Culture is increasingly on the agenda, it seems. Increasingly we meet people with other cultures than our own and at the same time the culture in which we were born and raised is changing. And then we also have business cultures, which we have to come to terms with.

Both national cultures and business cultures have histories. Those histories tell us about constants in the background of cultures. The danger might well be that they leave the impression that the culture at hand is unchangeable; after all, things happened like that a thousend years ago too. It may make you lose sight of the changes that still take place, perhaps especially as cultures - better: people from different cultures - interact with each other.

But are people with other cultures all that different from you? Perhaps they are in some ways, but not in other ways. And are you aware of your own culture, for instance so that you can explain accepted behavior in your culture to people with different backgrounds?

In my experience, there can be two traps in dealing with other cultures (and perhaps there are more than these two). For one, you can run the risk of equating the individuals your are meeting with their culture(s), while usually culture is only a part of what makes a person who he or she is (if someone called you a typical so and so, you would object and with reason).

The other trap is that you think you understand a certain culture, and perhaps you really do, after which you no longer pay attention to the nuances and changes. At least, that is my experience.

And then there is the danger of seeing a culture as a monolithic entity, unchanging and impersonal. True, there are certain constants you can discern when you study a culture over time. But at the same time, you can see change, sometimes as modifications and sometimes as transitions. Perhaps it is best to see a culture as a shared process, recognizing a core which the people concerned share as well as a development and perhaps even a direction. The process is what people do and you can ask them about it.

Diversity

Some managers regards diversity as a problem. This is perfectly understandable, as the more diverse the employees and clienst, the more complicated the job of the manager.

But perhaps we should no longer see the job of the manager like this. You could also see diversity as full of opportunities. Think alone, in terms of knowledge management, of the new ideas that come out of the interaction of employees with diverse backgrounds, be they diverse in terms of gender, ethnic background, age, profession or otherwise.

Diversity can be a problem as it is confrontational. It makes the trusted assumptions less dependable and puts them in question. That causes some crisis and confusion. But regard that crisis as full of learning opportunity and it may well be far less threatening.