This is a handout I created for a hypothetical organization training, in which I would do my best to equip all of my employees on the process of crossing cultures through body language and verbal communication.

1. Culture: What is it, and how do we discover it’s value?
How can we become Culturally competent?
Cultural Competence:
 To have made room for diversity amongst principles, values, and beliefs (Taylor, Brown,
1997).
 To cultivate an environment that acknowledges, respects, and embraces contextualization.
 To disband all cultural barriers for the sake of efficient care and communication with new
culturally diverse partners.
What are potential barrierswecould face?
Perspective:
 Ethnocentrism is the first potential barrier, with new international partners, they might
have expectations of us, based off of their own culture that we are unaware of. The best
way to combat this, is to do all that we can to make them feel at home in every meeting,
and every conversation they have with our team.
 There are lower chances that we will encounter cultural imperialism, but we want to do all
that we can to prevent it. We must embrace the beauty of their culture, learn about it, and
invite them into ours, we cannot make them feel pressured to take on our cultural beliefs or
methods (Rice University and Open Stax College, 2015).

2. Communication:
 Language is an obvious barrier, but missteps in verbal communication can ruin
expectations for both parties.
 Norms could also be a perspective-based barrier, but in both verbal and non-verbal
communication, understanding norms of other cultures is critical. To eliminate this barrier,
we need to learn about their cultural norms beforehand, it will diffuse all chances of
awkwardness or surprise (Rice University and Open Stax College, 2015).
Where do we begin with communication?
Healthy communication cycle.
Cultural universals, are traits that
are common amongst all societies
around the world, family and trade are
two great examples of this. Another
great example of a cultural universal, is
the desire for healthy communication.
This chart displays a healthy communication cycle. To better explain the chart, the cycle to healthy
communication must begin, and end, with respect. Showing respect means being entirely engaged
Respect
Attentive
listening
Healthy
Body
Language
Healthy
Response

3. with the conversation, from greeting to goodbye, you must be listening intently. Attentive listening will
bear the fruits of good and healthy body language, which could possibly entail constant eye-contact,
consistent hand movements in agreement, and affirmative head-nods to show understanding. Being
both mentally and physically engaged in the conversation will show great respect, and also create
space for a well-timed response without risking the possibility of interruption, or getting distracted by
your surroundings. This approach will produce an environment that is comfortable and respectful for
both parties, and will certainly help develop a strong relationship (Duggan, Richter, 2011).
The Ups and Downs of crossing cultures.
A few years ago, I pursued friendship amongst a group of graduate students from Turkey. I had
a lot of fun learning about their culture and doing some teaching about my own. I had many takeaways
from engaging a diverse sphere of influence for the first time.
Ups:
- One way I was able to interact with my new Turkish friends, was learning some of their
language. When I took opportunities to acknowledge their language was different than
mine, and asked them to teach me some of it, they felt honored. Once they had seen my
willingness to embrace their culture, as opposed to forcing my own culture onto them, they
began to do the same. Over time, I learned many Turkish phrases from their teaching, and I
taught them several idioms to help them better understand conversational English that they

4. might hear on a day to day basis in America. This was a positive outcome of an attempt to
cross cultures.
- I learned quickly that one of their highest values, was comradery, and part of that being
how they physically interacted with each other. We played a lot of soccer, enjoyed hookah
bars together, and shared many meals. Although they were all close friends, they informed
me that it’s common to show physical affection to your male friends frequently. A lot of this
affection, looked like hugs, or a punch in the arm while joking. It was somewhat similar to
the way that American athletes interact with one another but at a more frequent rate.
Behaving in this way, hugging and giving punches to arms when joking, gave them the
impression that I was truly one of them. Luckily, I had become more like Turkish family, than
just an American friend. Another successful attempt at acknowledging, and embracing their
culture.
Downs:
- This particular lesson about cultural competence, was one I had learned by failing forward.
While sharing a meal with my friend circle from Turkey, one of them offered me some of his
beverage, it was yogurt drink. Yogurt drink is very popular in Turkey, and it is had with most
meals on a daily basis. When I tried this yogurt drink, it was something that my taste buds
did not agree with, most likely because I had never had anything like it in America while
growing up. My response to them, accidentally, was with a disgusted look on my face when
trying to swallow it. This was extremely disrespectful on my part but, lucky for me, they
were extremely gracious in understanding I wasn’t used to their heralded beverage.

5. Although they let my mistake slide, I certainly remembered how easily we can lose sight of
what is considered great in other cultures, due to the lens we might be viewing it with.
Why build cross cultural relations?
Craig storti writes in his 2nd edition of The Art of Crossing Cultures, “You have no idea, in short,
that what is normal to you is not also universal, that much of what you think of as human nature is only
cultural.” There is a great need for us as humans to desire the building of cross-cultural relationships.
This is a skill that helps shift our own paradigm, and open up our minds to see where we need to grow.
Partnerships are both give and take, the opportunity to serve a cross-cultural partner is a great one,
but we can’t believe that we are the only ones that have something to offer. Whether it’s for the sake
of business or for social interaction in general, being culturally competent is a way for us to educate
ourselves and make room for growth in new ways. Building relationships across different cultures, will
help us eliminate bias in our own minds, and help us grow as people, together (Storti, Craig, 2001).
Why specifically cross-cultural partnerships? What’s our end goal?
 These partnerships, are the building blocks of what we are truly aiming for. The heart
behind them, is that we would step out from the ways of our own society, and our own
personal bias to encourage the ways of the cultures around us. All of the information
given thus far, is for the sake of cultural relativism, meaning we stop assessing these
cultures by our standards, and begin using their own standards. The purpose for this, is

6. eventual globalization, where all nations, cultures, and businesses begin to intertwine.
This initiative is not going to force our cultural standards on any other cultures. This
initiative will acknowledge the values of different cultures, or what is good and just to
those cultures, and help reproduce those values to other cultures that need help
growing in those specific areas (Rice University and Open Stax College, 2015).

7. References
Rice University and Open Stax College (2015). Introduction to Sociology. Retrieved from
http://cnx.org/contents/r-QzKsl_@7.21:FRUxRAYN@2/Introduction-to-Culture
Taylor, T., & Brown, M., (1997). Family and Consumers. Retrieved from
http://web.archive.org/web/20150925100022/http://nccc.georgetown.edu/foundations/framework
s.html
Taylor, T., & Brown, M., (1997). Other guiding values and principles for community engagement.
Retrieved from
http://web.archive.org/web/20150925100022/http://nccc.georgetown.edu/foundations/framework
s.html
Duggan, Tarra. Richter, Linda (2011). Building Effective Business Communication Across Cultures.
Retrieved from
http://www.brighthubpm.com/resource-management/121566-building-effective-business-
communication-across-cultures/
Sorti, Craig (2001). The Art of Crossing Cultures, 2nd Edition. Nicholas Brealey Publishing.