What is culture, actually?
That is not so easy to answer.
Everyone has a feeling for what his or her culture is. Very often "culture" is equated with "national cultures". I have written on my website that I base my offers on the dynamic concept of culture. In my work as a coach and trainer, "culture" differs from what is often understood by it in everyday life: culture is created, not alone, but by a group of people, together and in an ongoing process.
The Boundaries of Culture are Drawn and are Changeabel
The boundaries of a culture are not fixed, but are also drawn anew again and again, with sometimes overlapping, unclear and blurred lines, so they are co-constructed. For example, there could be a female and male culture or a rural and an urban culture, a culture of youth, an organizational culture, a departmental culture, etc. It is therefore always the question, in which context culture is relevant at the specific moment of communication with the specific people and how it affects everyone concerned. There is a huge potential in this basic assumption: we can consciously help shape culture.
Belonging to Culture is negotiated jointly
The dynamic concept of culture is based on the assumption that people belong not only to one (national) culture of origin but to several subcultures and that, depending on the situation, one or the other level will be more important. For example, two tennis players meeting could completely eclipse the fact that one of them is Indian, female and urban and the other person is Chinese-British, from London and young. And there is huge potential in this basic assumption: We can consciously co-decide which side of our cultural identity we want to put in the foreground, and which side of our counterpart's cultural identity we prefer to perceive or emphasize.
What effects does the dynamic concept of culture have on training and coaching?
In short, it means first of all that all information from different disciplines is selected and presented in such a way that it increases the ability to create a "common culture" with the counterpart.
Above all, this means that business etiquette, a list of do's and don'ts, and information about the country are not very important. The main reason? That list will never be long enough and you wouldn’t be able to learn it by heart, anyway. It is unfortunately also true that "knowing" does not necessarily mean "doing".
Furthermore, there are no simple recipes for dealing with people who come from a different cultural area. The only thing that applies here also applies to communication in general: Communication is always fruitful when two people can act constructively with each other in a way that suits the context, personality and situation.
So why bother with intercultural communication at all? Instead of a list of do's and dont's, I offer you and understanding of the basic principles of intercultural communication based on a dynamic concept of culture. This will enable you to adapt them flexibly to yourself and your context and to communicate with your colleagues and in your private life in a goal-oriented way.
Perhaps a short example: Many inquiries I receive from the German side are about understanding the caste system in order to better understand the irritating behaviour of Indian colleagues. As laudable as the fact is that behind the question there may be a little bit of curiosity about Indian history and society, this knowledge is not particularly helpful. In fact, it can be rather the opposite.
How this issue can be resolved, how knowledge can be differentiated, and how irritating behaviour can be understood differently is the content of intercultural training.
