{"id":28754,"date":"2022-09-08T13:23:11","date_gmt":"2022-09-08T20:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=28754"},"modified":"2022-09-08T13:23:11","modified_gmt":"2022-09-08T20:23:11","slug":"culture-thats-just-how-we-roll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/culture-thats-just-how-we-roll\/","title":{"rendered":"Culture: “That’s Just How We Roll”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first time I met my future wife\u2019s family I found them to be rude. The reason for that perception was a spirited conversation between her parents and their five children. I don\u2019t remember the topic but I do remember the loud volume and how multiple people spoke simultaneously. The loudest speaker got finish their thought. In my family growing up, one person talked at a time. If it was not your turn to speak, you waited your turn. Raised volume meant elevated anger. As I shared my experience that day, my future wife shrugged her shoulders and said, \u201cThat\u2019s just how our family rolls.\u201d I have come to love my wife\u2019s family and that first exposure now causes us to laugh. What is true on a micro level, such as the family, is also true on a macro level, such as corporations and nations. Culture exists and like the air we breathe, it cannot be seen but allows for life to flourish in that context. In Dr. Karen Ann Tremper\u2019s \u201cIntercultural Competency\u201d lecture, she gives this definition of culture: \u201cCulture is a learned set of shared interpretations about beliefs, values, norms, and social practices, which affect the behaviors of a relatively large group of people.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

Erin Meyer\u2019s The Culture Map<\/em>, a management book with an industrial psychology emphasis, examines how norms across various cultures can be decoded to positively impact international business dynamics. Dr. Tremper states that \u201cculture is neutral.\u201d[2]<\/a> Culture is not right or wrong, just different. International business brings people with diverse cultures together with differing cultural understanding and cues. In that context, the opportunity exists to see right and wrong, good and bad through one\u2019s cultural lens. Meyer\u2019s premise seeks more than awareness of cultural differences, aiming at how cultures can engage in respectful and productive ways despite cultural variances. She terms that kind of positive engagement \u201ccultural relativity:\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo cultural relativity is the key to understanding the impact of culture on human interactions. If an executive wants to build and manage global teams that can work together successfully, he needs to understand not just how people from his own culture experience people from various international cultures, but also how those international cultures perceive one another.<\/em>\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Meyer\u2019s book explores eight cultural characteristics and plots various national cultures on a scale for each characteristic. The eight characteristics include Communicating (low context vs. high context), Evaluating (direct negative feedback vs. indirect negative feedback), Persuading (principles-first vs. applications-first), Leading (egalitarian vs. hierarchical), Deciding (consensual vs. top-down), Trusting (task-based vs. relationship-based), Disagreeing (confrontational vs. avoids confrontation), and Scheduling (linear-time vs. flexible-time).[4]<\/a> A chapter is dedicated to each dimension and scale, illustrated with anecdotal stories that bring the principles to life. Meyer seeks to move individuals or teams beyond the cognitive, relational, and behavioral complexities of cultural dissimilarities. While it seems evident that significant research supports the findings, I found myself wanting to understand how the cultures were plotted on the scales. I believe the research data exists on erinmeyer.com for a fee.<\/p>\n

Meyer\u2019s work reminded me often of Pragya Agarwal\u2019s Sway<\/em>, which helps to understand the unconscious bias all people carry. Both authors stress the value of understanding our context and moving past barriers of ignorance, disrespect, or a simple misunderstanding of personal or cultural biases. I also thought about the stark contrast between the Afrikaner and tribal cultures portrayed in Mandela\u2019s Long Walk to Freedom<\/em>. How much prejudice gets fueled by differences that should be neutral? Meyer\u2019s book contains insight and application helpful to those working in an intercultural situation of any kind.<\/p>\n

I also see applicability of Meyer\u2019s work to a ministry context. Whether one serves in a local church, non-profit, or Christian school, a certain culture exists by design or by default. Over the three decades of pastoral work, recognizing the need to influence and shape church culture serves as one of my greatest areas of growth. \u201cThat\u2019s just how this church rolls\u201d could describe the cultural cues of any local congregation. Early on, I failed to take key moments to define culture and that mistake cost me personally and the church corporately. I believe there are certain times when a senior leader needs to say in one way or another, \u201cThis is who we are\u201d or, negatively, \u201cThis is not who we are.\u201d One low-level example of when this principle began to become clear took place shortly after I became a Lead Pastor. On Sundays, some people tossed their cigarette butts into the grass before or after the services. One of the Board members said at a meeting, \u201cWe should put up a \u2018No Smoking\u2019 sign.\u201d A discussion ensued but the ultimate decision I made was to put ashtrays by the front doors. That\u2019s just how this<\/em> family would roll.<\/p>\n

At present, the recent addition of new staff members calls for ensuring alignment among the team. I discovered a personal, team, and corporate tool on Meyer\u2019s website that makes her work very specific to one\u2019s environment. I plan to use the \u201cTeam Mapping Tool\u201d on an upcoming staff retreat. I believe the results will enable our staff to work together with great understanding. Experience taught me that someone will influence culture, whether staff or corporate. If it is not you as the senior leader, it will be someone else. Meyer states in the epilogue, \u201cIt is only when you start to identify what makes your culture different from others that you can begin to open a dialogue of sharing, learning, and ultimately, understanding.\u201d[5]<\/a> May that describe staffs of diverse gifts, skills, backgrounds, and temperaments as they seek to fulfill their calling.<\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a> Dr. Karen Ann Tremper, \u201cIntercultural Competency\u201d PowerPoint Lecture, August 9, 2022, video, https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=7mZkK02xvL8<\/a>. This remark begins at 5:50.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid. This statement is made at 9:05.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Erin Meyer, The Culture Map, Decoding How People Think, Lead, And Get Things Done Across Cultures <\/em>(New York: Public Affairs, 2015), 23.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid., 16.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid., 244.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first time I met my future wife\u2019s family I found them to be rude. The reason for that perception was a spirited conversation between her parents and their five children. I don\u2019t remember the topic but I do remember the loud volume and how multiple people spoke simultaneously. The loudest speaker got finish their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":149,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1429,2333],"class_list":["post-28754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-meyer","tag-tremper","cohort-lgp11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/149"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28754"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28755,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28754\/revisions\/28755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}