Cultural Intelligence, Cultural Safety, And Cultural Capabilities In Friends Show Season 4 Episode 9

Rachel’s Boss Displays Cultural Incompetence

The world is composed of diverse cultures which must interact to enable cooperation. In most cases, we tend to think that cultural capabilities are only vital in the cases where we cross boundaries. However, this is not the case as anything outside our daily routine could amount to misunderstandings due to varied interpretations (Flanja, 2014). This implies that one does not necessarily have to be on a foreign trip to realize the effects of culture. This cultural perception widens the boundaries within which we can talk about culture. Cultural capabilities assist individuals to interpret and incorporate unfamiliar gestures and afford respect to varied cultures as cultures cannot exist autonomously. The main aim of this report is to analyze a video scenario in the light of effective cultural capabilities, determine whether the space is culturally safe and give recommendations for improving it. The report will mainly focus on the acceptable and unacceptable codes of cultural conduct in the video The One Where Rachel’s Boss Doesn’t Want to Lose Her – Friends Season 4 Episode 9. Particularly, the report will particularly major on the major characters, Rachel (the protagonist) and Johanna (antagonist) in the scene of the interview and the later confrontation in the office space. The report will also cover the last scene in which Johanna confesses why she lied about Rachel in the interview. This example is an ideal scenario that could be used to illustrate an unsafe cultural space.

1. Summary of the Video Clip

The One Where Rachel’s Boss Doesn’t Want to Lose Her is an episode in the Friends Show Season 4 episode 9 (Salsohere, 2013). The episode was published on 22^nd June 2013 by Buraki Salsohere. The scene starts in an office setting (Rachel’s workplace) with a panel of three (two ladies and one man) are interviewing Rachel. From the clip, one can easily identify that Rachael has been working with Johanna as she says a lot about her. Unfortunately, despite Rachel referring to Johanna as a good mentor, the latter works so hard to ensure that Rachael does not earn the position she is being interviewed for. She interrupts on various occasions to tell irrelevant details. Even though the male panelist thinks that Rachel is a perfect candidate for the position, Johanna does not allow her to earn the credit given. She heaps a mountain of imperfections on Rachel who has been her assistant. Later after the interview in an office encounter, Rachel approaches Johanna in tears confronting her for the injustice she meted on her. Johanna is not apologetic and later declares that she did not want to lose her assistant.

Creating a Culturally Unsafe Workplace Environment

2. Observations

Anyone watching the video can easily identify the fact that the space is not culturally safe. This can be identified from the statements made by Johanna, the facial expressions on Rachel’s face as well as the laughter in the clip’s background. Johanna is a true reflection of a horrible person just like Rachael refers to her. She has terrible communication skills and displays poor turn-taking skills. Despite Rachel being grateful for having worked with Johanna and calling her a good mentor, the latter does not seem to appreciate. She reciprocates by deconstructing any good attribute given to Rachel. Johana does not seem to get across well with everyone. This is exemplified in the scene where Sophie disagrees that Rachel is making her uncomfortable. Sophie is candid and honest in her statement. Johanna gets angry with her and declares her a useless person. It is quite obvious that Johanna is a jealous person. This explains the reason why she still wants Rachel to continue working under her. She does not want to see her getting promoted as she loves seeing her working under her instructions. Johanna is conscious of the fact that Rachel is a perfect employee as she admits it later when Rachel threatens to quit.

1. Cultural Intelligence

From the start of the clip, Johanna portrays dissatisfaction mainly due to the fact that Rachel will possibly get a promotion. She disputes any credit that the male interviewer gives to Rachel. She degrades Rachel’s achievements to unacceptable traits and portrays her as an irresponsible person. This incident displays Johanna’s inability to control her emotions. Her reactions towards Rachel’s possible promotion reveal that she is culturally unintelligent. Typically, cultural intelligence entails the ability of an outsider to interpret unfamiliar events in a similar way that the individual’s companions would do (Earley & Mosakowski, 2014). In the case of the film, Johanna, despite her dissatisfaction with losing Rachel should not have behaved as she did. Ideally, we all have moments of denials especially when someone whom we treasure leaves. However, we should not be unhappy with their success. We should act in a similar way that their close friends would act. Johanna’s behavior in the clip is therefore unacceptable due to her inability to control her emotions.  

2. Cultural Safety

Cultural safety entails respect for social and cultural variances in social settings (Khayyam, 2011). Social safety helps in the building of an emotionally and socially safe environment that safeguards one’s identity. At the beginning of the interview in the video clip, the man commencing Rachel’s interview displays the ideal manner in which an interview should be conducted. He perfectly showcases how cultural safety can be enhanced in the workplace. However, Johanna disrupts the prevailing mood when she starts blabbing Rachel. She makes the interviewee uncomfortable when she uses a satirical tone to downgrade her achievements. Although the male panelist is delighted by Rachel’s performance and gives positive comments on it, Johanna does not allow Rachel to earn the credit. She states petty activities that Rachel does such as bringing coffee and bagel. All that Johanna does in the office is to make Rachel’s life at work unbearable. Basically, employers are encouraged to engage diversity in their firms to ensure maximum performance (Jones, 2010). Employees, on the other hand, should respect one another regardless of their leadership positions. Johanna makes the working place culturally unsafe simply because Rachel and Sophie are her subordinates. Her position makes her think that she is superior to them and that they should take orders from her. When Sophie tries to challenge her, she insults her. People ought to learn that humanity makes us equal and given similar opportunities we can soar up to similar heights (Johnny, 2012). Therefore, no one should view themselves as superior beings just because they have achieved more than others.

Importance of Cultural Safety in the Workplace

3. Cultural Capabilities

Cultural capabilities refer to the knowledge and skills which people apply to apply to enhance cultural safety at the social environments (Quappe & Cantatore, 2010). Cultural capabilities aim at improving the outcomes that relate to safety in a workplace environment (Wright, 2016). Generally, cultural capabilities are related to positive reinforcement. This is exemplified in the video when the two panelists praise Rachel for her hard work. The male panelist commends Rachel for her outstanding filing techniques. Sophie also portrays cultural capability when she refuses to side with Johanna to intimidate Rachel. She is candid and dismisses Johanna’s assumption that Rachel is causing disturbance. Johanna’s cultural capabilities are questionable and dominate most of the scenes in the video clip. She is not only ungrateful for what Rachel does for her but also insults her subordinates. Also, Rachel goes to confront Johanna immediately after the interview. Although she is offended, she ought to have acted more reasonably. She should have ignored Johanna’s sentiments instead of showing up in her office shedding tears. This would have confirmed that she has the appropriate cultural capabilities. Alternatively, she could have left the job quietly rather than waiting to hear Johanna’s explanation. She should not have accepted to be lured into staying in the organization after the embarrassment in the interview room. Cultural capabilities are normally learnt skills that one should keep to ensure smooth running in the social environment. One should be quick to adapt to the most appropriate capabilities in each given setting.

Johanna ought not to have created a bad image of her assistant before the panelists. She knew that Rachel was fit for promotion. The other panelists should not have let their fellow interviewer to destroy the image of their interviewee. They knew that she was and hardworking person. As much as it is necessary to listen to every person’s opinion in such a setting, it is not necessary to allow a member to engage in unethical behavior. Johanna should not have been allowed to make the environment culturally unsafe for Rachel. In social settings, the truth should be declared candid without the fear of offending a colleague.

Additionally, senior employees should take the role of motivating their subordinates but not lowering their confidence. Top employees should convince the junior employees that they can make it up the ladder but not discourage them. Every person should long to see others achieve greater things rather than rejoicing when they make them stay under their service. Employees, on the other hand, should not accept to be discouraged but learn how to live above the criticisms or quit whenever they feel like they deserve better opportunities. One should not survive forcefully in an organization for whatever reasons.

The main objective in this report was to analyze a video in the light of cultural intelligence, cultural safety and cultural intelligence. The video analyzed in this case did not meet the standards of a safe social place. Creating a safe social place is the duty of every member of an organization. Both the supervisors and the subordinates should work towards ensuring safe social spaces. Everyone should say no to cultural maltreatment for diversity and identity to be respected. Conclusively, all cultures are equally powerful despite their scope of practice. No culture should forcefully dominate the others.

References

Earley, C., & Mosakowski, E. (2014). Cultural Intelligence. Harvard Business Review, 1-3.

Flanja, D. (2014). Culture shock in intercultural communication. Journal of History of Ideas, 1-18.

Johnny, Y. (2012). “Looking Inside Out: A Sociology of Knowledge and Ignorance of Geekness. Human Architecture Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, 5(2), 41-50.

Jones, N. (2010). Self-Doubt, the Fear of Failure, and the Power of Symbols. Human Architecture Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, 6(2), 147-155.

Khayyam, O. (2011). Growing Up A Third Culture Kid: A Sociological Self-Exploration. Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, 9(1), 29-42.

Quappe, S., & Cantatore, G. (2010). What is Cultural Awareness, anyway? How do I build it? Where Growing Minds Go Global, 1-3.

Salsohere, B. (Director). (2013). The One Where Rachel’s Boss Doesn’t Want to Lose Her [Motion Picture].

Wright, H. (2016, November 13). Cultural Capability Matters. Queensland Government Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural, pp. 1-25.