Handling Differences

You have two good reasons to bridge cultural differences: to minimise their negative consequences and to benefit from their positive aspects. The strongest example of the positive side is your own development. Time and time again people emphasise what they have learned from the confrontation with another culture and especially how they have come to know themselves better.

However, dealing with cultural difference ultimately boils down to you as an individual; what works for the one, does not do so for the other. As part of your cultural competence, you make your own choices and experience shows the way to success.

The e-book on definitions and concepts of culture (Culture 1) outlines the difficulties in studying culture and they apply to dealing with cultural differences just as well. They are: you are part of culture, lack of a common definition, focus on differences, approach by averages and stereotypes and prejudices. In the same vein some

requirements need to be met: a willingness to learn and to adapt and a capability of spotting the differences and to recognise ways and means of dealing with them.

As in security studies, preventing (cultural) conflict trumps engaging in (cultural) conflict. This is why the cultural competence is so important, as well as a thorough preparation (see Culture 8).

The question is what you can actually do when you perceive tension due to cultural differences in a meeting with another person. At that moment you cannot brush up your cultural competence or revise your preparation.

The literature on how to handle cultural differences may be divided in the following groups.

▼ ‘Recipes’: rules of behaviour, often without background or only loosely related elements. Yet, these books quickly give a first idea.

▼ Knowledge and understanding of the concept of culture, two necessary but too general conditions. They are insufficient for solving issues.