Of course dealing with the shame of “losing face” would also be an EQ lesson; should we ever be ashamed when we don’t know something? Who’s culture is that? It’s not the culture in coaching, worldwide, and that’s one of the reasons I like coaching. Also Emotional Intelligence is global; we innately realize it’s something we all have in common, and gives us a common language.

By the way, I had a Chinese client tell me the other day that I didn’t know the concept of “lose face”. Actually I was raised with it, as one of the most punishable offenses. It’s what led me so easily into public relations, where I worked for many years saving people’s and company’s “faces” for a living.

So we have here precisely the dilemma every person from another culture faces every day, and more and more it goes on all day long in offices around the world.

So how do we deal with Diversity & Multicultural with Emotional Intelligence?

1. Learn what your own culture is, and how it differs, and to do this you must be open to studying and learning another culture. That’s the only way you’ll understand that people ARE different, and HOW different.

EXAMPLE: It is proper for a person being interviewed in the US, to make eye contact. It is not proper for an Aborigine, in Australia, having an interview to make eye contact.

ACTION POINT: Next time you encounter someone from another culture, instead of assuming you won’t understand them and you have nothing in common, or they don’t know how to “do things,” seek the “forest” of commonality among the “trees” of diversity. There’s not a culture on earth that doesn’t understand warmth in the eyes.

2. Get to know your own prejudices, an act of self-awareness, which is Emotional Intelligence. Know where they came from.

EXAMPLE: Someone growing up in the US south in the 50’s was punished harshly for interacting with a member of another race, at home, at school and at large. Integration was a very difficult issue in the US and people who are in their 50’s and 60’s remember it, at a visceral level.

ACTION POINT: Next time you feel uncomfortable dealing with someone from another culture, explore your feelings. Acknowledge them and then trace back to why. It’s a beginning. Acknowledge the discomfort and deal with it, don’t act it out.

3. If someone tells you they can deal with multicultural issues without a cluster of negative emotions (guilt, anger, frustration, anxiety, irritation), they’re lying to you.

EXAMPLE: In a law firm I worked in, early on, I was suddenly expected to do all the translating of Spanish documents without more pay. This added 1/3rd again to my workload, and was stressful. I’m not a native speaker, and legalese is hard enough in your own language. When in the office next to me sat Maria Garcia (not her real name), reading books at her desk because she had spare time, and speaking what I knew to be far better Spanish than mine to her mother on the phone. Rather than go to the office manager, I went to Maria. “Why won’t you translate this stuff?” I asked her. “I help you with your work. You’re far better at this than I am. I don’t get it.” She replied, with tears in her eyes, that she’d been beaten for speaking Spanish in first grade (common in Texas) and she just couldn’t do it, and her hands were shaking as she spoke.

ACTION POINT: When you’re from the MidWest, and a Texan comes toward you in way that seems threatening, braying at a decibel level that’s rude to you, and prepares to envelop you in what is to you an offensive bear hug, manage your emotions. Take the time to think, and respond, rather than react. Just as the Arab will have to, in whose presence you cross your legs and show the sole of your shoe, one of the most insulting things you can do to a Middle Easterner. Who knew? Make it your point this week to starting “knowing.” Check out my website for some multicultural resources and learn something new. Improve your intuition – your ability to pay attention to your gut feelings, and your ability to read nonverbal cues – both of which are Emotional Intelligence competencies and both of which are vital to Multicultural.

Back to the forest and the trees. In most interchanges, you and the person of another culture are after the same thing. Find it.

It may be you’re working on a project together, or you’re trying to buy something and they’re trying to sell it, or someone would like to make friends with you and you’d like to find the friendship. Look for the commonality of purpose.

Don’t be like my little friend Alex who comes crying to me for his car-car, and then screams at me the whole time I’m trying to help him out and find it!

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