Cultural Communication

M5A1: Short Paper: Cultural Communication

Nakisa Frazier

Excelsior College

BUS*501/ Business Communication

Dr. Anna Luna

07/05/2016

Cultural Communication

My understanding of culture is that it involves a lot of things such as shared language, common gestures and mannerisms, also shared religious beliefs and rituals.  Culture is also expressed by clothes, acts, and music.  There are also these symbolisms that a culture embraces.  Culture goes beyond that and is viewed as a framework in which society exist.  It provides a structure of daily living, defining our roles, and it teaches us how to interact with each other.  

Values are another part of culture that needs to be expressed.  I would say that values are the root of culture.  It includes how a culture group perceives what is considered good and bad, desirable and useful, and how these ideas are expressed with their customs and traditions.  Some values are unique to a particular culture while others are universal.  It’s on the foundation of the universal values that multicultural societies form.  

Many businesses create policies and guidelines that help to avoid cultural communication barriers.  These barriers can cause many problems in the workplace as well as morale and productivity.  Having knowledge and recognizing these in the workplace can create problems in productivity and morale.  In healthcare there come time when may have difficulty communicating with a patient from a different culture.  It’s either trying to understand a person’s speech, different culture views, or trying to interpret their behavior.  It is normally common dealing with the challenges or cultural communication.  That is why many businesses makes it imperative to train employees to understand the barriers of cultural communication as well with how to overcome them so that will not affect or harm employees, patients or customers, and stakeholders.  

        Some of the typical U.S. business communication protocols could be business dress, greetings, meetings, dealing with different communication styles and more.  At the facility our initial contact with patients is face to face.  One of our guidelines states that it is important to greet each person that enters our department.  In our culture we maintain eye contact when talking to patients.  We must take in consideration that there are cultures out there that feel it is not appropriate to look them in the eyes when greeting them.  They take that as a person either being flirtatious.  When calling a patient we must address them by their first and last name.  

The first impression has and will always be important in United States business as a protocol.  This is a way most Americans know how to sell themselves in order to get the position they are seeking.  They also expect others to put first impression as a priority and express themselves as being willing to work hard.  Most dress code is usually informal for both male and female.  Their appearance must show that they are willing to invest much needed time and effort in achieving their goal.  

        Whenever communicating we are known to think positively.  This positive approach is an important aspect in business today.  Negative thinking only causes unnecessary conflict in the workplace.  We should remain open to learning about other cultures when doing so I have listed the protocols our department follows when dealing with other cultures.  It is a known fact that sometime communicating with other cultures can become either frustrating or confusing.  Therefore management came up with guidelines that will make not only us but other feel more comfortable when communicating.  

If someone comes into our department speaking another language we do not make them feel uncomfortable.  We carry a language chart in which we keep at the front desk and show it to patients so that they can pick out the language they speak.  Once a patient is able to identify their language on the chart, we use the two way language phone and contact a translator.  Patient seems to like the fact that they can receive the help they need.  Sometimes there are patients who don’t speak English that well, it is under our protocol that was take our time speaking with patients and allows them to take their time as well with a response.