Culture Shock & Personal values

One of my favorites Workshops that I got to lead our teaching team here at [p3] a few months back was on the topic of Culture Shock. It is important for us to remain sensitive to the different cultures that come together at our work place in order to work best together or miteinander.

So in this particular occasion to shake things up a bit, I started the Workshop in Spanish and set my rules clearly. Somehow with the use of pantomimes, writing on the board and clear intonation, they somehow still did not understand. Weird.

After some fails and frustrations, it was finally time to switch the Workshop language to Englisch, where they were a bit more hopeful of their performance, I could see the hope in their eyes.

I restated my own rules, because we were in Cynthia’s country now after all, and now they could only talk when they stood up and only help explain the activity to someone who didn’t understand, also in English and while standing.

You can imagine how frustrated some of them were as they had to stand up so much in order to even say a simple “yes” or “no.” (I had to hide the fact that innerly, I was having fun!)

The next activity consisted on reflecting on our own personal values, and what’s important for us. After sharing our conclusion and our own core value diagrams, we now looked at perceived differences in activities and actions observed on our men here at [p3].

The goal of this activity was to reflect on what values they could hold high, that leads them to act in those ways, which from time to time do happen to be different than how we are used to reacting or taking a decision. The reflection is not about seeing differences, but seeing the positive behind those differences.

Maybe we wouldn’t choose to react or do act in a certain way, but someone else might. Our decisions are influenced by the values we hold dear. And it always vary from person to person, from family to family and from country to country.

If someone else acts different, it doesn’t mean is bad, is just different. We just have to want and also ask the right questions to understand the why behind those decisions and actions.

This is just one of the many ways we choose to live out our #miteinander here at [p3]. We want to value everyone the same, not take anyone or anything for granted, and learn with each other every day a bit more on how to work the best together. #miteinander

With the same challenge that I gave my team, I want to give to you. Next time someone acts differently than you would. Stop yourself before giving into a tendency of judging them or place a category/ stereotype box around them, but ask yourself, what value could this person hold high and close to them, in order for them to act this way?

Let me know in the comments how this helps you or if there is anything you already do in order to avoid our human tendency of putting a label or stereotype on people that are different from us :)

Until next time,

Cynthia

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