Homework in cultural norms

So some of you know that I am back in school these days and we had a great class last week on cultural norms in regard to international negotiations. The whole time I kept thinking of the relevance to today's cultural conversations and thought I would share my 250 (ish) word class response.

"I spent many years living and working in India and China and I’ve experienced much of what was being discussed. I also agree with the idea that protocol and etiquette don’t necessarily set the stage for what is right, but limits the amount of things that can go wrong.

All that said, I kept thinking of the social unrest within the U.S. today and the relevance of cultural norms in our current political and social discourse. This is far more nuanced than the way you receive somebody’s business card, but in today’s U.S., I feel that there are more intranational cultural interactions than ever before. Business interactions at the decision making level of previous generations was done primarily between individuals of similar class and background. Schools, neighborhoods, clubs, all provided learning grounds for how to behave in social and business settings. As our leaders are becoming more diverse, so too is the set of cultural backgrounds and experiences that an effective leader needs to be aware of.

The idea that certain national customs – particularly those based on the historical interactions between cultures – have everything to do with how actions are perceived has a lot of relevance in today’s U.S. based conversations around race and socio-economic equity. As we continue to diversify our leadership, it is going to be increasingly important to pay the same amount of attention to the culture, history, and background of your teammate as it would be if you were interacting with a diplomat from another country. I personally think that is a good thing."