Living Cross-Culturally
During my childhood, I experienced a life based on the community I was raised in called Kivagala village. I knew nothing else apart from what was happening in the town. When I went to high school away from my home, I encountered many different young people from different communities. Erin Meyer has actually touched the area that is genuinely affecting the whole world that is full of many different cultural practices. I am encouraged by Meyer’s systematic step by step approach to understanding the most common business communication challenges that arise from cultural differences and offer steps for dealing with them more effectively.[1]
The Africa Ministries Office of Friends Church in Africa is a multicultural mission in East Africa, where I am the Director of the Ministry. The ministry includes Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, DRC, and American who are employees of the organization. What Meyer is writing in his book “The Culture Map” is being experienced in our ministry. We have recently experienced some cultural behaviors and believes which continually impact our perceptions, cognition, and actions to each other as Meyer describes the challenges of cultural patterns. Recently we engaged an American pastor to handle the communications within our ministry. The American pastor assumed the responsibilities with American culture in mind, and things did not go on well with others from different cultures in the office. The pastor felt he is being disregarded and disrespected and the others felt the pastor is arrogant and not sensitive to what needs to be reported out to churches. The assumption by his colleagues that he knew what to do yet it was not, appeared to be out of context. His (pastor) assumption that “they are aware that I am still learning and I do not understand the culture well” was wrong hence all ended blaming and counter blaming each other for work not done. My team in the office failed to apply the principle of both cultural sensitivity and cultural intelligence to understand each other, knowing that they are all from a different cultural background. It is clear here that in developing world cultures such as Kenya, the cultural practices place the person and the relationship first before any process or agenda.[2]
Meyer continues to punch more holes into our continental cultures as far as time management is concerned. In the chapter “How late is late?” sincerely speaks to our Kenyan cultural perspectives. When we schedule our meetings with church leaders, we set our time of starting the session at 10:00 am, but the meeting will begin by either 11:00 am or 11:30am when we usually get the quorum for the meeting. Most of our friends from the USA will arrive at the venue five minutes to 10:00 am and wait until 11:30 am when the meeting starts, and still, you will find those who came late are also leaving early before the meeting fully discusses its agenda. Meyer writes that scheduling scale is profoundly affected by many historical factors that shape the ways people live, work, think, and interact with one another.[3] Meyer is bringing a contrast through cultural mapping of different cultures and how they can blend in working together. The eight scales that maps the world cultures helps to address the understanding of each others culture which is embedded in our DNA but helps to blend them in achieving the common objective of the organization. We have used the same eight scales mapping recently after reading this book this week and addressed some of the issues that have been affecting us in our office culturally. When we did the cultural mapping of the Kenyan, Ugandan, Tanzanian and American using the eight scales of communicating, Evaluating, Persuading, Leading, Deciding, Trusting, Disagreeing, and scheduling; it was apparent that the Africa cultures and the American one do not cross each at all neither do they connect anywhere on the scale. The right and left side of the range was evident where they belong. We have all come to an understanding as Meyer further wrote that; Good communication is all about clarity and explicitness, and accountability for accurate transmission of the message is placed firmly on the communicator: “If you do not understand it’s my fault.” [4] We connected with what we have written in our book “Lessons from Cross-Cultural Collaboration” on cultural humility and intentional listening as one of the ways to resolve what we were experiencing in our office. Intentional listening also allows us to learn from multiple perspectives. Intentional listening means that we must slow down.[5]
[1] (Meyer 2014)
[2] (Eloise Hockett and John Muhanji 2017)
[3] (Meyer 2014)
[4] (Meyer 2014) pg 31
[5] (Eloise Hockett and John Muhanji 2017)
About the Author
John Muhanji
I am the Director Africa Ministries Office of Friends United Meeting. I coordinate all Quaker activities and programs in the Quaker churches and school mostly in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The focus of my work is more on leadership development and church planting in the region especially in Tanzania.. Am married with three children all grown up now. I love playing golf as my exercise hobby. I also love reading.9 responses to “Living Cross-Culturally”
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John, thanks so much for sharing very real experiences from your ministry’s relationships and communication. I appreciate that Meyer places the onus for communication on the communicator. That is, it is my responsibility to learn and understand your culture. I love your focus on cultural humility and intentional listening. Thank you so much for helping me to understand your context.
This was a great reflection and practical application of this weeks reading. I think it was smart to go through an put all your countries on the scale. I think even among homogenous cultures, it would be an interesting exercise to do. I’m sure everyone comes at their priorities differently too, and seeing everyone on a spectrum would be helpful for any employer.
Thank you, John. It is great to hear a story of practicing these principles. You ended with what may be the greatest challenge of all for Americans, slowing down. I agree that it is most critical to do in order to be intentional and gain understanding. It takes more work and acceptance of one another than many take time for.
John, it is really great that you are able to use this book in your ministry today. I do think it is an excellent tool to be used in multicultural organizations. I have to laugh at the reference to time and scheduling since African Americans have long noted this difference in America between Blacks and Whites.
I always think it’s funny and tragic when an American speaks of Africa as if it’s a single country and everyone in Africa is the same. Clearly your experience speaks to differences between the cultures you minister with – even when subtracting the Americans out of the equation. So much of ministry and business is about knowing who you’re interacting with, and it sounds like you all took a great first step in re-introducing yourselves to each other.
Hi John, you point out specifically the time challenge among cultures. I’ve lived and am among Filipinos a lot and they adopt a more fluid notion of time. We all know the accompanying frustration this brings. The important thing, as Meyer reminds us, is we all have to just agree on certain things, including time. This advice of discussing things, applying grace, communicating clearly and taking time to account for varying nuances of understanding is what is needed to achieve a more harmonious relationship among cultures. Thanks for the post John.
What a wonderful application John! Thank you for sharing your insight. The time scale becomes really sensitive in places where people’s schedules are really full. When I lived abroad and then ministered within a cross-cultural context, I defaulted to naming when I would arrive and then relaxed a bit and had discussions with people as they came and went. I was also really interested in the question you hinted at about whose responsibility is it to acknowledge the space needed for learning. Your American colleague expected people to know he was learning. I find that people in the host culture won’t know what is different culturally and that the onus is on the person coming in to name the differences and ask for help with navigation. There is certainly also virtue in being a good host by offering as much orientation as you can. Whose job would you see it as primarily? Bless you in your ministry my friend!
John, I so identify with your experiences as i work with many nationalities. We have had to learn the hard way, the importance of understanding our cultural differences as the only way to work together effectively. It is my believe that cultural intelligence is a very important competence of leadership.
John, there’s nothing like firsthand experience to help you navigate cultural communication. And you will have that experience in abundance. Some years ago I was in Syria for meetings and experienced firsthand the symptoms of Arabic ‘Inshallah’ which means ‘God willing’; people live on the schedule of hospitality and not scheduled appointments. That means, if someone comes to your house unexpectedly, the requires hospitality trump scheduled appointments for business. Subsequently, people don’t turn up for meetings. Westerners understand it as laziness or as a personal affront or lack of respect, but that’s not the case – hospitality is a higher value and everyone understands that. So we had to have a conversation about how we could manage the requirements of hospitality and the tasks to be done in a short time frame. It was very interesting.