Culture Capability, Safe Spaces And Communication: Improving Cultural Intelligence

Understanding Culture Capability, Safe Spaces and Cultural Awareness

The technique of culture capability and safe spaces has been widely used. In real sense culture shows the knowledge one has, the beliefs one has ,morals shown by people, custom used and also any different technique which is acceptable within the society (Spencer-Oatey & Franklin,2012). Culture capability and safety is clearly defined as the safe area that does not include bulling and other challenging aspects within a certain organization. This means that communication is important whereby here the issue is intellectual knowledge. When one is bound to his or her own culture then it suggest that someone does not specifically think considerably at the cultural specifity in the organization. This suggests that individual should look for all things that he has learned in his life time. This improves the aspect of appreciating other people’s culture and conceptual rules thus amounting to culture shock. Flanja (2009) gives a qualitative study that argues more on culture shock. He provides an insight into the causes of culture shock to the travelling individuals within an organization. The study done by Flanja (2009) reveals the issue of communication and language barrier as illustrated by our video. In most cases, culture safety will be determined by the cultural awareness. This means that culture awareness is the basic foundation for the communication since it encompasses what our cultural beliefs are, what our cultural values are and also describing ones perception (Quappe & Cantatore, 2005).

This report discusses misunderstandings and communication problem between the Manager and Mrs Richards. The entire concept is all about culture intelligence. Culture intelligence determines safe and unsafe cultural practice. Brislin, Worthley & Macnab (2006) shows that culture intelligence determines peoples point of view within the society. The aspect of point of view determines what is good and bad. In the report I have used the BBC Television which reveals the story of Fawlty Towers, Communication Problems, Handling Complaints, Season 2 Episode 1.The video is about how to handle complaints in workplace. It is about advanced communications describing on strategies to use in handling complaint between people. The entire video is indicating unsafe practice whereby Mrs Richards is the great actress. Through the dialogue the issue of rudeness illustrates ignorant and waste of space thus showing unsafe culture practice.

The main aim of the story is to explain on how safe and unsafe space is key factor within a society. It shows a situation which is problematic in handling conflict. Mrs Richards demands for the change rudely. Different factors can contribute to safe and unsafe environment. Holley & Steiner (2005) argues that student perspectives are faced by different factors that determines safe and unsafe conditions. In our example there are issues which tend be unsafe and safe within a workplace as revealed by the video. Through the summary, description and entire summary the video and other literature resources have revealed what cultural capability and safe space has been an important area to work on. At the end I have recommended on critical ways to improve communication barrier.

Misunderstandings and Communication Issues in the Workplace

            2.1 Summary of the video

The TV program is known as Faulty Towers which was published in June 5, 2009 .video is based on the social setting where the top manager Basil in the work-place is facing hard time dealing with Mrs Richards. Basil asks the lady to wait for the change but Mrs Richards is so rude to extend that she grabs the money from the counter. On other hand there is communication problem between Manuel and Mrs Richards. ‘’Si. Que –What?’’,’’C.K. Watt?’’ .This depicts the essence of misunderstanding between the two actors in the program (Reed, Turiel, Brown, 2013). Mrs Richards is unable to understand the commands from Manuel when he speaks Spanish to her. Mrs Richards demands the change without following the right procedure .Basil was serving another customer and Mrs Richard abruptly enters and demands the change by force. The misunderstanding between the Manuel and the old lady in program shows unsafe culture.

It has been observed that from the program there is entire process of rudeness. The old lady disturbs the manager when serving the customer. She enters and demands for change up to an extend she grabs directly from the manager. Mrs Richards is rude and uncouth. She fails to follow the process in orderly manner .Failing to follow the stipulated procedures and steps within the society is an aspect of unsafe space (Gerlach,2012).What the program is portraying is unsafe starting from old lady who forcefully demands for change.

The other observation is on language barrier between Manuel and Mrs Richards. Manuel is a Spanish speaker and we notice communication barrier. When Mrs Richards asks for direction one notices that Manuel is unable to interpret clearly on the intended meaning from the Mrs Richards. From the concept of rudeness and aspect of misunderstandings resulting from language barrier we see the issue of unsafe space. The voice and words of Mrs Richards are categorical enough describing unsafe space.

Scene number or time horizon	Physical factors: Size and layout of space Behavior	Communication factors Tone Body language Voice words	Sings of being inclusive or exclusive	Show of lack of cultural intelligence, awareness And capability
Scenario number  1	Moderate size and space between Polly and Mrs. Richard.	Direct eye contact Calm voice tone by Polly Impatience and rudeness by Mrs. Richard	Signs of inclusion from Polly	Lack of cultural intelligence from Mrs. Richard
Scene 2	Medium size and space between Mrs. Richard and Manuel	Mrs. Richard.’’ Mr.C.K Watt aged forty years’	Manuel indicates signs of exclusion to Mrs. Richard	Lack of cultural intelligence from both Mrs. Richard and Manuel. She has no patience needed to be culturally adaptive to with Manuel

The size and layout of the workspace are small. In the starting point of the events in the video, Polly displayed a high level of cultural intelligence by handling the complaint of Mrs. Richard in an effective manner. The working area depicts an unsafe area that seems little thus contributing to overcrowding and collision of interests (Ulrich & Kear,2014). Polly seems calm and polite in the first scenes using a very calm tone of voice when she became aware that Mrs Richard is raising her voice and demanding attention to be given change. She also maintains a direct eye contact with her to show that she cares and gives proper attention to her complaint .This show of cultural intelligence made her deal effectively with the complaint of her in the first scene in a relaxed manner even though Mrs Richard was given her pressure being fully aware of the gentleman next to her who also need to be served. Polly reads the other gentleman uncomfortable body language making her adjust to the nagging of that woman. She is also patient and calmly explains to the complainant that Manuel is from a different cultural background in order to restore sanity in the working space. Mrs Richard is quite rude and impatient. This shows that she has mastered the art of relaxation, understanding and having a clear capability for ensuring proper relations and effective working among various cultures in a workplace (Tsai, 2011).

Using a TV Program to Illustrate Cultural Intelligence

In the given video, Mrs Richards was adversely harassing Polly even though it was crystal clear that she was at the same time attending to another guest. Polly asked Mrs Richard to aid her with her reservation in ‘communication challenges’.

In that scene, she tells Manuel. ‘Could offer Mrs Richards assistance in connection with her reservation”. After continuously having an ineffective and dilemmatic dialogue with Manuel, she comes into a conclusion that the existing manager is typically a ‘Mr. C.K Watt who is aged forty years’

Polly uses Manuel to make Mrs. Richard relax which provided an immediate positive effect on her complaints since she seemed to cool down. This showed high levels of cultural intelligence

It is very evident that Manuel had no cultural capability able to extensively adopt with the English phrases of Mrs Richard. Mrs Richard almost loses her temper as she seemingly becomes fed up because of the inability of Manuel to understand and comprehend what she meant. Such a scene indicates that it is possible for two individuals of two cultures like English and Spanish to face immense difficulties in understanding while talking to each other (Tenzer, Pudelko & Harzing, 2014).

The awareness involving culture is an issue of discussion and analysis in this scenario regarding various interactions between two individuals who come from distinct cultures. It depicts that individuals often gave their own interpretations that are different from the other. There exist significant differences of appropriate behaviours considered to be distinct in a particular cultural background as compared to another (Ulrich & Kear,2014).Thus an individual from certain specific culture should acquire strong cultural intelligence in order for him/her to adapt with others from different cultures. Therefore, possession of large cultural intelligence contributes to extremely high cultural capabilities thus bringing about important changes and adjustments.

Readers can understand that Mrs Richard was not patient to ensure gentle communication with both Polly and Manuel. She is not interested to provide much adjustment or offer many compromises. We can notice incapability regarding existing cultural difference. Manuel comes from quite a different cultural is from Barcelona as said by Polly. Mrs Richards misunderstands Manuel and gets angry thus that problem arises since there exist cultural barriers As a typical unsafe place,  they cannot communicate with each other the professionally as she does not have the patience indicate much respect to his background .They both have problematic issues in understanding each other’s language. This situation makes it possible for a person to acknowledge cultural awareness of an individual by extensively being fully aware of various culture characteristics. An integration of all aspects of cultural intelligence, self-awareness, and increased capabilities provides a safe space for individuals of different cultural backgrounds to relate and understand each other (Ratts, Singh, Nassar?McMillan, Butler, McCullough, 2016).Space makes the characters to highly express their ideological views with being afraid .Through respect of others culture, Mrs Richard would be less rude in her complaints and handle the service providers more efficiently. This is aimed at creating a safe space for the workplace environment.

The Importance of Cultural Intelligence in Maintaining Safe and Inclusive Environments

From the points discussed, it can be recommended that;

Members in the society should show patience whenever waiting to be served. This means that what Mrs Richards was doing is termed as unsafe aspect. There should be respect between the Manager and Mrs Richards. Both have to respect their culture whereby Mrs Richards has to cool down and wait for her turn but not just going onto the desk without any protocol and starts demanding for the change. In addition Basil should not raise her voice too much when handling the lady. They all have to maintain professionalism when arguing for mere issues (Taggart, 2011).

Ensuring that members understands the language fluently. This is to say that Manuel has to speak English but not talking in Spanish. Talking in Spanish makes the whole situation to be in a big messy. Refraining the Spanish words resulted to confusion.

Also making good gesture is important. Gestures helps one to develop ideas on what is being described. Both Manuel should have made effective gestures to convey certain information which induces interest.

Conclusion.

Generally, the program has revealed how different scenarios can create cultural incompatibility that leads to unsafe cultural spaces between two people. It starts with rudeness from Mrs Richards who abruptly enters and demands for the change. The manager lose hope and the lady tried as she can to understand the Spanish words .Mrs Richards was unable to use English to talk to the Manuel’s thus resulting to misunderstanding. Therefore, to summarize all the characters have ego regarding on culture. This suggests that for the actors to improve they have to forget language barrier and respects each ones culture.   

Reference

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