Communicating Across Cultures

- When I think of culture, I think of the image of an iceberg. See at the tip of the iceberg, you see things that make sense to you, are familiar to you. You see things such as how people interact with one another, how they use language. Maybe when you spend time in a country, you notice how differently people dress, you notice and you taste the food, which is a huge part of culture, you notice the music, and when you look at the tip of the iceberg, you may say, "Oh yes, I recognize that culture." One thing that I'll help you understand in this course is some of the behaviors of how people and why they act they way they do have to do with more with what's on the bottom of the iceberg.

And those are sort of the cultural motivators. Those are the values, the assumptions that that whole culture makes together, the beliefs that they have, and in some cases, the history that that different part of the world has that influences the way that they behave. When you're able to recognize some of these differences in cultures, when you're able to understand how the bottom of the iceberg influences behavior, you'll be able to be a much better effective communicator as you communicate across cultures.