Cross-cultural competence refers to your ability to understand people from different cultures and engage with them effectively. And not just people from the one culture that you’ve studied for years. Having cross-cultural competence means you can be effective in your interactions with people from most any culture. Being able to communicate and work with people across cultures is becoming more important all the time. People are traveling, reaching out, and mixing with different others like never before. They do it for fun, but they also do it for work. In all cases, success requires developing a relationship. And doing this means bridging a cultural divide. Cross-cultural competence helps you develop the mutual understanding and human relationships that are necessary for achieving your professional goals. But what exactly makes up cross-cultural competence? What are the specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes that make someone cross-culturally competent? Louise Rasmussen and Winston Sieck conducted a study to address these questions. They described their model of cross-cultural competence in an article published in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations. Rasmussen was also granted an award from the Defense Language and National Security Education Office to further study and validate the model, which describes 12 elements of cross-cultural competence. Rasmussen and her team interviewed cross-cultural experts about their experiences interacting in foreign cultures. These experts were military personnel who had a great deal of cross-cultural experience. They were also nominated by their peers as being especially effective in their interactions with members of other cultures. The researchers did not ask about the opinions of the cross-cultural experts. Instead, they used cognitive task analysis in which they asked questions to get at the interviewees’ actual, lived overseas experiences. From these experiences, Rasmussen and her team uncovered the skills and knowledge the experts drew on as they interacted with people from other cultures. Rasmussen, Sieck, and their colleagues identified 12 core aspects of cross-cultural competence. These competencies were frequently found in the thought process of the experts. They are listed here as a set of principles that can help you be more effective on your next sojourn:
These twelve principles give you some pointers about how to think about the experiences you have in new cultures. They are essential to cross-cultural competence. Reading through the principles you may be asking yourself “do I really need to do this much thinking when I go abroad?” Rasmussen consistently found this thoughtful approach among those with high cross-cultural competence. Keep these principles in mind and use them. You will be more capable and confident engaging people from any culture. Click below to check out Save Your Ammo, a guide to cultural competence in demanding situations.Dr. Louise Rasmussen is an applied cognitive psychologist. She works to advance cultural competence in demanding environments through research, training, and assessment. |