Suggestions for An Adaptation Orientation:
- Continue to learn about others by increasing your interactions with other cultural groups so you can gain further knowledge, skills and comfort in adapting. In these situations, in contrast to your earlier work in building an Acceptance mindset, focus more attention on developing perspective shifting and behavioral skills for bridging across cultural differences. Examples include:
Everyday encounters with people (where you shop, in your social networks, your professional networks and at your workplace). Look for ways to authentically engage others in ways that are adaptive for you.
Professional development (join diversity, multicultural, international networks within your regional and local organizations). Look for ways to authentically bridge across cultural differences.
Academic and cultural presentations (attend formal presentations where you can gain in-depth knowledge and engage in dialogue with others who have similar interests and questions). When dialoguing, look for opportunities to stretch your behavioral repertoire.
Ask for input from trusted colleagues and friends from outside your cultural group to share their experiences of common ways they are misunderstood, what assists them in feeling accepted in their communities and what strategies are successful for them in adapting across cultural differences.
Identify one or more individuals in your organization whom you have seen interacting successfully across cultures. Ask this person to mentor you and to share strategies and opportunities to dialogue with you. Focus on how you can better “make sense” of situations from that person’s cultural perspective and what behavioral adaptations are appropriate.
Consider opportunities for more training in intercultural competence (courses, workshops, readings) to learn tangible ways cultures can differ, culture specific information, and successful models of individual and organizational adaptation.
Review M.R. Hammer’s Intercultural Conflict Style (ICS) model and assessment inventory at: www.icsinventory.com.
Engage in targeted contrast culture readings, including books and articles that provide a comparative analysis of culture general frameworks (e.g. individualism vs. collectivism) as well as novels written by authors from or set in cultures different from your own. Review materials on culture general and culture specific patterns of cultural difference by visiting www.interculturalpress.com. Lists of novels can be found at websites such as . Make a concerted effort to truly shift cultural perspective and to engage in adaptive behaviors based on these cultural frameworks.
Read newspapers and magazines online from other countries or cultural communities. Pay attention to how writers from diverse cultures may report a major, global event from a different perspective than writers from your own cultural group. This can highlight differences that you may not have thought about previously.
- Select a culture in your community with which you are less comfortable and about which you have less knowledge.
Apply your skills in observing, reflecting, and understanding different cultural values and behaviors of the culture you selected.
Find ways to get involved with various cultural groups and organizations (e.g., refugee resettlement organizations or Sister-City organizations in your local community). Consider ways to engage with them as a peer as well as from an outside expert position if appropriate.
Encourage your organization to put resources into developing cultural competencies of all stakeholders.
Continue to draw upon a broad network of culturally diverse individuals to inform you in your roles in your organization and community. Identify areas in which you need to expand your network.
- Form a small group of motivated individuals to collaborate on diversity, inclusion and intercultural competence advocacy strategies. Where does your workplace need to focus first and how can you help them develop a plan?
Acknowledge to yourself that your expertise and knowledge of one or more cultural groups can sometimes lead to fatigue and allow yourself opportunities for on-going support from the small group you formed.
- Check whether others may see you in ways that discount your experiences across cultures. What can you do to build better relations with others who may not share the same adaptation orientation as you?
Acknowledge to yourself that your expertise and knowledge of one or more cultural groups may be useful to others, but only if you can share your resources in ways that value the other person’s viewpoint and experience.
- Do you have difficulty remaining in one organization or geographical place because you become frustrated that the people or the organizations are not as far along the developmental continuum as you think they should be?
Recognize that your desire to “exit” organizations or places may be due to your own frustration and/or inability to bridge across different developmental orientations.
Reflect on whether some of the difficulties or frustrations you may have in helping individuals and organizations become more interculturally competent could be due to your lack of awareness and understanding that not all people share your Adaptation mindset? That is, individuals with a Denial, Polarization, Minimization or Acceptance orientation make sense of cultural differences and commonalities in ways consistent with their developmental orientation—not in ways consistent with an Adaptation mindset.
What can you do to bridge across different developmental orientations so that your cross-cultural effectiveness is increased?
Find positive strategies to engage others around intercultural learning and development in ways that do not make your own views and experiences the center of attention.
- Summary questions for reflection
What new information was most meaningful to you after completing these activities?
Could this new information have changed a situation you experienced in the past? How would this situation have changed?
How can this new information change your perceptions, interpretations, judgments, reactions and/or behaviors in the future?
I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides or my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.
Mahatma Gandhi
CULTURAL DISENGAGEMENT
Definition:
A sense of disconnection or detachment from a primary cultural group. Cultural Disengagement is not an orientation on the Intercultural Development Continuum, as it does not relate to intercultural competence. However, consideration of a Cultural Disengagement score that is “not resolved” suggests some lack of involvement in a primary cultural community.
Strength:
Cultural Disengagement when resolved means that you feel involved and connected to your cultural community. This can provide a sense of attachment towards a group important to you. Developmental Opportunity Cultural Disengagement when it is not fully resolved may be experienced as a feeling of separation from a cultural community that is (or was) important to you. You may want to consider how to become more fully engaged within a cultural community important to you.
Suggestions for Cultural Disengagement:
- Review the suggestions below ONLY if your Individual IDI Profile indicates you are not resolved on Cultural Disengagement. If your IDI profile indicates resolved, then this section does not need to be completed.
- If you are not resolved in Cultural Disengagement:
Identify the ways you feel disconnected from your primary cultural group. For example, is this sense of alienation more political, more social, or something else?
Reflect on why you perceive yourself as disconnected from your cultural group?
Do you want to do anything about this sense of detachment? Do you want to reestablish deeper connections with people from your primary community?
Are you in search of a “blended” sense of cultural connection between two different cultural groups?
If so, what does this mean in terms of your involvement and sense of connection to these different cultural communities?