Mindset and Nuances - Reading the Unspoken

Still Exploring
I have been exploring the issue of culture, cultural differences and nuance in my head over the past couple of weeks. I guess I am trying to find answers and/or understand my own mindset better, as well as trying to appreciate those of others.

So in turn I went into my books for help. MBA Summer School learning diary, in fact. The Summer School module was on Managing People – and I posted something on that enlightening experience in August.

My Learning Diary
So I turn to the Learning Diary. The first four bullet points shout at me. Here goes:

1. People are governed by different and complex fundamentals – upbringing, culture, exposure, race, gender and therefore managing people is an art
2. In managing people, remember the cultural context – some cultures have a culture of deference and others have a culture of negotiation. Normally, Southern Cultures display deference and Northern cultures display negotiation. These translate into organizational cultures
3. Men and women communicate differently. Women tend to collaborate and cooperate. Men automatically assume that there is a hierarchy to observe
4. People from different cultures and nationalities communicate differently. Watch out for the nuances

Deep.

And yet still very infant
I am slightly amused that, at this age, I am still infant in my thought and expectation that the people I come into contact with are governed by values equal to those I have been brought up to hold dear. And I think many of us probably fall into the same category.

That’s why we can be surprised when we hear that a university student is a student by day and prostitute by night; and when we learn that that most respected CEO is actually overseeing the cooking up of books to inflate the profit and loss account.

All well and good, but what am I driving at? The notion of differing values and mindsets still.

I met a renowned Ghanaian writer the other day. We talked around these same issues, and, as women do, homed in on the issue of relationships and marriage. Her finale?

(i) Men and women marry for different reasons
(ii) In Southern cultures people often marry principally to attain social status, economic status and to have a family, instead of principally for friendship, love and companionship.

Wow. That second point kind of threw me away. And I wandered where that left me.

Or, should I say, I discovered a possible explanation for where I am today…

Laugh at me.