How Lack of Cultural Competence Costs Us
Why do we need cultural competence? African American House of Representatives Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) was called a “nigger” last weekend after the passage of the healthcare bill. The news reports suggest that the culprit was a Tea Party reveler. [Yes, I used the “n” word. That’s another thing we have to get over if we are to increase our competence in a free speech society.] Openly gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a “faggot” on the same day. A few weeks earlier, on the other side of the country, an off campus “white fraternity” party with a “racial” theme created weeks of conflict resolution efforts that spanned from the San Diego, California African American community to the university governing board in the San Francisco bay area. It became apparent to me that managing the emotional discharge was over the heads of everyone in charge.
Cleavages within society due to intercultural conflict create long-term tension that can easily—at any critical point in time—lead to social unrest, physical attacks, and a deep sense of unfairness about and resentment towards cultural diversity. The problem with continued lack of cultural competence among leaders is that it colludes in maintaining intercultural conflict over time, rather than support long-term solutions.
While litigation is obviously expensive, intercultural conflict often leads to additional costs, such as loss of talent, innovation and even a competitive edge.
One of the things you want to avoid to the extent possible as a leader is the appearance of taking sides in a conflict. Yet, far too many leaders do so in an effort to cope with their own and others’ emotional reactions to intercultural conflict. Any conflict resolution expert will tell you that long-term solutions to disagreements require negotiations that result in both sides feeling that it has gained something precious and lost something precious. The mediator cannot accomplish this by taking sides or poorly managing the emotional discharge on all sides. It is not the leaders’ fault that their outcomes are too often unsatisfactory. After all, how could we expect them to do what their predecessors have failed to do and where would they have learned to manage these kinds of conflicts anyways?
How Lack of Cultural Competence Costs UsWhy do we need cultural competence? African American House of Representatives Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) was called a “nigger” last weekend after the passage of the healthcare bill. The news reports suggest that the culprit was a Tea Party reveler. [Yes, I used the “n” word. That’s another thing we have to get over if we are to increase our competence in a free speech society.] Openly gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a “faggot” on the same day. A few weeks earlier, on the other side of the country, an off campus “white fraternity” party with a “racial” theme created weeks of conflict resolution efforts that spanned from the San Diego, California African American community to the university governing board in the San Francisco bay area. It became apparent to me that managing the emotional discharge was over the heads of everyone in charge.Cleavages within society due to intercultural conflict create long-term tension that can easily—at any critical point in time—lead to social unrest, physical attacks, and a deep sense of unfairness about and resentment towards cultural diversity. The problem with continued lack of cultural competence among leaders is that it colludes in maintaining intercultural conflict over time, rather than support long-term solutions.While litigation is obviously expensive, intercultural conflict often leads to additional costs, such as loss of talent, innovation and even a competitive edge.One of the things you want to avoid to the extent possible as a leader is the appearance of taking sides in a conflict. Yet, far too many leaders do so in an effort to cope with their own and others’ emotional reactions to intercultural conflict. Any conflict resolution expert will tell you that long-term solutions to disagreements require negotiations that result in both sides feeling that it has gained something precious and lost something precious. The mediator cannot accomplish this by taking sides or poorly managing the emotional discharge on all sides. It is not the leaders’ fault that their outcomes are too often unsatisfactory. After all, how could we expect them to do what their predecessors have failed to do and where would they have learned to manage these kinds of conflicts anyways?
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