers need to understand the dynamics of cross-cultural adaptation. A person who is culturally diﬀerent may go through some form of “culture shock” and managers who know little of the phenomenon are not only unhelpful to this employee, they can react improperly to the employee’s behavior and make the situation worse.

We cannot be experts on every culture. However, we can develop the flexibility to put ourselves in the psychological and cultural shoes of those who are different. We can begin to appreciate the reality that there are numerous ways of solving a problem and that our way is in large part a result of growing up in our own culture. Intercultural awareness and understanding begins with knowing our own culture first. Often this can only come through interaction with those who are different. This interaction should take place in intercultural management training.

Surely if we believe that we carry our cultures into the workplace and those cultures are valued by the organization, then we look forward to coming to work everyday.

An easy solution is to bring in experts on particular cultures who can run culture-specific training seminars. However, many of these so-called “experts” only perpetuate stereotypes—generalizations about cultures that are inflexible, inaccurate and leave no room for exceptions. They may provide information, but no real understanding. Information is knowing what people do; understanding is knowing why they do it. Intercultural management requires the ability to get inside the heads of people from other cultures and know how they view the world, their basic values and beliefs, and how they reason and solve problems. Everyone is a unique individual and culturally unique. That is, we all have our idiosyncratic beliefs, viewpoints and behaviors. And, we all belong to numerous secondary cultures beyond the primary culture we were born into. We may be African American and also female, Catholics, and New Yorkers. No two individuals belong to exactly the same cultures at the same time. Every tree in the forest is different, but we can still talk about cat-

Spring 2009 IMQ 10th Anniversary Retrospective

Intercultural communication and management skills cannot be learned by simply gathering information about other cultures. This may reduce some uncertainty and decrease prejudice, but it does not give authentic cross-cultural knowledge. The only way we can learn intercultural communication and management skills is through some sort of experience, coupled with cross-culturally validated management principles. While books, lectures, videos, CD-ROMs, and the Internet can give useful information, they cannot train people to communicate and manage effectively across cultures. The workplace of the new millennium will be multicultural and global. With greater intercultural interaction, the differences are not simply going to disappear. We will not link arms in the office, sing “We Are the World,” and find that we can easily overcome the communication breakdowns or conflicts. As long as we remain within our own culture, we take it for granted. However, when we leave it and interact with people from other backgrounds, we become more consciously aware of our own culture, and it becomes more important to us. i

Culture Matters

by Lawrence E. Harrison

Lawrence Harrison’s article “Culture Matters” was originally published in The National Interest (No. 60, Summer 2000), and was excerpted for the IMQ a year later. The article spawned a book of the same name, written with fellow theorist and researcher Samuel Huntington. Lawrence Harrison is now, as then, an Associate at the Academy for International and Area Studies at Harvard University, and has continued to contribute meaningfully to the field of International Affairs and the study of culture. The article reprinted below focuses on Latin America and Africa, but also lays out a framework for addressing inherent cultural differences regardless of region. Harrison’s invocation of Middle East historian Bernard Lewis’s two questions at the end of the article is particularly apropos—who knew how important these questions would become to Americans scant months later?

f the six billion people who inhabit the world today, fewer than one billion are to be found in the advanced democracies. Half or more of the adult population of 23 countries, mostly in Africa, is illiterate. Half or more of the women in 35 countries are illiterate. Furthermore, the most inequitable income distribution patterns are found in the poorer countries, particularly in Latin America and Africa.

What explains this persistence of poverty and authoritarianism? The conventional diagnoses oﬀered during the past half century — exploitation, imperialism, lack of opportunity, lack of capital, weak institutions — are inadequate. The crucial element that has been largely ignored is the cultural: that is to say, values and attitudes that stand in the way of progress. The conclusion that culture matters goes down hard. It clashes with cultural relativism, widely subscribed to in the academic world, which argues that cultures can be assessed only on their own terms and that value judgments by outsiders are taboo. But a growing number of academics, journalists and politicians are talking about culture as a crucial factor in societal development. Alan Greenspan captured the shift recently when he said, in the context of economic conditions in Russia, that he had theretofore assumed that capitalism was “human nature.” But in the wake of the collapse of the Russian economy, he concluded that “it was not human nature at all, but culture.”

Over the almost two decades that I have been studying and writing about the relationship between cultural values and human progress, I have identified ten values that distinguish progressive cultures from static cultures: 1. The progressive culture emphasizes the future, the static culture the present or past. Future orientation implies a progressive world-view: influence over one’s destiny, rewards in this life for virtue, and positive-sum economics in which wealth expands — in contrast to the zero-sum psychology commonly found in poor countries. 2. Work and achievement are central to the good life in the progressive culture, but are of lesser importance in the static culture. In the former, diligence, creativity and achievement are rewarded not only financially but also with prestige. 3. Frugality is the mother of investment and financial security in progressive cultures. 4. Education is the key to advancement in progressive cultures but is of marginal importance except for the elites in static cultures. 5. Merit is central to advancement in the progressive culture; connections and family are what count in the static culture. 6. Community: The radius of identification and trust extends beyond the family in the progressive culture, whereas the family circumscribes community in the static culture.

Intercultural Management Quarterly

7. The societal ethical code tends to be more rigorous in the progressive culture. Every advanced democracy except Belgium, Taiwan, Italy and South Korea appears among the 25 least corrupt countries on Transparency International’s “Corruption Perceptions Index.”

One American of Mexican descent, Texas businessman Lionel Sosa, has also contributed to the new paradigm in his book, The Americano Dream. Sosa catalogues a series of Hispanic values and attitudes that present obstacles to achieving the upward mobility of mainstream America: 1. The resignation of the poor — “To be poor is to deserve heaven. To be rich is to deserve hell.”

8. Justice and fair play are universal, impersonal expectations in the progressive culture. In the static culture, justice is often a function of whom you know or how much you can pay.

2. The low priority given to education — “The girls don’t really need it, they’ll get married anyway. And the boys? It’s better that they go to work, to help the family.”

9. Authority tends toward dispersion and horizontality in progressive cultures, which encourage dissent; toward concentration and verticality in static cultures, which encourage orthodoxy.

3. Fatalism — “Individual initiative, achievement, selfreliance, ambition, aggressiveness—all these are useless in the face of an attitude that says, ‘We must not challenge the will of God.’”

10. Secularism: The inﬂuence of religious institutions on civic life is small in the progressive culture; their inﬂuence in static cultures is often substantial. Heterodoxy and dissent are encouraged in the former, orthodoxy and conformity are encouraged in the latter.

4. Mistrust of those outside the family, which contributes to the generally small size of Hispanic businesses.

The ten factors I have suggested are not deﬁnitive. But they do at least suggest which elements in the vastness of “culture” may inﬂuence the way societies evolve.

Changing the Traditional Culture Recently, Latin America has taken the lead in contriving initiatives designed to accelerate economic growth, fortify democratic institutions and promote social justice. Claudio Veliz’s 1994 book, The New World of the Gothic Fox, contrasts the Anglo-Protestant and Ibero-Catholic legacies in the New World. Veliz deﬁnes the cultural current with the words of Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, “the economic, educational and judicial reforms necessary to Latin America’s modernization cannot be eﬀected unless they are preceded or accompanied by a reform of our customs and ideas.”

Spring 2009 IMQ 10th Anniversary Retrospective

The gender issue has also come to the fore, challenging the traditional machismo culture. Latin American women are increasingly aware of the gender democratization that has occurred, particularly in First World countries, in recent decades, and they are increasingly organizing and taking initiatives to rectify the sexism that has traditionally kept them in secondclass status. To be sure, Latin American values and attitudes are changing, as the transition to democratic politics and market economics of the past ﬁfteen years suggests. Several forces are modifying the region’s culture, among them the new intellectual current, the globalization of communications and economics, and the surge in evangelical/Pentecostal Protestantism. At least one African has come to similar conclusions about progress on his continent. Cameroonian Daniel Etounga-Manguelle’s analysis of African culture highlights the highly centralized, vertical traditions of authority; a focus on the past and present, not the future; a distaste for work; the suppression of individual initiative, Continued on page 17 . . .

Global Leadership: Giving Oneself for Things Far Greater Than Oneself by Nancy Adler

Nancy Adler’s article appeared in the Fall 2002 issue of the IMQ, after debuting in the Journal of International Business (Vol. 1, No. 2, 2001). In it, she uses examples from around the world to highlight the importance of leadership in a truly global sense: recognizing that attention must always be paid to the greater cause. Nancy Adler is currently the S. Bronfman Chair in Management at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and continues her astonishing output of articles, books, ﬁlms, trainings, and consultations in the ﬁeld of cross-cultural management.

hen I was 11 years old, my Austrian mother explained to me that when she was my age she had wanted to have at least 6 children. Yet by the time she met my American father, just 8 years later, she no longer wanted any children. Losing most of her friends and family during World War II to Hitler’s terror had convinced her that the world was not a fit place to raise children. Luckily, especially from my perspective, my father convinced my mother that, within the family, the two of them could create a bubble of love, and within that bubble, their children could grow up in safety and happiness, protected from the inhumanity raging outside. Having grown up within the bubble of their love, and in sunny southern California rather than war torn Europe, I never doubted that our role on earth, as human beings and as leaders, was to expand the bubble to encompass the world: or as the rabbis would exhort us, to return to our original task of Tikun Olam, the restoration of the world. Of course, none of us can claim that the twenty-first century entered on a safe, secure, or loving note—a note imbued with peace, wisdom, compassion, and love. As we ask ourselves which of our twentieth-century legacies we wish to pass on to the children of the twenty-first century, we are humbled into shameful silence. Yes, we have advanced science, technology, and commerce, but at the price of a world torn asunder by a polluted environment, cities infested with social chaos and physical decay, an increasingly skewed income distribution that condemns large portions of the population to poverty (including people living in the world’s most affluent societies), and rampant physical violence continuing to kill people in titularly limited wars and seemingly random acts of violence. No, we did not exit the twentieth century with pride. Unless we collectively learn to treat each

other and our planet in a more civilized way, it may soon become blasphemous to even consider ourselves a civilization. And yet why not a more peaceful, sustainable, and compassionate society in the twenty-first century? Why not a global civilization that we could bequeath with pride to our children and our children’s children? Naively idealistic? Perhaps; but only if we ignore the wisdom and approaches to learning of Adam Kahane and likeminded colleagues around the world—people who have dared to attempt to make a difference. Only if we renege on our role as leaders and simply adapt to the future, rather than collectively attempting to improve it. As former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright admonishes us, “We have a responsibility in our time, as others have had in theirs, not to be prisoners of history, but to shape history . . .” After a quarter century of conducting research and consulting on global strategy and cross-cultural management, I have increasingly focused the last few years on the small, but rapidly increasing number of women who are among the world’s most prominent business and political leaders—women who have served as their country’s president or prime minister or as CEO of a major global firm. Perhaps it is not surprising that at this moment in history, countries around the world, most for the first time, are turning to women leaders rather than to the traditional cohort of men. People want a change; they no longer want the narrow, circumscribed leadership of the twentieth century nor its outcomes. They hope and imagine that women will bring a more inclusive and compassionate approach to leadership.

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In Nicaragua, for example, former president Violetta only eleven years old, her father, who was the country’s Chamorro’s ability to bring all the members of her family founding father and its first prime minister, was assastogether every week for Sunday dinner achieved near leg- sinated, many believe due to his policies, which advanendary status. Symbolically, her dinners gave the nation taged the Sinhalese and stripped the Tamil of many of hope that it could heal its civil-war-inflicted wounds and their cultural rights. Her mother, who also served as find a peace that would reunite all Nicaraguans. Why prime minister, furthered the country’s ethnically divisuch elevated hopes from a Sunday night dinner? Because sive policies. As an adult, Kumaratunga’s husband, a poof Chamorro’s four adult children, two were prominent litically involved citizen and noted actor, was murdered, Sandanistas while the other two equally prominently op- in what many believe to have been Tamil-initiated vioposed the Sandanistas, not an unusual split in war torn lence. With the constant and very real threat of death to Nicaragua. As Violetta Chamorro’s children told their her and to her children, why did Kumaratunga choose stories around her dining room table, others in the coun- to stay in Sri Lanka and to run for office? And once she try began to believe that they too could “reach a deeper, won, how did she find the courage to tell her mother— more real consensus—including around such profound- whom she later appointed to serve as prime minister— ly important issues as unity and peace—through the and the country that she was going to attempt to find a telling of their personal stories.” Implicitly, the Nicara- peaceful solution to Sri Lanka’s seemingly interminable guans believed that by listening attentively to each other, civil war by sitting down with the Tamil and listening with empathy, they could hear the sacred within each to their story? Kumaratunga, with both her father and person, their core humanity and that of the nation. It husband murdered, chose to go outside the patterns of is not coincidence that the symbol of Implicitly, the Nicaraguans believed that by listening attenhope, peace and tively to each other, with empathy, they could hear the saunity was a dining cred within each person, their core humanity and that of the room table and not a board room table. nation. Such holographic listening, as Adam Kahane labels it—in which each story reflects the whole, history and say, “Enough! There has to be a better way.” rather than merely contributing a piece to the puzzle— Her attempts at moving Sri Lanka toward peace and opens up the possibility of communion and oneness, of unity have by no means met with unequivocal success. transcending history to create a new future: “We have Yet Kumaratunga persists, even in the face of constant the greatest capacity to make a difference when we dare death threats and a bomb explosion that already claimed to open ourselves up, to expose our most honest night- one of her eyes. Kahane reminds us that leaders who inmares and our most heartfelt dreams.” fluence history do so because they live the paradox. They have the courage to commit their lives to effecting the As a social thinker, Adam Kahane points out that lead- changes they want to see. At the same time, they have ers who make a difference are extraordinarily committed, the courage to engage with others—even their enemies; body and soul, to the changes they want to see in the the courage to give up the illusion of being in control, world, to goals much larger than themselves. The lives to venture beyond detachment, and to surrender to the of many of the world’s first women leaders mirror com- process. Will Kumaratunga be able to stay committed to mitments much larger than themselves. For example, in changing her country while remaining open to listening her personal commitment, Chandrika Kumaratunga, to how each faction wants to change? Will she be able the president of war torn Sri Lanka, became a prism for to maintain the paradox? To paraphrase Martin Buber, the paradoxes of extraordinary leadership. When she was does Kumaratunga believe in destiny and also that des-

Spring 2009 IMQ 10th Anniversary Retrospective

Global Leadership . . . Intercultural Management Institute tiny needs her; that destiny does not lead her, but rather waits for her? Can she proceed toward her country’s and her own destiny without knowing where it waits for her? Will she be able to continue going forth with her whole being? Destiny will not turn out the way her resolve intended it; but what she wants will come about only if she resolves to do that which she can. Will she be able neither to interfere nor to merely allow things to happen? While the answer will only be written in the months and years ahead, we know that Kumaratunga has demonstrated enormous courage to date to begin the journey. The challenge of leadership is in the openness to destiny and the complete commitment to change for the better; not in simplistic short term evaluations of success and failure. This past year, my Jewish nephew Aaron married a deeply religious Catholic woman, Karen. Although told that their wedding ceremony and life together would be rooted in the two spiritual traditions, both families questioned the reality of the young couple’s pronouncement when the invitations arrived announcing that the wedding would be celebrated at Holy Family Catholic Church with a Catholic priest, and no rabbi, presiding. Only as the priest opened the service in Hebrew with a traditional Jewish prayer did the tension begin to reside. In one of the most moving and profoundly meaningful wedding ceremonies I have ever attended, the priest celebrated Aaron and Karen’s unique individuality, including their two distinctly different spiritual traditions. He made no attempt to minimize or ignore the differences between Judaism and Christianity. After the bride and groom had exchanged vows, the priest reminded us of the hatred that has all too frequently separated Jewish and Catholic communities. He then asked each of us to see Karen and Aaron as symbolic of the love that could unite the two traditions, the love that could replace the all too common hatred. What more powerful symbol of global leadership: love replacing hate, love bridging distinct individuality, love uniting bride and groom on their wedding day, love respecting and bridging differences among all peoples at all times. Continued on page 25 . . .

Skills Institutes Spring 2009 Building Mediator Capacity in a Multi-cultural Context

April 4-5, 2009; with Gururaj Kumar, Training and Policy Program Director, ICONS Project, University of Maryland, and Jared Ordway, Program Specialist, National Association for Community Mediation Designed as an interactive workshop, this institute provides participants with essential cross-cultural conflict management skills for building collaborative relationships when working with individuals and groups in conflict. Using hands-on exercises and simulation role-plays, participants will identify and analyze personal approaches to conflict, increase their cross-cultural competency, build their capacity as mediators, facilitators, and problemsolvers, and learn to transform conflict into opportunity.

Leadership and Diversity: The Theory and Practice of Managing Cultural Dynamics in Organizations April 18-19, 2009 Ben Alexander, Senior Partner, Alexander Consulting and Training, Inc.

This course is designed for participants who are interested in increasing the understanding and skills needed to recognize when and how cultural dynamics impact relationships in organizational settings and how to respond to these dynamics in an effective manner. Upon completion of this course participants will be able to: 1) describe the impact of cultural experience upon perception and behavior in organizations, 2) describe the processes through which cultural differences are created and maintained in organizational settings, 3) distinguish the legal and regulatory aspects of diversity from cultural diversity, 4) determine when diversity dynamics are present in issues involving conflicts and misunderstandings, 5) use practical models for recognizing and resolving conflicts based involving diversity dynamics, and 6) create a plan for continued learning.

www.imi.american.edu for schedule and registration

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The Unconscious Culture Gap by Corey Flintoﬀ

First published in the Winter 2004 issue of the IMQ, Corey Flintoff’s article “The Unconscious Culture Gap” tells the tale of the author’s stint in Alaska, working at a radio and television station there. He paints the experience as an allegory of post-invasion Iraq: the pursuit of cultural harmony is indispensable to successful relations between differing peoples. Today, Corey Flintoff is a Foreign Desk Correspondent at NPR, after being in the newscast booth for 17 years. His article is important not just as a case study for the importance of intercultural communication, but as a model for a successful approach to the joining of cultures all over the world.

efore the September 11th attacks, it was easy for Americans to feel that our similarities were far greater than our differences with our foreign allies, trading partners and even our opponents. We were united by the language and practices of international business and diplomacy. Different as we might appear, we all wanted very much the same things: peace, prosperity, a better life for our children. After the terrorist attacks, after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it became clear that substantial populations perceive the world in profoundly different terms than we do. The differences run deep beneath the gloss of diplomatic discourse and far beyond the differing national customs and conventions to which a foreigner can adapt. Some of these differences may have arisen from what were once life-and-death issues in a culture’s distant past. Some, because they are religious in nature, go beyond life and death. As a journalist, I’ve worked in different cultures, in places as varied as Kosovo and Mongolia. As it happens, though, my first encounter with profoundly different cultural values occurred right here in the United States, among fifth-generation Americans. I got my start in broadcast journalism 27 years ago in southwestern Alaska. I worked for nearly seven years at a bilingual radio and TV station in a region populated mainly by Yup’ik Eskimos. Early in my career there, we had a summer visit from a television producer who was sponsored by the state’s artist-in-residence program. His job was to work with local schoolchildren to produce a series of half-hour television specials about life in our region.

Spring 2009 IMQ 10th Anniversary Retrospective

I admired the way this man worked. He didn’t just barge into the area and begin filming. He hung out for weeks, getting acquainted, asking questions and getting a feel for the community. When he began work on the skits, dances and songs that made up his TV programs, I was impressed with how well he had managed to avoid the Eskimo stereotypes that are common even today. There were no jokes about igloos or iceboxes, polar bears or penguins. Instead, he seemed to have an eye for the real idiosyncrasies of life in our little town. He had a particular genius for wordless comedy. Many of his segments featured local animals, fish and birds. One of my favorites was his mini-ballet “Ptarmigan Lake.” The ptarmigan is a pigeon-like bird that lives in big flocks on the open tundra. It turns a protective white in winter. It is widely hunted in the spring, when it provides a welcome addition to the local diet after the people have spent months eating dried salmon and walrus meat. Using the music from “Swan Lake,” our producer created a charming and – I thought – extremely funny dance sequence. It was performed by fourth graders who waddled around in puffy white ptarmigan costumes that made them look like huge marshmallows with wings and beaks. We promoted the first broadcast heavily, and we aired it with great fanfare. Keep in mind that this was a small, remote town where you didn’t need Arbitrons or Neilsen ratings to find out how people felt about your programming. You could be sure to hear their opinions when you met them the next day at the post office or the grocery store. We expected high praise. We had barely gotten to the “Ptarmigan Lake” sequence when the phones began to ring – caller after angry caller – each one more vehement than the last. A

typical viewer response went something like this: “What is this (expletive deleted)? Get this (expletive deleted) off my (expletive deleted) TV!” None of our callers were really clear about what they didn’t like. The closest I got to a real answer came from a man who said “It’s crap, that’s all. It’s stupid, white-man crap!” We put off airing the other two programs while we tried to find out what was wrong. That’s where we encountered the cultural divide. The Yup’ik staffers at the station, some of whom had worked on the program, essentially refused to talk about it. I could see from the hurt and frustration on their faces that they were hearing plenty from people in town. Finally, one night, after a long silence, my best Yup’ik friend blurted out an answer. He looked me in the eye, and for the first time, I could feel his deeply suppressed anger. “You don’t joke about food,” he said. “You don’t joke about the animals.” Suddenly, it dawned on me. This was and still is, to a great extent, a hunting culture. Success in the hunt depends on the relationship between the hunter and his prey. Yup’ik elders teach that animals yield themselves up to the hunter who treats them with proper respect. If they are treated disrespectfully – that is, hunted carelessly, killed with cruelty, or if any part of them is wasted – they will no longer allow themselves to be taken. In a hunter culture, a food animal is more than a factor in life or death; it’s a measure of human identity in balance with the rest of nature. You don’t joke about the animals. That’s an outlook that is so profoundly engrained in Yup’ik culture that no missionary religion, no western-style hunting gear, no Saturday morning cartoon animal show has been able to change it. It is true that it’s no longer overt in most Yup’ik people. In fact, many of the viewers who disliked our TV show didn’t fully understand what offended them so – they just knew it was wrong. I’m often reminded of that incident when I hear about the difficulties that U.S. troops are experiencing in Iraq. If most Iraqi people are glad to be liberated from a cruel

and implacable dictator – and I believe they are – then why don’t they like their liberators better? Clearly, any occupying force is an irritant to the population, and just as clearly, our troops were trained for combat, not cultural sensitivity. But as the occupation goes on – and it will go on, long beyond the return of Iraqi sovereignty – we need to achieve cultural harmony with the people. Some ways of dealing successfully with other people can be taught, such as respectful terms of address, or the customs and taboos associated with relations between the sexes. Sometimes it can be as simple as learning not to touch food with the wrong hand. But other, more complex cultural knowledge can’t be published in a pamphlet for the troops or conveyed in a weekend workshop. It has to be acquired by observation, by assimilation, by gaining the trust of the people and learning to ask them the proper questions about themselves and their lives. That’s the only way to avoid trespassing against taboos that are so deeply embedded in the culture that neither we, nor our hosts, are fully aware of what it is that causes the oﬀense. Yup’ik people have a way of getting to know a stranger in their community. It involves visiting that person at home and sitting quietly as the person goes about his or her daily business. Yup’iks believe that, to get to know someone, you have to observe their behavior. Then, you can begin to talk. Perhaps the way to achieve cultural sensitivity between our troops and the Iraqis is to adopt the Yup’ik method – to allow time for each side to observe and understand the other in the most “natural” settings possible. That’s not going to be easy as long as our troops are beset by terrorists and guerrilla ﬁghters – as long as our soldiers make “home visits” at gunpoint after kicking in doors. I’m told that even Saddam Hussein’s feared secret police avoided entering homes to seize their victims, because of a deep-seated taboo against violating a person’s home or gazing at the women there. If the safety of our troops really demands that homes be searched by force, then so be it. But in the long run, our troops will be safer if they learn to avoid transgressing against the unconscious or less-conscious taboos of Iraqi culture. i

Intercultural Management Quarterly

Hollywood’s War On “Reel” Bad Arabs By Jack Shaheen

Dr. Jack Shaheen’s article “Hollywood’s War on ‘Reel’ Bad Arabs” is also original to the IMQ, published in the Winter 2004 issue. Reading the article today, it is striking how little has changed in Hollywood’s depiction of Arabs. But that is not to say that no progress has been made; ﬁlms such as The Kite Runner and the newly released American East, controversy aside, have succeeded in portraying Arabs as being something other than the enemies of America. Dr. Shaheen himself, in addition to being Professor Emeritus of Mass Communication at Southern Illinois Univeristy, has appeared on various television shows and documentaries, continuing to shed light on Hollywood’s facile viliﬁcation of Arabs and Arab-Americans.

n September 11, 2001, 19 suicidal Arab Muslim terrorists attacked the Pentagon and destroyed the World Trade Center. The terrorists slaughtered nearly 3,000 people from more than 60 nations. Now the United States and its allies have joined force-of-arms with force-of-facts to crush the guilty. We have launched an information war; a war to crush big-time the myths that this conflict has anything to do with Islam against America, or Arabs against the West. Instead, this war has everything to do with the lunatic fringe responsible. Our political and communication leaders must not attribute the actions of the lunatic fringe with the vast majority of peaceful Arabs and Muslims. I have spent my adult lifetime honing my skills as a professional observer and analyst of America’s imagemaking factories. On a canvas far broader in terms that its title indicates, my book, “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies A People,” paints the dangers of rigid and repetitive stereotypes when we lump “those people” together indiscriminately. I document and discuss nearly 1000 pre-9/11 Hollywood feature films that abused Arab Muslims, showing them as the most maligned group in the history of Hollywood. For more than a century, Hollywood has bombarded audiences worldwide with motion pictures and TV programs which portray Arabs, Muslims, and their descendants as quite literally the scum of the earth: lechers, terrorists by definition, subhuman to the last man, woman and child. Inherent in this barrage of heinous images is this message: We Americans despise you and your religion.

Spring 2009 IMQ 10th Anniversary Retrospective

Think about it. When was the last time you saw a movie depicting an Arab or an Arab American as a regular guy? Such images are as sparse as geysers in the Sahara. This stereotype has haunted us for decades. Its durability results, I believe, from several inventive factors: indolence, indifference, silence, and of course, greed are incentives. Hollywood knows that evil and fear of evil is a mix that sells. It leads some producers to exploit the Arab stereotype for profit by feeding movie goers a steady diet of Arab Muslim primitives infiltrating the USA and threatening to slaughter our loved ones in their own back yards. The stereotypes prevail for another reason: politics. Since the 1940s our nation’s leaders have embraced and advanced pro-Israeli positions. It’s no surprise that media systems would want to emulate and expand on U.S. policies. Also, violent news reports selectively gratuitously equate 1.2 billion Muslims as clones of Ayatollah Khomeini, Muamar Kadafi, Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. By focusing only on extremists chanting “Death to America!” as they burn Uncle Sam in effigy, the newscasts reinforce and exacerbate the already prevalent myth: Muslims are evil. As Hollywood is the world’s foremost industry for molding public opinion, which helps shape public policy, some image makers eagerly exploit the stereotype. West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin, for example, said at a recent Writer’s Guild symposium titled We Hate You: “I’m going to bring [Arab Muslim] characters onto the show and you’re not going to like them.” Sorkin is a man of his word. Since 9/11, he and other producers have saturated viewers’ psyches with hateful Arab characters.

Weekly, ever since the tragic events of September 11, 2001, viewers have been bombarded with vicious Arab Muslims; the villains surface in dozens of movie reruns (e.g. “True Lies,” “Executive Decision” and “Rules of Engagement”). And, Arab characters prowl about in scores of law enforcement, intelligence agency, and court room dramas. To name a few: “Threat Matrix,” “West Wing,” “24,” “The Agency,” “Sue Thomas F. B. Eye,” “Law and Order,” “Family Law,” “Judging Amy,” “JAG,” “The Practice,” “The District,” “The Shield,” and TV movies – “The President’s Man: A Line In the Sand.” Why should we care about these dehumanizing images? Because history has taught us that when any ethnic group is demonized, innocent people suﬀer: More than 100,000 Japanese-Americans were interred in camps; blacks were denied basic civil rights and lynched; American Indians were displaced and slaughtered, and in Europe six million Jews perished in the Holocaust. Americans of Arab heritage and American Muslims— all nine-million of us—are as courageous, as patriotic as our neighbors, and every bit as intent on wiping out terrorism. Yet, TV producers ignore this reality. From the beginning TV programmers have practiced exclusion, not inclusion, banning us from the television landscape. Only two antiquated TV series have ever displayed Arab American characters. Once upon four decades ago Danny Thomas revealed his roots in the popular 1960s series, “Make Room for Daddy.” And, during the 1970s, “MASH’s” Cpl. Klingler, played by Jamie Farr, noted his Arab heritage. Today, producers falsely imply we are a threat to our nation. Since 9/11, scores of shows have falsely labeled Americans of Arab heritage and American Muslims as clones of Al Qaeda—disloyal thugs and terrorist traitors waging a Holy War against our next-door neighbors. We use mosques as hideouts, shoot dead our fellow Americans, and use dirty bombs to nuke Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and Texas. Taken together, Hollywood’s movies and TV shows give prejudice a free pass. They’re being screened at a time when hate crimes and attacks on mosques are on

the rise, when Americans of Arab heritage and American Muslims are being harassed in schools, physically attacked, fired from their jobs, rudely profiled at airports, and even arrested and imprisoned on the flimsiest imaginable grounds. Government officials attempted but failed to contest the stereotypes. Intent on reinventing America in the eyes of 1.2 billion Muslims, Mr. Bush appointed a former ad executive, Charlotte Beers, [who resigned last year] as undersecretary of state to lead a $15 million public diplomacy campaign designed to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. But experts believed Beers’ government-sponsored TV campaigns not only flopped, but helped advance anti-Americanism in the Arab street. It’s no wonder Muslims did not buy this P. R. ploy. Daily, in more than 100 nations, viewers see American movie stars such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Samuel Jackson, Jr., Chuck Norris and others invading Arab countries, blowing them to smithereens. What should be done to curtail such prejudicial behavior and twisted portraits? Ethnic stereotypes do not vanish. Hollywood’s image makers should understand that Arab Muslims, their beliefs and lifestyles, are worth the same respect that everybody else has a right to. The time is long overdue for producers to embrace a spirit of fairness, and to project them on silver screens as they display other peoples, no better, no worse, with a fair balance of villains and heroes. Peace cannot happen when TV shows and motion pictures relentlessly denigrate an entire people. Xenophobia and prejudice are the flip sides of harmony and togetherness. We need films that elevate the human spirit, ours and theirs. Producers need to shift gears and begin churning out movies that help advance tolerance and unify people. After all, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are religions of peace, advocating that all humankind is one family in the care of God. During this period of global conflict, I suggest President Bush host a White House Conference on Humankind. Its purpose: To help advance diplomacy, and spell out the role Hollywood can and should play in eradicat Continued on page 25 . . . Intercultural Management Quarterly

The International Thanksgiving Fellowship: A Case Study in Citizen Diplomacy by Sherry L. Mueller and Melissa Whited

Sherry Mueller and Melissa Whited’s article “The International Thanksgiving Fellowship: A Case Study in Citizen Diplomacy” ﬁrst appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of the IMQ. For those who believe that the ﬁeld is long on theory but short on results, the article answers these doubts by demonstrating the power of the lasting international relationships enkindled by citizen diplomats. Sherry Mueller was and is the President of the National Council of International Visitors, and has been intimately involved with the Intercultural Management Institute, and American University, for many years; Melissa Whited has transitioned to the private sector following her stint at the NCIV. Their article continues to be a compelling illustration of the argument for the importance of international exchange.

Citizen Diplomacy

uring these days when we are bombarded by grim news stories from Iraq, North Korea, and other troubled places around the globe, accounts of successful citizen diplomacy seldom claim headlines. Yet it is a time when America’s ability to “win the hearts and minds” of others is questioned as never before. One of America’s best assets in this battle is her citizen diplomats. Citizen diplomacy is the notion that in a vibrant democracy, the individual citizen has the right—indeed, even the responsibility—to help shape U.S. foreign relations, as some phrase it, “one handshake at a time.”

Promoting eﬀective citizen diplomacy and expanding opportunities for Americans to practice citizen diplomacy is the mission of a variety of well-established nonproﬁt organizations in the United States, including the National Council for International Visitors (NCIV). Founded in 1961, NCIV is a national network of individual members, program agencies, and 95 community organizations throughout the United States that are expert at matching their communities’ resources with the needs of participants in a variety of exchange programs. All NCIV members implement the State Department’s International Visitor Program through working with International Visitors – foreign leaders selected by U.S. Embassy personnel abroad to travel to the United States for three- to four-week visits to Washington DC and other communities in geographically diverse parts of the country. They organize professional programs, cultural activities, and home visits for International Visitors with two overarching goals in mind: 1) To provide

Spring 2009 IMQ 10th Anniversary Retrospective

a thorough overview of the relevant professional field and opportunities to exchange ideas and techniques with their U.S. professional counterparts; 2) To offer, through a series of personal encounters and cultural experiences, the chance to develop a much greater appreciation of the history, heritage, values, and democratic institutions of the United States.An alumna of the International Visitor Program, Ms. Madhura Chatrapathy, Trustee Director of the Asian Centre for Entrepreneurial Initiatives, Bangalore, India, eloquently summarized the impact of citizen diplomacy at its best: “You welcomed a stranger and sent home a friend.” Four of NCIV’s active member organizations grew out of an initiative begun in 1956 as the International Thanksgiving Fellowship Program. The program, begun as a holiday display of hospitality, soon transformed into a tradition of diplomacy performed by ordinary Americans during the depths of the Cold War. This case study in citizen diplomacy demonstrates the firsthand learning experiences that international exchange programs make possible, experiences that are increasingly important in our contemporary world and meriting many more resources than currently available. These programs and experiences are long-term investments. They are opportunities for individual citizens to play an important role in U.S. foreign relations—to do what governments can never do as well—underscore the common human aspirations we all share.

The International Thanksgiving Fellowship Program (ITF) For many people a reference to “Paris” brings to mind the sophisticated metropolitan area that is the capital of

France. For others, former international students who studied in Chicago, Paris is a town of 10,000 people in rural Illinois – the home of Trudy Trogden, founder of the International Thanksgiving Fellowship Program in 1956. Located about 200 miles south of Chicago, Paris, Illinois is where thousands of international students have enjoyed a host family, an introduction to the quintessential American tradition of Thanksgiving, and a strong memory of a candlelight ceremony in the local Armory. Trudy was born on October 22, 1912 in the country near Paris, Illinois. She credits her parents with instilling in her a desire to share her home with others. As Trudy expresses it: “My parents were by no means wealthy, but they never turned away anyone who needed a meal or a place to sleep.” As she recovered from a serious illness in 1955, Trudy searched for a way to build international understanding. She thought about the international students in Chicago who had never experienced the warm

The International Thanksgiving Fellowship Program provided international students the essence of a true exchange experience–the opportunity to learn about a country and a culture by being part of a family and living in that family’s home. U.S. hosts, while cooking meals (and being sensitive to the dietary restrictions of some of their guests), organizing tours, and planning special events learned ﬁrsthand about the diﬀerent perspectives, cultures, and countries of their guests. “I am sure my personal contact with various kinds of the citizens in Paris has made my views about America and Americans change, and I was greatly impressed to see your earnest attitude to promote international understanding and good will. In a period of world crisis such as the present, one cannot overstate the need for understanding among nations and their people,” remarked a student from Japan.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported, “As a result of the program, there are many here and many from foreign lands who have With the departure of every international student, a new appreciation for the comthe face of a different America—an open, person- mon goals of common people . . . An even greater reward rests able, and sincere America—radiated outward. with the individuals and the families who shared in the experience. Open hearts and open minds... will hospitality and open friendliness of small-town America. go a long way toward solving world problems.” And inWorking with friends of Church Women United, Trudy deed, with the departure of every international student, went to the Director of International Student House, the face of a different America—an open, personable, Mr. Jack Kerridge, and extended an invitation to all in- and sincere America—radiated outward. “The remarkternational students to come to Paris, enjoy a homestay able warmth and hospitality we received will not stay and the Thanksgiving holiday with a family, and, as she within us solely, but will find its way to all the nations phrases it, experience the “real” America. represented,” promised a student from the Philippines. That first year, 1956, more than 143 international students from 35 countries accepted the invitation to live with a family from the Wednesday before Thanksgiving to the Sunday after. Trudy and her colleagues raised money for the buses that would transport the students, recruited host families, and planned a program of community activities to bring the families and students together. These included visits to farms, hospitals, and local government offices. Potluck dinners were also part of the mix.

The second year more than 200 students participated. News of the International Thanksgiving Fellowship spread. In addition to considerable local news coverage, the United States Information Agency featured the program in overseas ﬁlms and broadcasts highlighting what one American community was doing to help build world peace. And gradually it was not just one American community. Other Illinois towns joined Paris and established International Thanksgiving Fellowship Committees. Of these towns, four later became active members of the Na-

Intercultural Management Quarterly

Culture Matters from page 7 tional Council for International Visitors. Their work and success hosting international students naturally suggested them as hosts and program organizers for the foreign leaders and specialists who come to the United States as participants in the International Visitor Program. The International Thanksgiving Fellowship Program endures. The staﬀ of the International House at the University of Chicago estimates that during the last 47 years, approximately 17,000 international students enjoyed Thanksgiving holidays with American host families in rural Illinois. In 1960, President Eisenhower captured the essence of international exchange and citizen diplomacy in remarks made in Santiago, Chile in response to a letter from Chilean students, some of whom he later invited to stay in Paris, Illinois. “And I repeat to you one great truth: the peace that we all seek, in justice and in freedom, can be based only on one thing, mutual understanding. Unless we have that among peoples, and eventually governments, which are always seemingly behind the people rather than ahead of them—unless we have that kind of understanding–mutual understanding–we are not going to have true peace. Each of you that helps in the tiniest way to bring about this understanding is thereby promoting the peace for himself, his children, and those who are to come after him.”

Celebrating Success We live in a time and place where popular culture fuels the quest for instant gratiﬁcation and the preoccupation with short-term results predominates. These facts make it even more important to celebrate the relatively slow process of building friendships over time – a process that well-conceived exchange programs set in motion. Both the international students and the U.S. hosts appreciate the long-term relationships that have evolved from the International Thanksgiving Fellowship Program. So, who will be at your Thanksgiving celebration this year? i

Spring 2009 IMQ 10th Anniversary Retrospective

achievement and saving; and a belief in sorcery that nurtures irrationality and fatalism. Etounga-Manguelle concludes that Africa must “change or perish.” A cultural “adjustment” is not enough. What is needed is a cultural revolution that transforms traditional authoritarian child-rearing practices; transforms education through emphasis on the individual, independent judgment and creativity; produces free individuals working together for the progress of the community; produces an elite concerned with the well-being of the society; and promotes a healthy economy based on the work ethic, the profit motive and individual initiative. This is not to say that addressing culture will solve all problems. Culture is one of several factors that influence progress. But particularly as we view the longer run, culture’s power becomes more apparent. Nathan Glazer observed that people are made uncomfortable or are offended by cultural explanations of why some countries and some ethnic groups do better than others. But the alternative — to view oneself or one’s group as a victim — is worse. Bernard Lewis recently observed in a Foreign Affairs article that when people realize that things are going wrong, there are two questions they can ask. One is, “What did we do wrong?” and the other is “Who did this to us?” The latter leads to conspiracy theories and paranoia. The first question leads to another line of thinking: “How do we put it right?” Yet the role of cultural values and attitudes as obstacles to or facilitators of progress has been largely ignored by governments and aid agencies. Integrating value and attitude change into policies and programs will assure that, in the next fifty years, the world does not relive the poverty and injustice in which most poor countries have been mired during the past half century’s “decades of development.” i

An Unﬁnished Conversation By Lee Mun Wah

Professional trainer Lee Mun Wah’s article “An Unﬁnished Conversation” was published in the Winter 2006 issue of the IMQ. In it, he uses a training session he gave to illustrate, in a broader sense, the elements necessary to achieve a truly harmonious culture in the workplace. The lessons here are clear: we must be open and honest with each other, and willing to communicate freely. There are also notes and guidelines for trainers, identifying pitfalls as well as tips for holding productive sessions. Lee Mun Wah is still very active in the ﬁeld of Diversity and Communications Training, and continues to be the Executive Director of Stir-Fry Seminars & Consulting.

uddhists say that a crisis is both a danger and an opportunity. I would say that that is equally true today, when it comes to trying to move towards having diversity become a reality rather than just a celebration in most of our workplaces. After having been a consultant and diversity trainer for most of the top 500 companies for the past twenty years, I have come to recognize that achieving diversity has often been confused with simply numerical representation or an occasional celebration of diverse foods, clothing, or music. At issue is not simply the acceptance or the willingness to tolerate another’s differences, but whether or not there is a real desire to embrace and to explore our differences through an honest and personal exchange that could be uncomfortable, emotional, and require personal responsibility as well as institutional change. Often, when we think of diversity, words such as respect, understanding, and working together in harmony come to mind. I call these United Nations words, because they are often easier to espouse than to be seen as useful or an integral part of our everyday business practices. This rainbow mythology feeds our desire to see ourselves in such a positive light, because it is often more convenient and comfortable, demanding none of our time or effort to work towards these goals either personally or collectively. About five years ago, I was asked to help stem the migration of minority students, faculty, and staff from a prestigious educational college in the Midwest. When I came in, I could feel the fear in the room, not so much in what they said, but in what they didn’t say, not so much in where they sat, but in where they didn’t sit. I started the session by sharing with them that I had no idea why the folks of color at this college were leaving. I

had just arrived last night and would soon be departing on the six o’clock flight back to California. I suggested a novel idea, why don’t we ask them? Why don’t we ask the remaining folks of color why they thought the others had left and/or if they had similar feelings and inclinations, and most importantly, why? Immediately, I could feel the room stop breathing and the anxiety level jump up to the ceiling. It was as if I breached a line of protocol that had never been crossed or considered. I could sense an unspoken murmur in the room . . . we wanted him to help us, but not this quickly. Someone once said that a courageous person is not without fear, but rather that they hung in there about thirty seconds longer than the rest of us. In other words, carpe diem – seize the moment. And so I did. I had all the folks of color come up to the front of the room. In the process, something occurred that would change the course of my life and the entire room. As I had my back to the staff and faculty that were not persons of color, I could feel a strange tingling in the back of my neck. I turned around and realized that I could feel their resistance and fear of hearing the truth. And so, for the first time, I asked the most unlikely, yet obvious question, “How many of you want to hear the truth?” Only half of the group raised their hands. I thanked them all for their candor, especially those who hadn’t raised their hands. As you are reading this, what do you suppose were among the fears that some of the white folks had about hearing the truth? The top four reasons were quite illuminating as well affirming for many in the room, especially for the folks of color. The first reason was that they liked what was familiar. The subtext of “familiar” was that the school used to be almost all white and they didn’t have to deal with so many complex diversity issues. Secondly, they didn’t

Intercultural Management Quarterly

want to hear the truth, because what if it got too emotional? Some of the emotions they were afraid of were anger, hurt, and grief. Thirdly, they were afraid to hear the truth because they might be responsible. And the last reason was that if they, as white men, gave women and people of color what they wanted, they would be out of a job. The folks of color were shocked, dismayed, and relieved. Partly, this was because many had suspected these attitudes were going on, but their questions and observations were never honestly answered or acknowledged. To this day, I am stunned that they were so publicly honest. In retrospect, I think it was because what I did was direct and that they sensed my sincerity. You see, I was simply noticing the elephant in the middle of the room. An elephant that everyone else noticed, too, but were too scared to say something about. In reality, we have no model for this kind of truth telling - nothing to give us a sense of safety or the encouragement to be real. It is my belief that we are all longing to be ourselves and to have that be enough and valued. Instead, what we have is a 500 year-old policy of don’t ask, don’t tell, when it comes to dealing with diversity issues in the United States. That is why when I ask participants, “What were you like when you first came here and what are you like now?,” everyone laughs. But, it is an uncomfortable laugh, filled with resignation and sad familiarity for so many folks who have felt unacknowledged and devalued. So, how do we break through this the wall of silence and fear? How do we begin this unfinished conversation about difference and privilege? What will be required for us to begin this conversation is learning how to listen and to respond authentically and openly. Here are a few suggestions that might help:

Intent & Impact Have you ever met some folks who seemed oblivious to the impact of their communications? And when questioned, they justified their good intentions, and seldom took any responsibility or asked any questions to find out why you might be feeling offended or upset? In all

Spring 2009 IMQ 10th Anniversary Retrospective

of our communications there is an impact or a reaction to what we are saying or what we are not saying. Noticing those reactions are key to a healthy communication exchange and the development of a trusting relationship. When you notice that someone has a strong response to what you are saying, share that you noticed their reaction, and be open to hearing why.

The Art of Reﬂection and Inquiry After someone has shared with you how they are feeling, repeating back their key concerns gives them a sense that you value what they have said, and in the process, they might tell you more. Stay open and curious and notice if you are listening from your frame of reference or trying to understand theirs. Another important ingredient is asking questions about what they have said that will encourage them to expand or elaborate upon what they have shared. Someone once said that curiosity is the gateway to empathy.

Emotionally Nourish the Relationship Be real, not detached or distant when someone is sharing how they are feeling about what they have experienced. Notice if you are needing to be in control by finding an immediate solution or needing to define everything. Breathe and be present. Simply listening and being witness to someone’s journey is a rare gift and often all that someone needs. Stay in the moment, not too far back or too far ahead. Repeat back what they have said with the same emotional affect and impact. Share with them that it is understandable why they might feel the way they do, given what they have gone through. Compassion is often the key to intimacy and trust.

Beginning Where They Are Ask about the skills and the experiences that they bring to the workplace. Also learn about their family history and the impact that their culture has on their lives. Understand and appreciate how their past aﬀects who they are today. By asking a lot of questions, you will be able to begin where they are, not where you want them to

Conversation . . . be. Ask how their past experiences aﬀected them and how it aﬀects their relationship with you. Learning another’s journey will help you understand the context of their lives and the impact it has on their present day experiences and relationships.

Owning Responsibility Notice and share your part in the conflict or breakdown in communication. Practice saying that you don’t know or that you were afraid or hurt or upset. Anger is often not a primary emotion, hurt is. When our hurt is invalidated or unacknowledged, it often becomes anger. So asking how we might have hurt someone and taking responsibility for our actions or inactions deepens the possibility for a trusting relationship. All relationships have conflict. The ones that are healthy deal with the conflict by staying in the room and being open to change. Buddha once said, “We all do not learn from experience, but rather by our willingness to experience.” Before we can celebrate our differences, it is equally important and imperative that we seek to understand those differences that separate and distance us from each other. We are all different, but it is the value that we place on those differences that either separates us or brings us together. It is my hope that through a meaningful and authentic dialogue about those differences, we can come to appreciate how unique we all are, and that the valuing of those differences will deepen our interconnectedness and humanity in our workplaces, in our communities, and for our children. i

Intercultural Management Institute Skills Institutes—Summer and Fall 2009 Global Positioning: Cross Cultural Negotiating in a Post-Global World July 18-19, 2009 with Dean Foster, President, Dean Foster Associates Personal and Organizational Security in a Global Age September 12-13, 2009 with Ray Leki, Director, Transition Center of the Foreign Service Institute, Department of State Multinational Teambuilding September 26-27, 2009 with Lance Descourouez, CEO, Lance Consulting Gaming Simulations and Experiential Exercises for Intercultural Training October 24-25, 2008 with Gary Weaver, Executive Director, IMI, and Professor, School of International Service, American University; and Gary Wright, Adjunct Professor, School of International Service, and former Vice President of Campus Life, American University Managing International Student Exchange Programs November 14-15, 2009 with Fanta Aw, Vice President of Campus Life, American University

www.imi.american.edu for schedule and registration 20

Intercultural Management Quarterly

Economic Theory, Culture and Antiglobalization by Geert Hofstede

Geert Hofstede’s article “Economic Theory, Culture, and Antiglobalization” appeared in the IMQ’s Fall 2006 edition. It challenges the assumptions of Chicago economics through the lens of Hofstede’s well-known cultural dimensions. Recognizing that the Chicago style is the dominant form of global economics, Hofstede calls for a greater understanding of cultural differences as the model makes its way around the world. Only by allowing for the flexibility of culture can the model maintain its success as economic globalization comes to new parts of the world. Hofstede’s books and articles continue to be prevalent in many cross-cultural programs and training modules, and the author himself continues to be active in the field.

he social sciences as they have developed in Europe and North America over the past hundred and ﬁfty years have established a division of labor into academic disciplines. This responds to the limited capacity of human minds to handle complexity, but it is easy to forget that economics, political science, anthropology, sociology, psychology and social psychology all study facets of one and the same social reality. Disciplines need the products of each others’ labor to build on, but the academic system in most universities punishes rather than encourages borrowing wisdom from neighboring departments. Even more than other social sciences, economics claims for itself a separate status. Many economists behave as if their discipline is not social at all, but belongs to the exact sciences. In the meantime, economic theories are built and econometric calculations carried out based on assumptions about human behavior, both individual and social, which, when spelled out, look almost incredibly primitive and simplistic to students of other social disciplines. In the French newspaper “Le Monde” of 7th June 2002 I read an interview by editor Philippe Simonnot with professor Gary S. Becker, prominent representative of the Chicago school of economics and author of “Human Capital” (1964). Becker explains that part of the success of the Chicago school is due to applying economic reasoning in non-economic domains, like the family, crime, drugs, education and law. In doing this, the Chicago school assumes that the only relevant unit of analysis is the individual, and that society can be seen as a sum of individuals. Individuals are supposed to be rational, which means that in allocating scarce resources they will choose the course of action which they expect to lead them towards their goals. The Chicago school thinks that individuals, even the least educated ones, should be

free to pursue their own goals. What these goals are is an issue which does not belong to economics. Chicago economics deals with means, not with ends. Becker thinks this means that the way he works is value-free. My old Dictionary of Economics (Bannock, Baxter & Rees, Penguin, 1972), tells me that the word “value” in economics is used in two senses: A narrow one, equivalent to ‘price,’ and a broad one, equivalent to ‘utility.’ Price is measurable, but utility can only be measured ordinally, as a preference for one thing over another. As such it has non-economic roots: It is, the dictionary writes, ‘essentially a psychological thing.’ This confirms Becker: what people’s goals are does not belong to economics. However, as utilities are at the basis of economic calculations, what do economists base their assumptions about utilities on? Is Chicago economics value-free? To me it is pregnant with implicit value positions. Values represent the choice of ends in life which precedes the choice of means. Choices are rational only within the limits of a values system. Our values systems are inherited from the environment in which we grew up. Many studies have shown value systems to have a national component. Therefore, nationality constrains rationality. Chicago economics as described by Becker reflects very particular choices on three national culture dimensions: it is individualist, masculine, and short term oriented. Individualist, because it has no concept of social system. Masculine, because it has no concept of social responsibility for the weaker members of a society. Short term oriented, because it does not weigh short term against long term effects. This combination of cultural positions is relatively often found in countries with an Anglo heritage: Britain, the USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand. continued on page 25 . . .

Spring 2009 IMQ 10th Anniversary Retrospective

Challenges of Leadership by Harriet Mayor Fulbright

“Challenges of Leadership” appeared in the Winter 2008 issue of the IMQ, in conjunction with Mrs. Fulbright’s keynote address at the 9th Annual IMI Conference. The article serves two purposes: it celebrates the inarguable success of the Fulbright Exchange Program, and provides case studies of the program’s impact values in action. Harriet Mayor Fulbright continues to serve as the President of the J. William & Harriet Fulbright Center, promoting and strengthening her husband’s legacy—and her own life’s work—of advocating for the importance of international education, world peace, and conﬂict resolution by nonviolent means.

eadership is more than a prescribed behavior. It is more than an idea, the intelligence to express it clearly, and the power to carry it through. A leader must also have a high degree of self awareness, or the ability to see oneself accurately—and the ability to motivate others. In this global village we now live in a leader must also have empathy and understanding of other people and respect for their cultures, or the ability to see situations and feelings through another’s eyes; and the ability to make and maintain human connections through reaching out and through careful listening.

laptop computer during her leisure time, he asked her to show his teachers how to teach art. He explained to her that teachers did not want to come to his school because the village was so poor. Teacher housing was in terrible shape, and his school had no supplies. He was sure, however, that art could improve the look of the village. In his mind he could imagine brightly painted murals on his buildings and gardens of ﬂowers with stepping stones. Luckily, she had brought along a small case of art supplies and knew how to create art out of found objects, so she agreed and started with the teachers.

We are all called upon to lead, often in small but signiﬁcant ways that have an impact on our families and circle of friends, our immediate communities and local organizations. The ripple eﬀect of our actions can spread farther than we originally intended, and this makes our leadership important. For this reason I wish to call attention to examples of leadership that can be applied to us—to students and teachers, parents and children, and to members of small and large communities.

That afternoon she showed them how to make clay out dirt, ﬂour, salt and water, and she taught the teachers the basic clay techniques, from the coil bowl and pinch pot to the slab tray. The next day the teachers gathered twigs and grass, and she taught them how to create small frames to be used for the self-portraits they had drawn. Inspired, they cleared out an old storage room to use for art, and the program began. It went so well that when she returned home, she gave talks about her experience and persuaded local schools and businesses in the USA to send 250 pounds of art supplies to the school in Zimbabwe. Through this experience the students and local townspeople learned about another culture an ocean away, and they realized how valuable their help was in enriching other lives.

The Impact of the Arts The ﬁrst is the story of a leader who used her training to expand the life and highlight the culture of a small village a continent away. Paula Taylor, an American artist and graphic designer who had been working with children in remote and destitute areas of Zimbabwe and South Africa for two months each year was given the opportunity to explore areas among the Luo and Maasai tribes in Kenya. Her objective was to repair leaking roofs in dilapidated classrooms and teachers’ houses at a rural school in Zimbabwe. However, when the headmaster, who was a visionary, saw her helping the children draw simple graphics on her

“Since our ﬁrst visit, three years ago,’ she wrote, “Sidakeni Primary School has progressed and is now known for its art program. The school is so popular that it cannot provide jobs for all the teachers who request positions there. The whole community has a new sense of pride in their school and in their village. Village craftsmen give classes regularly at the school and help students sell their crafts. In addition, a new well was dug on the school grounds and provides good water for the entire

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village. Sidakeni village is achieving its vision to make the world a better place for their children.” Paula Taylor is a perfect example of the truth of Edmund Burke’s Statement: “No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.”

The Power of Collaboration Another example of creative leadership is more personal and has made a huge difference in my life as well as many thousands of others. In the year 2000, after being told for several years that I had a tendency toward anemia, one doctor realized that the problem lay elsewhere, and after more extensive tests, found that I had a rare form of blood cancer called Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia or WM. It was both fatal and incurable. I conducted a thorough search of the world of oncology through the internet and uncovered a doctor who was focusing on just this disease at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Dr. Steve Treon is a caring, hard-working hematological oncologist who was feeling frustrated in his research on this form of cancer because there were so few of us patients in the US that he found it difficult to make progress in his efforts to find an effective response, much less a cure. We talked about the level of knowledge of WM in general, of my case in particular, about the benefits of international collaboration, and about how to improve the treatment available. I left feeling that I was getting the best possible medical attention and started the regimen he suggested—with great success. Soon after, Dr. Treon sent me an announcement of the first international conference on WM, to be held in Boston, and I was invited to attend and speak. At this first meeting there were doctors from nine different foreign institutions and patients from around the country. There were the expected presentations of research in progress and unexpected interactions between patients and the attending physicians—conversations which were more leisurely and wide ranging than is possible in a hospital and were enlightening to both doctor

Spring 2009 IMQ 10th Anniversary Retrospective

and patient. There was also a pervasive enthusiasm about the potential for progress as a result of this interaction. Today, five years later, the outcomes of this first international conference have exceeded everyone’s hopes and dreams. The cohesive community built around this rare disease has been able to conduct far more effective research than any one individual doctor or institute could perform because of the coordination and interaction, and the resulting knowledge of what causes WM and how to deal with it is growing exponentially. I am particularly pleased to report that they have among their number Fulbright scholars who are fulfilling their scholarship obligations as researchers at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. As of the beginning of 2008 there are 25 research centers focusing on WM in Australia, Canada, the United States and throughout Europe, and Dr. Treon expects that number to double within 12 months. The conference’s ability to bring patients and doctors together has not only increased the understanding of the issues but has turned the patients into advocates of the work, thereby facilitating the fundraising necessary for continuing the research. The doctors involved are sharing their findings in a collaborative manner and planning trials in consultation with each other to maximize the knowledge gained. Steve Treon understood the power of collaboration. He knew that if he shared the results of his research freely, he could attract like-minded physicians around the world. The resulting knowledge about Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia is expanding rapidly, and—who knows?— there might even be a cure in sight soon.

The Fulbright Exchange Program My final example is also close to home, in a very different way. Weeks after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Senator J. William Fulbright held hearings in the Senate to gather information on the long-term effects of the effects of the blasts and the subsequent radiation. Because he was a professor

Challenges of Leadership . .. before he became a politician, used to doing broad and intensive research, those he called upon to testify before him came from a wide variety of relevant fields—biologists, medical experts, psychiatrists—and what he heard so horrified him that he spent the next several months talking with friends, relatives and colleagues about how to help prevent World War III. Slowly it became clear to him that his experience as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford could show him the way. He had long realized that not only did he learn to write and reason, thanks to his superb tutor, but his view of the world had expanded, and he understood that there were valid ways of interacting with people other than those he had been taught at home. Bill Fulbright concluded that the experience he was given, multiplied among future potential leaders the world over, might encourage a greater willingness to interact with those of another culture. If outstanding students could be persuaded to study in another country for long enough to confront and appreciate its differences, they might, when they became leaders, prefer the exchange of ideas instead of bullets to settle conflicts. The formulation of plans for an international education program was only the beginning of his struggle. The prevailing outlook among his Senate colleagues was isolationist, and Fulbright knew he had to find funding outside the normal annual appropriations. That proved to be a real headache until the Surplus Military Goods Act began to wend its way through Congress. This bill was designed to allow for the sale of the U.S. military supplies left all over the world at the end of World War II, not for cash, which no war-torn country had, but for credit, and it was just what the junior Senator from Arkansas needed. Once it passed through his office, added to the bill’s language was one more sentence: “these credits shall only be used for the purposes of international educational exchange.” Two years later small boatloads of college graduates began to make their way across both oceans to spend an academic year immersed in the culture of another country. They returned exhilarated, with a deeper, more pro-

found understanding of not only a different part of the world but of their own country. Within a decade and a half, the benefits of the program became evident, and in 1961 Congress passed the Fulbright-Hayes Act to allow for annual government appropriations to support the program. Today the Fulbright Program boasts well over a quarter of a million alumni from 140 countries and active support from nations on all five major continents. It has not only changed attitudes but created vibrant networks among academics, businesses and professions of all types. No one can prove that it has prevented another world war, but I have been told by several ambassadors who were Fulbright scholars that the knowledge of another country, gained through study abroad, has significantly eased the normal tensions among countries. Senator Fulbright developed a vision out of his own experience and translated it into a program that has exerted profound changes in attitudes and our manner of dealing with each other. As he said, Creative leadership and liberal education, which in fact go together, are the first requirements for a hopeful future for mankind. Fostering these—leadership, learning, and empathy between cultures—was and remains the purpose of the international scholarship program that I was privileged to sponsor in the U.S. Senate... It is a modest program with an immodest aim—the achievement in international affairs of a regime more civilized, rational and humane than the empty system of power of the past. I believed in that possibility when I began. I still do. As you can see, leadership is about listening and interacting with those around you, knowing how to use your skills and equipment to benefit others. It is about conducting an examination of a problem, careful enough to understand the core of that problem, and knowing how to arrive at a truly effective solution. It is a willingness to reach out and collaborate freely with others on a problem of common interest, no matter how daunting. It always takes hard work and perseverance.

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Economic Theory . . . continued from page 21 With these attributes a leader can engage the hearts and loyalty of a friend, a community, a nation, or any group so that all its members can together engage in meaningful work leading to satisfying improvements and accomplishments. Like Paula Taylor, Dr. Steve Treon, and Senator J. William Fulbright, we can all give real meaning to the words of Margaret Meade: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that has.” i

“Reel Bad Arabs” continued from page 14 ing age-old stereotypes. Invited guests could usefully include members of Hollywood’s 9/11 Coalition, notably government oﬃcials and media moguls. I’d be happy to begin a dialogue on how to portray real Arabs. By working together we can help shatter injurious stereotypes. That kind of learning takes time. It can’t take place if all the troops in a unit are rotated out of the country at the same time, leaving replacement units to start over again from scratch. Some soldiers are going to have to stay to provide continuity. The military will need to provide on-site instruction in Arabic and Iraqi culture for some troops in every unit. It will have to keep balancing “force protection” with the need for American troops to have day-to-day contact with Iraqi people. It will have to permit some degree of fraternization, for the kind of personal interaction that builds trust and allows for the small revelations that help us learn about other cultures. Military organizations are usually geared up to expend resources and manpower to achieve quick, decisive results; the biggest expenses here will be time and patience. If the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are ever to be truly over, though, if the war against terrorism is ever to be truly won, if the United States is ever to achieve a working harmony with the nations of the Middle East, then we have to ﬁnd ways to build cultural understanding. i

Spring 2009 IMQ 10th Anniversary Retrospective

Chicago economics is the dominant paradigm of the globalizers of our days, not only within the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, but also within multinational corporations. The value positions in their policies and practices remain implicit; like Becker, they may believe themselves to be value-free. Antiglobalizers, of whom there are many kinds, are groups defending different values. Some take issue with the globalizers’ individualism—they feel it threatens the maintenance of their society. Some take issue with the globalizers’ masculinity. They feel they are their poorer brothers’ keepers. Many take issue with the globalizers’ short term orientation. They call for sustainable development. These are voices that will nevermore be silent, and will continue to challenge what presently stands for globalization. Becker in the interview calls for economics to invade other fields of society. The struggle between globalizers and antiglobalizers shows a need for exactly the opposite: Other social sciences, the ones studying human motives, societal values, and political processes should be welcomed inside economics. In particular, economic policies for the whole world can no longer use theories founded on cultural values prevalent in a small part of this world. Differences in culture have to be taken into account. Culture as a variable is the neglected cornerstone for a global economic theory. i

Global Leadership continued from page 10 Our capacity to see and to change the world co-evolves with our capacity to see and to change ourselves. As the marriage ceremony changed Aaron and Karen into husband and wife, so too did it change all of us into people who more deeply understand what it means to unify diversity without extinguishing individuality. As leaders, we can never close our eyes to the complexity of the world or to the profoundly inﬂuential interactions that deﬁne society. Goethe admonishes us that leaders know themselves only to the extent that they know the world; that they become aware of themselves only within the world, and aware of the world only within themselves. i

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