I don’t usually devote a whole podcast to one conversation but in the show which came out almost two weeks ago that is exactly what I did. The Invisible Elephant is Tom Verghese’s way of describing the issue of intercultural communication and is also the title of his latest book which is a short guide to the main issues. Tom, of Cultural Synergies,
is of Malaysian origin and has lived in Australia for most of his adult life so his interest in intercultural communication is based on a great deal of personal experience.
One of the most interesting aspects of his work is the development of a so-called Cultural Mirror, a tool which can be used to map where one stands on nine factors of intercultural difference. These include some of the well-known ones such as group versus indvidualism but also include some new factors such as shame versus guilt. I think that this might be a handy exercise to go through with a new project group to try and tease out where we may have communication and expectation problems so that we can be pro-active with strategies and solutions.
Verghese advocates his version of Cultural Intelligence, an approach which I have inadvertantly found myself exploring in the last few podcasts and he has even worked with Elisabeth Plum recently so I have to conclude that this is the new paradigm in this field.