What happens when one person is instructed to interrupt constantly – while the person they are talking to has to count to seven before answering?
As we discovered yesterday: some confusion, a little frustration – and quite a lot of laughter.
At our joint afterwork for HR and Communications Professionals, Kristy Marcard from Marcard Culture & Communications took us through a thought-provoking and highly interactive exercise designed to open our eyes to different cultural behaviours, cues and manners.
Each participant was given a secret “culture costume”: a behaviour very different from how they would normally interact. Some had to whisper. Others interrupted, avoided eye contact, focused only on one person in a group, developed a repetitive mannerism or waited an unusually long time before responding – all while trying to have a perfectly normal conversation about a decidedly unexpected topic.
It was funny. It was uncomfortable. And that was exactly the point.
Because in professional life, we constantly interpret other people’s behaviour through our own cultural lens. What feels confident, polite, engaged or efficient to one person can come across as rude, hesitant, intrusive or distant to someone else.
Together with Kristy, we reflected on how the exercise made us feel and explored how communication, body language, hierarchy, timing and social cues can differ across cultures.
And there is a bigger reason why this matters. Innovation depends on people with different perspectives being able to work well together. Cultural intelligence helps diverse teams actually benefit from their differences.
Perhaps one useful lesson to take with us:
Interpret before you judge. Be curious before you assume.
Thank you, Kristy, and everyone who joined us for an afternoon that took us well beyond the small talk.
