Developing
a Global Mindset through Foreign Language and Cultural Immersion
"He who does not travel, does not know the value of men." Moorish Proverb
The thing is the Saudis are not doing anything wrong. Just as the Americans are acting like
Americans, the Saudis are just being Saudis.
For them, you must show your guests hospitality and get to know your
prospective partners before you start talking business – to do otherwise would
be rude. This approach to business,
common in many cultures including Arab, Asian, Latin, and Slavic is often
unfamiliar to Germanic and Anglo-Saxon cultures, where friendship is
friendship, business is business, and the one does not necessarily have to exist for
the other to happen. For these cultures,
time is precious and the thinking is, “We came on business so let’s get to it!”
This may be a fictional caricature of a common situation, but it illustrates
the intricacies of cross-cultural interactions occurring daily around the world. As the global economy continues to grow and
integrate, more and more people are coming into contact with other cultures and
finding that not everyone works, thinks, or acts as they do.
Just a few decades ago, relatively few people had direct contact
with people outside their own country. Most
of their acquaintances were just like them.
Things have changed dramatically.
The Internet, social media, and modern transportation have changed the
way we live and interact with the world outside our own communities. The effects on everyday life are significant.
In today’s globally
connected virtual economy, anyone with a computer and an internet connection
can find and find your business, leading to not only new customers and but also
to new partners.
For example, acting on a friend’s suggestion, a farmer set up a
website to help grow his feed sales. His
website succeeded beyond his expectations when a customer placed a large order
from China. This farmer found himself in
a crash course on international trade.
 |
| Checkpoint Charlie and Warning Sign in Cold War Berlin |
As the world
continues to integrate, the exchange of ideas, capital, and goods across
borders has reduced hostility and border controls between countries. As William Shurtz, the second president of
Thunderbird School of Global Management pointed out, "Borders frequented by trade seldom need
soldiers."[1]
Border posts now stand empty across Europe and free trade
agreements are proliferating around the globe.
Even when conflict does arise, as it has between Russia and Ukraine, it
is often moderated by economic ties and potential loss of markets.
With all these global opportunities, what can provide a competitive
advantage?
A common characteristic of today’s most successful companies is
their ability to leverage diversity and foster the free exchange of ideas. Those brave enough to seek out and welcome
ideas that challenge their own paradigms find benefits, which would be unachievable
in a mono-cultural setting.
For example, Google’s famous free lunches and recreation rooms are
more than perks. They are part of a
larger strategy to facilitate contact between people from different backgrounds,
specialties, and functions. Providing
settings, where their employees can exchange ideas with people outside their normal
social or professional spheres allows Google to mobilize the capabilities and perspectives
of different people to resolve problems, create new innovative products, and find
ways to increase the customer base.
As with any great opportunity, diversity also presents its own
problems. Working with those who think
and act differently increases chances for conflict and misunderstanding. To navigate these waters, we must take time
to understand the cultures and people we will be working with, we must build an
appreciation of the diversity in the world around us, and foster a spirit of adventure
to explore it. We need to build a global
mindset.[2]
Monsour Javidan, the Executive
Director of Thunderbird School of Global Management’s Najafi Global Mindset
Institute, describing the Global Mindset in 2010, writes:
“Leaders with a strong stock of Global Mindset know about cultures and political and economic systems in other countries and understand how their global industry works. They are passionate about diversity and are willing to push themselves. They are comfortable with being uncomfortable in uncomfortable environments. They are also better able to build trusting relationships with people who are different from them by showing respect and empathy and by being good listeners.”[3]
Empathy and trust comes through good
communication. Therefore, learning
another language and its associated culture is key in building a global
mindset. In 2004 Christine Uber Gross conducted a survey of Thunderbird graduates,
who must demonstrate proficiency in a foreign language before graduation, on
the impact of foreign language study on their professional life. She found that 82% of graduates rated the
impact of language and cultural literacy in their professional life as
significant.[4] While learning a language is only the
first step in gaining a global mindset, it strengthens our ability to empathize
with others.
Until we learn to express ourselves in another’s language and see
the world from their perspective, we have a hard time seeing beyond our own
cultural biases. In other words, we must
spend time walking in another’s shoes. As
we learn about the cultural landmarks, of their art, history, religion, and language,
we find that ours are not the only way to see the world around us. This opens our perspectives and makes us more
tolerant of others, even those with whom we do not share a common language. Language study does more than teach communication
– it expands our horizons, opening our minds to new ways of seeing the world
and relating to others.
In fact, research has shown that people, who
learn to express themselves in another language, learn to see issues from a
broader perspective. This impacts how we
learn and positively influences intellectual development. This is especially evident in bilingual
children. Therese Sullivan Caccavale, President
of the National Network for Early Language Learning (NNELL)[5]
points out that:
“Studies
have shown repeatedly that foreign language learning increases critical
thinking skills, creativity, and flexibility of mind in young children.
Students who are learning a foreign language out-score their non-foreign
language-learning peers in the verbal and, surprisingly to some, the math
sections of standardized tests.”
The way we communicate influences our view on
the world and reflects our cultural norms.
However, the interaction between language and culture flow both ways – language
is also a product of a society’s shared historical and cultural legacy. For example, Russians seldom use the verb “to
possess something,” but rather say that something is near them. This is a product of a history where the only
person who truly owned anything was the sovereign who could take their
possessions away at will. Conversely, this
conception of ownership also influences how Russians themselves view ownership
and authority. In gaining an understanding
of others’ perspectives, we can better understand them and build productive
relationships.
Building this understanding requires focused
study, exposure to different ways of thinking, and immersion in language and
culture. Awareness of this is not
new. Programs like the Middlebury Language
Schools[6]
and the American Graduate School of International Management (today Thunderbird
School of Global Management) [7] pioneered
education in language immersion and internationally focused business management
in the first half of the 20th Century. However,
with the growth of globalism and international trade have created a greater
awareness of the need for cross-cultural and global leadership skills,
resulting in a growing number of programs similar to those pioneered at
Middlebury and Thunderbird.
Language and international
business courses abound using a wide variety of methodology. However, not all are equally effective. While school courses, books, and computer
programs can provide a basis for cultural and language proficiency, the watershed
event in one’s education involves some kind of immersion. Whether this is formal study abroad or
working in a factory with native speakers, only when one is regularly exposed
and required to function in a language and navigate the culture, will true
proficiency develop.
Furthermore, higher-level
proficiency requires more than grammar and vocabulary. Whereas much of the higher-level
communication takes place in using abstract ideas, cultural context, and
inferred meaning, this requires complementing the mechanical aspects of
language with an understanding of the target culture. This requires an immersion, building a sound
knowledge of its art, history, religions, climate, political system, values,
and many other factors.
Living in another
country for an extended time, where you must function not only linguistically,
but in daily interpersonal and cultural interactions infuses those aspects of
culture, which are impossible to learn in a classroom. Long-term interaction with the people, their
language, and culture reinforces an understanding of the locals’ worldview and
norms of interpersonal behavior. Only
then do the deeper, abstract meanings of their conversation begin to make
sense.
We live in a world where global trade is no
longer the undisputed domain large multinational firms with their substantial war
chests of capital allowing them to leverage global markets. Today, the Internet and cheap and efficient global
delivery services allow even small businesses to export their goods around the
world, requiring these much smaller companies to work with partners, clients,
and legal systems around the world whose native cultures, laws and regulations,
and languages are different from their own.
In the modern globalized world of business
and mass communication, the ability to understand not only what people say, but
also how they feel, their values and desires is vital in maximizing the
synergistic potential of our multicultural world. When we can accept others’
way of thinking and living not as wrong, but simply as different from our own,
we begin to understand that we can learn and benefit from looking at the world
from their perspective. We are then on our way to a richer more fulfilling life
as we are better equipped to succeed in business, resolve thorny political
issues, to appreciate the wonderful diversity of our world, and build lasting
relationships based not on coercion and threats, but on mutual respect.
While we will not always agree and our
interests will not always mesh, when we understand how others see the world and
accept their right to do so, we can then find ways to make it a place we all
can live in. Studying not just foreign
languages, but various cultural perspectives allows us to enter another’s soul
– to walk in their shoes. This helps us
gain a deeper understanding of not only other cultures but our own as
well. The first step to true emotional
intelligence is self-awareness. This is
impossible without the reflecting pool of our multicultural world. When we see our culture and views juxtaposed
against others, we can better understand ourselves. This new understanding will lay the
foundation for a truly global mindset and unlock the potential the diversity of
our world has to offer.
[1] Thunderbird School of Global Management. About
Us. 2 April 2012. 7 April 2012 www.thunderbird.edu/about_thunderbird/thunderbird_good/about/index.htm.
[2] For more
information on what a global mindset is and how it influences our ability to
interact with the diversity in today’s world, see Thunderbird’s Najafi Global
Mindset Institute at http://globalmindset.thunderbird.edu/
[3] Javidan,
Mansour. "Bringing the Global Mindset to Leadership." Harvard
Business Review (May 19, 2010): https://hbr.org/2010/05/bringing-the-global-mindset-to.html#.
[4] Grosse, Christine Uber. "The Competitive
Advantage of Foreign Languages and Cultural Knowledge." The Modern
Language Journal (Vol. 88, No. 3 (Autumn, 2004)): 351-373.
[5] Duke University. "American Council on the
Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL)." Fall 2007. Cognitive Benfits of
Learning Language, Vol 8, Issue 1. http://www.actfl.org/advocacy/discover-languages/for-parents/cognitive#sthash.gk6l0BzU.dpufIf.
1 November 2015.
[6] Middlebury
Language Schools. The Language Schools' Mission Statement. http://www.middlebury.edu/ls/academics/language-schools-mission-statement.
1 November 2015.
[7]
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