Week Two: Language and Culture

High class and welcome to week two

Professor ken chin saying hello and thank you for an amazing first week.

Um this is a lecture I'm going to give today

on this week's course material just as an added bonus,

obviously you want to read your material and if you have any questions,

obviously I have office hours and happy to engage

with my students.

So we do,

it's about language writing and culture and the differences

that we face in a very global business environment.

So

um, I worked for a global company right out of college, I worked for an energy company

and um, I got a chance to work all over the world, which was very exciting.

And part of that is when I worked with,

I talked about a little bit about this in

my welcome video when I worked with the japanese

um and just understanding culture and understand the

language and the barriers that we face.

Sometimes we're trying to work in a global, uh, you know, work environment.

Um, but also I think it's important to say that

diversity and inclusive environments are going to have people

from all types of cultures and walks of life.

So it's important for you to educate yourself on your

environment and understand that it might be a language barrier,

but there's gotta be a way of a meeting of the minds right?

So um having patients in those environments as a leader to

um,

in bringing those diverse and eclectic teams together because I personally feel

a diverse and inclusive environment makes for amazing collaboration and

there's been studies to prove this which is really exciting.

So let's get started this week with language and and

possible barriers um and culture and the importance of that.

So this week we're going to talk

about the relationship between language and culture,

it's deeply rooted.

They go together.

Language is used to maintain and convey culture and cultural ties.

So different ties stem from different language using within one culture

and the and the whole intertwining of these relationships start at birth.

So essentially you get your culture

at the beginning, you know um for example my family is irish,

my mother's from Dublin, her father is from Dublin.

So um you know there's a cultural ingrained in my

family of irish um even though my grandmother is from Scotland

um and my dad's family is german so but we all dis gravitate towards the irish.

So at birth I kind of knew I was an irish baby,

my mother made sure I knew so um but you know the in grade um

I would say the cultural influence of

Ireland and the cultural influence of being irish

um has been part of my family, my extended family uh for years,

so that's what I mean by birth,

you know you kind of come into your culture at that moment.

Language is at the heart of culture um it defines culture um and

the group's culture

is shaped by language is a symbol of the group's culture and personal identity.

Um and most importantly, languages,

how culture is transmitted from generation to generation.

So

how can that cause barriers?

How can that cause um complex situations in the workplace?

Well, it could be a language barrier, it could be a cultural barrier.

So it's important for an inclusive and

diverse organization to embrace culture and differences

and it's okay to have a language barrier as long as like I said,

meeting of the minds you guys can get there

um great things can happen um in that culture

understand.

So language, how is language a cultural barrier

not speaking the same language well,

can cause a myriad of misunderstandings and is considered

the most crucial barrier and cross cultural communication,

verbal communication is important in every context,

but the meaning of words can literally get lost in translation.

So

um for example,

I kind of talk to you about my mess up when I was young

and I was working with the japanese and I handed my business card.

Well that's a cultural issue and it's not so much a

language issue as it is an issue in the sense,

I didn't understand that the Japanese like to build a relationship,

a friendship partnership

before you do business and doing business or at least

their understanding of doing business is exchanging a business card.

So my boss had to kind of go over some cultural things with me

and um suggested I start reading up

on different cultures because working for a global

environment of global organization,

you're going to need to understand the different cultures,

uh cultures are gonna be working with the different languages,

you're going to be um asked to interpret at times,

even though you don't know the language.

Um it's going to be important to your success in

the in the corporate world or in the global environment,

even in a nonprofit where there's a lot of diversity,

um it's important to understand the differences and be respectful and try to

um respect those different cultures and the way they like to do business.

So did you go, this is a tidbit um that cultural diverse teams,

culturally diverse teams produce more creative and

innovative results and then culturally homogeneous groups,

and I know I didn't pronounce that right.

Um

what I mean is culturally missing groups. Um so years ago I had a boss um

say you're not trying to hire you, I don't want you to hire you,

I want you to hire the opposite of you if everybody looked and talked like you,

um I don't think we'd get the same result.

You're always great at hiring diversity and

bridging the gap with different languages and cultures.

That is what we need you to do on a daily basis.

So,

um I think groups that lack that diversity

of thought and that diversity and culture,

they don't do as well when they're together,

they don't produce as much when they're together.

So I thought that was a really interesting tip. It um

this is a result, you know,

it's a fact that people from different cultural groups approach challenges

and problem solving in different ways.

So think about it, we are going to approach something differently.

Um different cultural,

different cultures and different types of groups

are going to approach problems differently.

Um and that's way that way we get the job done in different ways, we get,

we get to the same result together.

But

Um I've always find interesting when I work in diverse um

groups is that there's an idea I haven't thought of and nine

times out of 10 there's an idea I haven't even thought

of in terms of approach or ways of tackling a problem.

So I think that's why

the studies show that a diverse and

inclusive team um culturally um that has different

languages and backgrounds do really well together

and come to a great solution together.

Um cultural differences can lead to barriers however between team members when

they're different styles of approach are

misunderstood misinterpreted or just not accepted.

So, um I

I think about my very short stint in London when I was recruiting for a power plant

and um the cultural difference of the british would kind of surprise you.

They take a lot of time throughout the day of I would call break time.

So, um but you know, there's tea time,

there's a launch our and then there's family time, which was really um

very different than american culture. So I had to get used to that.

So that was three hours of my day

and I remember one of the leaders saying you know april we get it done,

we get it done in you know five hours.

It's called prioritizing your time.

So and we prioritize family tea time and and

our break our lunch break time as um acceptable.

So there's a cultural difference in in the way a group of people work.

So um I think those can be very hard for somebody like myself at

the time was like used to working 12 hour days in the energy sector.

So um I thought I would share that with you.

Um Global leaders face not only the challenge um

of making a multicultural team work in terms of language and cultural differences.

Um despite that but often also um of doing this

while team members are based in different international locations.

So think about how everybody's kind of gone remote right? Or even hybrid.

And you've got employees and international locations that are part of your team

and you're trying to corral your team that's completely remote.

So there's some challenges there.

I think now that we need to look at as leaders in working in a global cultural

environment um that may pose some challenges for a

leader that's leading a remote team internationally speaking.

So and then back in the day we all got on a plane and went overseas.

What we did business now we don't, now we are remote.

So something to think about this week. So let's have a great week this week.

If you have anything you need to address with me, you know where to reach me.

Um, um, um, let's have another amazing first week. Thanks guys.

Week Two: Language and Culture

Chapters

Audio TranscriptAuto-generated