As a human, living with diversity can be difficult. Our brains are long hard-wired to prefer those behaviors and cultures that are similar to ours while unconsciously reject those which are different from ours. However, working with different cultural groups is inevitable in today’s globalized world. Below are a couple of main differences that I found significant when working in multicultural settings.

• Task Completion > Relationship building

I discovered that personal relationship in the workplace is not highly valued in North America. People will directly challenge each others’ ideas in meetings, even when they understand that conflicts might arise and personal relationship might be affected. Also, it is the completion of task that solidifies work-place relationship. In Taiwan, however, it is the other way around; cultivating personal relationship is more or less necessary for successfully completing a task.

• Seniority is relatively irrelevant

I found out that seniority(age or year of study) does not really play a role in providing suggestions or opinions in organizations in Canada. If one has some constructive criticisms regarding the policy of an organization or discovers some flaws in a project, he or she is more than welcome to speak up and change the status quo, regardless of their age. On the other hand, East Asian’s high-context culture emphasizes seniority in an organization. If a novice suggests that some operations in the organization is not effective, the people who have spent more time in the organization will consider this as an offense.

I heartily agree with Claire that most people are unable to fully understand another culture and that the potential to embody exotic culture is limited. However, I believe that a mutual respect between different cultures is possible. Differences certainly exist, but some universal rules, such as delivering friendliness(smile) or being caring can be applied to build successful relationships.

Cross cultural communication is more subtle than we think.

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