Never judge a book by its cover they say but I loved this book starting right from its cover.
If you need a quick introduction to intercultural competence and communication then this is as good a starting point as any especially considering that it is free of charge. The Diversity Dashboard is by Debbie Swallow and Eilidh Milnes and is a great guide and workbook to the main elements to be aware of when working with other cultures. It is full of thought provoking critical incidents or culture crashes as they are known in this book which works through the metaphor of navigating the cross-cultural currents with the help of a dashboard.
It considers rather more communication aspects than the more normal five or six including style, risk, trust and resilience. It also contains some good advice to those working in intercultural teams. I was very pleased to see that this includes a warning to American and British English native speakers on the dangers of hogging the airwaves as I have seen this happen all too often. It also includes a very useful checklist for holding cross-cultural online meetings and managing cross-cultural virtual teams which are areas where I do a great deal of my work.
In fact, one of the major premises on which the book is built is that it is counter-productive to carry on ‘business as usual’ when work extends to take in a multinational team where ‘business as usual’ refers to the Anglo-Saxon, north-European and American way of doing things. The world is changing, becoming more diverse and we cannot assume that the Anglo-Saxon model is the one which is understood by all and which ensures best results. The sections at then end of each chapter encourage managers and leaders to reflect on each of the 15 features of culture discussed and should prove to be a useful starting point for a more intercultural outlook.
In fact the word ‘assume‘ is used as an exercise in itself.
Assume=ASS+U+ME
To assume will make an ass out of you and me, so don’t assume!
You can collect the book from Amazon free of charge and don’t worry if you don’t have a Kindle device as most tablets are able to display Kindle files once you have downloaded an appropriate app.