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5.pptxBuilding Cultural Agility Online Course
Dr. Bill Castellano
Professor HRM Department
Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations
Welcome to the building cultural agility online course.
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SESSION 4: How to Develop Your Cultural Competencies
Welcome to session 4: “How to develop your cultural competencies.”
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Class 4
| Class 4: How to Develop Your Cultural Competencies | Cultural Agility Track Build self-awareness of your strengths and developmental opportunities around your cultural agility Cultural Agility Self-Assessment (CASA) An assessment of your cross-cultural competencies | Discussion Question Describe under what circumstances is it best to have a 1) Cultural minimization, 2) Cultural adaptation, and 3) Cultural integration orientation. Due: Cultural Agility Self-Assessment (CASA) Reflection Paper |
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In class 4 you will take the Cultural Agility course to build self-awareness of your strengths and developmental opportunities around your cultural agility. You will also take the Cultural Agility Self-Assessment (CASA).
Please ensure you answer the discussion question and submit your CASA reflection paper by Friday.
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What is cultural agility? Ability to quickly, comfortably, and effectively work in different countries and with people from different cultures.
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As noted in the course introduction, Cultural agility is the ability to quickly, comfortably, and effectively work in different countries and with people from different cultures.
Cultural agility can be developed but it is important to understand that it will take more than a passive understanding of how cultures differ.
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All Three Components are Critical for Cultural Agility
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Cultural agility consists of three critical components: Cultural understanding, cultural competencies, and cultural experiences.
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Cultural experiences (practice)
Cultural competencies (readiness)
Cultural understanding (the right equipment)
Self-Management Competencies
Tolerance of Ambiguity
Resilience
Curiosity
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Self-management competencies enable self-regulation in situations that are unfamiliar, unpredictable or novel. The three most important self-management competencies are tolerance of ambiguity, resilience and curiosity.
Tolerance of ambiguity – is the ability to be comfortable and effective in situations which hold some unknown and unpredictable elements. For those with a high tolerance of ambiguity, uncertain or unpredictable situations do not produce excessive anxiety or stress.
Resilience – is the capacity to cope and bounce back after set-backs and adversity. Individuals with resilience believe that professional challenges can be overcome and they remain committed to a goal even after a setback or failure.
Curiosity – is the sincere interest in knowledge and the inclination to pursue or investigate to gain greater understanding. Those higher in curiosity are more likely to ask questions, independently search for information, and read deeply on topics of interest.
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Relationship-Management Competencies
Humility
Perspective-Taking
Relationship Oriented
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Relationship-management competencies include humility, perspective-taking, and relationship building.
Humility – is the ability to actively fosters one’s receptivity to feedback, assistance and input from others. Those with high levels of humility are teachable and more willing to try solutions, approaches, or practices that are different from those to which they are accustomed.
Perspective-taking – is the ability to see situations from multiple perspectives and reassign meaning to behaviors. Those with this ability tend to suspend judgment while they seek to understand situations from others’ points of view.
Relationship-building – is the ability to make meaningful connections with others. Individuals with a desire to form relationships are naturally sociable and seek opportunities to connect with others. They form positive interpersonal relationships and enjoy meeting people.
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Now go to the Culture Wizard E-Learning system Cultural Agility section and take the course to build self-awareness of your strengths and developmental opportunities around your cultural agility.
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After reviewing your cultural competencies, you should now focus on creating your cultural agility development plan.
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Leverage Your Strengths and Foster Your Developmental Opportunities
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When developing cultural agility, it is most important to understand how to leverage your strengths. It is rare when someone scores high on every cultural competency. Far more typical is that each person has at least one competency he or she can leverage.
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Build Your Tolerance of Ambiguity: Embrace opportunities to be in novel situations.
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Research has found that novelty is related to learning. Placing yourself in new, novel and challenging situations will affect your dopamine level. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, transmitting signals in between neurons of the brain. Dopamine is a released in the brain which makes us feel good when we are rewarded.
For most of us, trying new things is rewarding and increases dopamine levels. This is important because dopamine helps us retain new information. In other words, it fosters our learning and development. The more novelty we give our brain the more novelty we can handle – and seek.
What are some activities you could try over the next month?
It is important to remember that what is novel for one person might not be novel for another. You need to foster a practice of experiencing novelty regularly.
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Build Your Resilience: Practice problem-focused and positive emotion-focused coping strategies.
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To help build your resilience, reflect and understand your tendencies for coping.
Coping strategies serve two general functions: problem-focused coping and symptom-focused coping.
People engaging in problem-focused coping strategies are displaying coping behaviors aimed at the management of the person-environment relationship directly at the source of the stress. For example, a student who asks his classmate for advice because he does not know where to pay a parking ticket on campus or a student who speaks to a professor for clarity on an assignment are both engaged in problem-focused coping behaviors.
Symptom-focused coping strategies refer to the regulation of stressful emotions that result from the stress. Students who stop attending a class because it has become too difficult or watch Netflix rather than work on a difficult assignment are examples of negative symptom-focused coping behaviors. Some symptom-focused coping behaviors are helpful because they focus on creating a positive emotional state including meditating to relieve stress, eating well, getting enough sleep, and building a network of resilient and culturally agile colleagues.
Having a healthy repertoire of coping strategies will help you in complex, dynamic environments and situations that might frustrate others.
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Build Your Cultural Curiosity: Ask at least 2 more questions than you normally would in every cross-cultural situation.
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Curiosity is important because it keeps you cognitively active and observant. Staying active in knowledge acquisition will enable you to create a habit of engaging with your environment and learning from every situation. If you are naturally less curious, remember “who, what, where, when, and why”. Make a habit about pushing your natural level of curiosity to two more questions than you normally would ask. This will shape your level of curiosity as the questions become a positive habit.
You can also engage in more activities where you explore or investigate issues just because they pique your interest. Current events are particularly useful because many are learning about the topic at the same time. The extra benefit about cultivating curiosity is that it makes learning more enjoyable and is related to higher academic achievement and performance at work. When you are in a new cultural environment, you will have developed the natural skills to ask the appropriate questions to understand the unfamiliar environment.
Build Your Humility Ask feedback fostering questions.
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To help build your humility, it is important to continually build self-awareness. Here are some ways that work:
Take time to reflect on the everyday or typical behaviors. Patterns tend to emerge when you do this regularly. Appreciate others’ contributions; learn from someone more junior than you; share a past mistake with a colleague.
Ask for feedback and others’ honest observations. It is tough to be our own mirror at times. When you foster a spirit of asking for feedback from those you trust, receiving it becomes less anxiety-producing.
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Foster Your Relationship-Building Skills Develop authentic friendships with classmates who are demographically different.
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Foster your relationship building skills. This one might seem obvious but the more time you spend with people who are demographically different from you, the more differences become meaningless. Having a broad network of friends you trust will help you understand different perspectives and build empathy. The fundamental focus of trusting friendships is the bond you share, perhaps through similar experiences or similar interests. Either way, the demographic differences will quickly fade as you realize how much you have in common.
One of the easiest ways to connect with people from different cultures is through a shared interest or activity.
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SMART Goals to Build Cultural Agility
| Specific Identify in detail a competency goal and identify specific actions to achieve it. | Measurable: Explain how you will know if you achieve the goal because of the actions taken. | Attainable: Be sure to set goals that are challenging but also possible to reach. | Relevant: How is this goal consistent with your long-term objectives and aspirations? | Time-Bound: Assign a timeframe in which you will achieve the goal. | |
| Competency and Why - Describe the competency you will work on and why you feel this is important to you now or in the future. Decide on two goals that will help you develop this competency. | |||||
| Goal #1 Describe the goal: | |||||
| Goal #2 Describe the goal: |
When developing your goals to build cultural agility, they must be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, releveant, and time-bound.
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As a culturally agile professional, you will achieve success in many cross cultural situations by reading the cues of the environment and responding with one of the three cultural orientations:
Cultural adaptation is an orientation global employees have to be sensitive to cultural differences and adjust their behaviors to those expected in other cultures.
Cultural minimization is an orientation global employees have to reduce the perceived influence of cultural differences and seek to create consistency and standardization, irresponsive to culture.
Cultural integration is an orientation toward creating a new cultural norm and promote collaboration to find solutions acceptable to all cultures, without favoring any one culture over another.
For this week’s discussion question, due by Friday:
Discussion Question
Describe under what circumstances is it best to have a 1) Cultural minimization, 2) Cultural adaptation, and 3) Cultural integration orientation.
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To fully develop your cultural agility competencies, you must have meaningful experiences working with others from different cultures.
This enables you to apply and develop your skills and cross-cultural competencies in different cultural contexts.
Equally important is receiving developmental feedback regarding your performance in roles that require cultural agility
You can gain these experiences through cross-cultural collaborations, skill-based international volunteerism, and international assignments.
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Cross-cultural collaboration includes working with others across borders, working on virtual teams, and participating in cross-functional global teams.
Working with others to accomplish joint objectives provides a rich cross-cultural developmental opportunity.
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Many organizations offer skill-based international volunteerism programs to help global employees develop cultural agility competencies.
These programs are excellent developmental opportunities that are designed to fully immerse employees in a new culture, while working on a meaningful assignment that fully utilizes employees professional skills in a novel environment.
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Sending employees to work in another country on an international assignment is the most often used way to develop cultural agility competencies.
Preparing employees to understand and learn how to adapt to the new culture before embarking on such a journey are critically important to ensure a meaningful and successful experience.
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Student Version CASA
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Now you will have an opportunity to assess your cultural agility competencies, by taking the online Cultural Agility Self-Assessment (CASA).
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Accessing Cultural Agility Self-Assessment (CASA) Tool
Click on your unique URL to begin the CASA-SV assessment: https://tasca.tts-assess.com/candidate/access/9425b5ad152835e2
The CASA-SV will take you approximately 10-15 minutes to complete.
You will receive your tailored report upon completion. Please check your SPAM folder if you do not receive it.
Please contact TASCA Global if you have any questions: [email protected]
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You need to access the Cultural Agility Self-Assessment (CASA) tool, by logging into the URL sent to you when you registered for the course.
Complete your self-assessment and review your tailored report in preparation for your CASA reflection paper.
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The following slides is a sample of a cultural agility self-assessment report. It shows your scores on the six cross-cultural competencies and provides developmental tips for developing each competency.
The CASA Reflection paper is based on your assessment of your cross-cultural competencies listed in Part 1.
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Sample report
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Sample report
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Sample report
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Sample report
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Sample report
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Sample report
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Part 2 is an assessment of your cultural orientation, which is applicable for those who have experience in cross-cultural work-related situations.
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Your Strengths and Developmental Opportunities
Identify your strengths and developmental opportunities from page 2 of CASA.
For your strengths: Place a star on each of the pages (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8) associated with each of your strengths.
For your developmental opportunities: Place an arrow on each of the pages (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8) associated with each of your developmental opportunities.
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To write your CASA Reflection Paper:
Identify your strength(s) from page 2 of CASA, think of a situation in which others could have observed this strength. Write down the situations in the white space on page 2.
Find the page in CASA corresponding to your strength. It will be on page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8. For example, tolerance of ambiguity is on page 3. Once you find your page, read through the description in the left column. How do you think this strength will help facilitate your professional development while in college? Jot some ideas down in the notes section at the very bottom of that page.
Think about how these strengths helped you grow. Research has found that professional development occurs when individuals place themselves in novel situations, receive feedback on their performance, feel safe to try – and maybe make some mistakes, and feel supported in their growth. With those in mind, consider how your strengths will foster development.
What was the lowest scored competency for you, from page 2 of CASA? Read through the developmental tips on the page that corresponds to that competency. The tips are in the right column.
What is the one behavior that you could commit to trying? How would others observe you practicing this behavior?
Now let’s consider ways to develop these competencies
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