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>[Dr. Ben Zugay] Hi, everybody.
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The purpose of this video
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is to expand upon something
that you've read about
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with regards to group composition.
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We're gonna talk about cultural diversity
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from the lens of Hofstede's
Cultural Dimensions.
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That will all make a lot more sense
in just a few minutes.
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First of all, you're probably thinking,
"What is this?"
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Well, welcome to our first
online lecture for our class.
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These online lectures are
designed to take book content
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that is either difficult to understand
and explain in further;
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or it is designed to take something
that the book just briefly mentioned
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and I expand upon it (as this video will);
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or for me to talk about something
that is completely brand new,
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something that you didn't read about.
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So there are very specific purposes
behind these videos.
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I'm not going to lecture word for word
about things that you've already read.
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I expect that if I assigned a reading,
you've read those things.
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So keep that in mind as we go
through these online lectures.
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In addition to that, #2,
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please do take notes
as if we were in class.
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These topics are of interest to you
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with regards to our tests
and assessments in this class;
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and of course, they are of interest
to you with regards to your career,
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so I encourage you to take notes.
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Number 3,
I will, throughout online lectures,
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occasionally ask you to do things.
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I may say, "Hey, pause the video.
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Write down something in your notebook,
and then come on back and resume the video
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and I'll give you some feedback
on what you wrote down."
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It's kind of a way for you to do
an activity through the video.
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So if I ask you to do things like that,
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please make sure that you stop
and actually do them.
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And one final thing,
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my goal is to keep these
as short as possible
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but still be comprehensive
with the content and the information.
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But you know, that this
being a YouTube video,
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you can pause, you can rewind,
you can do what you need to,
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to meet your needs.
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In addition to that, if you hover
on the bottom right-hand side,
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there's that gear icon.
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Well, if you click on that
and you click on "Playback speed,"
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you can make me sound like
Alvin and the Chipmunks,
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and speak really quickly;
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or you can make me sound like
I'm trudging through molasses,
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speaking very slowly.
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So please adjust to your needs.
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So let's go ahead and
talk about our content.
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So you read about group composition,
the way that groups are made up,
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and you know from your reading
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that there are essentially two
different categories of groups.
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There are groups that are made up
of the same type of individuals,
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kind of represented by the purple crayons.
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Everyone's kind of the same.
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And then you know that there are groups
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[whose] members are made up of
whole different types of individuals,
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represented by the colored crayons.
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And we know that both
groups and both teams
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can be beneficial in certain situations,
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but you've read about that,
so we're not talking about it here.
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But something that caught my eye
as I was reading our textbook
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was this quote on bullet point #2.
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It says, "Group composition
becomes especially important
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as organizations become
increasingly more culturally diverse."
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Hmmm...
Well, that's an interesting thought.
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We know that our country
is becoming more diverse
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as the United States.
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We also know that the organizations,
in turn, that we work for,
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are going to continue
to become more diverse.
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I had a chance to work
for the Walt Disney Company.
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It's an extremely diverse organization.
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I loved working with the individuals
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that I got a chance to,
from all over the globe,
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and I'm talking about "work with,"
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not necessarily had visitors
come from all over the globe.
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I got to work with individuals
from all over the globe,
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and you will as well.
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And as a matter of fact, in our class,
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you may have a chance to work with
somebody from a different country
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within your teams,
and that's really exciting.
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I was thinking more and more
about this, and I was like,
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"Wow, there's a lot of value to be added
by thinking about cultural diversity,"
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and our book just talked
about it in, like, a sentence or two.
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That's what the purpose of this video is:
to expand upon that.
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Here's what we know about individuals
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from different countries
and different cultures.
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We know that even our own
(and others, especially),
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we know that cultures differ
in a number of ways.
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Cultures can differ within countries,
but especially across countries, right?
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And these differences impact
how people view the world.
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That, in turn, impacts how people perform
at work and perform in a team setting.
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This absolutely impacts you
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because somebody who has
a different background than you --
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which will be everybody,
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but especially individuals who come
from different cultural backgrounds --
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will bring different selves to work.
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They'll be different than you.
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So you need to be prepared
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to deal with that difference
in a positive way.
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So I started thinking:
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"What are some tools that I'm aware of
that can help us to understand
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the differences from person
to person in a business setting?"
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Ha! Gert Hofstede's cultural dimensions.
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That's a great tool, it's a very
well-known tool within academic research
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and from a practical perspective as well.
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You will probably hear about this,
maybe not by name,
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but you'll definitely hear
about this in the business world.
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So here's what we know
about Hofstede's cultural dimensions.
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Basically — I'm not gonna read this
right word for word, but basically,
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this is a way in which
we can look at cultures
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and we can say, "Here is how this
culture is different than this culture,
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is different than this culture,
is different than this culture"
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by looking at these cultural dimensions.
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There are actually six of them,
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six different ways that Hofstede measures
differences from culture to culture.
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and these differences help
to explain what people value,
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what people think in general, etc. etc.
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Hofstede defines culture as
a collective mental programming,
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so a collective, shared mindset by people
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that distinguishes them
from another group of people.
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But Hofstede also says
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that this does not imply that everybody
in a society things the exact same way.
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We know that there are
differences with individuals,
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but in general, here's what I want
you to gather from this slide,
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is that Hofstede's cultural dimensions
are six different ways
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in which we can explain
differences from culture to culture.
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And in our case,
we're gonna look country to country.
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So what are these six differences?
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These six differences can be found here.
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We are going to look at the first four.
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We are not going to look at the last two
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because they have a little bit
less to do with business,
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but the first four definitely
have to do with business.
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The first way in which a culture can differ
from one to another is in power distance.
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Power distance explains how much
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less powerful individuals, institutions,
and organizations within a country
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expect and accept
that power is distributed unequally.
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Okay, what does that mean?
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So in countries that score
high in power distance,
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you accept the power
that exists within society.
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For example, let's say
that the organization
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has a lot of power (as most do)
at the top of the organization.
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The CEO, she's very powerful,
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so we, in a high power distance society,
would never question the CEO,
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would never question
the senior member on the team,
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whatever it may be.
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But if we're in a lower power
distance country or culture,
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we are okay questioning authority
a little bit more.
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We're not okay with that
unequally distributed power.
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We're not okay with the power
at the top of the organization.
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So that's power distance.
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Individualism explains how much
interdependence there is
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within a society among its members.
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In individualistic societies —
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these are societies that score
high on individualism —
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these are cultures that really
value the individual, the self.
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They are the "I/Me" cultures.
It's about Me. It's about Myself.
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But in cultures that score
low in individualism,
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those cultures are known as
collective cultures,
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and these are cultures that would say
and value things like "Us/We/The Group."
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That's a collectivist culture
and they would score low in individualism.
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Next up is masculinity.
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Masculinity has nothing
to do with gender
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but it has to do with
what motivates people.
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In societies where masculinity is high,
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that's where motivation
comes from being the best.
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Or if you are in a feminine culture,
where masculinity is low,
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well, you're motivated by doing
something that you like
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and that's what motivates you.
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The last that we are going to look at
is uncertainty avoidance.
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Uncertainty avoidance is:
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How comfortable are people
with uncertainty?
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How comfortable are they
with ambiguous situations?
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In cultures that have
high uncertainty avoidance,
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they like to avoid uncertainty.
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so they have Plans A, B, C,
all the way through Z.
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(That's an extreme example
but you get the point.)
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In countries or cultures that have
low uncertainty avoidance,
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they're okay with uncertainty.
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They say, "Eh, we'll come up
with Plan A as we're doing it."
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(Okay, again, an extreme example,
but you see the difference.)
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So these are the different ways in which
[cultures] can differ from each other.
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Interesting.
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So hopefully,
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you're looking at this and saying,
"Why should I care about this?
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How does this impact me?
How is this practical?"
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I hope you're asking that.
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So here's what we know.
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When you work with others,
there will be differences
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in behaviors and values and beliefs
that are different from yours.
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You should do your absolute best
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to understand the others
that you are working with
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in terms of their values,
their beliefs, their behaviors, etc. etc.
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When you do this, this helps reduce
unnecessary stereotyping
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that absolutely happens
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when you work with individuals
from other cultures or other groups
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that you don't necessarily
belong to or identify with.
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We do stereotype, but the more that you
focus on understanding the other person,
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the quicker you can get over that,
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the quicker we can work
through the rough spots,
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and the quicker we can work together
as a team on what we need to work on.
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And Hofstede's cultural dimensions
give us some tools to really—
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It's a lens to help understand:
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How and why do people
behave the way that they do?
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So let me give you
an example from my career.
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When I worked at Walt Disney Company,
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as I had mentioned, I worked with
individuals from all across the globe.
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I worked in Animal Kingdom Theme Park,
and in Animal Kingdom Theme Park,
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we had different areas of the theme park
that represented different continents.
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We had Asia, we had Africa.
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Those were some areas that I was
responsible for overseeing.
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We would bring in students
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from different countries
on those continents
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to represent their culture,
to share their culture,
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to be an ambassador for their country.
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and I had a wonderful opportunity
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to work with individuals
from Botswana, Africa;
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from South Africa in Africa;
from Kenya in Africa;
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from Singapore in Asia;
from China in Asia;
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and from Thailand in Asia.
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So again, Asia and Africa.
Those were the two areas.
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And I worked specifically,
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I remember working
in particular with Jin,
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and Jin was from Singapore,
and I would notice, you know,
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when I would see Jin come from afar,
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Jin would always be interacting
and talking with his fellow employees.
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And I was Jin's manager,
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and I noticed, every time that I would
come up to Jin and walk up to him,
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I would notice he would quiet down.
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And Jin's purpose of being there
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was for him to share his culture
with the guests of the theme park,
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so I would turn to Jin and I would say,
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"Hey, what ideas do you have
in terms of sharing your culture?"
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I don't know his culture,
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so, you know, my job is
to help him to do that.
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And he would just quiet down and
he didn't often bring up new ideas to me,
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so I would, after a while,
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have to start coming up with ideas
for him to do and share with our guests.
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And I would notice that he would
often just do whatever I said to him,
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and this really threw me for a loop
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and there was kind of this
[makes a struggling noise].
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I don't want to say it was conflict
by any stretch of the imagination,
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but there was clearly—
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We weren't working as efficiently
as we could together,
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and I was just thinking in my head,
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I'm like, "Jin, add some value.
Just take the lead here."
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And he didn't right away.
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So hmmm... I'm sitting here
thinking, "What is going on?"
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Well, I didn't have
a framework like you now do
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in terms of cultural diversity
and Hofstede's cultural dimensions,
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and if I would have, I could have
better understood Jin,
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I could have better understood his culture
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and I could have better understood
what I could and should have done
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(and eventually did do) to work with him
in a more efficient way on a team.
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So let me show you a super-cool tool.
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Let me show you
Hofstede's cultural dimensions
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and how you can explore
all sorts of cultural dimensions
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from all sorts of countries
across the globe.
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Here's what I would like you to do.
I want you to follow along with me,
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I want you to open up a browser,
and I want you to google this.
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I want you to google
"Hofstede's cultural dimensions."
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That's what I would like you to google.
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When you do that (and pause
the video wherever you need to),
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click on "compare countries"
[or "country comparison tool"].
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It's the first thing:
hofstede-insights.com, compare countries.
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So you're gonna do that...
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Welcome to Gert Hofstede's website.
I can't recall if he's still alive or not.
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(It does not matter.)
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The point of this website is for you
to be able to compare countries
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on their different cultural dimensions.
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I am going to compare the United States
(the culture that I represent)
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and Singapore
(the culture that Jin represents).
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So all you do, very simply here is,
you type in the country,
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and the United States pops up first
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(it probably recognizes that I'm using
a computer in the United States),
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and it instantly gives me cultural
dimension numbers on all six areas.
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Remember, we talked about these four.
We talked about these four.
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So we see these numbers.
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They range from 0 to 100:
0 obviously low, 100 high.
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And you can see where
the United States falls.
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So Individualism appears
to be our highest,
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The United States is a very
individualistic society:
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"I" and "Me,"
where it's "all about Me."
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That's our culture.
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Power distance is relatively low.
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We're okay questioning authority
within the United States.
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We're okay speaking up.
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Okay, interesting.
So we're seeing this.
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Now let's type—
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He's from Singapore,
so we're gonna click on that,
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and the United States
has now switched to purple
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and Singapore is now blue.
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So we see immediately some differences
between Singapore and the United States,
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and you can see, obviously,
the larger the gap,
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the greater the difference.
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Singapore's power distance
is higher, much higher at 74
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in comparison to the United States.
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Individualism, the United States,
very individualistic;
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Singapore, very collectivist.
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Hmmm... very interesting.
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Well, I want to read more about that,
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so very cleverly, they have
this "read more" button,
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so I'm gonna click on that
and I encourage you to do the same.
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And again, you can type in
any countries that you want.
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You can compare more than two as well.
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If you just go on here,
Argentina or whatever,
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but notice that the colors change,
so keep that in mind.
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Okay, but we're looking at Singapore
and we're looking at the United States.
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If we wanted to read more
about Singapore in blue,
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we would click on Singapore here
and we would read much more about it,
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and it'll break down
every single cultural dimension
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(power distance, individualism,
masculinity) and it's a custom score,
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it's a custom result based on their score.
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Singapore is high on this dimension
of power distance of 74.
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"Power is centralized, and managers
rely on their bosses and on rules."
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Huh. "Employees expect
to be told what to do."
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Well, that's very interesting.
So if I go back...
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again, we're looking at power distance,
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if I go back to the "issues"
(and I put those in quotes)
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that I thought I was
experiencing with Jin,
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saying, "C'mon, man, get it together.
Add some value here. Speak up."
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That's not his culture.
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That's not what he has learned to do
from his culture, so we look at this.
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I would always come up to them,
Jin and his group of fellow students,
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and I would come up to them,
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and Jin, in particular,
would always quiet down.
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Well, now I see why.
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Power distance is
much greater in Singapore.
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"Jin, can you do this?"
He would do whatever I asked of him.
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Jin would rarely bring up new ideas to me.
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Hmmm... That is interesting.
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And now I have a tool that helps me
to understand why that is.
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Power distance is very different
in Singapore than in the United States.
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Very different. Very interesting.
Let's look at another one really quickly.
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Individualism and collectivism.
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So United States, in purple,
very "I" and "Me."
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Collectivist, Singapore [in blue],
very much about the group,
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the "We," the "Us."
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Let's read about it...
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"Individualism... Singapore
with a score of 20
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is a collectivist society."
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That means that "We" is very important.
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"People like to belong to in-groups,
like families, clans, or organizations
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who often look after each other
in exchange for their loyalty."
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Interesting.
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So you can click around,
and I encourage you to do so.
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You can read about the United States,
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you can read about any
other country that you want,
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and I encourage you to do this.
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You will see this information again,
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and I don't have an explicit assignment
necessarily set for you for this right now,
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but it's just interesting information
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that you should see,
you should be aware of,
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and you now have a tool
which can help you
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to better understand
some of these cultural dimensions.
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So let's go back here.
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So here is what I know,
and this is continuing the story with Jin.
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Had I known about these cultural
dimensions (and I eventually did),
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we would have been much more able
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to quickly and more smoothly
help each other.
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It's that simple.
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When I take the time to understand
Jin and his culture, and in turn,
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if and when he takes the time
to help and understand me,
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but you know what?
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Here's what I know from my career.
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I don't ever want to depend
on somebody else
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doing the same thing
that I'm going to do for them.
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I want to do all that I can
to accommodate the other person.
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This is my personal experience now,
I'm speaking from this.
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I would like to think that Jin would learn
about the culture that he's dealing with
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in terms of dealing with me,
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but I'm not necessarily
going to expect that,
-
and it's not out of respect
or disrespect at all.
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It's just that I can only control
what I can control,
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so I want to focus on me,
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doing the best that I can
to understand him.
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And hopefully, in turn, he'll see that
and he'll want to understand me.
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And the more tools that we put
in our toolbox, like cultural dimensions,
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Hofstede's cultural dimensions,
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we have more places to go back to
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and we have more tools to use
when we're put in situations
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where we're working with
individuals from different cultures.
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Had we known this, had I known this
(and eventually, I did use this),
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we were able to more smoothly
and more quickly understand each other,
-
which was great.
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So how do you actually use this?
How can this be a practical tool for you?
-
Because it's important that we understand,
of course, our book content,
-
but then how does this
apply to us in real life?
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Well, hopefully, my experiences,
-
my examples that I was able
to share here helped you out,
-
but I want you to consider this.
-
And again, it ties into what I just said.
Here's how you can actually use this.
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You should be doing your homework
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on other individuals that you
are going to be working with
-
in terms of the background that they have;
-
and then you should make your adjustments,
you should make your adjustments,
-
and you can make adjustments mentally,
-
just knowing that something is going
to be different with this interaction
-
than you are used to
from a cultural perspective.
-
And you can also do this behaviorally
or even verbally as well, so for example,
-
that's I did when I worked with Jin.
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I made the adjustment.
-
So I knew that he was from
more of a collectivist culture,
-
where the focus isn't on "Me"
(or him, in this case),
-
but it was more on the group.
-
He's more concerned
with helping the group out.
-
So it was asking the same thing,
but just wording it a bit differently.
-
It's the same thing, so instead of saying,
"Jin, what do you want to do here?"
-
Well, that's very individualistic.
Ooh! Spotlight is on the individual.
-
Mmm... that's not part of his culture.
-
Instead, something that I said
or something similar is,
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"Okay, so what are some outcomes
that would be best for the group here
-
as we look to educate
our guests on your culture?"
-
That's a very different question
on the surface,
-
but it's really asking the same thing:
"What should we do here?"
-
So do your homework,
understand who you're working with
-
in terms of their cultural backgrounds,
their cultural dimensions,
-
using a tool like Hofstede's
cultural dimensions.
-
You make those adjustments,
-
and then as you're working
with others, be patient
-
because it is going to be
an uncomfortable process,
-
especially if you're not used to working
with individuals from different backgrounds,
-
and that's okay, because
it takes time to get good at things,
-
and when you are put
in uncomfortable situations,
-
just be patient,
just be patient.
-
Do your homework,
make adjustments,
-
be patient as you work through
the uncomfortable components
-
of these relationships
within a team, and remember,
-
the sooner that you can get over
these cultural differences —
-
and I don't mean "brush-them-aside" over.
-
When I say "[get] over
these cultural differences,"
-
I mean when you can better
understand each other
-
and make these adjustments
and work with each other,
-
and you learn how to work
through these differences
-
and emphasize these differences
-
and help each other in these
differences that you have
-
by using a tool like Hofstede's
cultural dimensions.
-
When you do that, the sooner
you can work through these,
-
the quicker you can move
to being a high-performing team,
-
however you define that.
-
I hope you found this video informative,
grounded in some practical application,
-
and you now have a tool in your toolbox
-
that truly is interesting in terms of
Hofstede's cultural dimensions.
-
When we think about team composition,
-
we know that there are
benefits and downfalls
-
to having our teams look all the same
and to having our teams look different,
-
but we know that we are going
to be working in teams for sure
-
throughout our careers
that look different than us.
-
We're gonna be working
with other people, and that's awesome.
-
And when you come across a situation
-
where you're working with somebody
from a different culture,
-
you now have a tool in your toolbox
to help you to better understand them,
-
which, in turn, will help you
to better work with them,
-
which helps, in turn,
for the team to perform at a higher level.
-
If you have any specific questions
with regards to this content,
-
feel free to contact me.
-
Have a wonderful rest of your day,
and thank you so much.