Challenges Benefits OfCultural Diversity
Challenges & Benefits of Cultural Diversity
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Challenges of Diversity
• Communication Barriers
• Resistance to Change
• Socio-cultural Factors
• Education, age, and gender
• Personality and Background
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Communication Barriers
• Ineffective communication of key objectives results in confusion, lack of teamwork and low morale.
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• Age, gender and culture influence the messages sent and received.
• Barriers to communication are factors that block or significantly destroy successful communication.
• Communication barriers may be temporary and can be overcome. • Awareness and recognition are the first steps in formulating ways to overcome the barriers.
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Common Communication Barriers
• Virtual Work: isolates team members from socialization and face to face interaction, creating a lack of clarity.
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• Emotions: can leave some people unable to verbally express themselves clearly and coherently.
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• Gender: can be associated to the different styles between men and women on how they explain things.
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• Culture: expresses the values and patterns of behavior which can be very confusing, making it difficult to communicate. 4
Communication Barriers
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Resistance to Change
• Refusing to accept new policies
• Why change something that works
• We’ve always done it this way
• Scared of failure and not being able to learn/adapt to new things
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• Not wanting to spend time and effort changing
• Not understanding what is expected (the fear of the unknown) 6
Sociocultural Factors
• Race
• Ethnicity
• Culture
• Religion
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Education, Age, and Gender
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Sociocultural Factors
•How one was raised, will give them certain beliefs at a young age. Their believes may be a slightly different than those that we were brought up to believe.
!
•In any form, our behavior was established, regardless of your background. Rules and behavior that one models is what they were taught. Beliefs may be different, making it difficult to understand the reason why you may have
1
Challenges of Diversity
• Communication Barriers
• Resistance to Change
• Socio-cultural Factors
• Education, age, and gender
• Personality and Background
2
Communication Barriers
• Ineffective communication of key objectives results in confusion, lack of teamwork and low morale.
!
• Age, gender and culture influence the messages sent and received.
• Barriers to communication are factors that block or significantly destroy successful communication.
• Communication barriers may be temporary and can be overcome. • Awareness and recognition are the first steps in formulating ways to overcome the barriers.
3
Common Communication Barriers
• Virtual Work: isolates team members from socialization and face to face interaction, creating a lack of clarity.
!
• Emotions: can leave some people unable to verbally express themselves clearly and coherently.
!
• Gender: can be associated to the different styles between men and women on how they explain things.
!
• Culture: expresses the values and patterns of behavior which can be very confusing, making it difficult to communicate. 4
Communication Barriers
5
Resistance to Change
• Refusing to accept new policies
• Why change something that works
• We’ve always done it this way
• Scared of failure and not being able to learn/adapt to new things
!
• Not wanting to spend time and effort changing
• Not understanding what is expected (the fear of the unknown) 6
Sociocultural Factors
• Race
• Ethnicity
• Culture
• Religion
7
Education, Age, and Gender
8
Sociocultural Factors
•How one was raised, will give them certain beliefs at a young age. Their believes may be a slightly different than those that we were brought up to believe.
!
•In any form, our behavior was established, regardless of your background. Rules and behavior that one models is what they were taught. Beliefs may be different, making it difficult to understand the reason why you may have
References: • Terrill Lyknis, Shelley Wiedemeier, Vincent Williams, Melanie Gill & Sheri Keefer ! • www.multiculturaladvantage.com 18